CHESTER remained a major point of embarkation for Ireland, and in the 12th century a steady stream of visitors passed through en route for Dublin and elsewhere. Important travellers, such as the Bishop of Louth, the abbot of Buildwas (Salop.), and Richard de Limesey, marshal in Ireland, usually stayed in the abbey rather than the castle, the residential buildings of which had yet to receive the lavish improvements provided by Henry III and his successors. The castle was undoubtedly used as a base for armed expeditions bound for Ireland, apparently first contemplated by Henry II in 1164 and increasingly important thereafter. In 1185, when the city was in royal hands during Ranulph III's minority, some two hundred notabilities, including royal officials and military commanders, sailed thence to Ireland with their men, equipment, and provisions to join the king's son, Prince John. In 1186 John himself visited CHESTER, only to be recalled by Henry II while awaiting a favourable wind for Ireland. Even though he did not go himself, many others did, including John de Courcy and the prior of Dublin.
Their presence was only recorded at special occasions, such as Hugh I's attendance at the ceremonies marking the establishment of St. Werburgh's abbey in 1092, and Ranulph III's visits to meet Llywelyn ap Iorwerth in 1220 and 1231. Nevertheless, there were certainly other less public visits. One such was a gathering of leading Angevin supporters convened in Chester by Ranulph II in 1147-8, which included his nephew Earl Gilbert of Clare, Earl Roger of Hereford, Cadwaladr ap Gruffudd, younger brother of the ruler of Gwynedd, and William FitzAlan of Oswestry (Salop.). Another was in 1224, when the disgraced Fawkes de Breauté fled to Chester and Ranulph III wrote to Henry III in his defence. Both Hugh II, after his release from prison in 1177, and Ranulph III, who had probably been brought up there, issued charters at Chester and may have harboured ambitions to make it the centre of an independent principality. One sign of Hugh's attitude was perhaps the sheltering at Chester of hermits who claimed, bizarrely, to be Harold II of England and the German Emperor Henry V. Although clearly fantastic, in both cases their claims cast doubt on Angevin legitimacy: Harold for obvious reasons, the emperor because his survival would have bastardized Henry II of England. Unlike Hugh, Ranulph III remained loyal to the house of Anjou; nevertheless, the fact that the hermit stories continued to circulate during his rule perhaps tells something of the political culture and pretensions of his capital.
The personal presence and ambitions of the earls made little difference to the city's role as the administrative centre of their earldom. Important comital officials such as the justice and the two chamberlains must often have been present, and even those lower down the scale, such as the constable of the castle, bulked large in city life. In the 1180s, for example, during Ranulph III's minority, the constable administered the earl's Cheshire lands for the Crown and received payments from the burgesses. Another important figure was the head of the earl's secretariat. Comital clerks resided in Chester as early as the time of Ranulph II (1129-53), when a certain John the clerk stated that he had written a charter there at the earl's command. Later, under Ranulph III (1181-1232), the clerk Thomas, sometimes designated the earl's chancellor, was often in Chester. The impact such a figure could make upon the local scene is apparent from the career of Peter, his successor as the earl's principal clerk and sometimes termed the clerk of Chester: the earl was godfather to one of his sons, and he had a grand stone house in Bridge Street and important privileges within the city.
Norman earls dominated the government of the city still more than had their English predecessors. By 1071 the borough had been mediatized and royal officials had been excluded. The earl's reeve, however, remained. As late as c. 1210 Ranulph III could refer to one of his grantees, William of Barrow, as 'my reeve of Chester', an indication that the city 'was still in effect a seigneurial borough'. The duties of the earl's reeve are obscure. In particular, it is uncertain how they related to those of another representative of the earl, mentioned much more often: the sheriff of the city. The earliest reference to the sheriff of Chester, the first for any English borough, was in the 1120s in Ranulph I's charter granting jurisdiction over the summer fair to St. Werburgh's abbey, in which provision was made for the amount received in fines by the monks to be deducted from the farm which the city sheriff rendered to the earl's chamberlains. The sheriff evidently accounted for the city's revenues, an arrangement whose origins perhaps date from before the 1070s, when the farm of the city was already distinguished from that of the earl's pleas in the shire and hundred courts, though both were held by the same person, the earl's man Mundræd.