Katherine became the only English queen to be buried at a private estate, a place in which she should have been guaranteed to rest in peace. However, no one was banking on the English Civil Wars!
The estate, under George 6th Lord Chandos, declared for the King and became a base for King Charle’s nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine. It was attacked twice and even occupied for a time by Parliamentarian forces. The occupiers plundered the castle and desecrated the chapel. They dug up graves, used the tower to stable their horses, terrorised the priest and even used the altar as a butchers block! These troops fled the castle on hearing of a royalist victory over a nearby town. However, later on in the wars, a second successful siege by the Parliamentarians marked the end of the castle’s use in the conflict. Following the end of the Civil Wars Lord Chandos was so heavily fined that he had no resources to repair the castle and its chapel. Added to that, the ‘Council of State’ ordered it be “slighted”, further damaged, to render it useless.