During the Great Rebellion in the 17th cent.  Somerset was the field of many important operations.  At the outbreak of war in August 1642, the royal cause was maintained by the Marquis of Hertford, who was supported by Lord Powlett, Sir Ralph Hopton, Sir John Stawell, and other leading gentlemen of the county.  But the sympathies of the yeomen and manufacturers were with the Parliament, and Hertford had to withdraw from Wells, where he had taken up his position, to Sherborne.  In 1643, however, the king’s Cornish army entered Somerset, and was joined by the Marquis and Prince Maurice at Chard; and the Royalists then rapidly became masters of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Dunster.  To oppose them, Sir William Waller was despatched to the West, and a cavalry skirmish between the two forces took place on the Mendips near Chewton.  Waller’s main army was posted at Bath; and the Royalists, advancing by way of Wells and Frome, had another skirmish near Claverton.  They kept E. of Bath and reached Marshfield in Gloucestershire, 5 m.  N. of the city.  Then on July 5 Waller gave battle on Lansdowne Hill, and was forced to retire back to Bath, abandoning a quantity of arms and stores; but the triumph of the victors was clouded by the loss of Sir Bevil Grenville, who was killed in the fight. (The monument to him on the site of the encounter was erected in 1720.) The next year the king’s cause in Somerset was less prosperous, for Taunton was lost, and repelled all the efforts of Colonel Wyndham, Governor of Bridgwater, to recover it.  In 1645 the siege of Taunton was undertaken by Goring.  The town was defended by Blake, who vowed (it is said) that he would eat his boots before he would surrender it, but he was saved from that extremity by Fairfax.  On the approach of the latter Goring drew off from Taunton, and fixed his quarters at Langport, where he was attacked and defeated.  This success on the part of Fairfax not only saved Taunton, but enabled him to besiege Bridgwater, which was defended by Wyndham with little resolution, and fell on July 23, within a fortnight of Goring’s defeat at Langport.  Fairfax also took Nunney Castle; and as in 1646 Dunster, the last place in Somerset supporting the king, also submitted, the entire county passed into the hands of the Parliament.  Dunster was defended by another Wyndham, but he offered a much more prolonged resistance than his brother at Bridgwater, and withstood the besiegers for 160 days.  After the execution of the king the small rising in favour of Charles II., under Colonel Penruddock and Sir Joseph Wagstaff, was crushed near Chard in 1655.