During the protracted reign of Edward III. and the long French wars, in which the Cheshire men, under the immediate eyes of the king and his son, the Black Prince, won so much renown, several castellans were appointed in succession, though it does not appear that the castle was at any time the scene of active military operations. On the death of Edward, his grandson, Richard, the eldest son of the Black Prince, who was then only eleven years of age, succeeded to the throne, to find, as many others have done, what it is to be— Left by his sire, too young such loss to know, Lord of himself, that heritage of woe. A “heritage of woe” truly, for his reign, from the beginning to its close, was one of continuous anarchy and disturbance. On the 23rd November, 1385, we find him appointing John Cartileche janitor of his castle of Beeston for life, in the room of Sir Alan Cheanie, who had then only lately died. The appointment was made under the king’s seal, and about the same time Richard himself paid a visit to the chief city of his palatinate—the object, no doubt, being to ingratiate himself with his Cheshire friends, and, that being so, it is probable Beeston was on the same occasion graced with his presence. Loyalty to the crown was a strong characteristic of the Cheshire men, a feeling that was no doubt strengthened by the many marks of royal favour their county had received from its earls, in whom they recognised their titular sovereigns; hence the intimate relations which existed between the king and the palatinate. When the Duke of Gloucester assembled a body of men in order that he might retain control of the youthful sovereign, Richard hastened to Chester and called out his loyal Cheshire guard; and when, in 1397, by what in modern times would be called a _coup d’état_, he determined on overthrowing the regency and recovering the power which Gloucester and his cabal of nobles had deprived him of, and in furtherance of that object had summoned a Parliament to meet him at Westminster in September, he, to guard against any possible resistance on the part of the disaffected nobles, surrounded the house with a guard of two thousand of his Cheshire archers, each wearing as a badge the white hart lodged, the cognisance of his mother, the “Fair Maid of Kent,” which Richard had then adopted.