‘A gifted narrative historian, eloquent, graceful and witty; the stories she tells are the ones we all should know’ Hilary Mantel

It was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war . . .

This is the story of a home that became a warzone. Basing House in Hampshire saw one of the longest and bloodiest sieges of the English Civil War. Defended for over two years by artists and aristocrats, actors and apothecaries, women and children, it became a symbol of royalist defiance and a microcosm of the wider conflict.

Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and the voices of dozens of soldiers and civilians, award-winning historian Jessie Childs weaves a thrilling tale of war and peace, terror and faith, savagery and civilization.

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‘Extraordinary, thrilling, immersive … at times almost Tolstoyan in its emotional intelligence and literary power’ Simon Schama

‘Compellingly readable… [a] beautifully written and lucid account’ Mail on Sunday

‘Brilliant. Original. Gripping.’ Antonia Fraser

‘Successfully brings the ghastliness of the period to life, dramatically, vividly and with pathos’ Charles Spencer, Spectator

‘Extraordinary, thrilling, immersive … at times almost Tolstoyan in its emotional intelligence and literary power’ Simon Schama

‘Compellingly readable… [a] beautifully written and lucid account’ Mail on Sunday
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It was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war.

A greater proportion of the British population died in the civil wars of the seventeenth century than in the world wars of the twentieth. Jessie Childs recovers the shock of this conflict by plunging us into one of its most extraordinary episodes: the siege of Basing House. To the parliamentarians, the royalist stronghold was the devil’s seat. Its defenders called it Loyalty House.

We follow artists, apothecaries, merchants and their families from the revolutionary streets of London to the Marquess of Winchester’s mist-shrouded mansion. Over two years, they are battered, bombarded, starved and gassed. From within they face smallpox, spies and mutiny. Their resistance becomes legendary, but in October 1645, Oliver Cromwell rolls in the heavy guns and they prepare for a last stand.

Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and the voices of dozens of men, women and children caught in the crossfire, Childs weaves a thrilling tale of war and peace, terror and faith, savagery and civilisation.

The Siege of Loyalty House is an immersive and electrifying account of a defining episode in a war that would turn Britain – and the world – upside down.
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‘Brilliant. Original. Gripping.’ Antonia Fraser

‘Successfully brings the ghastliness of the period to life, dramatically, vividly and with pathos’ Charles Spencer, Spectator

A woman awakes in a prison cell.

She has been on the run but the authorities have tracked her down and taken her to the Tower of London – where she is interrogated about the Gunpowder Plot.

The woman is Anne Vaux – one of the ardent, brave and exasperating members of the aristocratic Vauxes of Harrowden Hall.

Through the eyes of this remarkable family, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England – an age in which their faith was criminalised and almost two hundred Catholics were executed.

From dawn raids to daring escapes, stately homes to torture chambers, God’s Traitors exposes the tensions masked by the cult of Gloriana – and is a timely reminder of the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.