Predominantly Parliamentarian in sympathy, Derbyshire raised a regiment under the command of Sir John Gell of Hopton Hall and secured Derby in early December 1642. The Earl of Derbyshire went into exile and Chatsworth found itself being occupied by both sides at different times. The earl’s younger brother Charles Cavendish, would die in the Royalist cause.

Bolsover, the home of the earl’s cousin, William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle, also had a Royalist garrison although it was never besieged. Wingfield Manor was also garrisoned as well Tissington Hall in the Peak District and Barton Hall to the south of the county. Gell set about securing the property of Royalists in February 1643. He began with Elvaston Castle the home of his rival Sir John Stanhope who had died in 1638. At the time Stanhope’s widow, Mary, was in residence. Gell’s forces ransacked the manor, ruined her flower garden and defaced Sir John’s newly erected tomb before entering the family vault and repeatedly plunging their swords into the coffins it contained. The destruction of Mary’s flower garden was at Gell’s express orders – I’m not warming to the man whose own tomb can be viewed in Wirksworth Church. Not content with his work, Gell went on to raid Jacinth Sacheverell’s home at Morley and Sir John Coke’s property at Melbourne.

By November that year Chatsworth, Wingerworth and Staveley, all Royalist locations, were garrisoned by Parliamentarian troops as was Wingfield Manor. In December, Newcastle’s Royalists laid siege to Mary Queen of Scots former prison and on 19 December the Parliamentarian garrison there surrendered.

It was at about the same time that the Royalists garrisoned Tissington Hall, then the home of William FitzHerbert. Colonel Eyre was able to garrison Chatsworth, the Parliamentarians having withdrawn, as well as his own home at Hassop. It meant that the Royalists looked more secure in Derbyshire than they had since the beginning of the conflict. Unfortunately for them, Newcastle, withdrew into Yorkshire to counter the Scottish invasion into England in January 1644.

In July, Gell besieged Wingfield Manor but when he discovered that Colonel Eyre (the Royalist from Hassop who incidentally was at Marston Moor) was intent on raising the siege he sent men, commanded by Major Saunders, to shadow their movements. It meant that when Saunders saw at opportunity at Boylestone he was able to surround the colonel’s men in the church where they spent the night and capture them.

Even so, without artillery it would be impossible to capture Wingfield and it was only when Gell arranged for some cannon to be sent from Sheffield that he was able to capture it. Staveley Hall had already surrendered as had Bolsover Castle.

With key positions secured, Gell returned his attention to other Royalist homes in the area. One of his targets was Barton Blount just three miles from Tutbury. However, Sir John’s own career was coming to an end. King Charles’ surrender in May 1646 members the gentry who had been at war returned home and began to challenge Gell’s position and, after an acrimonious election, complaints about Gell arrived in London.

And as an aside – the lady whose flower garden had been destroyed at the start of the war – Mary Radcliffe, the widow of Sir John Stanhope — she was married to Gell in 1644. It was an unlikely match and it appears Gell wanted to get his hands on her money. They were separated four years later. He took her children, from her first marriage, to court claiming that Mary had secretly set up a trust so that Gell could not get his hands her £1000 per year income.

Mary Radcliffe. William Larkin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And it just goes to show that a peruse of the Internet can reveal some unlikely finds. it appears that Mary, having separated from her unpleasant spouse (and Sir John Stanhope was described as choleric – so neither marriage sounds particularly comfortable) moved to London and the newly fashionable area of Covent Garden. She died there in 1653.