There were said to be about 200 common soldiers still remaining in Lathom, but few of them took advantage of the opportunity to lay down their arms 'being old blades and mercenaries.' Some 15 guns and 400 smaller arms were captured, with some ammunition and stores of provision of several kinds. It was chiefly the deficiency of bread which had compelled the garrison to surrender. Lathom was finally given up to the Parliament at 3 p.m. on December 3rd, 1645, and the King had now no garrison left in Lancashire.
"This evening," says the "Perfect Diurnall" of December 6th, "after the House was up, they came letters to the Speaker of the Commons House of the surrender of Lathom House in Lancashire belonging to the Earl of Derby." All the newspapers for that week are full of references to the event.[175] At Castle Rushen, when at length the news reached the Isle of Man, there was great distress. Lord Derby's "Book of Private Devotions" contains _A Meditation which I made when the Tidings were brought to me of the Delivering up Lathom House to the enemy_, which consist of a long series of texts chiefly from the book of Job and from Jeremiah.
"Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me." (Job 29, v. 2.)
"But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." (Job 30, v. 1.)
"Oh how sits the city solitary which was full of people? How is she become a widow? She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary."[176] (Lam. 1, v. 1.)
It is impossible not to fully share his grief for the destruction of this magnificent fortress, "a little town in itself." "It was the glory of the county," wrote one who fought against the Earl in the civil war. This great House, whose Lords had enjoyed almost royal power for centuries was now a ruin. Splendid in loyalty, supreme among the nobility of the North of England, generous to their tenantry, the Lords of Lathom had a great record of honour and service. This was now at an end. The demolition of their House was complete. Everything moveable and saleable was stripped off and sold, the walls were cast down into the ditch; and it was never rebuilt.[177] And with old Lathom House departed much of the glory of the House of Stanley. Before the end of the civil war the Earl of Derby was beheaded at Bolton, and his descendants never recovered the state which had been his. In the following century the direct male line of his House died out, and the title passed to another branch.