John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester owned the House and as a committed Royalist garrisoned it in support of King Charles I, as it commanded the road from London to the west through Salisbury.

Early in 1644 the Parliamentarians attempted to arrange the secret surrender of Basing House with Lord Edward Paulet, the Marquess of Winchester's younger brother, but the plot was discovered.

The lofty Gate-house, with four Turrets, looking Northwards, on the right hand thereof, without the ditch, a goodly building containing two fair courts; before them was the Grange, severed by a wall and common road, etc.

Some idea of the magnitude of the place may be found when it is remembered that from a survey made in 1798 the area of the works including gardens and entrenchments, covered about fourteen and a half acres.

[2] The siege, which has rendered the name of Basing House famous, commenced in August, 1643, when it was held for the King by John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester, who retired hither in the vain hope that "integrity and privacy might have here preserved his peace" but in this he was deceived, and was compelled to stand upon his guard, which with his gentlemen armed with six muskets he did so well that twice he repulsed the attempts of the "Roundheads" to take possession.

William Faithorne, a pupil of Robert Peake's father was one of the besieged, and has left a clever satirical engraving of Hugh Peters (an enemy at the gate), as well as many other fine portraits.

Other inmates were Inigo Jones, the great architect, and Thomas Fuller, author of the "Worthies of England" who is said to have been engaged on that work at the very time of the Siege, and to have been much interrupted by the noise of cannon.

In the first year of the siege (12 October 1643) the King issued a warrant to the following effect : Charles R. To our right trusty and well-beloved Henry, Lord Percy, general of our ordnance for the present expedition.

Our will and pleasure is, that you forthwith take order for sending to the Marquess of Winchester's House of Basing ten barrels of powder with match and bullets proportionable.

And if any arms have been brought into the magazine, I desire your favour in the furtherance of 100 muskets to be sent with this conveyance, and in so doing yon shall infinitely oblige, my Lord, your Lordship's most affectionate kinsman and humble Servant, Winchester.

[8]Sir William Waller, who was more active than the Earl of Essex, was at that time the favourite of those in the Long Parliament who believed that greater energy would produce more successful results.

[9] What supplies could be procured were hurried forward to his headquarters, and on 7 November he set out to besiege Basing House—Loyalty House, as its owner loved to call it—the fortified mansion of the Catholic John, Marquess of Winchester, now garrisoned by a party of London Royalists.

A third letter from the King, similarly addressed, dated from Oxford, 13 May 1644, gave orders for a thousand weight of match and forty muskets, "to be delivered to such as shall be appointed by the Marquess of Winchester to receive the same, for the use of our garrison at Basinge Castle".

Gardiner's opinion "A selfish and unprincipled man, [who] had gone through the evil schooling of the Irish War",[15] and, falling into the hands of the Parliamentarians upon his landing at Liverpool, he had declared himself willing to embrace their cause.

[16] Matters appear to have continued in this condition until 4 June, when Norton came a second time upon the scene with a force drawn from the neighbouring Parliamentarian garrisons, and closely invested the place, he having, by means of information received from a deserter, two days previously defeated a party of the besieged at Odiham.

[20] The siege was then renewed with great vigour until the latter end of August, when the provisions of the garrison began to fail, and some of the men deserted, upon which the Marquess made an example of one, which seems to have had the effect of preventing, for some time at least, a repetition of the attempt.

[23]Again the siege was prosecuted with increased fury, shot and shell being poured daily into the House, and many of the defenders falling, while famine was at the same time reducing their strength and energy.

[24] An express message was sent from Oxford to Sir William Ogle, instructing him to co-operate with Gage, by entering Basing Park at the rear of the Parliamentarian quarters between four and five o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, 11 September.

[23] With reference to Ogle's conduct in this matter, there is in existence an old song, entitled, "The Royal Feast" a loyal song of the prisoners in the Tower of London, written by Sir Francis Wortley, and sung at the Andover Buck Feast on 16 September 1674, in which occurs these words: The first and chief a marquess is, Long with the state did wrestle, Had Oglo done as much as he They'd spoyled Will Waller's Castle: Ogle had wealth and title got.

[25] Gage, being thus left to his own resources, held a council of war, and at seven o'clock, after a desperate struggle, gained the summit of Cowdery's Down, and, notwithstanding the exhausted condition of his troops, cut his way through the lines of the beleaguering forces.

The attacking forces, being thrown into great disorder, retired to some distance to re-organize themselves, and the opportunity was seized by Gage to collect food and forage for the use of the garrison.

This plan was merely a ruse on the part of Gage to mislead the besiegers as to his intentions, information having reached the House that large bodies of troops had arrived at the villages between Silchester and Kingsclere, with a view to cut off his retreat upon Oxford.

Waller, wearied with twenty-four weeks of unsuccessful attempts upon the place with his army, reduced from 2,000 to 700, while disease was working havoc among the remainder, on hearing of the King's movements determined to retire into winter quarters.

[29] The following winter and summer appear to have passed in comparative quiet the garrison being sufficiently occupied in repairing the damage caused by the enemy's artillery and in the accumulation of provisions against the arrival of another attacking party.

[30] From his capture of Winchester and the surrender of its Castle on 5 October, Cromwell marched to Basing House, to which Colonel John Dalbier—an old German officer who had served under the Duke of Buckingham, and had been equally ready to drill the Parliamentary troops—had for some weeks been laying siege.

He was verily persuaded that he was God's champion in the war against the strongholds of darkness, and as he figured to himself the idolaters and the idols behind the broken wall in front of him, the words, "They that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them", rose instinctively to his lips.

One, a maiden of no ordinary beauty, a daughter of Dr. Matthew Griffith, an Anglican clergyman, expelled from the City of London, hearing her father abused and maltreated (he was wounded but not mortally), gave back angry words to his reviler.

[35] The booty is said to have been worth £200,000, and Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain, in his "Full and last Relation of all things concerning Basing House," speaks of "a bead in one room furnished that cost £1,300".

Peters himself presented to the Parliament in London the Marquess's own colours, which bore the motto of the King's coronation money, "Donee pax redeat terris" ("until peace return to the earth").

The condition of Basingstoke Church, the walls of which are indented with shot on every side, but especially on the south, makes it almost certain that (as is known to have been the case at Alton and at Basing itself) the sacred building afforded a refuge to the troops of one or other army, while their enemies assaulted it.