War was rife, and the "troubles" that affected every household--high and low, either in actual fighting or in tax-paying--were felt with peculiar poignancy at Rydal Hall. Squire John Fleming, as a rich man, had not stooped to conceal his religion, and had cheerfully paid his fine of £50 a year as a Catholic of the old faith. He died on February 27, 1643, at an unfortunate time for his young children, when warfare was just beginning in the north-west. He was buried the same evening, like many another recusant, in Grasmere Church; and though Parson Henry Wilson was paid a fee for "ouersight of his buriall" it is possible that mass was first said over the body in the "Chapel" chamber at Rydal; for one Salomon Benson, a mysterious member of the group of papists gathered about the Squire, in receipt of a pension of five marks a year, was probably a priest. The orphaned children--two girls growing to womanhood and a younger boy--were now left with all the wealth that would be eventually theirs, in charge of executors. Chief among these was Richard Harrison, a nephew of the Squire, and a Roman Catholic. He appears to have lived with his wife and son at Rydal Hall, and to have had entire management of the household in the years that followed. The position was a difficult one, and naturally grew more so as time went on, and success began to attend the Parliamentary party. The money-coffers of Squire John were freely dipped into for loans to support the Royal cause, which the young heir joined in person; and the house was the resort of Royalist soldiers and gentlemen of the neighbourhood. As a consequence, it was peculiarly obnoxious to the supporters of the Parliament, and was likewise detested by the Puritans as a hotbed of Papists. Therefore, when the houses of Royalists were sacked up and down the county, there was little probability that it would escape. A tradition has always existed that Rydal Hall was entered and plundered by the soldiers of the Commonwealth; but it is in the account-sheets of Richard Harrison that explicit evidence of the fact has now, and for the first time, been found. The catastrophe would belong wholly to Rydal history, but for a clause in the accounts which concerns Grasmere church.