Loyalty, Divided: The Doomed Resistance Of A Cavalier Stronghold In The English Civil War

Reviewing 'Loyalty House' by Jessie Childs

19th century painting of Oliver Cromwell overseeing the final assault

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Jessie Childs, The Siege of Loyalty House: A Story of the English Civil War. 2023

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“Basing House was, in fact, two houses: a castle fronted by an imposing Tudor gatehouse, and next to it, the Marquess of Winchester’s stately pleasure palace,” writes journalist and author Jessie Childs. “It was ‘seated and built as if for royalty’, recorded an anonymous diarist inside the house.” Called the Old House and the New House, the two structures were connected “by two bridges — one made of stone, one made of wood — and reportedly surpassed [the Old House] ‘in beauty and stateliness.’” Staffing such a spectacle was expensive. Basing House “was said to be ‘overpowered by its own weight,’” Childs writes. Another detractor wrote that "the house stood in its full pride.” Stocked with both obsolete and modern weapons, the armory was “half in the old world and half in the new” when the war began, split much like Basing House itself, says Childs.

Standing on a natural site to command a major crossroad, the manor grounds appear to have been inhabited since the Stone Age, and were first fortified during the 13th century. An English sovereign could not ask for a better symbol of ancient strength. Reinforced with dirt ramparts and a broad ditch, the obsolete brick walls made Basing House a small, yet formidable artillery fortress during the English Civil War. Earning its moniker through three different sieges, Loyalty House ultimately suffered the same fate as its sovereign, and at Cromwell’s own hand. Divided along invisible fault lines, Basing House was ultimately shattered by the relentless storm directed against it.

In 1643 the lord of the manor was John Paulet, the 35th Marquess of Winchester, a Catholic, whose motto was ‘Love Loyalty.’ He was not even supposed to have an armory at all, and it was perpetually short on match and powder throughout the war. As the closest Cavalier stronghold to the rebellious City, Basing House was also a nest of spies, a launching place for raids on enemy posts, and a base for interdicting London trade. Garrison resistance intensified Puritan paranoia about popish plots. In The Siege of Loyalty House: A Story of the English Civil War, Childs recounts the last days of a stone castle, the loves and loyalties of those who lived and died there, and the history of the English nation written in bloody trauma.