Lady Brilliana Harley

Since the 14 th century, the castle and estate of Brampton Bryan was the family seat of the Harleys. Sir Robert Harley and his eldest son Edward went to London to ally themselves with Cromwell. His wife, Lady Brilliana, was left at home with her other children and a small army of servants to protect their land from the mainly royalist neighbours. Her loyalties must have been torn – she was distantly related to the king himself.

But she was nothing if not resilient. The Harleys had fallen on relatively hard times before the Civil War. Brilliana had sent the family silver to be melted down to help ends meet. The current lord of the manor, Edward Harley, recollects ” we were told that the silver was somewhere in the house, and we spent our childhood trying to find it, but never did ” .

Brilliana was distinctively named by her father, who had been governor of Brill in the Netherlands, and had had a famous military victory there against Philip II.

In 1643, troops arrived in the rural town of Brampton Bryan. As Edward Harley says ” the idea of a romantic Civil War was destroyed when soldiers killed a blind man in the village ” . Brilliana was remarkably practical, throwing herself into the management of the estate, and preparing for the forthcoming siege. Her small but perfectly-formed castle was to suffer bombardments for nearly seven weeks.

Brilliana ‘ s staff scraped together whatever food they could, reduced to hand-milling to provide bread. Looking out of the castle ‘ s newly-added Elizabethan windows, she spent a significant amount of time keeping her diary and writing letters to her son in London: ” Ned, your father being from me, I have not much company to take pleasure in ” .

Lady Brilliana received a summons to surrender Brampton Bryan castle, but her reply was ” what is mine is mine ” . The local nobleman Viscount Scudamore came round to broker a deal. Brilliana let him into the castle “by a ladder and a rope” but she wasn’t particularly sympathetic. Scudamore wasn’t really that worried; for him, this was a mere “pin-prick” of resistance.

She kept in regular contact with the besiegers, and probably drove them to distraction. In her diaries, she complains more about overhearing the “foul language” of the soldiers than about the bombardments. The troops had placed cannons in the neighbouring churchyard to fire at Brampton Bryan castle. Brilliana, as a devout Puritan, found this sacrilegious, especially as fighting was taking place on the Sabbath. Numerous Harley monuments dating back to 1309 were destroyed.

But her contact with the troops was a cunning plan. Such communication probably delayed the Cavaliers’ final push, and before seven weeks were out the soldiers had been reassigned to a siege in Gloucester that was considered more important.

With a minimal staff, Lady Brilliana had defended her castle against professional troops. The only casualty was her cook, who died “of a poisoned arrow”. She records in her diary that she developed a “very great cold” (probably pneumonia) and died the same year as the lifting of the siege, 1643. “I am now unthreatened, but my trust is with my God”.

Her husband, Sir Robert Harley, was only supportive of Cromwell until the latter’s extremism had led to a call for the king’s execution. Robert was forgiven for his republican sympathies by the royalists on their return to power. He returned to Brampton Bryan with the priority of reconstructing the village church. “When His house is built, God, I trust, will build mine”.

After nearly four centuries, the castle remains surprisingly intact. The Harley family is intact, too. Our guide, the affable Edward, is the ten times grandson of the remarkable lady. Some wonderful traditions remain – the first born son’s name alternates between Edward and Robert. After the Civil War, the Harleys became the Earls of Oxford. In 1850, with no male heirs, the daughter of the last earl, Lady Langdale, tracked down the nearest living Harley, a student. “We’ve never met before but I’m going to make you my heir”, with a sizeable allowance. As Edward says, “that never happened to me at Cambridge”…..

The legacy lives on. The family, over the centuries, has provided the country with earls, bishops and MPs. London property connections include the eponymous Harley Street. And the final fitting tribute is that Edward Harley named his eldest daughter Brilliana.

Brampton Bryan Church & Castle, Herefordshire, are open to the public on selected days only.

or tel. 01432 260621 .