This Day in History: 1645-06-24

Few shots were fired on 24th June 1645 until the evening when the different guards were relieved. It was expected that the besiegers (Parliament) would make another attack in the night and the governor ordered Lieutenant Otway and two files of musketeers, who had been sent down to relieve the guard, to return to the castle at the beating of the tattoo. The Parliamentarians, as was expected, entered the church and the lower part of the town at about one o’clock. Finding nobody to resist them, they remained in possession. They were greatly annoyed by fire from the garrison and the besieged Royalists played their cannon from the King’s Tower against the steeple of the church and fired five shots from the garden into the body of the church. It appears that the body of the church was damaged and the interior wholly destroyed.