Sir – We were interested to read, in Reg Little’s article about the television drama The Devil’s Whore (Feature, November 20), the claim by co-writer Martine Brant that ‘Cromwell may well have actually planned the siege of Oxford from’ Wytham Manor. (In an interview in The Guardian, she dropped the ‘may well have’.) This is not impossible, but more than a little unlikely. The commander of the siege was the commander-in-chief of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax.
His headquarters were at Unton Croke’s house in Old Marston, where Cromwell stayed on the night of May 22, 1645, having with Fairfax surveyed the city from the top of the church tower. Cromwell did not move on to Wytham until the following day.
Bryony Bethell, Manor House, Old Marston
Roger Crisp Cromwell’s House, Old Marston
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