Pontefract Castle in Great Britain
Rating: 8,3/10 (6312 votes)  This castle was built in the Middle Ages. It is located in the north of England in West Yorkshire in the city of the same name. The castle is famous for the fact that it was here that King Richard II died.
Pontefract was built in the 1070s for Ilbe de Lassi, an Irish earl, on lands donated to him by King William I. Initially, like many other castles in England, the castle was made of wood, but then it gradually became stone.
At the beginning of the 12th century, Henry I confiscated the castle from a descendant of Ilbe, but the Lassi family lived in Pontefract until the middle of the 14th. During the time they owned the castle, the main tower was built here. In 1311, the castle was handed over to the Lancasters. In 1322, Thomas Plantagenet was executed in the castle, and when he was recognized as a martyr, his grave on the territory of the monastery castle was recognized as a shrine. A year later, Edward III's son John Goth made Pontefract his personal residence. It was he who reconstructed and significantly improved the castle.
Pontefract Castle, like any good medieval castle, has a secret. This secret is associated with the famous English king Richard II. In 1400, this king died in one of the castle towers, and the circumstances of his death are still unknown.
In 1536 the castle was handed over by Lord Thomas Darcy to the Catholics' Benevolent Pilgrimage. This was done on purpose, as a fight against the religious policies of the then King Henry VII. Some time after this, Darcy was charged with treason and executed.
There were intrigues and love stories at Pontefract Castle. In 1541, the wife of the English king, Catherine Howard, was accused of treason and treason, and she cheated on the king in the Pontefract castle with its owner Thomas Culpeper.
In 1644, when the castle was a royalist refuge, it was plundered. Many times the castle was besieged and surrounded by parliamentarians, and even Oliver Cromwell, a former general in the parliamentary army, said that Ponterfract was a very reliable garrison.
During the Second Civil War in England, the castle was already old, so that the population almost completely destroyed it - the locals said that the castle attracts troubles and misfortunes to their area. Today, only ancient cellars remain from the castle, where ammunition was once stored. The ruins of the castle are open to the public and attract thousands of tourists every year.We also recommend reading Scarborough Castle in the UK Topic: Pontefract Castle in Great Britain. |
