THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
XCI.—CILIITRAL ENGLAND : STAFFORDSHIRE AND DERBYSHIRE:
—Tnz Towns.
BESIDES the city of Lichfield, Staffordshire contains the boroughs of Stafford, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Tantworth, Stoke, Walsall, Wolverhampton, and Wednesbury, and fourteen market towns, among which we may mention Burslem, Bilston, Burtonupon-Trent, Cheadle, Leek, Stone, and Uttoxeler. We proceed, as usual, to give a more special account of a few of these urban communities.
Of Lichfield—the Lecefelle of Domesday Book—we have had already occasion to speak. It is "a neat, quiet, cathedral town," situated on a small stream or feeder of the Trait, and on the old Holyhead and Liverpool coach roads. "From Borowcop Hill is obtained the beat and most striking view" of the town ; "the cathedral and its trees close the landscape in front ; on the one hand is a plain, stretching to the swells of Needwood Forest ; and on the other rises, over a fiat valley, with a brooklet winding through it, the huge black wall of smoke miles to the west, and never dispersed, above the coal districts." The town, as we have said, is of Saxon origin, and the successor, if not built out of the materials, of the neighbouring Roman station of ETOCETUM. As a Royal hunting residence and the seat of an early bishopric, it took an important position in Saxon times, though never probably larger than a village. The bishopric was next divided into five dioceses
— Worcester, Lichfield, Hereford, Leicester, and Siduaceaster
— and in 786 Lichfield was constituted and remained for a very short time an independent Archbishopric. The place had, however, so much decayed during the later Saxon period, that in 1067 the seat of the bishopric was removed to Chester, and in 1102 to Coventry, where it remained till Hugh Novant, Archdeacon of Oxford, consecrated bishop in 1188 (being of a Staffordshire family), restored the see to Lichfield, though after great opposition. In consequence of disputes between the two chapters of Coventry and Lichfield, it was agreed in the reign of Henry ILL that precedence should be given in the title of the bishopric to Coventry, and that the two chapters should elect the bishop alternately ; but the chapters were to form one body, with the prior of Coventry at their head. So things remained till the reign of Henry VIII., when the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield were constituted the sole chapter of the united bishoprics, and in the Stuart period Bishop Hacket gave Lichfield the priority in the double title.
The church of St. Chad, which constitutes the Cathedral, M situated on an eminence, and "if the unsightly buildings on the south of the close were swept away," observes Mr. Walcott, "and a lawn laid down to the lake-like water in the dell, this exquisite Cathedral would appear to full advantage over the trees which fringe the banks, and in point of situation be inferior to no other
church. Though compared with the greater minsters of small proportions, yet, with its three beautiful spires, its richness of ornament, of grace and loveliness, it presents even now an effect almost magical ; while it stands solitary and alone, without cloister or precinct wall, gate or monastic building. It is the most complete to the eye. Of a pale rose colour, it looks as if hewn out of some soft, mellow sunset." "Roger de Clinton, Bishop 1129-49, commenced the building of the transept, choir, aisles, and chapter-house; the latter was completed 1224.1238; the works were continued by Novant (1188-98), and Stavenby 1224-40. The completion of the choir and nave may be assigned to the time of Hugh de Pateshull, 1240; Walter de Langton and Roger de Northburgh (1236 to 1360) completed the towers and lady chapel, and walled the close. Bishop Heyworth, 1420-47, was the last great benefactor." Various alterations have taken place since, the roofs of the aisles being raised and two of the spires partly rebuilt in 1788-95. The total length of the church is 410 feet ; the width along the transepts is 153 feet ; the central spire rises to the height of 280 feet. "One hundred statues once covered the west front ; three gates led to the walled close ; and the castellated palace possessed a hall 100 feet by 56 feet, nobly roofed with Irish oak, and painted by Bishop Langton with the history of the wars of Edward I." There is still "an episcopal house in the close, rebuilt by Bishop Ward in 1690," but the present palace is Eccleshall Castle, near Stafford. "The gem of the Cathedral is its exquisite lady chapel."
Bishop Clinton,—to whom the town owes its revival,—environed it with a ditch, and fortified the castle, so as to be able to maintain a garrison. "At this period three large pools of water intersected the town. Bishop Langton built a large bridge over the principal one in the time of Edward I. In the 33rd year of that reign representatives were first sent by the town to Parliament. It was then governed by a Guild and Grandmaster. Richard I. invested it with the right of purchasing lands to the value of £10; but it was not formed into a regular corporation till the 1st year of the reign of Edward VI., when it was raised to the dignity of a city, and incorporated by the style of "bailiffs, burgesses, citizens, and commonalty." It then also resumed the right or duty of sending representatives to Parliament, which had dropped through since the 27th of Edward III. The charter of incorporation was confirmed and new privileges granted by Mary, Elizabeth, James I., and Charles 11. James II. procured a surrender of this last charter, and granted a new one to the mayor and aldermen, but on the eve of the Revolution in 1688 be restored the old charter. The Municipal Corporations' Act of William IV. gave the government to six aldermen and eighteen councillors, one of whom is mayor. The castle, which is known to have stood near a footpath in modern times called Castle Ditch, has disappeared, along with Bishop Clinton's ditches. In this castle Richard II. was confined on his way as a prisoner to London, and from it he nearly effected an escape. The Cathedral close, being on a much higher ground than the rest of the town, became, as we have already said, the scene of some memorable sieges in the Civil War of Charles L's reign ; and from the chief cathedral tower Lord Brooke was shot in the eye by a member of the Dyott family, one of whom now represents the city in Parliament. In the old coaching days Lichfield was a place of some traffic, but since the Railway system superseded the old mode of conveyance, it has subsided into its present quiet condition, "without manufactures or trades of any consequence, except in vegetables, which are largely grown to supply the markets of the Black Country." There is a statue to Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was born in the city, and whose father had a parchment manufactory there, and was prosecuted by the Excise for some infringement of their laws, for which the lexicographer revenged himself by an acrimonious definition of the word "excise" in his dictionary. The doctor claimed for his fellowtownsmen that "they were the most sober, decent people in England—the genteelest in proportion to their wealth—and spoke the purest English ;" and, in reply to Boswell's imputation of idleness, retorted, " Sir, we are a city of philosophers ; we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands." The population of the city of Lichfield at the last census (1861) was 6,893, a decrease from that of 1851, which was 7,012, and it has lost one of its two Parliamentary representatives by the recent Reform Act.
Stafford—the Statford of Domesday Book, and the county town of Staffordshire—stands in a rather low situation on the left bank of the Sow, and a little before it joins with the Peek. According to Camden, the spot or island where it now stands was originally called Betheney, and was for many years the retreat of Berthelin, a celebrated hermit, said to have been a son of a king of the country. Nothing, however, is certainly known till we find in the Saxon Chronicle that Ethelfleda built a castle here in 913, and her brother, Edward the Elder, another in the following year, on the north bank of the river. This latter has been conjectured to have stood on the site of what Speed calls Castle Hill, but afterwards was named Bully Hill, a church near it bearing the name of Castle Church.
Our next notice of Stafford, or rather Statford, is that which we meet with in Domesday Survey. King William had 1$ burgesses there in demesne, besides 8 manses, which are said to have been waste. He had also 22 manses, "de Honore Comitis," of which 17 only were inhabited. Eighteen more burgesses were appendant to the manor of Mertone, held under Earl Roger, by the monastery of St. Evroul, in Normandy. The manses held in Stafford by tenants in capite of the county were 131 in number, of which 38 were waste, and apparently unoccupied. The rents from the customary payments of the town had diminished. As we have already said, Robert de Toenei had charge of a castle built orrebuilt here by the Conqueror, and took hie name from the place.. This castle was soon afterwards demolished, but was rebuilt at some subsequent unknown period, and continued to exist till the time of the Civil War of Charles I. It was then demolished on
its capture by the forces of the Parliament under Sir WilliamBrereton, together with the town fortifications and (four ?) gates of
the town. It stood on a knoll lir miles to the west of the town, commanding a view of the Welsh hills and a large tract of country to the south. Lord Stafford built a new castle on this site in the last century, and this is the present Stafford Castle.
At the time of Domesday Survey, Stafford was governed by two' bailiffs, but the first charter of incorporation now extant was granted on the 1st of May in the 7th year of the reign of John, and is one of the oldest of charters of this character, being six yearsearlier than Magna Charts, and one year than the charter of the City of London. Edward VI. confirmed John's charter, and granted many new privileges. Queen Elizabeth re-established the easizes and sessions here by act of Parliament in the first year of her reign. Perceiving in one of her progresses (in 1575) that the town was rather on the decline, and hearing that it arose partly from the decay of capping, and partly from the renewal of the assizes, she ordered that the statute relative to capping should be renewed and established better, and took measures to have the assizes restored. The borough has sent representatives to the House of Commons since the 23rd of Edward I. The right of election was in the inhabitants paying scot and lot, till the Reform Act of 1832 modified this right. The town once possessed several monastic establishments, but they have all long disappeared. Stafford has, however, some fine churches—that of St. Mary's (a large cruciform church of Early English date) was restored' by Scott in 1847. St. Chad's has also been "partially restored;. revealing some beautiful Romanesque arches in the chancel, and an archway with Norman mouldings between the nave and thetower." Boot and shoemaking is now the staple trade of Stafforch The little town of Eccleshall, three miles from Stafford, has beensince the fourteenth century the residence of the Bishops of Lichfield. The castle, "a little distance to the north of the town, wasonce of considerable extent and strength," but is now entirely modernized. The moat is now the garden, and there are a bridge and detached tower. About a mile and a half from Stafford, on the Shrewsbury road, there is a very large earthwork called the Bury Ring. The population of the borough in 1861 was 12,532‘,. against 11,829 in 1851.
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