Siege Diaries

The Siege of Gloucester is unusual in having a number of contemporary accounts of the daily actions. The two main ones are parliamentarian, by people in the city, but there are also royalist ones, and letters which shed light on the siege.

The most detailed contemporary account of the Siege of Gloucester is that published by John Dorney, Town Clerk. His diary deals with all sorts of issues, and clearly shows his links with the civil government of the city.

John Corbet, a non-conformist chaplain to Massie, has provided the other main account, which covers the entire period when Massie was in Gloucester.

Minor episodes from the royalist side are to be found in the Memoirs of John Gwynne's "Military Memoirs of the Great Civil War", and in a letter from Lord Spencer to his wife, published in Washbourn, J. 1825 "Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis", which is still the key publication on the Siege.