[Illustration: THE CIVIL WAR IN CHESHIRE]
The king's supporters were drawn chiefly from the north and west. They were called Royalists or Cavaliers, while the Parliamentarians were nicknamed Roundheads because they wore their hair cut short, after the manner of the Puritans, and disdained the flowing curls which were fashionable at the time. But although the country was thus roughly divided into two opposing factions, supporters both of king and of parliament were to be found in nearly every town and village. Indeed it sometimes happened that members of a single family found themselves on different sides in the war. The Breretons of Brereton Hall were stout royalists, but their cousins of Handforth were, as you will see, the most determined opponents of the king.
The towns of Cheshire, with the exception of Chester, were largely on the side of Parliament, while most, but not all, of the great landowners and their numerous retainers fought for the king. The county was represented in the Long Parliament by Sir William Brereton, the son of William Brereton of Handforth Hall.
Brereton was an ardent Puritan, and at the first signs of approaching war he put himself at the head of the Parliamentary party in Cheshire, calling upon all able-bodied men between the ages of sixteen and sixty to join him at Tarporley, and soon after was appointed by Parliament itself as commander of the Cheshire forces. His career was very nearly cut short at the very beginning of the struggle, for he brought about a riot in Chester by causing the drum to be beaten publicly in the streets for Parliament. He was brought to the Pentice but released, and with difficulty saved from the fury of the citizens, who in later days complained bitterly that the mayor had preserved the life of one who was to be the author of so much disaster to themselves.
In Tarporley Church you may see a helmet and breastplate that were dug up in the neighbourhood. They were probably worn by some soldier who fought in one of the earliest battles of the civil war in Cheshire. The first fighting took place in the southern parts of the county. In February, 1642, Brereton was attacked at Tarporley by the king's troops who had marched out from Chester. Entrenchments were thrown up near the church, but the severest fighting was at the neighbouring hamlet of Tiverton, where both sides lost heavily. The Royalist troops retired to Chester and the Parliamentarians to Nantwich, which Brereton made his head-quarters. From these two places the two parties 'contended which should most prevail upon the affections of the county to declare for them and join them'.