One of the oldest inns of Chester is the little house at the corner of Shipgate Street and Lower Bridge Street, known as the “King Edgar”; the monarch who gives his name to the sign being that Anglo-Saxon “Edgar the Peaceable” who reduced the England of his day to an unwonted condition of law and order, and therefore fully deserves the measure of fame thus given him. We are told by Roger of Wendover and other ancient chroniclers how, in the year 962, King Edgar, coming to Chester in the course of one of his annual progresses through the country he ruled, was rowed in a state barge upon the river Dee by eight tributary kings; and one is a little puzzled to know whence all these kings could have come, until the old monkish accounts are fully read, when it appears that they were only kings in a comparatively small way of business. According to Roger of Wendover, they were Rinoth, King of Scots, Malcolm, King of the Cumbrians, Maco, King of Mona and numerous islands, and five others: Dusnal of Demetia, Siferth and Huwal of Wales, James, King of Galwallia, and Jukil, King of Westmoreland. The sign of the inn, a very old and faded and much-varnished painting, displays that historic incident, and, gazing earnestly at it, you may dimly discern the shadowy forms of eight oarsmen, robed in red and white, and with golden crowns on their heads, rowing an ornate but clumsy craft, while King Edgar stands in the stern sheets. Another figure in the bow supports a banner with the sign of the Cross. The whole thing looks not a little like a giant black-beetle crawling over a kitchen-table. [Illustration: THE “PICKERING ARMS,” THELWALL.] Until quite recently the “King Edgar” inn was the most picturesquely tumble-down building in Chester, a perfect marvel of dilapidation that no artist could exaggerate, or any one, for that matter, care to house in. But it has now not only been made habitable, but so “restored” that only the outlines of the building, and that faded old sign, remain recognisably the “King Edgar.” It is now rather a smart little inn, displaying notices of “Accomodation for Cyclists”--spelled with one “m”--and thus, so renovated and youthful-looking, as incongruously indecent as one’s grandmother would be, were she to let her hair down and take to short frocks again.