Siege of Loyalty House

Between 1643 and 1645 Basing House in Hampshire was besieged three times. To the parliamentary Roundheads, it symbolised everything that was wrong with England: the largest private residence in the country, a bastion of royalism, popery and excess. The Marquess of Winchester reportedly had the motto Love loyalty etched into his windows. He refused all terms of surrender. When he discovered his brother plotting to betray the house, he forced him to hang his accomplices. When the garrison divided along religious lines, he expelled all the Protestants.

As royalist strongholds crumbled around them, the Winchesters - and Basing - stood firm. Inigo Jones designed fortifications, gamekeepers became snipers and the women hurled bricks at the besiegers and cast shot from roof-stripped lead. 'Loyalty House', as it was known, became the king's principal garrison in the South-west. But the drum of the New Model Army beat ever louder and in October 1645, Oliver Cromwell rolled in the heavy guns.

The Siege of Loyalty House tells the story of these dramatic events, not only recounting the sallies and skirmishes, but the experiences of the men, women and children caught in the crossfire. What was it like to be under siege, lying in bed with shells crashing through the window? What was it like to conduct a siege, sleeping on frosty fields, receiving news of sick children at home from desperate wives?

Ultimately, the story of Basing House is the story of England in the 1640s: a tale of brother against brother, of women on the frontline, of radicalism, iconoclasm and fanaticism. It is a tale of destruction and creativity, courage and cowardice, a house on fire and the end of an era.