Five Minute Mythstoria - Collection of Six Mini Episodes

Originally a series of bite-sized episodes to bring season 1 of the podcast to an end, Five Minute Mythstoria looks to share snap-shot tales of curious history from across Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire. 

Includes;

The Great Age of Mary Brookes

The Ghost of Molly Leigh

The Eagle Centre Poltergeist

The Bridestones Hidden Ritual Landscape

The Slaughtered Lambs of Tideswell

Booth's Cheshire Uprising

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Transcript

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Welcome to 5-Minute Myth Storia from the LocalMythstorian.com. Bite-sized chunks of curious history from Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. And a little series I thought I'd share with you while I'm working on the next phase of the project. There are few better ways to uncover the little-known threads of local history than by spending time in and around our ancient country churchyards. While the castles and old manorial halls may be more obvious examples of man-made structures that have played host to the events of the past, it's our churches that have been the most entwined with the continual evolution of local life through the centuries, and courtesy of their burial grounds, home to the most human of stories. Depending on where you are, wander amongst the headstones for long enough and sooner or later you're bound to find yourself stumbling across personalised memorials for those that have perished at sea, succumbed during times of plague, and even on occasion fallen victim to the conspiracy of a mysterious local murder. Yet it doesn't end there. Hidden amongst the more obvious fascinations of any burial ground are those headstones that bear inscriptions that tend to lean more gently toward the curious eye. St. Michael's Church in Horton, a hamlet of the Staffordshire Moorelands, is a building of tangible legacy. With its roots in the 12th century and additions made at various points through to the 1600s, it's one of the most picture-perfect English country churches in the region and has been the centre of Horton's local life for the better part of a thousand years. Like many similar settlements, Horton itself has its fair share of wider historical connections from its Saxon roots right through to the English Civil Wars and beyond. And it's against this backdrop that I want to place the story that I share now, where it seems to me that the most seemingly prosaic conspires to meet with the truly remarkable. And all because I took a wrong turn on a country road and took the chance to look around a churchyard I'd never come across before. Unassuming and weather beaten, the headstone of Mary Brooks blends into the general pattern of the churchyard with ease. As such, the inscription upon it is easy to miss. Here lieth the body of Mary Brooks, wife of George Brooks, who departed this life January 8, 1787, aged 119 years. The villagers of the parish erected this stone at their own expense to perpetuate this extraordinary instance of longevity. Whilst Mary's great age is undoubtedly worthy of remark, what is truly amazing is the consideration of just what that span of her life represents. When Mary was born in 1668, the communities of the Staffordshire Moorlands were only just beginning to emerge from both the specter of the Great Plague of the mid-1660s and the socio-economic fallout of the English Civil War. The monarchy had been restored to the throne just eight years prior, and there's every chance that members of Mary's immediate family would have been able to recall the events that led to the destruction of Horton Hall during the conflict. Eventually witness to no less than seven monarchs in her lifetime. Mary would have already been in her late 70s when Bonnie Prince Charlie came through the area in 1745 on his intended route to London before retreating through the Moorlands back towards Scotland. And before the end of her life, she would have seen the first signs of the Industrial Revolution rumbling through the valleys around Horton. I'd love to tell a story of how Mary achieved her great age with some mysterious suggestions of eternal youth, witchcraft perhaps, but in truth there are no suggestions to be made. Mary's magic, however, is surely very real and lies in the life she lived across a period of remarkable change in British history. The apparent readiness with which her fellow parishioners were willing to give up what little money they had to remember her in stone, a testament to the fact they too recognise something special in the story of a lie. Five Minute Myth Storia was presented and researched by me, Eli Lewis Lyson. And if you enjoyed it, maybe sign up on the website the localmythstorian.com where you can find all sorts of things to do with the curious histories and folklore of Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.com. Bite-sized chunks of curious history from Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. And a little series I thought I'd share with you while I'm working on the next phase of the project. Growing up in Stoke on Trent, it was impossible to avoid the tale of Molly Lee. The story of the witch buried in St. John's Church in Burslam was a cultural touchstone across the city, still is, and the rite of passage that came with the dare to run around her tomb calling out a name had been just as much a feature in my grandparents' youth as it was in my own. Quite what was supposed to happen when you invoked a spirit wasn't clear, not that it mattered too much. Few made it around the tomb the requisite three times, with the sense of impending dread that accompanied the dare, often resulting in a race off into the dark of the churchyard well before the spell could be completed. We know that Molly Lee or Margaret Lee was born in 1685 in the village of Burslam, which at that time was a relatively remote settlement in the woods of North Staffordshire. We also know that Molly Lee died in late March 1748 and was buried on April the 1st of that year. Everything that happened in between, however, is mostly speculation. Over the years, a reappraisal of the Molly Lee story has seen her cast as the unwitting victim of 18th century cultural perception. At one end of that spectrum is a narrative that casts Molly as an unfortunate soul, odd-looking and peculiar, cursing the local beer and milk, forever jabbering away with a pet blackbird. A sympathetic view of the story of Molly Lee the witch that is so entrenched in folklore in Stoke on Trent. At the other end, there's an idea that she was a relatively wealthy local businesswoman and that she was in fact the target of mean-spirited local men who were envious of her wealth and standing. And that second view has become particularly popular in recent years following the discovery of Molly's last will and testament in local archives. The document does indeed reshape the image of Molly Lee and pours scorn on much of the myth attributed to her life. More than this though, in the document we get a touching insight into her real character. She makes provision in a will for the widows of Burslam. Where on earth then did we get this idea of Molly Lee the witch? Dogs, cats, hares, toads, all manner of animals have come to be associated with the figure of the witch due to their association as familiars. Familiars were thought to be demonic companions of the witch, through which they would do their bidding and whose worldly appearance could be disguised as an animal. Molly's Blackbird would have been an unfortunate and easy candidate for such a role. But beyond that, there's nothing really to tie her aesthetic to the traditional view of the rural British witch. I emphasise this here for the purposes of what I relay next because discounting the whole idea of Molly Lee the Witch brings her story into a new and much more logical light. Instead, we must think of Molly Lee the ghost. That we have an eyewitness account of Molly's funeral is quite amazing. It's left to us thanks to an entry in John Ward's work, The Borough of Stoke on Trent, from 1843, in which Ward recounts the report of a conversation that took place in the year 1810 in the Turk's Head pub in Burslem. One of those two men recorded is an 82-year-old Ralph Lee, cousin of Molly, who discussed the issue of a burial with his friend, the 70-year-old John Talwright. Ralph, do you remember your cousin Peggy, who lived at Jackfield and was buried across the way in the churchyard? I often remember, when I was younger, scampering about at a rate past the churchyard, afraid of seeing her boggett Lee. Sure I do, for I was there at the burial and saw her laid quietly in the grave east to west. But when we got back to Hamill, there was a pretty fuss amongst the bearers, for those that went in first to the house saw her sitting in the nook, knitting as she used to. I didn't see her myself, but Parson Spencer that buried her was fetched to lay the ghost to rest. And I don't really know how they did it, but Master Spencer to the clerk and the sexton with a lantern and candle, took up the coffin and dug the grave crossways and laid her in the shape of a blackbird, and said for seven years in the Red Sea. The old parson was fond of drink and the coffin barrows were full of it before the burial, and so when they came back again to bury her, I guess they were no more sober. Tellright. It was a strange concern, and I think I've heard your cousin's burial was on April Fool's Day, so I suppose it was an April Fool's joke. And there we can hear them making reference to the fact that Molly Lee's grave is at crossways in the churchyard today, not on the normal Christian alignment. It's buried on a different axis. So here we have a situation where Parson Spencer and apparently most of the burial congregation are drunk and acutely aware that the burial is taking place on April Fool's Day. Itself a tradition that by 1748 had already been in existence for at least 50 years in the manner that we know it today. The group returning to Molly's house for the wake seemed to have come up with the idea of claiming sight of a ghost. Whether this was designed to result in such quite an elaborate hoax or not, it seems that the fever of the night swept them up together with the wind of mischief, and the result of which saw the involvement of the equally drunk Parson Spencer arranging for her to be exhumed and reburied. Once underway, it would have taken a hell of a lot of courage to turn back on the ruse when we considered the nature of the circle affected, including close family and the church. And as I mentioned, it's wandering spirits or those that be may inclined to wander and haunt the living that are most commonly found buried at an alternative axis. It's a practice we see in dozens of examples across the Midlands and the northwest of England, with many more apparent throughout the British Isles. A report that Molly's ghost had been seen so soon after a death is precisely the kind of thing that would motivate such a reburial, the belief being that should she rise from the grave at a different orientation than that of the standard buriers, her spirit will become confused and unable to locate the people and locations she wanted to haunt. It is exactly that kind of event that has inspired instances of grave ore like that of Molly's throughout history. The idea of her being a witch, most likely, is just a later addition, born out of this view that she had a kind of odd appearance and quirky behaviours in life, and was also, of course, quite untouchable because of her status as a local landowner. And I suspect often in conflict with Parson Spencer and the church folk who were perhaps, in her eyes, lacking a bit of moral fibre. Unless, of course, they really did see Molly, the old lady, sat knitting by the fire in her cottage, Blackbird atop her shoulder, three hours after she'd been laid to rest. Five Minute Myth Storia is presented and researched by me, Eli Lewis Lyson. And if you enjoy it, perhaps you'll sign up at the localmythstorian.com where you'll find all kinds of stuff to deal with the curious local histories and folklore of Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.com. Bite-sized chunks of curious history from Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. And a little series I thought I'd share with you while I'm working on the next phase of the project. It's early December 1983, and in the basement of a building in Derby City Centre, an extraordinary meeting is taking place. Huddled together in the dimly lit room around stacked boxes of stock, packing materials and cleaning equipment, stand a group of local business owners, council representatives and a collection of church clergymen that includes the Bishop of Derby himself. None of them can quite believe it has come to this, gathered as they are beneath the city's new shopping centre, debating a resolution to a problem that is proving so increasingly disturbing that any sense of ridicule or fantasy has long since left the conversation. They need a solution. A solution to the eagle center poltergeist. Amongst the complex range of shapes and sizes that spectral hauntings can take, the poltergeist is one form of paranormal phenomena that has the power to unite viewpoints and beliefs no matter how diverse. The noisy ghost is present in virtually every culture the world over, and whilst attributable names and theories may differ, the unique nature of the poltergeist at large means that its power of persuasion is constant. No matter what a person may believe, it's hard to ignore the one form of haunting that can objectively be viewed and measured. It started during the shopping mall's construction in 1975, when the east end slums of the city centre had been cleared to make space for the new building. Builders were said to have heard all manner of noises and screams on the site when they were alone and often found tools going missing before reappearing in impossible locations. Once completed, the activity would only increase with dozens of business owners reporting strange occurrences during the first few months of trade. For the local papers, the spooky stories coming out of the new shopping centre were a gold mine. And such was the concern of the Eagle Centre's management that a court injunction was taken out to stop the press from printing the tales they were told for fear of the poltergeist seriously impacting trade. Besides the usual bangs, crashes, and object teleportations, there were other, far more visual phenomena on display across the site. Shadowy figures were spotted in storerooms by at least six separate shop managers, and shawled crouched specters walking through walls are said to have been a regular occurrence. In one particularly illuminating encounter, the site security guard spent over an hour searching the premises after one of their number had spotted a young girl, long after closing, wandering through a clothes store clutching a cuddly toy. Alas, upon investigation, no child was to be found. Now it's easy to imagine how such stories build locally, taking on a life of their own and giving us cause to question their provenance. At the Eagle Centre, however, far from becoming a hub of outlandish claims and fantasy, things took a decidedly practical turn following a spate of flying shoes in a branch of Freeman, Hardy and Willis that had been witnessed by half a dozen people at the same time, including a local council leader. Guarding against the rumours that many businesses in the new£7 million shopping centre were considering leaving, they took the extraordinary step of issuing an advice pamphlet concerning the phenomena. It was entitled I Jest Not, Your Poltergeist and How to Deal with It. In the document, a brief history of the phenomena was shared in a bid to show how natural it was. Alongside advice on how to placate it. Once the pressures that produced the poltergeist are understood, it stated the activity will begin to fade. It would appear, however, that the activity continued for at least eight years. And come that night in the basement, the bishop and his helpers took a drastic decision. They would perform an exorcism. It didn't work at first, and reports of activity continued before a second session took place in early 1984, and reports became rarer and rarer until the shopping centre eventually closed in 1990. The Eagle Centre may no longer be with us, but Eagle Market is still very much alive and well on the former site, where market traders do business with shoppers every day of the week. As to what may have caused the activity at the Eagle Center during the late 70s and early 80s, there are a couple of competing theories. One, and perhaps the most plausible as such theories go, is that the poltergeist activity came about as part of a much wider explosion in hauntings that emerged following the clearance of the old neighbourhood before the centre was built. Another suggestion lies in the fact that the building was erected in an area of the city believed to have borne witness to a violent battle way back in the year 917 between forces of the Anglo-Saxon warrior queen Ethelfled and the Vikings of the Danelaw. Whatever the origin of the phenomena, it's clear the area of the city in which the Eagle Centre was erected had played host to a long history of human occupation. That the memories of the land may have somehow become switched on and replayed during the building work would dovetail neatly with many popular theories regarding hauntings, but the origin of the poltergeist itself is even more complex. Its range of activity suggests an intelligent control inherent in the location. As with many such cases, investigation leads to more questions than answers, but nonetheless, whatever was happening back then in Derby City Centre was very real to those who witnessed it. Yet it is precisely this lack of definitive answer that means that such stories pass from person to person in a form that is open to interpretation, embellishment, and subtle change. This is no bad thing. Rather, it's the evolutionary mechanism by which events such as the Eagle Center poltergeist pass into folklore, enabling them to survive across the years, changing shape into legend along the way, ensuring that such incredible examples of the supernatural, so unlikely to be committed to official records, are not lost to us. There are unfathomable truths preserved in oral tradition, just like the legends of old, courtesy of the stories they inspire. Five Minute Myth Storia is presented and researched by me, Eli Lewis Lyset. And if you enjoy it, perhaps you'll sign up at the localmythstorian.com, where you'll find all kinds of stuff to do with the curious local histories and folklore of Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.com. Bite-sized chunks of curious history from Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The bridestones stand proud upon the Cheshire-Staffordshire border in a ruined form that ironically serves it well in giving the monument a look that many passers-by would instantly acknowledge as prehistoric. Set within its walled cordon just off the Rushton to Congleton thoroughfare known as Dial Lane, its appearance as two large monoliths casting their shadows over several smaller stones amongst the undergrowth portrays its true former function as the integral heart of a great chambered tomb. With an estimated construction date of around 3,500 BCE, the Bridestones has long been marked as a scheduled ancient monument, and one that I have come to know well across the years. A period of stability in the late Stone Age meant that by around 4000 BCE, farming communities had settled throughout the east of Cheshire and across the Mid-Ceshire Ridge, and these communities were seemingly economically stable enough to turn their attention now towards commemorating the dead. Known as long barrows, these early tombs were elongated earthen mounds containing multi-generational burials, often in separate chambers, acting as a kind of prehistoric family vault. Primarily built of local stone, the chambers of internment within would then be capped and covered with more stones, gathering turf across the ages and giving their appearance in the present day of man-made hillocks. And whilst there are over 500 long barrows on record throughout the British Isles, our own bridestones prove rather unique. The partition of its central chamber suggests the site was more than just a tomb, with one section likely to have been used as a reliquary, an area from which the bones of the ancestors will be brought forth to use in ritual rites at crucial times of the year. Furthermore, the tomb has also got a rare feature of a paved chrysentric ritual forecourt, complete with the remains of a stone semicircle that would once have served to hold the performance of rites within it. Not only is the bridestone's tomb the only one to contain such features in England, its nearest similar tombs being found either on the Isle of Man or in the Clyde Estuary 200 miles north, but its internal dimensions suggest it may once have covered some 1200 square metres, a size that would make it one of the largest tombs in all of northern Europe. Its name is a source of much conjecture. There have been suggestions that it is a colloquial interpretation of the Romano British goddess Brigantia or the Irish deity Bridget, but comparison with wider British folklore suggests that the name may well have come from the site being used by rural lovers as a traditional meeting place, which in itself May be a nod to a more ceremonial pagan historical tradition regarding fertility. However, it may be that far from being an outlying anomaly of surviving Cheshire prehistory, the bridestones may be just one feature amongst the complex historical assortment of ritual and ceremonial monuments still existing within the locality that have yet to be formally recognised. Moving away from the area of the bridestones, Dar Lane becomes Beat Lane as it winds up towards the A523 Maccalsfield Road. And where the two roads meet makes for our first potential new site. In the field opposite the turning, several large earthen mounds present themselves clustered together, much in the likeness of how our ruined bridestones may have once looked. Speaking to the landowner Susan Burchis at the time of my last visit, I inquired as to any knowledge she had of them, to which she said, We call them the Three Dales and let the sheep use them for grazing. I've sometimes wondered what they're doing here as they tend to stand out, and of course the holy well is on this site too. The location of a well or spring on the site of an ancient tomb is a major signifier to the presence of an ancient structure, and St. Helen's well at Rushton is indeed technically beside the road that leads over the top to Leecold Road. And from one end of Lee Cold Road, where the Three Dales potential burial tombs are located, to the other end of Leecold Road, and a site which I suspect could change the prehistoric view of our whole region so the opportunity ever arise for a thorough investigation. Lee Cold Road rises past the prospective tombs, affording a wonderful view of the sheer scale and the process before eventually descending back to meet the A523 around one and a half miles away. As it does, a huge oval hill rises suddenly along the western side of the road. The hill is unmissable, but what might not be immediately apparent are the remains of the stones implanted upright around its circumference. The implication being that this may have been another man-made site, less than two miles away from the bridestones, complete with a stone circle now much dilapidated and reduced to marks in the earth that can only really be seen at certain times of year. The whole thing connected potentially by that other tomb site at the Three Dales. The timeline of British prehistory is vast, and the cultures that built our tombs are quite removed from those that built our stone circles. As settlement and tribal identity grew, the move to purpose-built ceremonial structures enabled further community identity alongside it. And ultimately the emergence of something like a common belief structure, with the druids of the Iron Age perhaps best thought of as representing the tail end of a lineage that stretches back several thousand years. The land of East Cheshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands has been continuously inhabited for the better part of 6,000 years, and those communities all left their marks on the landscape. That we can enjoy the magic and the mystery of it is key to ensuring that our prehistoric heritage remains a living legacy and does not become just some other dusty forgotten bookmark of our distant past. And the possibilities for me of this area around the bridestones, while speculative in that light are also perfectly plausible.com. Bite-sized chunks of curious history from Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. And a little series I thought I'd share with you while I'm working on the next phase of the project. I'm not entirely sure that you can ever become truly lost in Peak District Derbyshire, as there is something of interest to be found in virtually every twist and turn of its winding country roads. And indeed, my happening upon the Tideswell Church of St. John the Baptist, and therefore this wonderfully odd story from its history was a direct result of once getting lost or diverted on a journey between Buxton and Castleton. Tideswell today is a real gem of the Peak District and is firmly in the picture postcard territory that tourists and hikers so enjoy. But its peaceful setting and aura of quaint Britishness betray the fact that during the Middle Ages, Tideswell was one of Derbyshire's most bustling and on occasion troublesome towns. Tideswell's medieval lead miners were noted for their strength and aptitude for fighting. They are reputed to have featured in military bands present throughout the Hundred Years' War, and indeed the altar tomb of Sir Samson Meverell, who served in the chain of command during the Siege of Orleans, is present within the church today. Tideswell was well known too. King Edward I visited several times during the 13th century, and King Edward III too was fond of the place. All of this noteworthiness I discovered later had helped make sense of the main thing that struck me that day. Tideswell is beautiful, yes, but it's small. Why then does it have a church so great that it's known as the Cathedral of the Peak? It was while inquiring for an answer to that very question that I came across a story that I want to share here. During the 11th century, the church had been granted to Lenton Priory in Nottinghamshire by the local landowners, the Peverils, only to find itself caught up in the subsequent drama that came with William Peverill the Younger being found to be on the wrong side of history during the Civil War known as the Anarchy. The fallout from the war saw the Peverils land seized by the Crown and then handed to the Dean of Litchfield Cathedral. As a result, this began a dispute between Lenton Priory and Lichfield Cathedral that would rage on for 300 years. It was during this period in the year 1250 that the dispute turned nasty at the local level, with a band of armed monks from Lenton Priory recorded as storming into Tideswell to steal the town's wool and lambs. Big business in 13th century England. However, the Dean of Litchfield was a wily character, and his spies had informed him that such an attack would be forthcoming, and as a result ordered the town's wool supplies and lamb stock to be kept safe inside the church. Nevertheless, the monks of Lenton were undeterred by any sense of sanctuary rights in the church and they broke in, slaughtering most of the lambs inside and carrying off the rest back to the priory. Tideswell made international headlines as a result, with Pope Innocent IV himself having cause to directly intervene. The building in which all of this took place was the far earlier, smaller Norman church that was replaced during the 1300s with the inspiring work of stone we see today. The building of the cathedral in the 14th century is a period that directly corresponds with the timeline of crown interest in the town. The slaughtering of the lambs at Tideswell may well be little more than a curious aside in the overall scheme of Derbyshire history, but it's a story I would never have come across unless the scale of the church in the town struck me as being odd. In itself, that was a basic reminder of a lesson for me, showing how historical buildings of grandeur that at first seemed somewhat out of place can often signpost the prominence once bestowed onto their surrounding settlements. And grandeur is a fitting noun for St. John's, something which I think is attested to best in the work created by the Reverend Richard Randall during the early 19th century in his Churches and Chapels in the County of Derby, where he states that the church in Tideswell is, without exception, the most perfect and beautiful specimen of pointed architecture to be found in the county, or perhaps in any other parish of the entire kingdom. Undoubtedly it's a fair assessment of a lasting testament to a hidden aspect of Derbyshire heritage. If you enjoy it, perhaps you'll sign up at the localmythstorian.com where you'll find all kinds of stuff to do with the curious local histories and folklore of Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.com. Bite-sized chunks of curious history from Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. And a little series I thought I'd share with you while I'm working on the next phase of the project. The search for markers of local history is of course far from confined to rural settings, and those with keen eyes will find plenty of signposts to the past around their local towns and cities that can open new windows into the events of bygone days. One such signpost, a plaque to be precise, is located halfway across the bridge at Winnington near Northwich in Cheshire. A cursory glance at which, one day while I was stuck in traffic, enlightened me to quite a remarkable story. While the impact of a conflict may have many measures, the Macabre metre of death toll is unfortunately as insightful as any other and sadly the most relevant. No more evident is this than the example of the Civil Wars, where an estimated 4% of the population of England, both military and civilian alike, met their end through violence, starvation and disease. At its eventual conclusion, King Charles I was executed and his son, the future King Charles II, sent away in exile to the continent. So it was only natural that Oliver Cromwell himself would become the figurehead of the nation, as he duly did with the title of Lord Protector. To describe the period of Cromwell's tenure as Carl would be a bit much, but compared with the war torn world that preceded it, a period of relief did begin to edge its way across the land, but it wouldn't last. Upon his death in 1658, the mantle of Lord Protector passed to his son, Richard Cromwell. However, tensions were high and amidst growing scepticism and pressure from politicians and military commanders alike, pertaining to Richard's ability to deliver on their varied needs and demands, he was ultimately forced to resign less than a year after taking office. And it's this stage onto which the protagonists of our tale arrive. Sir George Booth of Dunham Massey had seen an active civil war as a parliamentarian courtesy of his grandfather's allegiance to whom he was heir. And come the end of hostilities, he found himself elected to Parliament as an MP for Cheshire before being appointed military commissioner for the county too. Despite his wartime allegiance to the parliamentarian cause, Booth had for some time been known to have a deep personal sympathy with the Royalist cause, a cause that following the resignation of Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector had found a new lease of life amongst the nobility, as the idea of returning to a rule of kingship became a viable option in the figure of the exiled Charles Stuart, son of King Charles I. Charles Stuart was actively moving for such a return and during the springtime of 1659 had begun to seek out potential supporters to stage it. In a matter of months, Booth became one of the most trusted figures in this new support base named the Great Trust and Commission, and come August he'd received word from Charles to assume command of his would-be revolutionary forces throughout Cheshire. The rebels, however, in their overall sense were both underprepared and rather insecure, and details of their plans had been reported back to Parliament, meaning they needed to postpone the revolt. Booth, however, seems not to have been informed of the change of plan and so went ahead with mustering around 500 men at Warrington marching into the city of Chester in early August. The city's garrison retreated to the safety of Chester Castle and refused to capitulate. Booth then chose to press on with the overall plan regardless, making way for York before realizing the uprising had already effectively failed, and so having turned back towards Chester on August 19th, he came face to face with the parliamentarian forces under Colonel John Lambert that had been sent to confront him at the bridge that crossed the River Weaver at Winnington, Northwich. Booth's forces had swollen by this point, with around 4,000 men stood with him on the high ground to the north of the bridge, whilst even more were present under Lambert's command with an estimated 5,000 troops ready to attack the Royalist positions. Lambert's force was made up of experienced troops and in reality was far too strong for Booth's Royalist militia. A cavalry charge across the river was quickly followed with a short bout of hand to hand combat on the north banks before Booth's rebels scattered and fled. Thirty of his men lay dead in the mud. But the number would have been far higher were it not for the mercy of Lambert, who ordered his troops not to pursue them in the interest of preventing a massacre. Lambert would then go on to relieve Chester without resistance just two days later, and come the end of August the whole region was firmly back within parliamentary control. Sir George Booth, though, was still on the run. He intended to head to London and then to France, as was the way of such escape lines, but it was not to be. While staying at an inn in Newport Pagnall, his disguise as a woman was blown when the innkeeper noticed the distinctly masculine tone of Booth's feminine character. He was arrested, it is said, while shaving, still dressed as a woman. A period of imprisonment in the tower followed, but ultimately Booth was allowed his freedom and had by 1660 returned to Parliament. Because ultimately Charles Stuart was crowned King Charles II in April 1661. Parliament had already decided that a king was needed as head of state, and so perhaps the idea of punishing his supporters before his arrival was deemed understandably short-sighted. Booth lived out his days in opposition to many policies of the Restoration government and died in 1684, buried in Bowdoin Church. His time at the forefront of the Cheshire Uprising, long since put behind him.