Summary. A Parliamentarian army occupied The Close from 6 March 1642. On 7th April, Prince Rupert’s Royalist regiment arrived. The northwest wall was breached with a tunnel filled with gunpowder. After fighting in The Close, the Parliamentarians surrendered after 47 days occupation. The cathedral had been ransacked.
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.
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| 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. His actions were considered to have been reckless. He moved on to Walsall and Cannock before finally reaching Lichfield on 7 April, 1643.
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| 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, ‘Fortress cathedral, 1640’
for the best idea of the layout of the fortification.
AI rendition of Rupert's Blewcoat army with cannon superimposed on Rupert's Mound. It seems a good distance from 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. Rupert was
joined by soldiers led by Henry Hastings and by the Earl of Northampton. A new
tactic was needed, so Rupert’s troops drained the moat on the northwest 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]
North wall of the cathedral fortress showing were the breech occurred. It is likely this point along the wall had the shallowest moat being on the highest ground, Furthermore, the wall did not have houses against the wall and giving it greater strength,
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]
AI rendition of Prince Rupert’s Blewcoat foot soldiers
entering the breached wall with opposition from Parliamentarian musketeers.
Rupert appears calmly directing the fighting, but was shot in the foot.
AI image of cathedral close fighting.
For 47 days the cathedral and
Close were held by the Parliamentarians, and much was ransacked according to
Royalist accounts. Dugdale[8]
stated monuments were demolished, carved work pulled down, 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. Griffith Higgs, Dean of Lichfield 1638–1659, was a
Royalist and admirer of Prince Rupert. He confirmed much of the iconoclasm
listed by Dugdale, but does not mention the mock baptism or the hunting of
cats. He does add the organ, font and pulpit were destroyed; 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; a third
siege was expected.
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 200 men to fight at Naseby where on June 14th, 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. A plaque in the
cathedral records he died on 1 July 1645,
Colonel Richard Bagot who became governor of Lichfield Cathedral. Acknowledgement Staffordshire Past Track, Staffordshire County Record Office.
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. A third
siege was now anticipated.
[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. Another account has Minster Pool on the
south side and the whole dimble as a ditch. See N. Ellis and I. Atherton,
‘Griffith Higg’s accounts of the sieges of and iconoclasm at Lichfield
Cathedral in 1643’, Midland History, (2009), 34, 2, 233–245. Rupert
builds a bridge across the moat 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.
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