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HUDC Handbook: Difference between revisions
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The Scots were back over the border in 1715. Despite its Tory inclinations and some sympathy for the Jacobites, Chester made no move in support of the rising of 1715. The defeat of the rebels at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Preston_(1715) Preston] spared it direct involvement in military operations, although its Militia was called up and government troops marched through. Captured Jacobites numbering up to 500 at a time were brought for temporary imprisonment at Chester, crowding Chester Castle and the city gaol and overflowing into houses throughout the city. Initially many perished of cold, hunger, and fever because local sympathizers were prevented from assisting them. This was probably the only time a Scots army came anywhere near Hoole, and they were prisoners at the time.
1732 saw a certain amount of unrest in Chester centered around the Mayoral elections - sporadic disorders culminated in a clash in Bridge Street in early October between a Whig mob (allegedly reinforced with disguised soldiers, revenue officers, and Liverpool sailors) and Tory supporters who included Welsh miners. The latter came off worse, and the Whigs, suspecting that Tory aldermen were admitting more freemen after dark, broke into and wrecked the Pentice. The mayor called for dragoons from Warrington to help restore order and appointed c. 270 special constables. Fifty dragoons arrived on foot and according to "a letter from a freeman of the city of Chester to his fried in London" were loadged in Hoole, with 25 of them quartered at the Ermine (then in the hands of a John Artinstall) and the remainder at a neighbouring house in Flookersbrook.
The only real threat to Chester by the Scots was in 1745 when Jacobites defeated British forces in September at the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Prestonpans Battle of Prestonpans], and then moved south into England. A part of the Cheshire Militia was brought in to garrison the city and business came to a standstill. The city gates were bricked up, save for wickets at the Bridgegate and Eastgate, the walls were patrolled, cannon were mounted to command the bridge, and the Chester Castle defences were improved. The spring assizes were held at Flookersbrook in Hoole. George Cholmondeley put Chester in a state of defence, repairing the castle’s defences and adding raised batteries in the inner and outer wards and a raised platform with a parapet south-east of the Great Hall. The military architect Alexander de Lavaux was engaged to draw up a plan to strengthen the fortifications, with massive earthworks in the form of a "star fort", but the work was never carried out. Although the Jacobite army went nowhere near Chester, the city had been involved in heavy expense and had to turn to Sir Robert Grosvenor to obtain reimbursement from the government in 1746.
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