"It was encompassed by a strong wall, two yards thick; upon the walls were nine towers, flanking each other, and in every tower six pieces of ordnance, that played three one way and three another. Upon the tops of these towers were placed the best and choicest marksmen, who usually attended the Earl in his sports, as huntsmen, keepers, fowlers, and the like, who continually kept watch, with screwed guns and long fowling-pieces, to the great annoyance and loss of the enemy, especially of their commanders, who were frequently killed in the trenches. Without the wall was a moat eight yards wide and two yards deep; between the wall and the moat was a strong row of palisadoes. A high tower, called the Eagle Tower, stood in the midst, surmounting all the rest. The gate-house had a strong tower on each side, forming the entrance to the first court." The site of the house seemed to have been formed for a stronghold, or place of safety: thus described by Seacome:-- "Before the house, to the south and south-west, is a rising ground, so near as to overlook the top of it, from which it falls so quick, that nothing planted against it on those sides can touch it further than the front wall; and on the north and east sides there is another rising ground, even to the edge of the moat." "The situation of it may be compared to the palm of a man's hand, flat in the middle, and covered with a rising ground, about it, and so near to it, that the enemy, in two years' siege, were never able to raise a battery against it, so as to make a breach in the wall practicable to enter the house by way of storm."[44] It is said the camp of the besiegers was in a woody dell, near what is now called "The Round O Quarry," about half-a-mile from Lathom. This dell is still called "Cromwell's Trench;" and a large and remarkable stone, having two circular hollows or holes on its upper surface, evidently once containing nodules of iron, is called "Cromwell's Stone"--the country people supposing these holes were used as moulds for casting balls during the siege. The besiegers, however, thought to reduce the place by famine, being deceived through the following device of her ladyship's chaplain, the Rev. Mr Rutter, a person whom the Earl had left to her assistance, that she might be guided by his great skill and prudence:-- During one of the conferences before-named, a captain of the parliamentary forces, recognising in the chaplain an old friend, with whom he had been educated, and very intimate and familiar aforetime, took a secret opportunity of addressing him, hoping to worm out her ladyship's secrets; conjuring him, by reason of their former friendship, to tell truly upon what ground or confidence she still refused these offers, seeing that it was impossible to defend her house against such a numerous and well-furnished army as was then encamped in the park.