War & conflict

A town under siege won Naseby by being too stubborn to fall

Taunton's defenders spent ten months mostly losing — driven back into the castle twice, reduced to a few streets, kept alive by relief columns arriving just in time. The turn is what that failure bought: Lord Goring's 10,000 to 15,000 men sat outside a Somerset market town instead of riding to Naseby, where historians think they could have handed Charles I the battle and possibly the war. Robert Blake, who held the place through all three blockades, was defending a road junction, not a great fortress. It is a good case study in how a war can be decided by an army that never showed up.

The third siege was so slack that supplies simply passed into the town — yet it still pinned down Goring's entire force during the campaign that ended at Naseby.

Read the whole of Sieges of Taunton on Wikipedia

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