Interview with Mark Vine, author of 'The Crabchurch Conspiracy'
The Crabchurch Conspiracy 1645- The True Story of Dorset’s Bloodiest Secret. I first met Mark Vine- author of ‘The Crabchurch Conspiracy’ - in the late 1970s Delighted to got hold of the kindle version, complete with an introduction by Professor Ronald Hutton. In 1645, several royalist plotters within the twin towns of Weymouth and Melcombe on the Dorset coast conspired to deliver the ports back into the control of King Charles 1. It has been suggested that he needed a safe south coast port at which to land a huge French army which he hoped would deliver a decisive blow and end the resistance of the Parliamentarians whom he had been fighting for almost three years. The conspirator’s plans were almost successful, but their intended victim, Colonel William Sydenham, commander of the Parliamentary garrison and MP for Melcombe, managed to get most of his force into that town,