The security of Chester against the Danish invaders was ultimately effected by the victories of Edmund, in or about 942, after which it was occasionally honoured by the residence of the Saxon sovereigns. Pennant says, King Edgar made this one of the stations in his annual circumnavigation of his dominions. About the year 973, he visited Chester, attended by his court, and received the homage of his vassal kings. It is said that one day entering his barge, he assumed the helm, and made his eight tributary princes row him from the palace which stood in the field at Handbridge, opposite the castle (and which still bears his name), up the river Dee, as far as the monastery of St. John’s. In the following century Chester was possessed by the Earls of Mercia, until the Norman Conquest in 1066. The tyranny, violence, and bloodshed which marked the course of William the Conqueror, met with determined resistance in various parts of the country; but in the course of six or seven years he utterly crushed all opposition, and became absolute master of the island. He introduced into England the feudal system, “with its military aristocracy, its pride, its splendour, and its iron dominion. The importance of Chester, as a military station, was shown by its being assigned as a fief to one of the chief leaders in the Norman army, and on his death by its being given to the nephew of the Duke himself, under whom it was invested with privileges which raised it almost to the rank of a separate principality. Under Hugh, the first Earl of Chester, and his immediate successors, we may suppose that most of those castles were built, which form objects of antiquarian research in the neighbourhood, but which are melancholy records of the state of society at the time, since they were evidently built to protect the frontiers from the continued invasions of the Welsh. Some of these still remain, and, from their extent and magnificence, appear to have been the residences of the Earls themselves. Many more have perished, and can only be traced by the banks which mark the outline of their plan. These were probably of an inferior description, and are rather to be considered as guard-houses for the protection of some particular pass than as regular fortresses. There are traces of this kind at Doddleston, at Pulford, at Aldford, at Holt, at Shotwick, beside the larger and more distinguished holds at Beeston, Halton, Chester, and Hawarden; and probably few years passed but that some inroad of the Welsh carried fire and slaughter to the very gates of Chester, and swept the cattle and produce from the fields.” {7}