Ralph Sadler described in October how the "castle" was guarded by soldiers armed with pistols, muskets and halberds, and the difficult terrain nearby which would deter escape. He wrote about the unsatisfactory conditions in November, when she was to moved to Tutbury Castle. Mary's bedchamber at Wingfield was too close to the kitchens and the "smoke and scent of meat" from below, despite being the best lodging in the house. It may have been at Wingfield that Mary met Anthony Babington, whose family lived at Dethick nearby, who organised the abortive Babington Plot, a Recusant Catholic plot against Elizabeth I. The walnut tree in the north courtyard is reputed to have grown from a seed left when Anthony Babington smeared walnut juice over his face to disguise himself and enter the castle to see Mary, Queen of Scots. However, the tree is not old enough for this story to be true. The Civil War At the time of the English Civil War (1642–48), the manor was in the hands of Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, a Parliament supporter. The manor was taken by the Royalists in 1643 and then, after a short siege (albeit interrupted by the Battle of Marston Moor), retaken by Parliament in August 1644, after several large siege engines had destroyed part of the western curtain wall. Wingfield Manor located in what was then a strategic position near a main north-south artery of the country and also a key east-west link at the southern end of the Pennines. It was partially demolished at the end of the Civil War on instructions from Parliament in order that it could never be used again for defensive purposes - not that it was built as a castle in the first place. Along the curtain walls and on the towers can still be seen the damage caused by cannonballs. One in particular on the north wall, shows by its shape, the direction of fire, indicating the direction of the cannons used in the 1644 siege, four 32 pounders, borrowed for the occasion. Initially these cannon were positioned on the hill to the east, the site of an old Roman fort, but the distance was too great and the only damage incurred was to a half moon battery outside the main gate, which is overgrown but still visible. The guns were moved to the west, to manor top, and it was