Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Robert Blake.
Blake was then stationed with 500 men at the garrison of Lyme in Dorset, which was besieged by Rupert’s brother Prince Maurice in April 1644. The Royalists were powerless to prevent Parliament’s navy from shipping in supplies and reinforcements, enabling the Parliamentarians to defend the town until it was relieved by the Earl of Essex on his ill-fated march into the West in June 1644. The following month Blake, now promoted to colonel, undertook a daring march from Lyme to Taunton, an important centre of communications in the heart of the Royalist-held West Country. Blake’s force took Taunton and held the town for a year, surviving three sieges. Blake famously declared that he had four pairs of boots and would eat three pairs before he would surrender Taunton. The siege was finally lifted when Sir Thomas Fairfax sent a relief force in May 1645. Blake commanded at the siege of Dunster Castle, Somerset, which surrendered to him in April 1646.
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Blake’s defence of Lyme and Taunton made him a popular hero in the west and he was elected MP for Bridgwater in the “recruiter” by-elections of 1646