INTRODUCTION. XiX attract a more than agreeable notice. Whilst Sir Robert was engaged in Parliament, she became an object of suspicion to her loyal neigh- bours, and after repeated minor provocations and threatenings, the plundering of his park of deer and game, and the withholding of his rents, the castle was surrounded by the soldiers of the royalists or " malignants," under Sir William Vavasour and Colonel Lingen.a a Letter Celli. Shut up now in Brampton Castle with her children, and neighbours " who resorted thither to keep themselves from the plunder and vil- lanous usage then the practice of the Cavaliers,"b with the advice of b MS. Notice of Rectors. Dr. Nathaniel Wright, a physician of Hereford, frequently in attend- ance upon her, and who now, with his wife, took up his quarters there, and devoted himself and his money to the cause, and that of a veteran, sent to her by Colonel Massey from Gloucester, and her own ser- vants, she defended it with a prudence and valour worthy of her distinguished family. The siege commenced 25 July, 1643, "on a day on which she and her young children were engaged in prayer and humiliation for the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judg- ment then justly feared," and continued for six weeks; when the besiegers, alarmed by the operations in and about the Forest of Dean, were hurried off to the neighbourhood of Gloucester. " The first stroke of the Cavaliers in the siege was upon a poor aged blind man, who was without any provocation killed in the street. "e e MS. Notice During the siege, " the cook was shot by a poisoned bullet, and of Rectors. a running stream that furnished the village was poisoned." The church, parsonage house, and dwelling houses, together with the mill about a quarter of a mile off; with the buildings belonging to the castle, were all destroyed: and early in the following year, Sir dSeetheJournal Michael Woodhouse, governor of Ludlow (having been successful of the Siege of I3opton Castle, in his brutal attack on Hopton Castle,d which in its distress had re- by S. More, Esq. B ceived assistance from Brampton Castle,) came before it again, when, keway's in Hist. la of Sheriffs 2 after a gallant defence made by the servants, under Dr. Wright's 16hr22o p
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