Qualla: Siege of Lichfield https://qualla.com/siege-of-lichfield en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/e/siege-of-lichfield-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Siege of Lichfield https://qualla.com/siege-of-lichfield Siege of Lichfield: Introduction https://qualla.com/siege-of-lichfield/ Photo credit Roger Robinson (Scu98rkr at en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. On the morning of 8 April 1643, Prince Rupert of the Rhine arrived outside the walls of Lichfield Cathedral Close with twelve hundred horse and dragoons, seven hundred infantry, and a clear instruction from his uncle the king: take it back. The Parliamentary garrison inside was commanded by a Colonel Russell whose first name has slipped out of the record. Rupert summoned him to surrender. Russell refused. What followed, over the next thirteen days, would end with one of the earliest uses of an explosive mine in English warfare, a chunk of medieval wall blown sideways into the close, and the Royalists walking in over the rubble.

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Image: Roger Robinson (Scu98rkr at en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/e/siege-of-lichfield-wp/gcqe-siege-of-lichfield-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Siege of Lichfield: Why Lichfield Mattered https://qualla.com/siege-of-lichfield/ Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lichfield Cathedral Close was a defensible square of fortifications around the three-spired cathedral, a fortress in everything but name. Earlier in the war the Royalists had held it. Then in March 1643 Lord Brooke, leading the Warwickshire and Staffordshire levies for Parliament...

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Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/e/siege-of-lichfield-wp/gcqe-siege-of-lichfield-why-lichfield-mattered.mp3 0:06 2 full Siege of Lichfield: The Long March from Oxford https://qualla.com/siege-of-lichfield/ Photo credit Poliphilo, CC0. Rupert left Oxford on 29 March, riding north through Chipping Norton, Shipston-on-Stour, and Stratford-on-Avon. He spent Easter Sunday in Henley-in-Arden. On Easter Monday he attacked the unwalled town of Birmingham, where the locals had insulted Charles I the previous October by...

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Image: Poliphilo | CC0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/e/siege-of-lichfield-wp/gcqe-siege-of-lichfield-the-long-march-from-oxford.mp3 0:06 3 full Siege of Lichfield: A Mine Under the Wall https://qualla.com/siege-of-lichfield/ Photo credit Roger Robinson (Scu98rkr at en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. After a week of bombardment, on Sunday 16 April, Rupert ordered the first assault. The breaches in the wall looked workable to his engineers. They were not workable to his foot soldiers, who were thrown back with losses. Rupert kept the siege going through the week. By Friday 21 ...

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Image: Roger Robinson (Scu98rkr at en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/e/siege-of-lichfield-wp/gcqe-siege-of-lichfield-a-mine-under-the-wall.mp3 0:06 4 full Siege of Lichfield: Bag and Baggage https://qualla.com/siege-of-lichfield/ Photo credit Roger Robinson (Scu98rkr at en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. Seventeenth-century siege custom let a garrison that surrendered on terms march out with full military honours, and so the Parliamentary defenders walked out of Lichfield with their weapons, their drums, their flags, and what the documents call bag and baggage. A Royalist escort ...

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Image: Roger Robinson (Scu98rkr at en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/e/siege-of-lichfield-wp/gcqe-siege-of-lichfield-bag-and-baggage.mp3 0:06 5 full