CASTLE HEROINE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 October 1940, Page 6

CASTLE HEROINE

SHE COMMANDED TWO SIEGES. She is known as the heroine of Corfe Castle, and she deserves the title. The only daughter of Ralph Hawtrey of Ruislip in Middlesex, she became the wife of Sir John Bankes, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. It was the Civil War which brought her misfortune and fame. Sir John had newly purchased Corfe Castle in the Isle of Purbeck, for generations a royal home, and one of the strongest of all English fortresses. There Lady Mary and her children wore living in 1643 when the commissioners of Poole sent 40 seamen to the castle one May day to demand the four cannon mounted on the walls. Sir John was attending King Charles, but Lady Mary was not to be intimidated by the Parliament. Instead of giving up her cannon, she had the gates barred, and mounting the walls she and her few maids together with no more than five men. loaded one of the cannon, and fired it over the upstart seamen, the thunder terrifying those brave fellows so much that they all turned about and ran. By the end of June regular siege was laid to the castle, but in the meantime Lady Mary had taken care to get a good stock of provisions in the castle, not to mention 80 soldiers and a few pieces of cannon. So the siege began in earnest. but. after six weeks the Roundheads could stand no more red hot embers and stones and shots, and scampered off leaving Lady Mary the victor. Two years later Corfe was again besieged. Lady Mary refused to surrender, but a base knave within the walls turned traitor, and she woke one morning to discover the castle in Roundhead hands.

Cromwell treated her as a gallant enemy, and she was allowed io go free?