Blackwell Reference Online

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Blanche, Lady Arundel, a Royalist supporter of Charles I, is counted among the heroes of the English Civil War and stands as a heroine in English folklore and Catholic annals. In May 1643 during the early days of the English Civil War, Lady Blanche, then about 60 years old, held Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, England, during a six-day siege against 1,300 Parliamentary troops led by Sir Edward Hungerford. Parliamentary forces, also derisively known as Roundheads, had been dispatched to the largely Royalist West Country supposedly to maintain order. Hunger-ford demanded the surrender of Wardour Castle, claiming it sheltered “cavaliers and malignants” so that its money and resources were forfeited to Parliamentary use ( Plowden 1998 : 34). Lady Blanche's husband Thomas, the second Lord Arundel of Wardour and a declared member of Charles I's Cavaliers, had taken most of his able men to fight with the king at Oxford, leaving Lady Blanche, her daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren with little protection. Citing her husband's order to hold the castle, however, Lady Blanche refused to surrender and instead organized and commanded the remaining 25 men of her garrison to hold the castle and had her ladies-in-waiting carry food and bullets to the men at their posts. After six days of siege, with her men falling asleep at their posts, and artillery preparing to breach the castle, Lady Blanche ... log in or subscribe to read full text