The Siege of Tiverton begins 1645

After his setback at Sourton Down, Sir Ralph Hopton won a stunning victory for the king in Cornwall at Stratton. Thereafter, apart from Plymouth, Devon was free of Parliamentarian soldiers for two years. By 1645, however, King Charles I had been doing badly throughout the rest of England. In September the key port of Bristol surrendered to Parliament. With Bristol captured and the king’s army routed at Naseby, Parliament felt able to send forces into Devon once again. They put in command of the campaign their most feared commanders, Lord Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell.

On 17 October the columns of Fairfax’s army were seen approaching Tiverton. The Royalist garrison abandoned the town as being too weak to be defended and retired into the castle. Fairfax and his men entered the town, took up lodgings and at once began to reconnoitre the castle and its defences. The castle of Tiverton had been built in 1106 and although it had been regularly updated since, it was far from being a modern or a powerful fortress. By 1645 modern artillery was able to smash even the stoutest stone walls given enough time and ammunition. All the garrison could hope to do was hold out until either help came or the Parliamentarians gave up and left. Neither was very likely.

By noon on 18 October Fairfax had got his artillery into position both here and on the west bank of the Exe, so that his fire could attack both sides of the castle at once. The gunners opened fire immediately, but one of the first buildings to be hit was not the castle, but the nearby Church of St Peter. A chantry chapel, famously the finest in Devon, was reduced to rubble. Such damage obviously did not bother Fairfax’s gunners too much for the church continued to take hits from cannon balls.

Despite the pounding they were receiving, the Royalists held firm. According to the conventions of the day a garrison was given two chances to negotiate a surrender. The first came when the attackers first arrived. At this point an agreement might be reached to surrender by a specified date unless help arrived. This would avoid the need for any actual fighting and was often welcomed by both sides. If an early date was agreed, it was usual for the garrison to be granted generous terms, perhaps allowing them to leave with their weapons and possessions so that they could rejoin their army elsewhere. If the attackers were faced by a long delay, however, they might insist that the garrison be taken prisoner. The details could be many and varied, and the talks could drag on for days. At Tiverton the garrison refused to negotiate at all, so a fighting siege was begun.