The besiegers

• Sir Edward Hungerford, MP and leader of the Wiltshire militia, aged about 47
• Colonel William Strode, leader of a Somerset infantry regiment, about 54
• Captain Edmund Ludlow, captain of a troop of horse serving Hungerford, about 26
• Captain Bean, captain of an infantry company in the Wiltshire militia
• Parliamentarian soldiers. A Royalist source alleged that there were 1,300 of them, but this is an exaggeration.

The view from both sides

Mass propaganda was used in England for the first time during the Civil Wars, with both Parliament and the Royalists publishing pamphlets, newspapers, books and engravings. This was, in a sense, the first media war.

The two main accounts that describe the events of the siege are written from opposing viewpoints. The Parliamentarian officer Edmund Ludlow describes the siege in his autobiography, written in the 1660s. Although he wrote his account later, and didn’t arrive at Wardour until the end of the siege, he would have heard the earlier details from Sir Edward Hungerford and his soldiers.

The Royalist perspective comes from Bruno Ryves, an Anglican clergyman evicted from his London rectory by Parliament in 1643. With financial help from Thomas Arundell, Ryves turned to publishing, producing a Royalist newspaper called Mercurius Rusticus. The May 1643 issue featured news of the siege of Wardour Castle.

Ryves must have heard a first-hand account, perhaps from a servant or even in a letter from Blanche herself. He reported that at least 60 Parliamentarian soldiers were killed in the siege – probably a tenfold exaggeration – with no loss of life to the besieged. Ludlow reports that one of Blanche’s servants was grazed across the face by a bullet.

The siege was, in truth, an order to surrender rather than a major military assault. Had Sir Edward Hungerford really had 1,300 men, he would have stormed the castle on the first or second day. He must have realised that Lady Blanche would not hold out for long, and he had his eyes on capturing the castle intact – along with the Arundells’ valuables.

Wardour’s fate

According to Bruno Ryves, the Parliamentarians ransacked the interior of the castle after capturing it and sold the goods they had seized to raise money. These spoils included five cartloads of the ‘richest hangings and other furniture’, as well as horses, cattle, deer and even the fish in the fishponds and the mature trees from the woods. Edmund Ludlow also discovered £1,200 worth of money, plate and jewels hidden in the castle walls.

Expecting an imminent Royalist counter-assault, Ludlow patched up the castle, levelled the siege earthworks and stocked up on food. By the end of 1643 most of the West Country was back in Royalist hands, except Wardour Castle.

In December, however, Blanche’s 35-year-old son Henry, now 3rd Lord Arundell, arrived at Wardour with a Royalist army. For three months Ludlow and his garrison held out as Arundell’s forces laid siege. Finally, Arundell ordered a mine to be laid under the castle walls, hoping to force the garrison to surrender. The charge was set off – perhaps accidentally by Parliamentarian fire – and one side of the castle was blown up. The second siege of Wardour ended when Ludlow surrendered on 18 March 1644, and although Henry Arundell recovered his castle, it was now ruined beyond repair.

Parliament confiscated the castle and its estate once again when the First Civil War ended in 1646, and Henry Arundell only regained his estate at Charles II’s restoration in 1660. Rather than restore his ruined castle, he built a smaller mansion alongside it. A century later the 8th Lord Arundell built a large country house, New Wardour, and the picturesque ruined castle – now known as Old Wardour – became part of a fashionable landscape garden.