Ward of the castle. Arnold was an important architect in the south-west of England, and had managed the building of nearby Montacute, Cranborne House and also Wadham College, Oxford. The redesign expanded on some of the existing buildings and walls to create a 16th-century Jacobean mansion with a symmetrical front and square towers, set within the older castle walls and overlooked by the keep above. The building was decorated in the latest styles, including ornamental plaster ceilings. The project ran almost three times over budget, costing Luttrell more than £1,200. English Civil War and the Restoration When the First English Civil War began in August 1642, George's eldest son Thomas supported Parliament; William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford and Parliamentarian commander in Devon and Somerset, ordered him to strengthen the garrison at Dunster. The local Royalist commander William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, attacked the castle in 1642 but was repulsed by the garrison, led by Thomas' wife Jane. In early 1643, the war in the south-west turned in favour of the King, and on 7 June 1643 the Royalists assaulted the castle again and Luttrell switched sides. Colonel Wyndham was appointed Royalist governor, and the future Charles II stayed at the castle in May 1645. During 1645 the Royalist military cause largely collapsed, and Colonel Robert Blake led a Parliamentarian force against Dunster in October. In November, Blake established his artillery in the village and began digging mines beneath the castle walls. Dunster was briefly relieved in February 1646 but the siege resumed, and by April the Royalist position was untenable; Wyndham negotiated an honourable surrender and a Parliamentarian garrison installed. After the end of the Second English Civil War in 1649, Parliament decided to deliberately destroy, or slight, the defences of castles in key Royalist areas, including the south-west. Thomas Luttrell had died in February 1644 and his son George Luttrell convinced the authorities to destroy only the medieval defensive walls, rather than the entire castle, leaving Dunster damaged from the recent siege but still habitable; the walls were demolished over 12 days in August 1650 by a team of 300 workmen. The only parts of the medieval walls to survive were the Great Gatehouse and the bases of the two towers in the Lower Ward. George Luttrell died without children, and Dunster Castle passed to his brother Francis, who survived the political turmoil of the Commonwealth prior