James Crofts, later James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and of Buccleuch (April 9, 1649 – July 15, 1685) was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the illegitimate son of Charles II and his mistress, Lucy Walter, and reputed mother of the duke of Monmouth, believed to have been born in 1630, or a little later, at Roch Castle, near Haverfordwest, Wales. Lucy had followed him into continental exile after the execution of Charles II father, King Charles I. The Walters were a Welsh family of good standing, who declared for the king during the Civil War. Roch Castle was captured and burned by the parliamentary forces in 1644, and Lucy Walter found shelter first in London and then at the Hague. A daughter, Mary (b. 1651), of whom the reputed father was Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, married William Sarsfield. Wardour Castle is located near Tisbury in the English county of Wiltshire, about 15 miles west of Salisbury. After the fall of the Lovell family following Francis Lovell's support of Richard III, the castle passed to the Arundells, of the ancient Cornish family with wide estates in Wiltshire. The Arundells subsequently became known as some of the most active of the Catholic landowners in England at the time of the Reformation; thus they naturally were Royalists in the English Civil War. During that conflict, Old Wardour Castle was one of the many castles across the land that could not stand against the improved ammunition and artillery of Cromwell's New Model Army; and it was badly damaged the second time it was besieged, in 1644, when the attacking forces laid charges in the base of the castle to flush the defenders out. The charges exploded prematurely, destroying a large section of the building. The family slowly recovered power, however, through the English Commonwealth and the Glorious Revolution, until the eighth Baron, Henry Arundell and by the prominent Palladian James Paine.
A specimen of Common Hawthorn found at Glastonbury, first mentioned in an early 16th century anonymous metrical Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathea, was unusual in that it flowered twice in a year, once as normal on "old wood" in spring, and once on "new wood" (the current season's matured new growth) in the winter. This flowering of the Glastonbury Thorn in mild weather just past midwinter was accounted miraculous. This tree has been widely propagated by grafting or cuttings, with the cultivar name 'Biflora' or 'Praecox'. The original Glastonbury Thorn itself was cut down and burned as a relic of superstition by Cromwellian troops during the English Civil War, in an unconscious reenactment of the joyous and triumphal cutting down and burning of the sacred groves, from Dodona in Greece to England, that was enacted by Christians throughout Europe in the 4th century. The custom of sending a budded branch of the Glastonbury thorn to the Queen at Christmas was initiated by James Montague, Bishop of Bath and Wells during James I's reign, who sent a branch to Queen Anne, King James I's consort.
