“Then Dutton Dutton kills; and Done doth kill a Done;
A Booth a Booth; and Leigh by Leigh is overthrown;
A Venables against a Venables doth stand,
A Troutbeck fighteth with a Troutbeck hand to hand:
Then Molineux doth make a Molineux to die;
And Egerton the strength of Egerton doth try.
Oh Cheshire! wert thou mad of thine own native gore,
So much until this day thou never shedd’st before!
Above two thousand men upon the earth were thrown,
Of whom the greatest part were naturally thine own.”
Again, on Flodden Field, the valour of the Cheshire men was proved.
Macclesfield had cause to weep over the slaughter of her sons,
including her brave mayor, Sir Edmund Savage. Again, in the Scottish
War, in 1544, they showed their fighting powers; of the sixty men
knighted at Leith, one-third were gallant Cheshire men.
Before we close this account of the mediæval period, we notice the
shire studded with fine towns and villages, fine churches, and noble
monasteries. Of these we may mention the Monastery of St. Werburgh,
founded by Hugh Lupus at Chester; and the smaller houses of St. John
for secular canons, of St. Francis, a Franciscan monastery founded
by King John and suppressed by Cardinal Wolsey for the founding of
his college at Oxford; and the Nunnery of St. Mary, founded by Earl
Ranulph. At Birkenhead there was a priory of Black Canons founded by
Hano de Massey, Earl of Derby, and dedicated to SS. Mary and James. At
Combermere there was a house of White Monks founded in 1134 by Hugo
Maltana. At Dernhall was a Cistercian house, founded by Edward I. in
performance of a vow which he made for a deliverance at sea. This was
afterwards removed to Vale Royal, and became a large monastery with a
hundred Cistercian monks, and was valued at £32,000. It was consecrated
by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, with the Bishop of Durham and many other
prelates. Another Cistercian monastery was founded by Robert Pincerna
in 1153 at Poulton, and then removed to Dentacres. A Collegiate Church
was established at Macclesfield by Thomas Savage, Archbishop of York,
in 1508. He was born at that place, and this showed his affection for
it. His death prevented him from finishing it, but his heart was buried
there. Mobberley Abbey of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine was
founded by Patrick de Mobberley; a Priory at Norton by William, son of
Nigel, Constable of Chester. He founded also one at Runcorn in 1133,
but afterwards removed it to Norton. Stanlaw Abbey was founded in 1172
by John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, but it was afterwards removed to
Whalley, where the fine ruins testify to its former magnificence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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