Royalist Shrewsbury in 1645, and was subject to an attack by Lord Capel, with a force comprising, according to H. Pickering (who served under Lord Capell) writing to the Duchess of Beaufort: 3 cannon, 2 drakes, one great mortarpiece that carried a 30ln. bullet, had 120 odd wagons and carriages laden with bread, biskett, bare and other provisions and theire armye being formydable as consistynge of neer 5,000. Wem was not ready for the attack: the walls were not finished, the gates were not hinged, some of the guns on the ramparts were wooden dummies and the defending force consisted of only 40 male Parliamentarians; but then the local women rallied round positioning themselves in red coats in well chosen spots to mislead the Royalists. So confident of success were the Royalist attackers that they only attacked on one side, approaching Wem only from Soulton Road, with the commander, Lord Capel, lightheartedly smoking his pipe half a mile from the town on that road. However, the town held off the attackers. The resulting battle is remembered in this couplet: The women of Wem and a few musketeers, Beat the Lord Capel and all his Cavaliers.According to Brereton's report, royalist losses were heavy:the great slaughter and execution which we performed upon the enemy when they set upon Wem. There being six cartloads of dead men carried away at one time, besides the wounded and it is said, there were fifteen found burried in one grave. Others were slayne and lefte in the open fields dead and unburyied whose naked bodies we saw miserably torne with the shott. and lyeing in the fields near the town, which wee gave orders to bee buryed... Little execution was done upon our men, we lost not above three in the town, a Major, one soldier and one boy The sword of a Cromwellian trooper was dug up at Wem in 1923, and a cannonball of the same period was found during construction work at the Grammar School. Restoration In 1648 Hinstock, Loppington, and Wem were assessed for sale, and lands were sold from the manorial holdings throughout the 1650s. By 1665, when Daniel Wycherley bought the manor, the manorial property was much reduced from the holding it had been in 1648. Wem was held by Judge Jeffreys (1645–1689), known as the "hanging judge" for his willingness to impose capital punishment on supporters of the Duke