Was Lady Mary at the Surrender Corfe Castle?
While there is no doubt that in the early stages of the Civil War, Lady Mary Bankes was present at Corfe and took part in its defense, new evidence suggests that she did not see out the siege until the bitter end. For when he wrote to parliament about the successful, bloodless seizure of Corfe, Colonel Bingham put this down to “gods good grace.” No mention is made of Lady Mary Bankes at all. This absence is because Lady Mary may well have already abandoned Corfe.
Records from the Parliamentary Committee for Compounding with Delinquents- the body that managed the reparations paid by royalist families- show that on July 16, 1645, William Lenthall, the Speaker of the House issued a pass to Lady Mary and two of her daughters so that they could travel to London petition from their lands. Lady Mary’s household accounts for the period have remained preserved in the records of the Bankes’ family. A recent review of them suggests that when Corfe fell, Lady Mary was still in London, trying to salvage something of her family’s fortune. Other official records confirm this. They show that officials told Lady Mary that her estate would not be settled until after Corfe’s surrender.
Other records suggest, however, suggest Lady Mary may have left Corfe as early as December 1644 when her husband Sir John was killed. Receipts from the Bankes family archive show that at that time she was in Oxford, selling off horses and other goods. At the same time, she was making other purchases, which she somewhat enigmatically labeled as “when I came away.” Could this be a reference to Lady Mary’s “coming away’ from Corfe?
Certainly, the Dorset Committee of Sequestration thought so. In June 1646, they wrote to London to ask for advice in deciding whether Lady Mary had acted against Parliament during the war. They noted, that since Sir John’s death “the greatest part of her [Lady Mary’s] residence has been near London as we are informed.’ As it was, the Committee granted Lady Mary a special pardon, excusing all acts of war and treason and ordered her to pay a fine of £455. Parliament would hardly have let her off so lightly if she had indeed held onto Corfe even after the King’s defeat.
Lady Mary could hardly be blamed for abandoning Corfe to salvage something for her family. However, even if she did abandon Corfe after Naseby or even after her husband’s death, she still mounted a spirited defense of the castle between May 1643 and December 1644. Certainly, Lady Mary’s eldest son, Ralph, thought so. After the restoration, he built the Bankes a new family seat at Kingston Lacy and the manor of Eastcourt for his mother. Ralph also set up a memorial plaque in St Martin’s church, Ruislip where Lady Mary was buried after her death on April 11, 1661. “To the memory of Lady Mary Bankes,” it reads, “…who … had the honor to have borne with a constancy and courage above her sex, a noble proportion of the late calamities.”
Where Do we get this stuff? Here are our Sources:
During the English Civil War, Lady Mary Bankes defended a castle from over 200 attackers with only five men under her initial command, Ian Smith, The Vintage News, August 14, 2016
Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ed Magnus Magnusson, Chambers, 1990
Brave Dame Mary and a castle under siege, The National Trust
A Norman masterpiece – building Corfe Castle, The National Trust
Queen of the castle, Nick Churchill, Dorset Life, February 2017