Over the last year, I have been reading all the books I can find on the Civil War. Two decades of Civil War and then the Commonwealth, a period which included the only time the country had put on trial and then executed a king.
Two decades which revealed so much about Parliamentary democracy, the role of a monarch, individual freedoms and the political, social and religious issues and conflicts of the mid 17th century. Many of which still resonate today.
London played a key part in every aspect of the conflict, not just at places across the wider city (such as the Putney Debates in St Mary’s church in 1647, which I wrote about a couple of months ago), but also the Londoners who were involved in key events during Civil War, the Commonwealth and eventual Restoration. Many fighting, and sometimes dying in battles across the country.
A couple of months ago I was browsing the history section of a bookshop, and came across the Siege of Loyalty House by Jessie Childs:
This is a brilliant book. It tells the story of the siege of Basing House in Hampshire, once one of the grandest private houses in the country, larger, and more impressive than Hampton Court, home to the Paulet family, and a place that was visited by five English Monarchs.
A place that ended in ruins after three periods of siege between 1643 and 1645, and there are plenty of London connections in the story of the siege of the house.
Today, what remains of Basing House is in the care of Hampshire Cultural Trust and is open to visit, so after reading the book, this is what we did.
Basing House is in Old Basing, just to the east of Basingstoke, and on a sunny spring day, only the ruins hint as the violence and death that took place here in the 1640s.
What would become Basing House was inherited by the Paulet family in 1428. At the time the site was occupied by a motte and bailey castle which had been built by the de Ports family who had been given the manor of Basing in 1066 by William the Conqueror.
Sir William Paulet, who would become the first Marquis of Winchester constructed two houses on the site. The first was started in 1531, and the second, which became known as the New House, was started in 1550.
By the time of the Civil War, John Paulet, the 5th Marquess of Winchester was the owner of both of these houses which together formed the Basing House complex that would be under siege.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, John Paulet declared for the King, and fortified the house so it could held for the Royalist cause.
Of the old and the new house, there is very little left, but there is one remarkable survivor. This is the Great Barn, built in 1535, and believed to be the largest Tudor barn in the south of England:
The Great Barn was part of the complex of buildings around Basing House that provided the services needed to ensure the operation of such a large house, and the people who both lived there or visited.
The Great Barn was used for the storage of wheat and barley and still today presents a remarkably impressive structure. The barn is now available to host weddings, hence the mirror ball hanging from the ceiling:
The Great Barn was built in 1535, a date which has been confirmed by tree ring dating.
In the above two photos, you can see slits in the brick walls. These were not part of the Civil War fortifications, but were part of the original design of the barn as they provided ventilation, whilst being narrow enough to keep out birds who would have eaten the grain stored within.
The Great Barn was fought over during the sieges of Basing House.
The first attack was in November 1643, when a force of 500 foot soldiers and 500 cavalry of the Parliamentary army led by Sir William Waller arrived at Basing House, and after a refusal from the defenders to surrender, started an attack which focussed on the barn in order to rob the defenders of their stores.
The attackers managed to force out the defenders, who returned to the main house, from where the defenders starting firing cannons at the barn, which forced the Parliamentarian forces to withdraw, and retire to Basingstoke.
Some of the damage caused by cannon fire can still be seen in the barn today:
The barn is part of a small complex of buildings which jointly went under the name of the Grange, and were located to the north west of the old and new houses, so from the Great Barn there is a short walk:
One of the things that Jessie Child’s book does brilliantly is to follow the story of individuals who became involved with the siege of Basing House, both on the Royalist and the Parliamentarian sides.
One of the those on the Royalist side, and who was part of John Paulet’s regiment defending the house was William Faithorne:
(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)
William Faithorne was an apprentice engraver living with the print seller Robert Peake near Holborn Conduit.
Peake was a Royalist, and whether or not he had any real choice in the matter, William Faithorne followed Robert Peake and others, as they escaped the defences being built around the City of London, and eventually ended up in Basing House.
Faithorne survived the siege, but was captured by the Parliamentary forces and ended up imprisoned at Aldersgate, where he was allowed to continue his work as an engraver. He was released on condition that he retired to France, but was allowed back in 1650. He then had a shop at Temple Bar which enabled him to continue his work as an engraver, and also to sell prints.
After leaving the area around the Great Barn, we arrive at the gates leading into the main area once occupied by the old and new houses:
Once inside, there is a 3D model of the site, which shows the extensive earthworks, the old house, built on the site of the original motte and bailey castle, and to the left, the new house:
The following image from 1952 also shows the scale of the site of the old house, the Great Barn can be seen to upper right:
The size of the mound on which the old house was built can be seen by walking along the ditch which surrounds the mound, which rises up to the left, with a shallower, but still impressive bank on the right:
There are plenty of information panels around the site, and to get an idea of the size of the old house, by walking the ditch we come to a set of steps that lead up to the top of the mound:
Where there is a viewing platform:
From where we can look out across the site of the old house, and the few remains of what was once the most impressive private house in the country, and a house that hosted a number of monarchs. I used the panorama mode on the camera to get the whole site into one photo:
It is hard to imagine the violence and suffering that those under siege in Basing House went through, whilst looking across such a peaceful site on a sunny spring day.
The first siege of Basing House took place between the 6th and 14th of November 1643, when Sir William Waller led a force of 6,000. This was a relatively short siege as bad weather, and the threat of a Royalist force heading to relieve the house, forced Waller to withdraw to Farnham, which he had captured for Parliament earlier in the year along with Winchester and Portsmouth.
Sir William Waller is an interesting character, as his experience during the 1640s and 1650s illustrate the shifting political and religious tolerance and alliances.
Waller was a professional soldier, and had seen service with the Venetian Republic. As a supporter of Parliament, Waller joined the Parliamentary forces when the Civil War broke out.
As well as his role in the Parliamentary forces, Waller was also an MP, having been elected to represent Andover, but when the Self Denying Ordinance was brought in by Parliament in 1645, (which stated that members of Parliament who were also officers in the army, could only be one or the other), Waller resigned his commission to remain as an MP.
Waller was a deeply religious Presbyterian, and Presbyterian MPs came into conflict with Independent MPs and the New Model Army who wanted freedom of religion, and did not want Presbyterianism to define the state religion of the country.
As a result of his religious view, Waller was one of the eleven Presbyterian MPs accused by Cromwell and other Independent MPs’ of plotting to destabilise the country and promote their religion. As a result Waller fled to Europe, living in the Hague where he met Elizabeth of Bohemia (the sister of Charles I), and on his return two years later he was imprisoned after being accused of plotting the restoration of Charles II.
After being released in 1652, he purchased Osterley Park, became an MP again after the restoration of Charles II, and died in 1668 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
The following print shows the Siege of Basing House. The Old House is on the left, the New House is on the right. The wall surrounding the two houses is that of the Royalist forces holding the houses. Opposite the wall, is another wall which is that of the Parliamentary Army, with a short space of non mans land between:
(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)
The print shows the size of the Old and New Basing House, and how little distance there was between those under siege and their attackers.
The first siege was of just over a week. The second siege was much longer. It began on the 4th of June 1644 when Parliamentary forces led by Colonel Richard Norton surrounded the two houses.
After a couple of months, supplies of food and ammunition were running very low in Basing House.
The Royalist Colonel Henry Gage led a force to break through the Parliamentary forces, arriving at Basing House with supplies on the 11th of September. Gage not only managed to get through to the house, but after leaving, he managed to break out to return to Oxford with his soldiers.
The siege continued on to November, when as with the first siege, it was lifted on the 13th of November when the early onset of a harsh winter resulting in the Parliamentary forces withdrawing.
The third and final siege started in August 1645, when the two houses where again surrounded by Parliamentary forces led by Colonel John Dalbier. The third siege was again heading towards autumn and winter, but in October Lt. General Oliver Cromwell arrived with a heavy siege-train (the large canons that were used to break through the defending walls of many a Royalist defended site).
The attack using the siege-train demolished the defensive walls, brought down some of the towers and enabled the parliamentary forces to sweep in and capture the houses that had held out for so long.
It was described that the old and new houses were on fire, and that “nothing but bare walls and chimneys in less than 20 hours” was left.
Today, a sole cannon defends what is left of Basing House from any attack by the towers of Basingstoke:
One of those caught up in the siege was the architect Inigo Jones:
(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)
There is much written about Inigo Jones architectural achievements, but very few references to the fact that he was part of a long siege at Basing House, and was captured by the Parliamentary forces after they had stormed the buildings.
Inigo Jones was born in Smithfield in July 1573. Details of his early life are very scarce, but he did have a patron who sent him to Italy to study drawing.
As well as architecture, he was well known for theatre and costume design, and for staging elaborate Masques during the reign of James I (the book 1606: Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro has some wonderful descriptions of these).
Architecturally, he was responsible for the Queen’s House at Greenwich, the Banqueting House (where Charles I would be executed), St. Paul’s Covent Garden, along with the arcaded square and some of the houses that lined the square.
Charles I’s wife was Henrietta Maria of France, a Roman Catholic, which made her unpopular in the country.
Inigo Jones designed and built a Catholic Chapel for Henrietta Maria in Sommerset House, which made Jones appear a Catholic supporter and sympathiser.
When the Civil War broke out, the chapel was attacked, and much of the art that adorned the interior of the chapel was desecrated.
It is not clear why Inigo Jones was at Basing House, or when he arrived, but he had probably travelled from Oxford.
It may be that his architectural expertise had been used in the design of the defences of Basing House.
He was in his 70s, so living in a house under siege cannot have been easy for someone of that age, and who was not a soldier.
When the third siege ended with Cromwell and Dalbier’s forces seizing what was left of Basing House, Inigo Jones was 72, a considerable age for the 17th century, and he was probably the oldest person in the house.
He was given a £1,000 fine and as a royal delinquent, he was ordered to swear two loyalty oaths, the first to renounce the Bishops, and the second to repudiate the King. This last oath must have been difficult, to repudiate the King that he had worked with for years, as well as the idea of monarchy.
He lived to see the execution of Charles I in 1649.
Inigo Jones died at the age of 78, on the 21st of June 1652, not too many years after the siege ended. He was buried in St. Benet’s, Paul’s Wharf, in the City of London, The church was destroyed during the Great Fire of 1666, and monument to Inigo Jones in the church was lost during the fire.
Walking into the central area of the old house:
Those who lived in the surrounding villages and farms had also suffered during the siege. Much of the area was plundered for supplies by both the Parliamentary forces and also those in Basing House, who, in between sieges, or whenever they had the opportunity, would search the surrounding countryside for any supplies they could take back to sustain the house during the siege.
Those who lived in the immediate area did get some small benefit after the siege had ended. Whilst the cannons of Cromwell’s siege train had inflicted terrible damage on the old and new houses, damage which was compounded when the house was taken by the Parliamentary forces, locals were then allowed to dismantle and take away anything they could find, including much of the stone and brickwork, so today, building material that almost certainly came from Basing House can be seen in the old houses of the district.
Basing House once had a large Great Hall where lavish feasts would have been held for any visiting monarch. Today, only the wine cellar remains:
A gap in the walls is a reminder of the end of the Basing House siege:
It was here, in the walls of the Old House, that the defences were finally breached, and the 800 men of Colonel John Dalbier and 6,000 men of Oliver Cromwell stormed in to finally take the house that had held out for three sieges.
Around 300 Royalists, men, women and children, had retreated into the Old House after the New House had been taken.
The rules of war during the Civil War were that if the defenders of a town or house had been given the opportunity to surrender, but had refused, then the attacking force was entitled to kill the defenders once they had taken the town or house. This led to some appalling bloodshed during the Civil War, and the wars in Ireland during the period of the Commonwealth.
Catholic priests were most at risk of being killed as soon as they were found.
After Basing House was taken, whilst there were deaths, many of the defenders were spared.
Again, walking around the ruins of Basing House on a sunny spring day, it is hard to imagine the fear and suffering during the three sieges, the thunder of the cannon and the crashing and splintering of walls when Cromwell’s siege-train opened fire, and the terror and violence when the house finally fell and the attackers stormed in:
But what of John Paulet, the 5th Marquess of Winchester, the man whose loyalty to Charles I was such that he had written:
“If the King had no more ground in England than Basing House I would adventure as I did and so maintain it to the uttermost.”
Despite being the Marquess of Winchester, a man who was fiercely loyal to the Crown, had held Basing House for three sieges, and had refused to surrender, he was spared execution when Basing House fell.
He was taken to the Tower of London, where he was soon joined by the Marchioness, his second wife, Honora de Burgh. His house had suffered significantly during the siege, much of the fabric of the building had been taken by the local population, and Parliament ordered that what remained of the house be razed to the ground.
He also had all his estates confiscated.
He was released in the early 1650s, but without any estates or income, and with significant debts, he was forced to petition Parliament in 1656 for relief.
The restoration of the monarchy when Charles II returned to England and became King did provide some relief, as he had his estates returned to him.
The Parliament after the restoration had passed a resolution to compensate those who had suffered losses whilst in the service of Charles I during the Civil War, however John Paulet did not receive any compensation.
Basing House was not rebuilt and John Paulet lived in Englefield House near Theale in Berkshire, an estate that he had inherited through marriage.
The effigy of John Paulet, Marquess of Winchester. The valiant defender of Basing House:
John Paulet died in March 1674, and was buried in the local church at Englefield.
One wonders whether he thought the siege had been worth it. As well as receiving little, if any compensation for his losses during the Civil War, he could not rebuild the seat of the Paulet family, and to compound his problems, he had a severe falling out with his eldest son Charles over politics and religion.
John Paulet had been a firm Catholic, however his son Charles adopted the Church of England in his adult life. Politically, Charles was also a Whig, a political party that was opposed to absolute monarchy.
The world had changed.
And Basing House still lay in ruins:
Whilst there are the ruins and earth works of the old house, there is almost nothing left of the new house. One key feature can be found in the building in the following photo:
Within the building is a large well that was built as part of the new house:
The well is brick lined, over 18 metres deep and 3.6 metres in diameter. An animal, probably a horse or donkey would have walked around the circumference of the well to power machinery that drew water up from the bottom of the well.
Many of those who died during the siege were buried in the surrounding lands. A monument records this: “In memory of those who gave their lives in the sieges of Basing House 1643 – 1645 Many of whom are buried near this spot”:
The tranquil nature of what is left of Basing House is added to by a large walled garden:
The walled garden is a reminder of the very different backgrounds of the people who held out during the siege, and some who lost their lives.
One of these was Thomas Johnson, who had been born in Yorkshire, but made his name as a botanist and apothecary in London.
He had a business in Snow Hill in London, from where he sold medicinal herbs and plants, and from where he conducted botanical expeditions to counties outside of London, searching for, and collecting, plants. He was also a member of the Apothecaries Company.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Thomas Johnson joined the Royalist cause, and by May 1643, found himself at Basing Castle as a Lieutenant Colonel in the defending forces.
During the Second Siege, he was shot in the shoulder in September 1644 on one of the many skirmishes between the attacking and defending forces. As a result of his wound, he developed a fever, and died two weeks later. He was buried at Basing House.
Title page of an edition of John Gerard’s ‘The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes’, which was “Very much enlarged and amended by Thomas Johnson, Citizen and Apothecarye of London”:
(© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.)
I have only just scratched the surface of what happened during the siege, the people involved, Londoners who found themselves on both sides of the battle in Basing, Hampshire, and how the siege was part of a much wider conflict.
I really recommend Siege of Loyalty House by Jessie Childs. Finding the book was one of the benefits of browsing and buying from real bookshops.
And if you are ever near Basingstoke, read the book first, then take a look at what is left of Basing House, and as an added benefit, there is a rather good pub (Bartons Mill), next to the car park