Qualla: Siege of Basing House

Siege of Basing House: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Baigent, Francis Joseph & Millard, James Elwin (1889)., Public domain. John Paulet, fifth Marquess of Winchester, had a motto written on the window glass of his house: Aymez Loyaute. Love loyalty. He believed it literally enough that he held Basing House against three sieges across two years of civil war, sheltering Inigo Jones and the actor William Robbins and the engraver Wenceslaus Hollar within his walls, until Oliver Cromwell himself arrived with a 63-pounder cannon and reduced Loyalty House to gaunt and blackened walls in a single morning.

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Image: Baigent, Francis Joseph & Millard, James Elwin (1889). | Public domain

Siege of Basing House: A Princely Residence

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Grant, Public domain. The first Marquess of Winchester, Sir William Paulet, had served four Tudor monarchs and converted Basing House from a medieval castle into something his descendants called a princely residence. By 1643 it covered fourteen and a half acres - gardens, courtyards, entrenchments, a ...

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Image: James Grant | Public domain

Siege of Basing House: Waller's Failure

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Sir William Waller arrived on 6 November 1643 at the head of seven thousand horse and foot. He attacked three times in nine days. The first storm was broken by wind and rain. The second was undone by a Westminster regiment that refused to obey orders. The third collapsed when the...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Siege of Basing House: Starvation by Inches

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Weesop, Public domain. The winter passed quietly. In June 1644 Colonel Richard Norton closed in again, this time to starve the place out. The garrison divided itself into three watches under Major Cufaude, Major Langley, and Lieutenant-Colonel Rawdon, the last excused from night duty on account of his ...

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Image: Weesop | Public domain

Siege of Basing House: Loyalty House

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wenceslaus Hollar, Public domain. Waller returned, reinvested the house, and pressed the siege through October. By the first of November the garrison's bread, corn, and beer were exhausted, and officers were skipping one meal a day. Disease was eating Waller's army faster than his army was eating the garrison. By...

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Image: Wenceslaus Hollar | Public domain

Siege of Basing House: Cromwell Arrives

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit After Samuel Cooper, Public domain. What changed was Naseby. Cromwell's New Model cavalry had broken the King at Naseby in June 1645, and through the autumn his forces gathered the kingdom in like a closing hand. On 8 October Cromwell arrived at Basing with five demi-cannons and a 63-pounder. He summoned the garris...

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Image: After Samuel Cooper | Public domain

Siege of Basing House: The Fire

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martinvl, CC BY-SA 4.0. Inigo Jones, then seventy-two, was carried out wrapped in a blanket because the looters had stripped him of every stitch. The architect of the Banqueting House had become a refugee in his own clothes. While soldiers and country people sorted plate, jewels, tapestry, and a hundred...

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Image: Martinvl | CC BY-SA 4.0