In the county of Somerset, there lies the ancient market town of Shepton Mallet. It is the family seat of the Strodes and a most interesting historical community.

During the English Civil War, Shepton Mallet was almost wholly a Parliamentarian town. Like many other English towns, though, it was used as a military base by both armies, and Sheptonians served on both sides of the bloody conflict.

It was a clash in the center of Shepton Mallet between a leading Royalist and a leading Puritan that marked the first blood shed in the conflict between King and Parliament, and which plunged the country into warfare for the next four years.

From the accession of King Charles I in 1625, England was a divided nation. On the one side were the Catholic supporters of the King, who included the gentry, the traditional clergy, and nobility. Opposing them were Oliver Cromwell's Puritans, the Presbyterians and Protestant non-conformists, who were supported by the merchants, the shopkeepers, and the small freeholders. As Parliament and the King grew increasingly antagonistic, Charles eventually found himself left with no option but to declare war on Cromwell, and in 1642, he issued a "Commission of Array", which empowered his men to raise an army.

Sir Ralph Hopton, the Member of Parliament for Wells, along with Thomas Smith and Sir Fernando Gorges, was ordered to take a force of one hundred cavalry to Shepton Mallet, Somerset, to recruit for the army. He was met at Shepton Mallet by Colonel William Strode, a leader of the opposition to the Crown.

The insuring street brawl lead to arrests, alarms about approaching groups of armed resisters to the Crown, retreat by Hopton and, ultimately, an inconclusive battle between Hopton's troops and Strode's troops. The first battle of the English Civil War.

This was our ancestor. There was two William Strodes at this time in England. The other, Sir William Strode, was born 1598 and succeded his father in Parliament representing Beeralston, Devonshire. Sir William was a member of the Long Parliament (1640-1660) and the first to advocate Parliamentary control over ministerial appointiments, the army and its own duration. This lead to his impeachment and enlistment in the Parliamentary army, Cromwell's Roundheads. He died 9 September 1645 and received a public funeral by order of Parliament.

Our ancestor, Colonel William Strode, died in 1666.