Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle

Ashby-de-la-Zouch has an historic 15th century castle which was formerly owned by the Hastings family. It was one of many sleighted by Cromwell's forces in the English Civil War. Underground passages run beneath its grounds which are accessible to the public. It is now managed by English Heritage. ashby-de-la-zouch castle personal photograph File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... ashby-de-la-zouch castle personal photograph File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Market Street Ashby-de-la-Zouch Ashby-de-la-Zouch (formerly also Ashby-de-la-Zouche) is a small market town in the North West Leicestershire district of the county of Leicestershire, England. ... The main gatehouse of Harlech Castle, Wales. ... The term English Civil War (or Wars) refers to the series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. ... English Heritage is a United Kingdom government body with a broad remit of managing the historic environment of England. ...

Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have Stayed in the castle on two separate occasions while being moved around the country. Mary I of Scotland (Mary Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots; December 8, 1542 – February 8, 1587) was the Queen of Scots (the monarch of the Kingdom of Scotland) from December 14, 1542 to July 24, 1567 and Queen Consort of France from July 10, 1559 to December...

The Ashby Garrison in the Civil War, 1642-1646

During the Civil War Ashby-de-la-Zouch was the most troublesome royalist garrison in the county, a real ‘thorn’ in the side of Parliament. This formidable stronghold was the seat of the Hastings family and a strategic base for royalist raiding parties and flying armies. Colonel Henry Hastings, the earl of Huntington, the leader of the East midlands forces, had executed the King’s commission of array in Leicester on 18thJune, 1642, swearing at the very start of hostilities that he was ‘the King’s body and soul’. Hastings gained early support from the more enthusiastic royalist gentry and clergy in the region when ‘the cavaliers and the rest of the soldiers joining with the rude multitude, and about 24 parsons in canonical coats, well horsed’ rode into Leicester loudly proclaiming their allegiance to the king. Such provocative activities soon led to his being identified as a ‘notorious delinquent’, and to his impeachment in the Commons for high treason on August 13th, 1642. Later that same year in a report from Hinckley, Hastings, (unflatteringly described as ‘that noble or rather notable thief’) leading a small force from Belvoir-Worton house, ‘coursed about the country as far as Dunton and Lutterworth and took near upon a hundred of the clergymen and others, and carried them prisoners … threatening to hang all them that should take the Parliament’s Covenant’. [Nichols III, Part ii, Appendix, pg 33] The clergy made easy targets as hostages for ransom. Similar plundering raids against carriers to get provisions for the Ashby garrison earned Hastings his fearsome reputation as ‘Rob carrier’.

In January 1644, with Colonel Isham Perkins appointed governor commanding some 400 troops, Ashby is described by the royalist Richard Symonds in his famous notebook as ‘my lords cheife garrison’ [Harleian MS 986 fo 96]. However by this date the tide of war was turning against the king’s forces and by August, 1644 Ashby and Newark were the only two royalist garrisons still holding out against Parliament in the east midlands. In a letter read before Parliament, Captain Hacker, one of the Leicester committee men wondered, 'what's become of general Hastings and his crew of rob-carriers?' It seems that most of Hastings' men had been lost 'except the standing garrison at Ashby .... his garrison at Ashby, it appears, is but weak... a party from Leicester the last week went and forced them to the town side, drove away many of their beasts and cattle, and not a man came out against them' [Nichols, pg 38]. In November, that same year, there are further reports of ‘the blocking up of Ashby’ and of increasingly desperate raids by the garrison to obtain provisions and levies from the surrounding villages. In February 1645, for instance, one expedition, commanded by Colonel Hastings went out to get hay but was surprised by Captain Temple the high sheriff of the county ‘who got between them and Ashby in the van’… forcing Hastings’ men to flee, causing them to lose ‘40 of them taken prisoners, 60 horse arms and all their hay’.[Nichols, pg 40]

A parliamentary newsletter, The Perfect Diurnal, of November 14th, 1644, describes Ashby’s earthworks and fortifications in some detail: ‘the enemy are very strong, and their works good; they have vaults under the ground, through which they can go from one fort to another at their pleasure; provisions they have good store; hung beef plenty round about their kitchen within, and have lately been killing and salting of more.’

The newsletter goes on to describe a nest of ‘malignants’ or royalist sympathisers, a motley horde of rogues and renegade clergymen, ‘as debased wicked wretches there as if they had been raked out of hell’, men who would ‘cozen and cheat one another, steal one another’s horses and ride out and sell them’. The garrison had even developed their own devilish style of greeting one another, ‘if they affirm or deny a thing it is usual to do it with the saying, “the devil suck my soul through a tobacco pipe” … no wonder, they have three malignant priests there such as will drink and roar, and domineer and swear as well as ever a Cabb of them all’. With such a large, unsettled population (estimated by the king’s quartermaster Richard Symonds at the end of May 1645, to have swollen to around 600 men, including soldiers from outlying villages and other fallen garrisons) there was naturally some squabbling and religious conflict… ‘there are also many Irish there, who have lately made a new fort, a very strong work… called the Irish fort; who have been bold upon some clashing between them and those that profess themselves to be Protestants in Ashby garrison’ [Nichols, pg 39, Symonds’ notebook, Harleian MS 911, cited in Nichols, pg 45].

On September 27th 1645, the news sheet, Mercurius Verdicus records that Ashby is ‘closely besieged …the town is much visited with the sickness; and in the garrison or fort is said to be not above 60 men’. Ashby continued to suffer reverses from night raids. A few weeks later, on Saturday, 31st January, 1646 ‘about 12 of the clock, came a party of horse and dragoons into the town of Ashby, plundered the mercers, saddlers, and cutlers shops, and the Jews of their horses…No gentlemen taken and few or none other’. A week later, on February 7th a party of 80 horse and 40 dragoons under the command of Major Meeres is reported to have entered Ashby by night, ‘suddenly surprised the centinels, fell-in at the turnpike, broke the chain and entered the town, took near 100 of the enemy’s horse … took store of arms and more pillage, released divers prisoners and some countrymen, whom the enemy had taken for ransoms … and returned to Leicester without the least molestation’. [Nichols, pp 40, 64-65]

The fall of the Ashby garrison on 2nd March, 1646 was heralded by Vicars ‘a great mercy and mighty preservation of the peace and tranquillity of those adjacent parts about it, for which let God have due praise and glory’. The conditions attached to the surrender were indeed remarkably generous, ‘too good conditions indeed, for such a desperate and wicked Rob-carryer as Hastings was, but that the kingdom may be glad to be rid of such wretches’. Although provisions were made for dismantling the defences, Hastings and his brother and Colonel Perkins were given protection and allowed to keep their estates unsequestrated. In fact governor Perkins is included on a list of 18 royalists who compounded for their estates on the slighting of Ashby. [Nichols, pg 66; Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, Part I, pg 112].

Notes on the Remains of the Castle

The medieval castle, with its Norman keep, is surrounded with various earthworks including the Mount House that stands to the east of the castle, a fortified outpost which provided separate accommodation for Irish troops during the Civil War, to avoid possible religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant members of the garrison. We can still see traces of the underground passages which were dug to improve communications from the kitchen to the Mount House, linking the kitchen with Hastings Tower.

The terms of surrender were remarkably generous. Although there were provisions for ‘slighting’ of the castle, none of the principal buildings appear to have been damaged. A meeting of the Committee of the House of Commons sitting at Leicester in November 1648 on hearing that Hastings Tower was still habitable and defensible, resolved that the fortifications be ‘forthwith slighted and made untenable’. The following year sections of the walls of the main tower and kitchen buildings were undermined and levelled with gunpowder.

Documentary Sources:

Notebooks of Richard Symonds, Harleian MSS, 911, 986. John Nichols, Antiquities of the County of Leicester, Vol. III, Part ii, Appendix, pp 17-69. (here cited as Nichols). P.R.O. Calendars of the Committee for Compounding

© Alan Roberts, 2004