The day fixed for the event was the first of May. On that day it was the custom of the gentlemen of Corfe Castle to hunt a stag on the island, and any one who liked to do so might participate in the sport. The Roundheads decided to attend the hunt, seize the men from the castle, and then capture the castle itself. But the arrival of an exceptionally large number of people to attend the hunt aroused the suspicions of the few Royalists, who quickly withdrew to the castle and gave instructions that the gates were to be kept shut against anyone seeking admission. Having failed to capture the Royalists in the hunting-field, the rebels came to the castle, and pretending that they were peaceable country folk, craved permission to be allowed to see the interior. The permission was refused, and some of the soldiers, angry at the failure of the plot, forgot the part they were playing, and threatened to return and gain admission by force. The officers, anxious not to arouse Lady Bankes's suspicions, loudly reprimanded their men for making foolish threats, and assured her ladyship that they had no intention of doing as their men had vowed. Lady Bankes did not, however, believe the rebel officers, and, convinced that an attack would shortly be made on the castle, she prepared to defend it. She had no Royalist troops whatever in the castle, and her first step, therefore, was to call in a number of men whom she could rely upon. But no sooner were the men instructed in their duties than the rebels demanded that the four small guns which were mounted on the wall should be given up. Lady Bankes refused to surrender them, and some days later forty seamen came and demanded them. Now at that hour Lady Bankes had only five men in the castle, but pretending that she had a large garrison, she refused the seamen's demand, and caused one of the guns to be fired over their heads. The report of this gun, which only carried a three-pound ball, so alarmed the seamen that they fled in dismay. They must have been very different from the men who sailed under Blake, and made the Commonwealth's navy world-famed. No sooner had the timorous seamen fled than Lady Bankes summoned to the castle all her tenants and friendly neighbours, to assist her to hold the place until her husband should return. They came in quickly, many bringing arms, and vowed to fight for her and King Charles; but the Roundheads, discovering who had entered the castle, went to the homes of these men, and told their wives that unless their husbands returned home their houses would be burned to the ground. The frightened wives thereupon made their way to the castle and implored their husbands to return. Some of the men did as their wives desired, but others would not break the promise they had made to the mistress of Corfe Castle.