The port of Lyme Regis, in Dorset, was considered to be of strategic importance because of its position along the main shipping route between Bristol and the English Channel.

Thomas Ceeley and Robert Blake commanded the town's Parliamentarian defences during the siege, which was laid by Prince Maurice between 20 April and 16 June 1644.

At the start of the war, the people of Lyme Regis were predominantly Puritans, and the town was claimed by a pair of local members of parliament and garrisoned for the Parliamentarians.

In April 1644, the First English Civil War had been running for twenty months, since King Charles I had raised his banner in Nottingham and declared the Earl of Essex, and by extension Parliament, traitors.

His reputation grew through the war, and he was put in charge of the Royalist forces in Gloucestershire and south Wales before being made lieutenant general for the south-west, acting as the second-in-command to the Marquess of Hertford.

[6] He spent 1643 campaigning in the region; he took part in the marginal Royalist victory at Lansdowne, the subsequent triumph at Roundway Down, then featured in the capture of Bristol.

[7] In the late 16th century Lyme Regis was a significant port, busier than Liverpool, which provided a link between England and mainland Europe.

[3] The combination of strong Puritan beliefs, and demands from King Charles I for ship money meant that upon the outbreak of the First English Civil War, the town was sympathetic to the Parliamentarian cause.

Two local members of parliament (MP), Thomas Trenchard and Walter Erle claimed Lyme Regis for the Parliamentarians in 1642, and set about fortifying the town.

[9] The expectation was that Lyme Regis could be captured easily;[10] the town was small, populated by 3,000 people at most,[11] located in a valley that would give attackers the high ground, and composed mainly of thatched houses susceptible to fire.

Four blockhouses built primarily of earth and sod, but reinforced with stone and timber were incorporated into the defensive line, with walls 10 to 12 feet (3.0 to 3.7 m) thick.

[14] In The Mariner's Mirror, the Reverend J. R. Powell suggests that Newell's Fort guarded the road to Charmouth, in a location now covered by the sea, due to the coastal erosion suffered by Lyme Regis.

In his history of the conflict in Dorset, Goodwin claims that "the King had sent letters to Prince Maurice warning him 'not to engage himself before Lyme or any other place'".

[21] In contrast, Roberts describes that "the king was determined upon subduing the town" and that he sent "a numerous body of men, and a complete train of artillery, under the command of Prince Maurice.

The next day, the town was restocked with ammunition and food, and reinforced with just over a hundred men from two Parliamentarian ships, the Mary Rose and the Ann and Joyce.

[3] Their efforts drew comparisons to Joan of Arc, and an essay was written by James Strong detailing their achievements, entitled "Joanereidos, or Feminine Valour eminently discovered in West County Women, at the Siege of Lyme, 1644.

[31] Despite orders to lay siege to the King's headquarters at Oxford, the Earl of Essex opted to attempt to reclaim the south-west for the Parliamentarians, first retaking Weymouth, and then marching towards Lyme Regis.

Hearing of the fall of Weymouth, and the impending arrival of the Earl of Essex's relieving army, Maurice abandoned his siege during the night of 14 June.

[32] The 17th-century historian Edward Hyde suggested that Maurice had suffered "some loss of reputation, for having lain so long with such a strength before so vile and untenable a place, without reducing it.

Essex escaped in a fishing boat,[35] while his remaining forces retreated back to Dorset, leaving only Plymouth, Lyme Regis and Taunton under Parliamentarian control in the south-west.

[36] He took no side during the Second Civil War and, three years later, under the Commonwealth of England, he became a general at sea, as one of the three commissioners of the navy, and spent the rest of his life as a naval commander, for which he remains best known.