First siegeLady Blanche Arundell First siegeSir Edward HungerfordWilliam Strode 1643 1644 1645 1646 Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, England, was besieged twice during the First English Civil War; once in May 1643, and then again between November 1643 and March 1644.

[3] Wardour Castle is in southwest Wiltshire between the villages of Donhead St Andrew and Tisbury, around 15 miles (24 km) west of Salisbury.

[5] The castle was subsequently confiscated by the Crown, and then bought back in 1570 by Sir Matthew Arundell,[6] who oversaw its conversion to more of a stately home, work that made it less defensible.

[3] Despite these modifications, the castle remained a significant fortification, and was described by the 17th century antiquarian John Aubrey as being "very strongly built of freestone".

[3] On 2 May 1643, Sir Edward Hungerford, the Parliamentarian commander-in-chief for the county of Wiltshire,[8] arrived at Wardour Castle and ordered its surrender, as it was claimed to be a known refuge of Royalists (described contemporarily as "cavaliers and malignants").

[10] Hungerford, finding that the castle was stronger than he had expected, added reinforcements to his force: troops out of Somerset commanded by Colonel William Strode.

Alongside Lady Arundell, who was aged 60, was her daughter-in-law (Cicely) with her three young children, and around fifty servants, including the guards and soldiers.

Accounts from Royalists and Parliamentarians vary on the effectiveness of the siege: Bruno Ryves, a Royalist propagandist, described that due to attacks which continued throughout day and night, the castle inhabitants were "so distracted between hunger and want of rest, that when the hand endeavoured to administer food, surprised with sleep it forgot its employment, the morsels falling from their hands".

[3] Lady Arundell initially rejected the terms of surrender offered, which gave quarter to the women and children, but not the men.

[14] The first challenge to the castle was posed by the Earl of Marlborough, who had men posted at Lord Cottington's house in nearby Fonthill Gifford.

Both offered generous terms for the surrender of the castle to the Royalists, but in each case Ludlow refused, saying that he was "resolved to run all hazards in the discharge of that trust which I had undertaken".

The Royalists attempted to retake the castle by infiltrating the garrison with a young boy, reckoned by Ludlow to be "not above twelve years of age."

[27] In December, Hopton sent Sir Francis Dodington with further reinforcements to aid in capturing the castle, including an engineer and some miners with him from the Mendip Hills.

Two versions of the event are offered: Ludlow relates that when one of his large artillery guns fired, it caused one of the matches left burning by the Royalists to fall into the powder of the mine and detonate it.

[31] In Lise Hull's 2006 book, Britain's Medieval Castles, she says that one member of the Parliamentarian garrison "unwittingly tossed a match into the tunnel where a mine lay hidden".