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The Royalists' last stand
Basing House
20 February 2000
Update, July 2002
The Interim Report of the third post-Time Team excavation season at Basing Grange is now available on the web:
www.hants.gov.uk/museum/archaeology/basingho
We found the Mansion back in 2000, thanks to the Time Team preliminaries; the west wing had a substantial cellar, and the east side of the house an impressive spread of cobbles. The map of 1730, discussed on the programme, has turned out to be a remarkably accurate plot of the site.
We plan to dig there for at least two more years (Easter) and welcome any interest in the site. Incidentally, the most recent work about Basing is Excavations at Basing House, Hampshire, 1978-1991 by Allen, D and Anderson, S, Hants Field Club Monograph 10, 1999 (£15).
Dave Allen
Keeper of Archaeology, Hampshire County Museums Service.
Inside the first Basing House
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In search of the second Basing House
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All panoramic photographs and QTVRs © Steve Shearn at SAS VR.
The earthworks and ruins that make up one of Hampshire's most atmospheric historic locations are all that remain of what was once perhaps the largest private residence in England. Basing House, the palace of the powerful courtier, William Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, was built on the site of a Norman castle. A wealthy and loyal servant of the Tudor monarchs, Paulet's buildings extended from this circular core to cover about 10 acres. The large earthwork banks of the Norman castle still look down on what is left of the Paulet palace.
Here, in its heyday, the grand house played host to both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Mary I and Philip II of Spain spent their honeymoon in the mansion. Its reputed 360 rooms were once reported to have accommodated a party of 1,500 guests of the English sovereign, who were later joined by the Spanish ambassador and his entourage of a further 400 persons.
Defending Basing House. Drawing by Victor Ambrus.
View bigger drawing.
Throughout the 16th century, members of the Paulet family played a key role in the affairs of the English state. But their wealth and status, and their loyalty to the crown, were to prove their undoing. For the Paulets were Catholics, who backed Charles I in the English Civil War. The proximity of Basing House to London, its importance as a fortified base and its possession of a large arsenal combined to make it a threat that the Parliamentarians could not ignore. After withstanding a two-year siege, the trapped Royalists were eventually faced with Cromwell himself, who led a force of 7,000 men to capture the house. After the defeat of the king at Naseby in Leicestershire, in 1645, Cromwell decided to crush the king's supporters at Basing as an example to those holding out in other Royalist strongholds. The house was stormed, and fell to Cromwell's forces, on the night of 14 October.
Time Team was interested in two particular aspects of the site today. First, little remains above ground of the vast palace erected by William Paulet beyond the central Norman earthworks at its core. It had been destroyed and never rebuilt after Cromwell's storming. The Basingstoke canal (infilled during the 1920s), moreover, had also cut through the site. It was hoped that some of the buildings from the time of the Parliamentary attack on the house had survived undamaged below ground. The Team was to investigate a narrow strip of land that had been untouched by the canal's construction to see what, if anything, could be found of the old house there.
Second, the Team was also to investigate a field adjacent to the great barn of Basing, which dates from 1535. The field, separated and hidden from the main road by a well-constructed brick wall, was believed locally to be the site of a second Basing House, which had been built by the Paulet family after their lands were returned following the restoration of the monarchy and Charles II's accession to the throne. Historical references and two old maps, drawn in about 1730, placed the construction of this house in the late 17th or early 18th century.
The Time Team investigations at Basing House were to prove simultaneously exciting and frustrating. The field next to the great barn, where it had been hoped to find evidence of the Paulet family's second Basing House, was to prove unexpectedly reluctant to give up its secrets. Although geophysics surveys revealed that a number of structures had existed there at various times, the precise location of the second Basing House turned out to be defiantly elusive. A series of different features dating from different periods and the presence of a huge amount of rubble in situ made it very difficult to come up with a clear picture of where a second house may have stood. Apart from anything else, it seemed that a lot of the old brick from the fortified house destroyed by Cromwell had been dumped on the site and used to infill what was probably a moat from an older Tudor building.
Stewart Ainsworth concentrated his attentions on trying to line up the likely location of the second Basing House on the basis of features identified on the wall dividing the field from the road. These included two bricked-in gateways. Simon Thurley, from the Museum of London, showed how the carefully moulded brickwork on one of these, indicating the use of highly skilled masonry work on the site, distinguished it from the other. Comparison of the location of this gateway with the drawings on the 18th-century maps allowed some tentative assessments to be made about the alignment and location of the house itself.
Unfortunately, none of the trenches dug in this field provided definitive evidence of the precise location of the house. Mick, in particular, was sceptical about the reliability of the map, certainly with any degree of exactitude. 'It wouldn't be the first time that the archaeology doesn't match up with what it is supposed to be on a piece of paper,' he says. A variety of finds on this site, however, certainly date building and other activity there to the period in which the second Basing House would have been built – including large numbers of dateable clay pipes, the equivalent of modern-day 'fag ends' to the building workers of the time. The position of the house itself, moreover, could be broadly surmised, even if its exaction location, or distance from the gateway, could not.
At Phil's trench, meanwhile, on a strip of land between an old earthwork and where the Basingstoke canal was cut, the excavations revealed more than had been hoped for. Immense foundation stonework suggested that this had been one of the main towers of William Paulet's mansion – the place, no less, where Cromwell's troops had finally forced an entry in the heart of the besieged Royalist stronghold. Evidence was uncovered of a fire that had raged as a result of an untended fireball setting the roof ablaze while the battle went on all around. The roof had eventually collapsed as the Parliamentarians won the day.
Out of this trench came, too, a small lead pistol ball, its shape distorted as a result of it having been fired against some other object. It was of the sort that would have been used in the pistols of the cavalry, who would typically have led the final assault on such a stronghold after dismounting from their horses. Had it struck a wall or a defending soldier's armour? Or had it perhaps mortally wounded a Basing Royalist?
It was hard to believe that this tranquil setting on the edge of modern-day Basingstoke was once a part of the bloody strife that set the English against one another. 'The dispute was long and sharp,' declared The True Informer, a contemporary news sheet the day after Basing House was taken by the Parliamentarians. 'The enemy deserved no quarter and I believe that they deserved what little was offered them. You must remember what they were. They were most of them Papists, therefore our muskets and swords did show but little compassion.'
Quiz
Resources
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Basing House
The Street
Old Basing
Basingstoke RG24 7DA
Tel: 01256 467294
Website: www.hants.gov.uk/museum/basingho/
The ruins of the old and new houses, the riverside walk and the spectacular barn all help to make this an attraction of beauty and charm. The recently re-created 17th century Jacobean garden, with its Tudor walls, which survived the Civil War sieges, enhances this beauty and brings life back again to the long-deserted ruins. To help understand the story and the beautiful but disturbed grounds, visitors can see an exhibition, join occasional guided tours, and watch period demonstrations. Schools and other parties are very welcome and will find the site of great value for a variety of studies. The site manager is available to welcome and lead parties, or assist teachers. Educational material is available on site.
Friends of Basing House
c/o Helen Worgan
10 Priory Gardens
Old Basing
Hampshire RG24 0DS
Tel: 01256 477618
The Friends of Basing House exists to promote and preserve the ruins of Basing House, and stages living history events and organises a series of talks during the winter.
English Civil War Society
70 Hailgate
Howden DN14 7ST
Website: http://english-civil-war-society.org/public_html/index.html
The Fairfax Battalia of the English Civil War Society (ECWS) had the dubious privilege of teaching Phil Harding to handle a pike and Mick Aston a musket as part of a reconstruction of the Parliamentarians' siege of Basing House for the Time Team programme there. The ECWS is a UK-based history re-enactment group with a national membership of around 2,000. This group of friends portrays events of the period 1642-51 for the entertainment and education of the audience at public displays. The society can trace its roots back to 1972 but in its present form dates from 1980, when the two self-governing bodies that represent the opposing Royalist and Parliamentarian sides, the King's Army and the Roundhead Association, agreed to work together on a more formal basis.
King's Army
70 Hailgate
Howden DN14 7ST
The King's Army is organised in eight-foot regiments and one troop of cavalry.
Roundhead Association
c/o Ms Chris Sheldon
382 Wood End Road
Wednesfield
Wolverhampton WV11 1YD
The Roundhead Association (the Parliamentarian army) is organised in four brigades, or battalia, plus support units.
Most of the units for both the King's Army and the Roundhead Association maintain their own websites; links are available from the main ECWS website. Anyone who is unable to join the English Civil War Society as an active participant can still receive regular information about the activities of the ECWS by becoming one of the Friends of the ECWS. Friends receive three newsletters a year.
The Sealed Knot
PO Box 2000
Nottingham
NG2 5LH UK
Tel: 01384 295939
Website: www.sealedknot.org/
Similar to the English Civil War Society, the Sealed Knot, a registered charity, stages numerous events throughout the country, 'offering you the unique chance to experience at first hand the trials of a nation at war with itself'. The Sealed Knot has been heavily involved in education for many years, giving school talks and displays about life in the Civil War throughout the UK. If your school or college is running a project on the Civil War period, the Sealed Knot can provide you with experts on everything from cookery to clothes, education and politics, through to weapons and battle strategies.
Further reading
The Century of Revolution: 1603-1714 by Christopher Hill (Routledge, 1990, £15.99
The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill (Penguin, 1991, £10.99)
God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell by Christopher Hill (Penguin, 1990) £9.99
There is an immense range of books about the English Civil War, but one historian stands out above all others for the range and quality of his work on the subject: Christopher Hill. These three books are but a sample of his immense output over more than half a century of writing on the subject. Since it was first published in 1961, The Century of Revolution has become established as a classic. It tries to penetrate below the familiar events to grasp what happened – to ordinary English men and women as well as to kings and queens or abstractions like society and the State. The World Turned Upside Down looks within the English Revolution of the mid-17th century, which resulted in the triumph of the Protestant ethic – the ideology of the propertied class, to uncover another, quite different, revolution, involving such radical groups as the Diggers and the Levellers. And God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell looks at the man who, more than any other, is most associated with the upheavals of this period.
Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English at war, 1642-1649 by Christopher Hibbert (Harper Collins, 1994) £9.99
This social as well as military history recreates the scenes of civil war in England, between 1642 and 1649, and is enlivened by character sketches not only of the leading participants (Charles I, Prince Rupert, Oliver Cromwell), but also of the numerous lesser characters, male and female, who took part in the desperate conflict.
Other titles include:
The English Civil War by Maurice Ashley (Sutton, 1996) £10.99
The English Civil War by Paul Lewis Isemonger (Sutton, 1994) £9.99
Archaeology of the English Civil War by Peter Harrington (Shire Publications, 1992) £4.99
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