Second siege, 7-21 April 1643.

 Abstract. The Parliamentarian army had occupied for 47 days the Close in March 1642. On 7th April a Royalist regiment surrounded the Close intent on regaining the strategic military stronghold. A tunnel was dug under the northwest corner and the wall breeched with gunpowder. Fighting within the Close led to the Royalists retreating, but then the Parliamentarians surrendered having exhausted their ordinance.

Prince Rupert, nephew of the king and ‘General of the Horse’, with 1200 horse and dragoons, and 400–700 foot[1] left Oxford determined to secure the Midlands. He also arranged for culverin and demi-culverin sized cannons to follow.

Prince Rupert

 Despite leading this experienced regiment, Rupert had difficulty charging 200-barricaded soldiers in Camp Hill (Deritend), Birmingham, eventually entering the town and burning some buildings. Many criticise Rupert for this reckless skirmish. He moved on to Walsall and Cannock before finally reaching Lichfield. 

Route taken by Rupert’s army.

An immediate  summons to Colonel Russel (or Roweswell) to surrender the Close was met with the cathedral ringing the bells. Russel is thought to have had 150 horse and 400 foot around the walls of the Close.[2]  Bombarding the Close wall on the north side for a week with 10–14 pounders failed to open the wall or induce surrender. This bombardment might have been from the high ground on the northwest corner now known as Prince Rupert’s Mound. See the post, ‘Castle wall, 1640’ for the best idea of the layout of the fortification.

 

Current view of the cathedral from Rupert’s Mound. The Mound was raised in the third siege and is the only fieldwork left around the Close.

A letter from a Royalist soldier to his wife described a scaling of the wall near the south gate with much loss of life. Using battering rams and hurling rocks made no difference. A new tactic was needed, so Rupert’s troops drained the moat on the north side of the Close. It was probably full with winter rain.[3] He then supposedly recruited 50 coalminers[4] and requisitioned them to make four tunnels[5] under the inner wall of the Close. Three of these tunnels were discovered and abandoned. One undiscovered tunnel in the north-west corner of the Close was filled with five barrels of gunpowder and exploded in the hours of darkness on April 20 1643. It breached the wall with a 6 m wide gap.[6] There was fierce fighting in the Close, as well as all around the wall, and Russel claimed around 100 were killed and 160 taken prisoner. He also stated his losses were only 14 killed. Prince Rupert caught a musket ball in his foot and some of his other officers were injured. The Royalists retreated and then aimed cannon through the gap in the wall. Russel was now out of ammunition and surrendered the next day. Rupert was anxious to move on to relieve a siege at Reading and his terms of surrender were generous. Russel was allowed with his troops to march to Coventry with their colours, muskets, horses and 11 carts containing valuables taken from the cathedral.[7]

In the 47 days the cathedral and Close were held by the Parliamentarians much was ransacked according to Royalist accounts. Dugdale[8] stated monuments were demolished (67 gravestones robbed of brass-work, five notable tombs wrecked), carved work pulled down (100 coat-of-arms destroyed), windows battered, records of the cathedral destroyed, horses stabled in the church, a guard-room located in the cross-aisle, pavement broken, choir polluted with excrement, a cat hunted with hounds (presumably for betting) and a calf wrapped in linen sprinkled with water from the font in derision of baptism. Lists like this were commonly given for churches damaged in the Civil War and published after the return of the monarchy. Fortunately, Precentor Higgins rescued the St Chad's Gospels and Elias Ashmole regained later other books. Griffith Higgs, Dean of Lichfield 1638-1659, was unlike Dugdale an eyewitness. He confirmed much of Dugdale except the mock baptism and the hunting of cats, but added there was destruction of the font, pulpit and anything with an image of a mitre; these, together with the altar and its rail, were the first targets for destruction at almost all the cathedrals.[9]

 The Close was now entrusted to Colonel Richard Bagot and his Staffordshire regiment of horse and foot and around 700 troops. Senior clergy had left before the siege, but some members, including Precentor Higgins, joined the army. Bagot raised £75 to repair the breached wall, £12 for the drawbridge, £8 for new gates and £8 for an inner tower. £10 was needed for drawing water back into the moat and £15 to make a pond for the horses. Bagot claimed much of the cost, including pay for the troops, came from him. However, between 1643 and 1645 there was a regular and reliable system of taxation. Supplies anticipating another siege were stockpiled and even gunpowder was produced within the Close. Sulphur (brimstone) was the critical ingredient having to be imported from Sicily. Projectiles were fashioned from lead and iron found within the Close. Another 140 men were recruited; clearly a third siege was expected.

Remains of tower at the west gate.

Bagot, with 400 horse, left the garrison and raided Cannock, Stafford and Burton. The regiment gained a reputation as skirmishers and plunderers. In March 1644, Prince Rupert’s army passed through Lichfield on its way to Newark and again with its return. In July, an ammunition train passed through on its way to Stratford-upon-Avon.[10] At this moment, the Royalists were based at Tutbury, Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Lichfield, whilst the Parliamentarians were at Derby, Stafford, Tamworth and Birmingham.

     In May 1645, Bagot left Lichfield with 300 foot and 200 horse to fight at Naseby where on June 14  8,000 Royalists lined up against 14,000 Parliamentarians. Bagot’s foot regiment was in the middle and was slaughtered. 900 Royalists were killed and half the army taken prisoner. Bagot returned to Lichfield with his horse regiment accompanying the king, who stayed one night in the Bishop’s Palace. Bagot was seriously wounded in the arm and he died three weeks later in the Close. Charles I returned to Lichfield in August for two days and in October for one night. Colonel Harvey Bagot replaced his brother and in January 1646 Sir Thomas Tyldesley took command of over 500 soldiers. Despite Naseby they were financially cared for as well as thoroughly prepared for battle.

[1] Accounts differ on this number. T. Lomax, A short account of the City and Close of Lichfield. (Lichfield: 1819) has 4000 troops.

[2] W. Gresley, The siege of Lichfield: A tale illustrative of the Great Rebellion. (London: 1840) thought Russel  had 80 horse and 80 foot.

[3]There are some accounts which believe the dimble on the north side of the Close was on raised ground and could not have had freestanding water from the Curborough Brook like the other three sides. It could have collected rainwater or received piped water. H. Thorpe, ‘Lichfield: a study of its growth and function’. Staffordshire Historical Collection (1950–51), 139–211 has a drawing of Lichfield dated 1640 showing a moat with water on the west, south and east side of the Close. If it was a dry dimble then its shape would have been like an ankle-breaking ditch if it was effectively defensive. N. Ellis and I. Atherton, 'Griffith Higg's account of the sieges of and iconoclasm at Lichfield Cathedral in 1643', Midland History (2009), 34, 2, 233-245 has Minster Pool on the south side and a dry ditch on the other three sides. Yet Rupert builds a bridge across this ditch and Griffiths Higgs, cathedral dean, gives a first-hand account and says the moat was refilled with water after the siege.

[4] A common story is the tunnellers were coal-miners commandeered by a Colonel Hastings from the Cannock area, but they would have had Parliamentarian sympathies. It is possible that many of the men involved were sappers in the Royalist regiment. A round number of 50 is suspicious. For a general account see H. Clayton, ‘Loyal and Ancient City. The Civil War in Lichfield’. (Lichfield, self-published: 1987), 43.

[5] T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806) mentions two tunnels. It was said the besiegers met the besieged in one tunnel and a fight ensued underground.

[6] This was a copy of the undermining of the wall at Breda, Belgium, 1637, in which Prince Rupert helped the Duke of Orange retake the town from the Spanish. To reach Breda town wall they dug covered trenches and added brushwood to the moat, so maybe that is how they reached the wall without being noticed. This was the first landmine in British history.

[7] W. Dugdale, A short view of the late troubles in England. (Oxford: 1681), 560, said Communion plate and linen were taken from the cathedral. Curiously, only 10 carts reached Coventry.

[8] Ibid, 559–60. 

[9] All cathedrals suffered in some way. York Minster got off lightly with its organ being removed. Carlisle lost its west front and most of the nave. Durham suffered badly.. 

[10] It is said Queen Henrietta Maria tried to sell Crown Jewels on the Continent to raise money for buying ammunition. It failed, but then the Parliamentarians later destroyed the jewels.