Siege of Helmsley Castle
Who Fought
Royalists: 200
History & Significance
Helmsley Castle was a Royalist stronghold in North Yorkshire during the First English Civil War. It was besieged by Parliamentarian forces in September 1644 and surrendered on 22 November after a siege of two to three months.
The destruction of the Royalists' northern army at Marston Moor on 2 July 1644 meant that their strongholds in northern England, unprotected now by any field force, were vulnerable to being captured one by one. After the fall of York (16 July 1644), the Parliamentarian armies that had fought at Marston Moor went their separate ways. Lord Leven's Scottish army marched north to besiege the city of Newcastle. The army of the Eastern Association, under the Earl of Manchester, withdrew southwards, capturing Tickhill Castle (26 July) and Sheffield Castle (11 August) on the way. The Parliamentarian forces left in Yorkshire, under the command of Lord Fairfax, set about reducing the remaining Royalist garrisons in the county. They began with Helmsley Castle.
The first castle on the site was built in the 1120s by the Norman baron Walter Espec. The site was of no great strategic importance and the castle was built there simply because it was the centre of Walter's estates. This first castle was a timber and earthwork castle. The first stone castle on the site was built in the late twelfth century by Robert de Roos, also known as Fursan. The castle was much added to over the centuries and at the time of the Civil War, the defences were reasonably well maintained compared to many medieval castles.
By the early seventeenth century, the castle was in the hands of the Manners family. On the death of Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland in 1632, the castle passed to his daughter, Katherine Manners, widow of James I's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. Through her the castle was to pass to their son, the second Duke.
The castle was built on an outcrop of rock on the north bank of the River Rye. The main ward, roughly rectangular in shape, was surrounded by high curtain walls with towers at the corners. The castle keep, known as the East Tower, lay about halfway along the east wall. The castle was surrounded by two deep, steep-sided ditches separated by a bank. The main gate to the castle was in the south-east corner of the curtain wall. This gate was protected by the massive Southern Barbican which stood on an enlarged section of the bank between the two ditches. Stretches of wall extended from the southern barbican across the inner ditch to join it to the main defences.There was a second, less important gate in the north wall of the castle and this was protected by a smaller barbican which also stood on the bank between the ditches.
The ground they fought on
The site of Siege of Helmsley Castle lies on Corallian Group, bedrock that formed in the Oxfordian. The rock here is limestone, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone.
Frequently Asked Questions
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- Siege of Helmsley Castle · Wikidata
- Siege_of_Helmsley_Castle · Wikipedia