BASING HOUSE 115 



fatigues of the day iii a bed whose gorgeous trap- 

 pings made it worth £1300 ; witty and brave 

 cavaliers ; a company of Roman Catholic priests ; 

 men-at-arms, drinking, dicing, and fighting by turns 

 and with equal zest ; and such representatives of the 

 arts as Inigo Jones, the architect, and Hollar, the 

 engraver. Gay and careless though they were, they 

 fought well, and slew and were slain to the number 

 of two thousand durins; this Ions; sieo-e. Sometimes 

 this varied garrison was hard pressed for food, when 

 relief w^ould come in whimsical fashion, as when 

 Colonel Gage and his thousand horsemen appeared 

 with sword in one hand and holdino- on to a bao; of 

 provisions with the other ; a fitting contrast with the 

 typical Puritan, a Psalm-book in his left hand and a 

 pike in his right. Basing House, indeed, in the 

 words of Carlyle, ' long infested the Parliament in 

 these quarters, and was an especial eye-sorrow to 

 the trade of London with the Western parts. It 

 stood siege after siege for four years, ruining poor 

 Colonel This and then poor Colonel That, till the jubi- 

 lant Royalists had given it the name of Basting House.' 

 But the end was at hand after Fairfax had reduced 

 the o;arrisons in the West and the Parliamentarv 

 troops could be spared from other places. Cromwell 

 himself was charoed with the business of taking 

 ' Loyalty.' It was in September that he came to 

 Basingstoke with horse and foot, and established a 

 post of observation on the summit of Winklebury, 

 a hill crowned with prehistoric earthworks that over- 

 looks Wortino- and the Exeter Road, two miles on 

 the other side of the town. 



