TISBURY, a parish in the hundred of DUNWORTH,
county of WILTS, 8 miles (N. E.) from Hiudon, containing,
with the tything of Chicksgrove with Staple,
2122 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry
and diocese of Salisbury, rated in the king's
books at £ 18. 10. 10., and in the patronage of Mrs. R.
Prevost. The church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist,
is a large structure, hi the best style of Norman architecture,
and contains numerous monuments of the
Arundels of Wardour. There is a place of worship for
Independents. Alice Combes, in 1740, bequeathed
£400, directing the interest to be applied in teaching
poor children. Wardour castle, the seat of the noble
family of Arundel, is a magnificent mansion, erected
between the years 1776 and 1784, from a design by
Mr. Paine: it is built of freestone, and consists of
a centre and two wings, projecting on the north side
in a curvilinear form. About a mile from it are the
ruins of the ancient castle, the origin of which is very
remote; from the time of Edward III., downwards, it
was successively the seat of the families of St. Martm,
Lovel, Touchct, Audley, Willoughby de Broke, and,
lastly, of Sir John Arundel, whose son Thomas was
created Lord Arundel of Wardour, by James I. In the
history of this baronial castle no event of importance
occurs until the time of Charjes I., when it was besieged
by a detachment of the parliamentarian army, under'Sir
Edward Hungerford. Lord Arundel being then at Oxford,
attending the king, the castle was left in the custody of
his wife, the Lady Blanch Arundel, who, with a garrison
of only twenty-five men, held out against a bombardment
for five days, at the end of which, on May 8th,
1643, she surrendered upon honourable terms, which,
however, were not punctually kept by the captors. The
castle was then garrisoned for the parliament, and
placed under the command of the celebrated Edmund
Ludlow. The latter, being in turn besieged in it, 19 the.
course of the same summer, by the royalists, under.
Lord Arundel and Sir Francis Doddington, made an obstinate
resistance for several weeks, but was at last compelled
to deliver up the fortress to the besiegers> who,
according to Ludlow's account, in his own memoirs, observed
the terms of capitulation no better than the parliamentarians
had done. Owing to the injury which, the,
castle sustained in these two sieges, especially the latter,
it thenceforward ceased to be used, either as a fortress,
or as a residence. The ruins are situated beneath a grand
amphitheatrical hill clothed with wood: the principal
are those of a sexagonal court, which formed the centre
of the ancient structure, and ia which is a very
deep well, sunk by Ludlow, to supply the garrison with
water during the siege. Almost contiguous are the remains
of the mansion, which was occupied by the family,
after the destruction of the castle, until their removal
to their present residence. In the ancient castle, Sir
Nicholas Hyde, Chief Justice of the King's Bench and
Lord Treasurer, in the reign of James I., was born, about
1570; and about the same period, Sir John Davies,
eminent as a lawyer, a poet, and a political writer, was
born at the hamlet of Chisgrove, in this parish.