File:The counties of England, their story and antiquities (1912) (14578180340).jpg

Identifier: countiesofenglan01ditc (find matches)
Title: The counties of England, their story and antiquities
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson), 1854-1930
Subjects: Great Britain -- History England -- Antiquities
Publisher: London : G. Allen
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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and slain, Welshmenformed the main body of the royal army, and, as theabove records show, did not leave the county quietly.The wars ruined at least one great family—the Ferrers—as the history of Chartley discloses, and other lesserhouses shared their fate. But though Prince Edward succeeded his father asEdward I., he did not leave peace behind him; andunder Edward II., with his favourite Le Despencer, aStaffordshire landholder, the county was again dividedinto two camps, until the battle of Burton Bridge over-threw the Earl of Lancaster, and the Barons hanged theDespencers. The brave soldiers whom the county supplied to theFrench Wars have found a record in the pages ofGeneral the Honourable George Wrottesleys learned andample contributions to the William Salt Collections; andhow James, Lord Audley, distinguished himself atPoictiers (1356), and how the Cheshire bowmen wereselected for the Black Prince by William of Cheddleton,can only be mentioned here. Staffordshire chivalry then
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Staffordshire 221 shone brightly, and its archers distinguished themselves.The great victory of Crecy (1346) was celebrated bysplendid hastiludes at Lichfield in 1348, when there werewater-sports on the Minster Pools, and a passage-of-armsin which King Edward III., on his great war-horse, withseventeen knights, tilted against his son, the Earl ofLancaster, with thirteen others; and the flower both ofEnglish beauty and English chivalry was there.^ Closely connected with these sports, and placed byGeneral Wrottesley in the same year, was the institutionof the Order of the Garter, which may indeed have beensuggested by an incident which then happened. Andcertainly, whilst half the original twenty-five knightsfirst gartered were those who so stoutly fought under theBlack Prince—Audley and Wrottesley being amongstthem—the Earl of Lancaster and Lord Stafford werein the other half. And the revenues of Uttoxeter rectorywere made over to Windsor and the chapel of the Garter. But, alas! the

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