The Puritans violated, without scruple, the treaty, destroyed or mutilated everything of value in the castle, and left with the inmates nothing but the clothes they wore. Lady Arundell, with the women and children, was carried prisoner to Shaftesbury. Thither, too, five van-loads of costly furniture were borne in triumph as the spoils of the vanquished. The loss to Lord Arundell by the devastation and plunder of Wardour Castle was estimated at one hundred thousand pounds. The Parliament, thinking their prisoners were insecure at Shaftesbury, wished to remove them to Bath. But the town was infected with small-pox and plague; and Lady Arundell refused so stubbornly to consent, that her captors left her where she was, but took her children to Dorchester. Lady Arundell survived the siege only five years; and at her death, she was buried, with her husband, in the chapel of Wardour Castle. * * * * * In point of heroic valour, Lady Arundell was outdone by Lady Mary Bankes, wife of Sir John Bankes, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In August, 1643, Parliament despatched Sir William Earle with a strong force to reduce Corfe Castle, the family residence of Sir John, in the Isle of Purbeck. Thinking to gain possession by stratagem, Sir William sent a party of forty sailors to demand four field-pieces which were in the castle. Lady Bankes, suspecting their real object, went to the gate, and requested the sailors to show their warrant. They produced one, signed by several Parliamentary Commissioners. Thereupon Lady Bankes retired into the castle; and although there were only five men within the walls, they mounted the field-pieces with the assistance of the female servants, and having loaded one of them, fired it off, and drove the sailors away. Sir William Earle now tried to starve the castle into a surrender. Lady Bankes affected a wish to treat for the surrender of the guns; but her real object was, that the besiegers, relaxing in their careful blockade, would give greater facilities for introducing fresh supplies to the garrison. The event justified her hopes. She also obtained the help of Captain Lawrence, commanding a company of Royalists. The Puritans, about six hundred in number, assaulted the castle, and endeavoured to carry it by a _coup de main_. But the brave little garrison, sallying forth, drove away the besiegers and brought back nine oxen. Again the besiegers tried to take the castle by storm. Dividing their forces, one party attacked the middle ward, which was defended by Captain Lawrence and his company, while the other division assaulted the upper ward, held by Lady Bankes with her daughters, her female servants, and five soldiers, who hurled down huge stones and red-hot coals on the heads of the storming party. At last, after losing one hundred men in the assault, the Parliamentary forces retreated from before Corfe Castle. The blockade had lasted, altogether, six weeks.