The Siege of Loyalty House: A new history of the English Civil War

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A dramatic, immersive and thrillingly original account of a defining episode in the English Civil War It was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war. A greater proportion of the British population died in the civil wars of the seventeenth century than in the world wars of the twentieth. Jessie Childs recovers the shock of this conflict by plunging us into one of its most extraordinary episodes- the siege of Basing House. To the parliamentarians, the royalist stronghold was the devil's seat. Its defenders called it Loyalty House. We follow artists, apothecaries, merchants and their families from the revolutionary streets of London to the Marquess of Winchester's mist-shrouded mansion. Over two years, they are battered, bombarded, starved and gassed. From within they face smallpox, spies and mutiny. Their resistance becomes legendary, but in October 1645, Oliver Cromwell rolls in the heavy guns and they prepare for a last stand. Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and the voices of dozens of men, women and children caught in the crossfire, Childs weaves a thrilling tale of war and peace, terror and faith, savagery and civilisation. The Siege of Loyalty House is an immersive and electrifying account of a defining episode in a war that would turn Britain - and the world - upside down.

Reviews

Atmospheric, unflinching and...exquisitely witty * Guardian, *Books of the Year* *
This is war as it should be, passionate, brutal, bloody and chaotic, all described in luscious, evocative prose * The Times, *Books of the Year* *
Jessie Childs is one of the finest historians working today; her illuminating, deeply researched, and beautifully written books are never anything short of superlative, and here she does it again. This is a vivid, thrilling story, rendered in delicious prose and brilliant with gems dug from the archives -- Suzannah Lipscomb
A gripping account of the agony at Basing... Characters step off the page... The prose sparkles... Childs's book conveys the raw emotion of events, especially the trauma of the siege itself... In her aim 'to recover the shock of that experience and to look upon the face of the war' Childs could be describing the trenches of Ypres or Bakhmut or the sieges of Leningrad or Mariupol -- Malcolm Gaskill * London Review of Books *
Compelling... Childs reveals brilliantly the world of the Civil War in the grain of sand that is Basing House. She captures the horror, the courage, the sheer humanity of those, both besiegers and besieged, who endured the long, desperate lulls punctuated by intense episodes of visceral violence * Daily Telegraph *
The Siege of Loyalty House... enriches the packed civil war bookshelf with this elegantly written, close-focus history of a place whose ordeals epitomised the pain of a struggle that tore homes, clans, trades, and souls apart * Financial Times *
A spectacular work of scholarship, this is epic, vital history, sweeping from the great trends and ideas of the time to the individual details of vividly lived lives. This brilliant book takes you into the heart of the Civil War, the brutal struggle for the sympathies of a country, the men who fought, women who tried to survive; this is blood, desire and struggle on the page, taking you deep into the seventeenth century world; you can feel its beating heart -- Kate Williams
Compellingly readable... [a] beautifully written and lucid account * Mail on Sunday *
A thrilling account of Basing House, a royalist stronghold during the English Civil War nicknamed 'Loyalty' and the sieges it withstood until its fall to Oliver Cromwell in 1645 * New York Times *
Riveting... The breaking of such lives and communities makes poignant reading... [Childs's] focus is local and English, but the story is human and timeless * Economist *
Underpinned by meticulous research, this finely crafted narrative unfolds in evocative and often poetic language, transporting readers back to a 'terrifying, electrifying time' and breathing fresh life into the men and women who endured it. * Wall Street Journal *
A perfectly crafted triumph of narrative history... One of the most pulsating books on seventeenth-century England I have read for many years -- Jonathan Healey * The Critic *
In this stunning feat of historical reconstruction, Jessie Childs brings England's brutal civil conflict to life, illuminating the human experience, and human cost, of this devastating war. A work of deep scholarship, The Siege of Loyalty House is gripping, moving, unputdownable -- Thomas Penn
Beautifully written and gripping from first page to last. A sparkling book by one of the UK's finest historians -- Peter Frankopan
A thrilling, immersive read, especially searing in our own tormented and besieged times. Her beautiful writing drops the reader deep in the war, sees it through a cast of extraordinary characters from both sides of the terrible conflict, but most of all, shines with a compassionate understanding of human courage, folly, obstinacy and frailty, at times almost Tolstoyan in its emotional intelligence and literary power -- Simon Schama
She is a gifted narrative historian, eloquent, graceful and witty; the stories she tells are the ones we all should know -- Hilary Mantel
Childs...has a good eye for evocative detail... [The Siege of Loyalty House is a] highly readable account [of the civil war] * Times Literary Supplement *
[Childs's] great strength is her ability to deliver first-rate scholarship in really luscious prose, [and she] uses Basing as a microcosm through which to view the civil war in all its fog and mess * Guardian *
Enthralling ... the sort of coup de thtre that only the most brilliant archival research can pull off ... Few books on the Civil War convey so powerfully the human cost ... All this is done with such clarity and economy that her book doubles as a fine introduction to 1640s England as a whole, quite apart from the engrossing story of Basing House ... A magnificent achievement. Rarely has such fine-grained focus on a single event been used so effectively to open up wider perspectives on that fractious age. And as an account of what it was like to live through the bloodiest and most traumatic decade in England's history, it has few rivals -- John Adamson * Catholic Herald *
Jessie Childs tackles this rolling tragedy with confidence and a clear eye ... There are wonderful character portraits throughout ... successfully brings the ghastliness of the period to life, dramatically, vividly and with pathos -- Charles Spencer * Spectator *

Author Bio

Jessie Childs was born in London in 1976 and read history at Brasenose College, Oxford, where she took a first. Her first book Henry VIII's Last Victim won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. Her second book God's Traitors was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, shortlisted for the Longman-History Today Book Prize, and won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, 2015. Jessie frequently appears on TV and radio, and has written and reviewed for many publications, including the Telegraph, the Guardian, Literary Review, Standpoint and the Times Literary Supplement. She is one of the judges for the 2016 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History. She lives in Hammersmith, London, with her husband and two daughters. www.jessiechilds.com