“she much wondered that Sir Thomas Fairfax should require her to give up her lord’s house without any offence on her part done to the Parliament, desiring that in a business of such weight which struck both at her religion and at her life, and that so nearly concerned her sovereign, her lord, and her whole posterity, she might have a week’s consideration.” The Parliamentarian general then proposed a conference at a house about a quarter of a mile distant from Lathom House, but the Countess refused with dignity, saying she conceived it “more knightly that Sir Thomas Fairfax should wait upon her than she upon him.” After further parleyings with Parliamentarians, she finally sent the following spirited message:-- “That she refused all their articles, and was truly happy that they had refused hers, protesting she had rather hazard her life than offer the like again. That though a woman and a stranger, divorced from her friends and robbed of her estate, she was ready to receive their utmost violence, trusting in God both for protection and deliverance.” The siege thereupon commenced, and was carried on in a desultory fashion by Sir Thomas Fairfax, who, after six or seven weeks, resigned his post to Colonel Rigby of Preston. The Countess commanded her troops, numbering three hundred soldiers, in person. The besiegers amounted to between two and three thousand men, of whom they lost five hundred, while the Countess lost only six during the whole period, two of those being killed by their own negligence. After manufacturing a number of grenadoes, the Colonel sent a very peremptory message to the Countess demanding that Lathom House should be surrendered. Lady Derby received the message surrounded by her troops. She tore up the paper, and, turning to the messenger, said-- “Tell that insolent rebel [Rigby] he shall neither have person, goods, nor house; when our strength of provisions are spent, we shall find a fire more merciful than Rigby’s, and then, if the providence of God prevent it not, my goods and house shall burn in his sight; and myself, children, and soldiers, rather than fall into his hands, will seal our religion and loyalty in the same flame.”