The Council of the RSLC last met on 9 October 2013. On that day in 1645, negotiations between the parliamentarian besiegers and the royalist defenders of Chester having broken down, the mayor and the governor sent a letter to the besiegers which stated that

“… We are therefore ready to defend ourselves against the utermost of your rage, not doubting God’s blessing and protection upon us. Chas Whalley, mayor; John Byron [military governor]”

Usually Byron signed such letters first, and that he allowed Whalley to sign this one first suggests, in R. N. Dore’s view, a deliberate demonstration of unity between soldiers and civilians within the besieged city.

See The Letter Books of Sir William Brereton, volume II (edited by R. N. Dore, published as the Society’s volume 128, in 1990), p. 88.

The late Norman Dore was a distinguished historian of the Roundheads v Cavaliers Civil War in north-west England. His massive (1,190 pages) two volume edition (volume 1 was published as the Society's volume 123 for 1984) of the letters of the parliamentarian commander, Sir William Brereton, presented a major text for the military history of the two counties, with a scholarly introduction placing the men, and the events, in context.