The Siege of Loyalty House

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2022

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Civil War was the most traumatic conflict in British history, pitting friends and family members against each other, tearing down the old order.

Award-winning historian Jessie Childs plunges the reader into the shock of the struggle through one of its most dramatic episodes: the siege of Basing House. To the parliamentarian Roundheads, the Hampshire mansion was a bastion of royalism, popery and excess. Its owner was both a Catholic and a staunch supporter of Charles I. His motto Love Loyalty was etched into the windows. He refused all terms of surrender.

As royalist strongholds crumbled, Loyalty House, as it became known, stood firm. Over two years, the men, women and children inside were battered, bombarded, starved and gassed. Their resistance became legendary. Inigo Jones designed the fortifications and the women hurled bricks from the roof. But in October 1645, Oliver Cromwell rolled in the heavy guns and the defenders prepared for a last stand.

Drawing on exciting new sources, Childs uncovers the face of the war through a cast of unforgettable characters: the fanatical Puritan preacher who returns from Salem to take on the king; the plant-hunting apothecary who learns to kill as well as heal; the London merchant and colonist who clashes with Basing's aristocratic lord; and Cromwell himself who feels the hand of God on his sword. And we hear too the voices of dozens of ordinary men and women caught in the crossfire.

The Siege of Loyalty House is a thrilling tale of war and peace, terror and faith, friendship and betrayal - and of a world turned upside down.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there, history hit fans. Just let you know about another podcast we got.
0:04.2	Not just the tutors, with professors who's on the lips come. You know what I'm all
0:07.4	curious about? Most people ask me, what's professors on the lips come like? So you can find
0:11.6	out for yourself, I say. Listen to her flipping podcast. It's right here available. Wherever
0:16.4	you get your pods, not just the tutors. You know what that's about? The tutors, but not
0:20.6	just the tutors. She talks about the Aztecs. She talks about the Yuan dynasty, the Ming
0:25.4	dynasty, the Mugals. She talks about everything that's going on in that wonderful age, the
0:29.6	Renaissance, that remarkable age of growth, beauty, tragedy, terror and transformation, the
0:36.6	16th and 17th centuries. You've got to go and check it out folks. Go and listen for all
0:41.2	of your chewedder and chewedder plus requirements. Get involved. This is an ellipse podcast.
0:47.3	Not just the tutors, wherever you get your pods.
0:51.7	An age characterized by populism, climate change, appolarizing media and morality crusades.
1:00.8	No not the 21st century, but the 17th. And yet for some reason the British civil wars
1:07.5	of the mid 17th century, which ended with the execution of a king, have fallen behind
1:13.4	the tutors in their grasp on the public imagination. I think today's podcast will make you rethink
1:20.2	that. Today we're talking about one moment that gives away into the realities of the civil
1:25.2	war. Beating House near Beating Stoke was the grandest, largest non-royal house in England.
1:31.9	The family motto was love loyalty. And this mansion owned by the Marquis of Winchester,
1:37.8	whose loyalty was the king, was nicknamed loyalty house. It was strategically and symbolically
1:44.8	important to both the royalists and the parliamentarians. And so its fate was to be besieged
1:51.0	and blockaded. But against all expectations, it didn't roll over. The hell that was the
1:59.0	battle over Beating House is the civil war in a nutshell. Friend turned against friend,
	...

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