4] 
On the 6th of December, 1644, Milcote House,. near 
Stratford-upon-Avon, was burnt by the Parliamentarian 
troops from Warwick Castle, to prevent the king’s forces 
from making it a garrison. 
A few years ago a number of skeletons were discovered 
near Milcote, laid regularly and not promiscuously. I do 
not think these were the remains of soldiers slain during the 
civil wars, but rather of the victims of that dire plague 
which raged in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, the year 
memorable for the birth of Shakespeare. 
On the night of Wednesday, January 29th, 1644, an 
attempt was made by a party of Royalist troops from Ban- 
bury (stated in one account to be a regiment of horse and 
eight score foot, in another as being 300 horse and foot) to 
recover possession of Compton House. They succeeded in 
obtaining possession of the outer Court, about which the 
stables and outbuildings lay, but were ultimately repulsed. 
A narrative of this transaction appears in a copy of Sergeant 
Major Purefoy’s letter (ye brave Governor of Compton 
House, in Warwickshire), to his Colonel, Col. Purefoy. 
“Sir.—This night, about 2 of ye clock, about a 1000 or 
1200 horse and foot of ye enemies fell upon me at Compton, 
stormed my outworks, gained my stables, & cut down my 
great drawbridge, possessed themselves of all my troop of 
horses & took about 30 of my foot souldiers in their beds 
who lay over ye stables, & all this was dune almost before a 
man could think what to do. We received this fierce alarm, 
as we had good cause & presently made good ye new sconce 
before ye stone bridge, & beat them out of ye great court, 
there being about 200 men entered & ready to storm ye 
sconce. But we gave them so hot a sally, that we forced 
them to retreat back to ye stables, barns, & brewhouse, 
