Oliver Cromwell's forces stormed Basing House in Hampshire on 14 October 1645 after repeated earlier sieges. The great fortified mansion, known as Loyalty House, was burned and many defenders were killed. Its destruction removed an important Royalist garrison controlling roads west of London.

Royalist memory turned Basing House into an emblem of loyalty, endurance and martyrdom. Parliamentarian reports instead depicted it as a centre of Catholicism and plunder, revealing how buildings could acquire opposed literary identities.