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| Lady Mary Bankes | |
|---|---|
| Name | Mary Bankes |
| Birth date | c. 1603 |
| Birth place | Bishopstoke, Hampshire |
| Death date | 1661 |
| Death place | Corfe Castle, Dorset |
| Spouse | Sir John Bankes |
| Children | Walter Bankes, Bosville Bankes |
| Occupation | Noblewoman |
Lady Mary Bankes was an English Royalist gentlewoman celebrated for her defence of Corfe Castle during the English Civil War. A daughter of the Hicks family, she married Sir John Bankes, who served as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas under King Charles I. Her stand at Corfe made her a symbol for Royalist propaganda and a subject for later historiography.
Mary was born circa 1603 into a family connected to the Hicks baronets and the social network of Hampshire gentry near Winchester. Her father, Sir Baptist Hicks, a prominent merchant turned baronetcy, allied the family with several influential houses including links to the Cromwell family through marriage networks. The Bankes and Hicks families maintained ties with the Court of Charles I and the City of London mercantile elite, and they attended social and legal institutions such as Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, and the Courts of Westminster. Mary’s upbringing intersected with contemporary figures like William Laud and Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich through patronage and local politics in Hampshire and Dorset.
In 1624 Mary married Sir John Bankes, scion of the Bankes family of Swanage and proprietor connected with the Middle Temple. Sir John rose to prominence as Attorney General for Queen Henrietta Maria's household and later as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, linking Mary to legal circles at Westminster Hall and to key ministers such as Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford and Francis Windebank. The couple established their seat at Corfe Castle and managed estates in Dorset, interacting with neighbors including the Arundell family, the Herbert family, and gentry from Somerset and Wiltshire. The household maintained servitors and legal stewards who liaised with institutions like the Exchequer and the Court of Chancery.
With the outbreak of conflict between King Charles I and Parliamentary forces led by figures such as Oliver Cromwell and Earl of Essex, the Bankes household aligned with the Royalist cause. Sir John served the royal administration and sat with judges and councillors allied to the King's Council and supporters like Prince Rupert of the Rhine and Lord Hopton. As Royalist fortunes shifted after battles such as Edgehill and Marston Moor, gentry families in Dorset faced sieges, sequestrations, and the advance of Parliamentarian commanders including Sir William Waller and Sir Thomas Fairfax. Mary’s responsibilities extended to defending family property and maintaining loyalties to the crown amid the political turmoil sparked by the Grand Remonstrance and subsequent military campaigns.
When Parliamentary forces moved in 1643 and 1644, Mary remained at Corfe while Sir John attended the King's court in Oxford. She organized a small garrison of servants, tenants, and loyalists, employing fortification tactics associated with medieval strongholds like Durham Castle and Oxford Castle. During repeated assaults by Parliamentarian commanders—including attempts by Colonel Bingham and parties associated with William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford—Mary repelled attacks using the castle's defences, sorties, and judicious use of ammunition similar to accounts from sieges such as Gloucester. Her defence lasted multiple engagements and she was noted in Royalist dispatches and gazettes that circulated in London and provincial printing centers like Oxford and York.
Corfe’s resistance occurred against the wider backdrop of sieges at strongholds like Bristol and Sherborne Castle, and contemporaneous actions by Royalist allies including James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose. Ultimately, treachery from within—perpetrated by supporters enticed by Parliamentarian offers and comparable to betrayals at Bolsover Castle—led to Corfe's fall in 1645. The capture involved figures tied to Parliamentary command structures and the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents who later oversaw fines and sequestrations.
After Corfe's capture Mary faced imprisonment and the sequestration procedures used by Parliament of England to punish Royalist landowners; her family negotiated compositions with the Committee for Compounding and engaged legal counsel at Middle Temple. Sir John, who remained a Royalist judge, died in 1644 leaving Mary to manage claims, appeals, and restoration efforts during the Interregnum and the eventual Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Her defense entered Royalist memoirs, ballads, and later antiquarian studies alongside accounts of women defenders like Bridget Cromwell and historic sieges recorded by Thomas Fuller and John Aubrey. Corfe Castle itself was slighted after the Civil War by orders associated with Parliamentary authorities, and the Bankes estate later passed through heirs who interacted with institutions such as the National Trust in subsequent centuries. Mary’s story has been referenced in Victorian histories, 19th-century Romantic literature, and modern scholarship on female participation in 17th-century conflicts, cited in works alongside studies of Women in the English Civil War, Royalist propaganda, and regional histories of Dorset.
Category:17th-century English people Category:People of the English Civil War Category:Women in war