The following article was originally written for the English Historical Fiction Authors blog and published February 2015. If you enjoy English history and haven’t visited the blog, check out the EHFA site here. The English Civil War was a time of divided loyalties, where brother fought against brother and neighbours faced each other on a bloody field. But there was one Royalist family that was united in their staunch loyalty to the King: The Comptons. The Comptons had estates in Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, and Compton Wynyates, in Warwickshire. Spencer Compton was the 2nd Earl of Northampton, born in 1601 and educated at Cambridge. In 1622,…