THE CASTLE OF PONTEFRACT, YORKSHIRE.
“OUR HISTORIES,” says Swift, “are full of Pomfret Castle;” and although this has long ceased to be the case, and Pomfret be now famous but for cakes and the cultivation of the root employed in the soothing of catarrh and the adulteration of railway coffee, it was once a very famous, and is still a very interesting, place.
Whence came the name of Pontefract, and when and where its bridge was broken down, are questions over which antiquaries have long stumbled, seeing that the Aire, the only stream of the district needing to be traversed by a bridge, is two miles from the town and quite out of its girth.
It appears from Norman charters that the name of the place was Kirkby, a name, no doubt, bestowed upon it when church and hamlet were founded as a Christian settlement, in the old days when King Oswald of Northumbria embraced the new faith, an event probably commemorated by the cross which gave name to the wapentake still known of Oswald’s or Osgod’s Cross. Kirkby, however, is not named in Domesday, though probably even then a burgh. It is evidently included in the manor of Tateshall, or Tanshelf, which belonged to the king, and appended to which was the soke of Manesthorp, Barnebi, and Silchestone. Tateshall formed, and still forms, a part of the town of Pontefract.
No doubt this is the “Taddenes Scylf,” where, in 947, King Eadred received the fealty of Archbishop Wulfstan and the Northumbrian Witan, as recorded, with their speedy breach of it, in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. The place must even then have been of importance, and there can be but little doubt that the Witan met on the site of the later castle. Also it continued to be an important place, for at the Conquest it was a demesne of the Crown, and is recorded in Domesday as rated at £20., having three mills, and containing a hospital for the poor. Domesday, no doubt, means Pontefract Castle, when it records that, “Omnis tornour sedet infra metam castelli Ilberti secundum primam mensuram et secundum novissimam mensuram sedet extra.” Meta is here clearly the castle garth or boundary of its immediate lands, not the military enceinte or curtain about the position, with respect to which no measurement could be in error, nor is it the Castelry, which was a much larger area.
The parish of Pontefract, which is large, is composed of six townships, of which one is Pontefract proper. The parish is one of twenty composing the wapentake or hundred.
Leland, who calls the fortress “Snorre Castle,” says that before the Conquest it belonged to Richard Aschenald, and then to Ailric, Sweine, and Adam, his son, grandson, and great grandson. This last had two daughters, married to Alex. de Crevequer and Adam de Montbegon. Dodsworth calls Aschenald, Aske, still a great Yorkshire name, and points out, what indeed is still very evident, that the Norman works stood in part on an artificial hill, on which no doubt stood the house of the English lord, dispossessed by the Conqueror.
Ailric is a real person, and a Domesday landowner, and before the Conquest held many manors. Sweine was his son, and inherited, and gave a church and chapel to the monks of St. John’s Church at Pontefract. Ailric held his lands, much reduced, under the Norman grantee, as did Sweine, and his son Adam Fitz Sweine, who founded Bretton Priory, and died about 1158, having been a very considerable person. Charters by both Sweine and Adam are found in the Pontefract cartulary.
William I. was at Castleford on the Aire in the winter of 1069, and as he stayed there three weeks he probably found the means of inspecting so strong a place as the English House at Kirkby, and when he granted the district to Ilbert de Lacy it may reasonably be supposed that he followed his usual practice of directing a castle to be built.
Mr. Freeman suggests that the name of Pontefract may have arisen from some incident connected with this passage of the Aire; others have thought that, like Richmond and Montgomery, it was an imported name. Ordericus, however, as Mr. Freeman remarks, refers to it as Fractus-Pons, not Pons-Fractus, “Rex ... præpeditur ad fracti pontis vada,” as though the words were in a state of transition from a description to a proper name. The change of name certainly was adopted slowly, for while an early charter by Robert de Lacy, the second lord, has the passage, “de dominio suo de Kirkbi,” a later one has “Deo et Sᵗⁱ Johanni et Monachis meis de Pontefract,” while Hugh de Lanval, the intrusive lord, at least as late as 1120, employs the older name. Robert of Castleford, a good local authority, writing about a century after the event, says the name commemorates the escape of a multitude of people from drowning, when a bridge broke down beneath them. There is, however, no river within two miles of Pontefract capable of drowning a multitude.
Camden derives the name from the breaking down of a bridge or causeway that traversed the marshy valley still called the Wash, the springs of which rise close north-west of the castle and cross its approach from Knottingley, at Bubwith Houses, where, in the time of Edward II., John Bubwith held lands juxta veterem pontem de Pontefract, about a quarter of a mile from the castle, which, indeed, proves the existence of a bridge, though not of a broken one. How water came to be here collected will be explained when the defences of the castle are treated of. Perhaps the real truth of the matter may lie in the suggestion of Hopkinson, that the castle was called after a place of that name belonging to De Lacy in Normandy.
A few marks of Roman occupation have been discovered here, and but few. Legeolium, the station of the district, seems to have been at Castleford, three miles distant.
But whatever may have been the origin of the fortress, or of its evidently pre-Norman earthworks, its recorded history commences with Ilbert de Lacy, to whom William granted Knottingley, a large portion of the wapentake, and other lands, including about 150 manors, chiefly in the West Riding,—where they fill seven pages of Domesday-book,—Nottingham, and Lincoln, of which those in Yorkshire were erected into an Honour, whereof Pontefract, the strongest and most important place, became naturally the chief seat. Ilbert, though no doubt of near kin to the Herefordshire Lord of Ewyas and Holm-Lacy, was a different person. He is thought to have built Pontefract Castle before 1080, commencing it probably in consequence of the visit of the Conqueror, in 1069. If Sir H. Ellis be right, and the castle then built be that alluded to by the Domesday entry, it was speedily completed. Ilbert also endowed the chapel of St. Clement within the castle, which, in some form or other, long survived. He lived into the reign of Rufus, from whom he had a confirmation of his grants. By his wife, Hawise, he left Robert and Hugh.
Robert de Lacy, called, from his birthplace, “of Pontefract,” claims to have built Clitheroe, which has, indeed, been attributed to his second son. He also had a confirmation from Rufus. By Maud, his wife, he had Ilbert, who, with his father, on the death of Rufus, joined Curthose against Henry I., and fought at Tenchbrai. Both were banished, and Robert was disseized of Pontefract in favour of William Transversus, and then of Hugh de la Val, or Lanval, who held it to the reign of Stephen. Robert finally regained the Honour, but King Henry claimed 2,000 marcs, and de la Val had £150. for the demesne lands, and 20 knights’ fees, which are entered in the Liber Niger in 1165 as held “de veteri feodo Pontisfracti.” Robert confirmed some of de la Val’s grants to Nostel, and founded the Cluniac Priory of Pontefract.
Ilbert de Lacy, next Lord of the Honour, fought at Northallerton, and was a zealous supporter of Stephen, on whose death he adhered to Henry II. He married Alice, daughter of Gilbert de Gant, but died childless.
Henry de Lacy, next brother, succeeded. To him is attributed the later Norman work in the castle. He appears in the Liber Niger as holding 60 fees. Henry II. confirmed him in the Honour of Pontefract, and the other English and the Norman possessions of his family. 12 Henry II. he was assessed upon 79½ fees. He was a considerable church benefactor, and gave St. John’s Church and St. Nicholas’s Hospital, both in Pontefract, to the priory there. He founded Kirkstall.
Robert de Lacy, his son, and successor to the Honour, was present at the coronation of Richard I. He died childless in 1193.
The heir, according to Dugdale, and in violation of an accepted rule of inheritance, was Albreda de Lizures, Robert’s uterine sister. Mr. Hunter, however, in his preface to the Pipe-roll of 31 Henry I. has shown that in all probability Albreda was the daughter of Robert de Lizures by a sister of Ilbert de Lacy, second of this name, and therefore Robert’s cousin, and heir of the full blood. This point is important as setting aside what has been regarded as a singular exception to an accepted law. Albreda married Richard FitzEustace, Constable of Chester.
John, their son, who died before his mother, Lord of Pontefract and Constable of Chester, abandoned his House of Halton, took the name and arms of de Lacy, and died 1179, having married Alice de Vere.
Roger de Lacy, son and heir. 5 Richard I. he received from his grandmother the Lacy lands. He visited the Holy Land with his father in King Richard’s train. 7 Richard I. he paid 2,000 marcs to have livery of the Honour of Pontefract, excepting the castle, which the king retained in his own hands, and to which he paid at least ten visits between 1205 and 1216. 1 John, he reopened the question of the de la Val 20 fees, for livery of which he paid 500 marcs; and 4 John, 1203, the king addressed a letter to the tenants directing them to acknowledge Roger de Lacy as their lord. Though John continued to hold the Castle, he employed Roger in various important offices, and made him governor of the strong fortress of Château-Gaillard, on the Seine, in which he stood a very famous siege, only giving way when short of food, and deserted by the king. 13 John he paid scutage upon 47¾ fees of his own land, besides others which he held in wardship. He seems to have been the baron who, in the absence of regular soldiers, led the Chester minstrels to the relief of Earl Ranulph, when surrounded by the Welsh. He was a great soldier, and an openhanded benefactor to the church, and deserved the line with which the monks of Hanlau began his epitaph:—
“Hic sepelitur Heros generosus in orbe Rogerus.”
Earl Roger died a young man in 1211. He had married Maud de Clare, and by her had John, his successor. In December, 14 John, 1212, the Honour was in the king’s hands, and he seems to have made free with its revenues; for in 1213 he directed 300 marcs from its issues to be spent on the works at Corfe Castle.
John de Lacy had seizin 20 September, 1213, and paid John 7,000 marcs for livery of the Honour, less the castles of Pontefract and Durrington, which the king kept, and for the expenses of keeping which Peter FitzHerbert had an order on the Exchequer. John, who is styled in the writ John de Chester, joined the Barons against King John, and was duly excommunicated by the Pope. He married Margaret, co-heir of Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, by Hawise, Countess of Lincoln and co-heir of Ranulph, Earl of Chester and Lincoln. Early in the reign of Henry III., 1232, on the death of Earl Ranulph, Hawise seems to have made over her earldom to her daughter’s husband, who bore the title till his death, in 1240.
Edmund de Lacy, the son of Earl John and Margaret, was, by the contrivance of Henry III., married to one of his foreign kinsfolk, Alice, daughter of the Marquis de Saluces. He inherited Pontefract, but did not assume the title of Lincoln, as he did not outlive his mother. He died 42 Henry III., 1258, having built the House of the White Friars, near the Barbican, at Pontefract.
Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, his son, was the greatest of his race. He married the heiress of Longspee, and in her right became Earl of Salisbury. He was in ward to the king, and in 1272 was knighted and made Governor of Knaresborough Castle. He walled the town of Denbigh, and commenced the Castle, which he is said to have left unfinished because his only surviving son was drowned in a draw-well in the Red Tower there. His other son had been killed by a fall from a tower at Pontefract.
Having thus no son, Earl Henry surrendered his estates to the king, who regranted them, 28th December, 21 Edward I., to him for life, with remainder to Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and the heirs of his body. 28 Edward I., Queen Margaret was a visitor at Pontefract Castle, and during a short hunting excursion to Brotherton, was there brought to bed suddenly of Thomas, called from his birthplace. It is said that the house in which she took refuge, with 20 acres of land, was enclosed in a wall and ditched, and granted by the tenure of keeping the wall in repair. Earl Henry died at Lincoln’s Inn, 1310, leaving a daughter, Alice, who married Thomas, eldest son and successor of Edmund Earl of Lancaster.
Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, and, either by his wife Alice, or by his father’s grant, Earl of Lincoln, and Lord of Pontefract, succeeded. He was much at the castle, and probably refaced the lower part of the keep, built Swillington Tower, and no doubt some of the structures the bases of which remain in the main ward. He also in 1315 built Dunstanborough, and added Lancaster’s Buildings to Kenilworth. Earl Thomas’s history is well known. From Boroughbridge Field he was taken to Pontefract Castle, then occupied by the weak and vindictive king. He was imprisoned in Swillington Tower, tried and condemned in the great hall, and, in 1322, executed on the hill which still bears his canonised name, a mile to the north-east. He was buried in the Priory. The patent creating Harcla, one of his captors, Earl of Carlisle, was dated from the castle, three days after the earl’s execution.
Countess Alice, whose character was unhappily not so impregnable as her castle, married, secondly, Eubolo L’Estrange, who died 9 Edw. III. Her third husband was Hugh de Fresnes, called Earl of Lincoln. There was a fourth, earlier in the list, whose claims are doubtful. Alice died 1348, but Pontefract and the other possessions had already passed, under the regrant, to her husband’s brother.
Henry Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, succeeded to his brother’s honour in 1324, and died 1345. Edward III. probably retained the castle. He was here in 1328. By Maud Chaworth Earl Henry had another Henry.
Henry Plantagenet (Tort-col, or of Grismond), Earl of Derby, &c., and, in 1351, Duke of Lancaster. He died 1361. Blanch, his second daughter by Isabel Beaumont, and co-heir, inherited Pontefract Castle and Honour.
John Plantagenet, of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, married the heiress and became Lord of Pontefract. He resided much at Pontefract, and restored the works. When threatened by Richard II. he victualled and put the castle into a state of defence. 12 Richard II. he obtained by charter “jura regalia” within the honour. Parts of the half-covered basements in the main ward appear to be of his time. He died 1399.
Henry Plantagenet, of Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, afterwards Henry IV., son and heir, succeeded, being then in exile. Richard II., by confiscating the estates, provoked reprisals, which led to his own deposition. Pontefract Castle became his first prison, and the scene of his supposed murder. Since that event the castle has been vested in the Crown. Richard Scrope, archbishop of York, was here condemned to death in 1405, and at that time Henry IV. was much here, putting down the Northern insurrections. Many of his instruments are hence dated between 1405 and 1408.
Henry V., much occupied with foreign wars, and having peace at home, had no occasion to make use of Pontefract, which seems to have been neglected in its military capacity; but here Charles, Duke of Orleans, taken at Agincourt, and James I. of Scotland, were long confined, both accomplished men and given to literature.
With the civil dissensions that came under Henry VI., the castle became again of importance. The Duke of Exeter, taken from sanctuary after St. Alban’s, was here imprisoned; and in 1460, after the battle of Wakefield, Edward here took post, with his army encamped around. It was under the walls of the castle that Warwick killed his horse before the soldiers, saying, “Let him flee that flee will; I stay by him who stays by me.” It was in accordance with this declaration that the king advanced from Pontefract next day, and defeated the Lancastrians at Towton. Edward’s father, Richard, Duke of York, and his brother, the Earl of Rutland, slain at Wakefield, had been buried at Pontefract. He now added his father’s head to his body, and removed the whole from St. John’s Church to Fotheringay. During Edward’s reverses and absence in Holland, the Lancastrians used Pontefract as a military prison.
In 1463, Edward was again at Pontefract, and in 1478, when he was escorted thither in great state, and remained a week.
The bloody celebrity of Pontefract was increased during the ascendancy of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who sent hither Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, and Hawse, to be executed without form of trial. Soon after his accession he erected the town into a municipal borough.
The castle rose again briefly into notice in 1536, when Aske and the insurgents of the Pilgrimage of Grace appeared before it, and forced its surrender by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York, with more than a presumption of treachery. Henry VIII. was here in 1540. Two years later, Sir Henry Savile, as governor, had charge of several Scottish prisoners taken at Solway Moss.
Elizabeth, towards the close of her reign, repaired the castle, and rebuilt the chapel of St. Clement within it. King James was here in 1603, and made the castle and honour a part of the dower of his queen. He repeated his visit in 1616, and viewed the newly-established college of St. Clement, within the castle. King Charles was here in 1625, soon after his accession.
Pontefract was once more to become a place of military importance. Once the centre of the baronage of the north, it was now to appear as the rallying-place of the great aristocracy of Yorkshire, and of the Royal party. In 1642, when Charles lifted his standard at York, Pontefract Castle was garrisoned by a very strong force of local gentry and volunteers, with the gallant Sir William Lowther, of Swillington, as governor. Their courage was soon to be tried. After Marston Moor and the surrender of York, Sir T. Fairfax appeared before the castle, and in December, 1644, commenced its siege. The main attack seems to have been directed upon the north-west angle, where the Pix Tower was battered, and fell, bringing down part of the adjacent curtain with it. The enemy, however, did not storm, and the breach was made good with earth. Mines were then tried, and one was sprung near the King’s Tower, at the south-east angle. These were met by counter mines, for which the ground, a soft rock, was very favourable. Very many shafts were sunk near the walls in the main ward, and, no doubt, are still in existence. Both attack and defence were carried on with great spirit, but at last stores began to fail, and matters looked ill for the garrison. They were reduced to extremity when, on the 1st of March, Sir M. Langdale arrived with 2,000 men from Oxford, and forced Lambert to raise the siege, while he victualled and reinforced the garrison.
The Parliament, however, was now in the ascendant, and in a few days their forces were recruited, and again appeared before the place.
This time regular trenches were opened, batteries thrown up, and a complete line of circumvallation laid out. This was of an oval figure, completely inclosing the castle and its outworks. The contained area, from the head of Micklegate by Knollys’s Hospital on the west, to Monk-hill near New Hall on the east, was 900 yards; and from Baghill on the south, to the middle of the Abbot’s Closes on the north, 700 yards, and about 3,000 yards in girth. Upon this line, which in parts commanded the castle, were thrown up twelve regular places of arms, redans, or batteries, besides flèches and lighter works on the intermediate curtains to beat off the frequent sallies of the garrison. General Sands commanded, and General Overton was governor of the town. New Hall, a large mansion of the Talbots, to the east of the castle and outside the lines, was entrenched, and occupied by Sir John Savile. The garrison held Swillington Tower, the tower of the great church, and Neville’s Mount, a cavalier thrown up by them within the barbican, and carrying a large iron gun. These advanced works were of great service, as they both retarded the siege works and protected the repeated sallies from the garrison.
The trenches were opened in March, but it was the 24th of May before a battery was opened upon the keep. General Poyntz then took the command of the attack. It was, however, late in May before the church-tower was battered down, and the post, therefore, abandoned. Notwithstanding the disastrous news of Naseby, Lowther continued to hold out, and it was not until July 20th, after four months of siege, without further supply of stores or ammunition, and without a chance of relief, that he surrendered upon excellent terms. The fall of Pontefract was followed in three days by that of Sandal Castle, within signal of its towers.
The Parliament spared Pontefract on account of its strength, and put in General Cottrell, with a garrison. The Royalists, however, were still strong in the district, and June 6th, 1648, it was recovered by the treason of Morrice, a renegade, but a man of courage. A garrison was quickly collected, and the castle became once more a Royalist centre.
A third siege thus became necessary, and such was the strength of the place that, even discouraged as the Royalists were, it promised to be a troublesome one. General Rainsborough, who was appointed, met his death before taking the command, which fell at first to Sir H. Cholmley. Cromwell himself was present for a time, and a work on the north front bore his name. He left Lambert in command. Meantime, the king’s death had broken up the party; and ultimate success being impossible, the governor, Morrice, listened to terms. He himself and some others were excepted by name. The difficulty thus created was ingeniously evaded. The excepted persons being reduced to three, they were walled up in one of the subterranean chambers, well provided with food and air, and Lambert was made to believe that they had escaped. The place was then surrendered, Lambert entered March 24th, 1649, and as he did not retain the place, the three culprits got away safely. Parliament now ordered the castle to be demolished, and the only record of the details of its parts is that preserved in the schedule of its destruction. The materials—timber, lead, glass, and iron, sold for £1,779. 17s. 4d., of which £777. 4s. 6d. was the cost of demolition, £1,000 was paid to the town, and the balance of £2. 12s. 10d. went to the Commonwealth. This last creditor, however, received afterwards some arrears amounting to £145. 11s. 7d., and so, in an account of profit and loss, was wound up the history of one of the strongest and greatest fortresses in the North.