ABSTRACT
John Hooker was present during the whole of the siege and has left a vivid account of it. Exeter had a fine record of loyalty to the Crown, having stubbornly resisted Perkins Warbeck’s assault in 1497. In addition, as Hooker records, Mayor Blackaller entertained the lively fear that if he opened the gates the city could be given to the sack, and there must have been a majority among the population who shared his view. Constant patrols effectively severed all communication with the outside world. The besiegers boasted that they had penned up Exeter as if in a chicken coop or a mew — a cage in which a hawk was confined while moulting. Arundell had too few men to seal off the whole long perimeter of Exeter; the effectiveness of the blockade relied on the close alliance of the countryside around with the insurgents.
