The year was 1643, and all across England the land was rumbling with discontent, clanking armour, and the occasional enthusiastic bellow of “For King Charles!” or “For Parliament!” depending on whether the bellow-er was a Royalist or had simply been drinking in the wrong tavern and found himself conscripted.
In the midst of this very English chaos stood Corfe Castle, tall, proud, and very slightly drafty. It had seen centuries of kings and queens come and go, had housed treasure, prisoners, and, on one memorable occasion, an unusually large shipment of barrels that turned out to be beer rather than gunpowder, which made everyone much happier.
And now it was under the care of one Lady Mary Bankes.
Mary Bankes had not set out to be a warrior. She had set out to be a lady, which in 17th-century Dorset meant keeping house, managing servants, and sighing delicately while arranging flowers. But then civil war had broken out, her husband Sir John had trotted off with the king’s army, and Mary found herself left in charge of one of the most important castles in the south of England … along with its garrison, stores, armoury, and more servants than you could shake a stick at.
This was fine with Mary. She was practical, intelligent, and possessed of a backbone that could have been used as a battering ram if the need arose.
It began, as many great stories do, with a letter.
The letter was written in a self-important hand and delivered by a Parliamentarian envoy who was trying very hard not to look impressed by the castle.
“Surrender the castle in the name of Parliament,” it read,
“and no harm will come to you, your children, or your furniture.”
Mary read it, sniffed, and then read it aloud to her household, who had gathered in the hall to hear the latest news.
“Furniture?” she said. “What do they think we are, savages?”
Her steward coughed. “They may be concerned about the chairs, my lady. They’re quite fine oak.”
Mary ignored him. “Tell them we shall not surrender. Tell them Corfe Castle stands for the King.”
The envoy, looking rather nervous now, bowed and left.
“Well,” said Mary, turning to her assembled company. “That’s that. They’ll be back with cannon, of course. But we shall be ready.”
Her garrison cheered, although one of them, a man named Geoffrey with a suspicious squint, muttered something about not having enough powder for more than a week.
“Then we’ll throw rocks,” Mary said cheerfully. “And boiling water. And if all else fails, I’ll throw my embroidery at them.”
This caused a ripple of laughter and lifted everyone’s spirits.
When the Parliamentarians returned, they came with muskets, cannon, and an assortment of siege ladders that looked as though they had been borrowed from the local thatcher.
“Fire!” cried their commander, and the first cannonball smashed into the outer walls with a crash.
Inside, Mary calmly walked along the battlements, skirts swishing, directing her men and occasionally picking up a musket herself.
“Good shot, Henry,” she said as one of the garrison hit a soldier attempting to climb the wall. “Aim for the one with the red sash next. He looks far too pleased with himself.”
For six weeks the siege dragged on. Cannonballs thudded, muskets cracked, and Mary’s garrison hurled insults almost as often as they hurled rocks.
At one point, running low on ammunition, Mary ordered the servants to gather every stone, brick, and heavy object in the castle that wasn’t nailed down. This led to a brief but heated argument about whether the good pewter could be thrown at Parliamentarians.
“It’s either them or us,” Mary said.
So out went the pewter.
Eventually, the Parliamentarians, frustrated and slightly bruised, decided to withdraw.
Mary stood atop the gatehouse, waving them off with a handkerchief.
“Do write again!” she called cheerfully, as if they had merely been visiting for tea.
When they were gone, she turned to her household. “Well done, all of you. Now let’s clean up this mess before my husband comes home and thinks we’ve been hosting a bear-baiting match.”
Unfortunately, Parliamentarians were persistent creatures. By 1645 they were back again, this time with more men, more cannon, and a determination that was frankly un-English in its refusal to admit defeat.
This time they used treachery.
One of Mary’s servants, a fellow named Colonel Pitman (a name that rather gave away his Parliamentarian sympathies), turned traitor and let the attackers in through a side gate.
Mary was in the great hall when the alarm was raised. She snatched up a pistol, shouted for her children to be taken to safety, and ran to the inner ward.
“Hold them back!” she cried. “For the King!”
And hold them back they did.
For hours they fought room by room, corridor by corridor, hurling down staircases, slamming doors, and generally making the Parliamentarians’ job extremely unpleasant.
At one point Mary, out of ammunition, flung a silver candlestick at an officer’s head with such force that he had to be carried away.
But numbers told in the end. The Parliamentarians flooded the castle like ants, and at last Mary was cornered in the keep.
“Will you surrender?” their commander asked.
Mary, exhausted but still standing straight, nodded. “Yes. But on my terms.”
“What terms?”
“That no harm shall come to my household. And that I may keep what’s left of my pewter.”
The commander, who had been on the receiving end of said pewter during the first siege, agreed at once.
And so Corfe Castle fell … one of the last Royalist strongholds in the south to do so.
After the war, Parliament ordered the castle to be “slighted” … blown up so that it could never be used again.
Mary watched as they packed gunpowder beneath the walls. She wept a little, but privately, because she was Mary Bankes and not about to give the Parliamentarians the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
When the great explosion came, rocks rained down across the countryside and the once-mighty towers of Corfe were reduced to broken teeth.
Mary returned to her husband’s estate, her dignity intact, her children safe, and her name forever remembered as the woman who had stood against Parliament …. not once, but twice.
In the years that followed, people spoke of her with awe and admiration.
“She defended Corfe Castle with just five servants!” some said.
“With boiling water!” said others.
“With pewter plates!” added another.
The truth, as always, lay somewhere in between.
But there was no denying that Mary Bankes had done something extraordinary.
And as she grew older, whenever visitors came to pay their respects, she would smile, pour them a cup of tea, and say,
“Yes, I did defend the castle. But if you ask me, the real hero was the candlestick !!.”
( I write these snippets to encourage curiosity and travel. I hope I have succeeded. If so, please ‘like and share’. Thank you.)
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