chapter 9.

BASILIKA, The.

A compilation or codification of the imperial laws of the Byzantine Empire promulgated A. D. 884, in the reign of Basil I. and afterwards revised and amplified by his son, Leo VI.

_G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057, book 2, chapter 1, section 1._

BASING HOUSE, The Storming and Destruction of.

"Basing House [mansion of the Marquis of Winchester, near Basingstoke, in Hampshire], an immense fortress, with a feudal castle and a Tudor palace within its ramparts, had long been a thorn in the side of the Parliament. Four years it had held out, with an army within, well provisioned for years, and blocked the road to the west. At last it was resolved to take it: and Cromwell was directly commissioned by Parliament to the work. Its capture is one of the most terrible and stirring incidents of the war. After six days' constant cannonade, the storm began at six o'clock in the morning of the 14th of October [A. D. 1645]. After some hours of desperate fighting, one after another its defences were taken and its garrison put to the sword or taken. The plunder was prodigious; the destruction of property unsparing. It was gutted, burnt, and the very ruins carted away."

_F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _S. R. Gardiner, History of the Civil War,