Transactions. 179 
consecrated building belched forth fire and death with as little 
compunction as if its walls had never heard a gospel of peace. 
The cannonade went on, but Wharton soon found a change of 
tactics necessary. To pound away at the top of the steeple was 
going to prove a mere waste of powder. The ordnance was not 
heavy enough to make headway against the building, so the mode 
of attack was altered. Whilst the whole fire was concentrated 
on the battlements to harass the defenders the English pioneers 
cautiously advanced to the walls. This plan so far succeeded ; a 
“‘pavise” of strong timber—a sort of shed or roof—was thrown 
forward to the Steeple, and men set forth to work under its pro- 
tection to undermine the walls. But the garrison had not 
exhausted their resources of offence, a great mass of stone— 
perhaps part of a castellated battlement—which Wharton called 
the top of the steeple—fell,or more probably was hurled over upon 
the “‘ pavise,” crashing through it and carrying death in its train 
The attack on the steeple in that quarter, and by that method, 
had to be abandoned. 
Once again the tactics were changed. The operations of the 
besiegers were directed against the wall of the church at the 
east end of the choir. There the attacking force was less exposed to 
reprisals. The gable end of the choir was assailed by the pioneers, 
who this time attained their object. The east wall was cut through 
and undermined, and not only the gable, but part of the choir roof 
as well, fell inward, killing with the crash seven of the defenders, 
The strongest part of the whole structure remained. Although 
the church was no longer defensible owing to the great breach 
through its eastern wall, the steeple wasintact. But there was a 
weak point in the armour. If the plan of the building is here 
apprehended rightly, the sole door into the steeple was from the 
inside of the church.* Obviously, therefore, the breach in the 
choir gable and the falling in of the roof exposed the door. The 
steeple laid open to attack at an entirely undefended point, was 
reduced to desperate straits. 
“ After that,” says Wharton, “‘ we caused the peices be laid to 
shoot at the door of the steple.”. Seemingly the guns were shifted 
to the east end of the building and their fire directed through the 
choir. The new attack did great execution among the cooped up 
garrison taken as it were in the rear. It ‘caused them further 
*As, for example, is the case at Burgh-on-Sands at this moment, where, 
moreover, the tower has actually still a port-hole for cannon. 
