The siege was now determined on. The trenches encircled the house. The blockade commenced. “The leaders had the courage to starve a woman; but not to fight with her.”[13] Footnote 13: Halsall. Yet once more Sir Thomas Fairfax stayed his hand, seemingly with little regret. A letter reached him from Lord Derby. The Earl wrote from the Isle of Man, demanding the right for his wife and children to have perfect freedom to leave Lathom, and thus to spare their weakness the horrors of a siege. He feared the brutality of the besiegers, and believed that the house could be but scantily supplied with provisions. When the Countess heard of this letter to Sir Thomas Fairfax, it had only the effect of adding fuel to the flame of her courage. “Tell Sir Thomas Fairfax that I thank him for his courtesy,” she said to the messenger, a preacher in the employment of Captain Rigby. “I shall always obey the commands of my lord, and the general can treat with him; but until I am certain of his good pleasure, I shall not give up his house, and I will not forsake it; I await the issue of these events, as God may will it to be.” Meantime, Lord Derby had returned from the Isle of Man, and the Countess contrived to send him a dispatch, which found him at Chester, occupied in an endeavour to muster troops to march to her assistance; but as yet the Earl had a mere handful of men only, and three thousand soldiers surrounded Lathom. Notwithstanding, the sorties from the house continued; cannon commenced to fire upon the walls, but thanks to the configuration of the ground, very ineffectually. The garrison was interested in watching the manipulation of a mortar which was planted on a little mound at the distance of half a musket range from the house. The first grenadoes from it passed over the roof of the house, to the great joy of the besieged, whom the Countess had supplied with the skins of the beasts slaughtered for the daily food of the soldiers, in order that they might extinguish the flames with these if the house should catch fire.