The sieges of Taunton were a series of three blockades during the First English Civil War. The town of Taunton, in Somerset, was considered to be of strategic importance because it controlled the main road from Bristol to Devon and Cornwall. Robert Blake commanded the town's Parliamentarian defences during all three sieges, from September 1644 to July 1645.
The first siege was laid by Edmund Wyndham on 23 September, and was primarily composed of Royalist troops from local Somerset garrisons. After initial assaults drove Blake and his troops back into Taunton Castle, the blockade was conducted from away, and concentrated more on starving the garrison than continued attacks. The town was relieved by a force under James Holborne on 14 December.
Over the next three months, Blake was able to establish a network of earthen defences in Taunton, including a basic perimeter and several forts. The Royalists began the second, and bloodiest, siege in late March 1645, initially under Sir Richard Grenville. A series of disputes between the Royalist commanders allowed Taunton some respite at the start of the siege, but in May the attacks were fierce under the command of Sir Ralph Hopton. After five days of intense fighting, which had once again driven the defending army back to a small central perimeter including the castle, the Royalists retreated in the face of a Parliamentarian relief army commanded by Ralph Weldon.
Lord Goring, who had proposed the second siege, renewed the blockade for a third time in mid-May, after engaging Weldon's departing army and forcing it back into Taunton. Goring's siege was lax and allowed provisions into the town, diminishing its effectiveness. The Parliamentarian defence tied up Goring and his 10–15,000 troops, who would have otherwise been available to fight for King Charles at Naseby, where historians believe they could have tipped the battle in favour of the Royalists.Barratt 2004, p. 115.Memegalos 2007, p. 269. Instead, after securing a Parliamentarian victory at Naseby, Thomas Fairfax marched his army to relieve Taunton on 9 July 1645.
Background Loyalties in Somerset were divided at the start of the First English Civil War; many of the prominent landowners and those living in the countryside favoured King Charles I, but most of the towns, including Taunton, were Parliamentarian, predominantly due to their Puritan beliefs. By August 1642, the town was held by a small Parliamentarian force.Toulmin & Savage 1822, p. 410. In June the following year, Sir Ralph Hopton led his Royalist army, consisting of eighteen regiments equally split between foot and cavalry, out of Cornwall and into Somerset. He forced the surrender of Taunton to the King without engaging in battle, and established a garrison in Taunton Castle.
In mid-1644, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, the Chief Commander of the Parliamentary army, decided to reclaim the West Country. He moved through Dorset, retaking Dorchester and Weymouth, and then left the coast and headed towards Chard. At the time, Taunton was held by a garrison of 800 men commanded by Colonel John Stawell, but the proximity of the Earl of Essex's army led the town to be abandoned, leaving only 80 men to defend the castle. The historian Robert Morris, in The Sieges of Taunton 1644–1645, suggests that Stawell and his men retreated to Bridgwater,Morris 1995, pp. 4–5. but in The History of the Rebellion, the 17th-century historian Edward Hyde claims that the troops were requisitioned by Prince Maurice during his retreat from Lyme Regis to Plymouth.Hyde 1816, p. 680.
On 8 July 1644, the Earl of Essex sent a Parliamentarian force, led by Colonel Sir Robert Pye with Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blake as his second in command, to reclaim Taunton.Ellison 1936, p. 13. They took the town without a fight, and surrounded the castle.Morris 1995, p. 5. The Royalist forces under Major William Reeve that were garrisoned at Taunton Castle surrendered and retreated to Bridgwater.Toulmin & Savage 1822, p. 412. Pye left Taunton shortly after the capture, leaving Blake to hold the town. Blake had an army of about 1,000 men, and was charged with trying to blockade the roads to support the Earl of Essex's campaign in Devon and Cornwall.
Sieges
First siege
The Earl of Essex's campaign failed, suffering a total defeat at the Battle of Lostwithiel in early September 1644. His remaining forces retreated back to Dorset, leaving only Plymouth, Lyme Regis and Taunton under Parliamentarian control in the South West. Blake was aware of the vulnerability of Taunton, which, unlike many towns and cities of the time, did not have any town walls.Ellison 1936, p. 11. On the eastern side of the town, which was the most vulnerable, he dug trenches outside the Eastern gate and erected a barricade across the street within it. At least three earthen forts were also built in that end of town. King Charles I held council in Chard, and shortly after ordered a Royalist force numbering 3,000 troops to set up the first siege of Taunton.Bush 1977, p. 76. Initially, Sir Francis Dodington was going to command the attack, but the only available men were those in Bridgwater under the command of Colonel Edmund Wyndham.
The siege began on 23 September 1644.Wickenden 1947, p. 85. Wyndham was assisted in the attack by his brother, Francis Wyndham, who brought his garrison from Dunster Castle, and Edward Rodney, who commanded an infantry regiment.Morris 1995, p. 6. The Royalist forces initially set themselves up around the town, where they were able to use their artillery to bombard the castle from the west and the town from the east. In his record of the siege, Morris claims that the besieging forces were unable to establish a presence in the town, and set up a wide perimeter roughly away. However, almost all other sources agree that after initial skirmishes, the Royalists broke through the eastern defences and forced Blake's troops back into the castle itself.Minnitt 1981, p. 123.
During the siege, Edmund Wyndham and Blake exchanged letters; Wyndham initially wrote to explain that he felt the siege was a gentle method of attack, rather than using "fire and sword". He offered generous terms for surrender, and signed the letter "Your well-wishing Neighbour and Country-man"; the pair had served as members of parliament together for Bridgwater in 1640. Blake was unmoved, and wrote back to unequivocally reject the offer. Blake sent skirmishing parties out against the attackers with some success,Toulmin & Savage 1822, p. 413. though food and ammunition began to run out for the defending troops. To further this, Wyndham heavily rationed the town's population to prevent them smuggling food to the garrison. A petition to Parliament for help was answered when Sir William Waller, who commanded the Parliamentarian army in Wiltshire, sent a force of 3,000 men under the command of his deputy, Major General James Holborne, in support of the town.Venning 2015, p. 163.
Wyndham had initially planned to attack Holborne's forces at Chard, but instead retreated back to his garrison at Bridgwater on 14 December. He recorded that during his retreat, "the enemy sallied upon me but they were so hungry that they could not follow me." The day after the arrival of Holborne, a supply caravan containing food, 2,000 muskets and 40 barrels of gunpowder restocked the town.Wickenden 1947, p. 86. Fearing further Royalist assaults, Holborne provided 1,000 of his own men as reinforcements for the town's defence.
Second siege In early 1645, Blake sent raiding parties out from Taunton that, according to Hyde, controlled a large area and disrupted activities throughout Somerset.Hyde 1816, p. 796. Around that time, Lord Goring, the lieutenant-general of the south-eastern counties in the Royalist army, requested troops from the King so that he could mount a "large-scale southeastern campaign".Memegalos 2007, pp. 222–225. His request was rejected, and he was despatched to the South West instead. He duly changed his focus, electing to target first Weymouth, and then Taunton, both Parliamentarian strongholds in the area. He took Weymouth, but was unable to hold it in the face of Parliamentarian reinforcements. In a letter he received from the King shortly after that loss, he was ordered to gather the Royalist forces of the area together in order to "[clear] those parts of the rebels' forces."
The King sent orders for Sir Richard Grenville and John Berkeley to support Goring in the attack on Taunton. Goring arrived outside Taunton on 11 March, and a sizeable part of Berkeley's garrison from Exeter arrived soon after. Grenville did not leave his siege of Plymouth and, coupled with the threat from a Parliamentarian force formed by Waller and Oliver Cromwell combining their armies in Hampshire, the attack on Taunton was postponed.Venning 2015, p. 178. After further urging from the King and the Prince of Wales, Grenville did eventually travel up towards Taunton and was ordered to follow Goring to support the King in the north, as Grenville's force of 3,000 men was considered too small to assault Taunton.Granville 1908, pp. 117–119. He refused, claiming that "he had promised the commissioners of Devon and Cornwall, that he would not advance beyond Taunton",Hyde 1816, pp. 799–800. while also boasting that he could claim the town in ten days. He was delegated command of the siege,Venning 2015, p. 181. and arrived outside Taunton on 2 April. Only a day after his arrival, Grenville was injured while attacking Wellington House, and as the wound was serious, he was carried to Exeter.
The blockade set by Grenville was initially some distance from the town, and did not prevent Blake from sending and receiving messages.Wickenden 1947, pp. 86–87. The besieging army was reinforced soon after with Goring's infantry and artillery units,Hyde 1816, p. 801. and so, with a large force, the attackers closed in on the town, establishing entrenchments within musket-shot of Taunton's defences. Command of the siege passed to Berkeley, though Grenville's troops often failed to follow the new commander's orders, and some of them deserted.Memegalos 2007, p. 243. Despite Grenville's retirement from the battle due to injury, he and Berkeley clashed; Grenville complained to the Prince of Wales that Berkeley was conducting the siege badly, while Berkeley claimed that Grenville had given his men orders to desert.Memegalos 2007, p. 247. These disagreements led Hopton, by now the commander of the Royalist forces in the West Country, to be given command of the siege.Ellison 1936, p. 14.Purkiss 2006, p. 438.
As the siege continued, supplies once again began to run out for the defending army, and Parliament identified the relief of Taunton as being a priority. On 28 April, they ordered Thomas Fairfax, the Commander in Chief of the recently established New Model Army, to relieve the town.Ellison 1936, p. 15. Fairfax marched with the whole of his army towards Taunton; the Royalists considered sending their own army to meet him before he could reach London, but Prince Rupert convinced them instead to focus on conquering the north of England.Hibbert 1993, p. 201. In response to the Royalist movement north, Fairfax split his own army in two, sending a force of between 6,000 and 7,000 on to Taunton under Colonel Ralph Weldon, while Fairfax led the rest north.