Archbishop Scrope affirmed that Richard died of starvation, while Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
King Richard. How now! what means death in this rude assault?
Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument.
(Snatching an axe from a servant and killing him.)
Go thou, and fill another room in hell.
(He kills another. Then Exton strikes him down.)
That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
Hath with the King’s blood stain’d the King’s own land.
Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
On the west side of the castle ruins some broken walls are pointed out as Richard’s chamber, on what evidence I do not know.
During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a ‘gentleman volunteer’ of the garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes, and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before recent times.
In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned the garrison, and remained a month with the Parliamentary forces, without seeing any immediate prospect of the surrender of the castle. When the Royalists had been reduced to a mere handful, Colonel Morris, their commander, agreed to terms of capitulation on March 24, 1649. The dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size of a shilling, known as ‘Pontefract cakes.’
To the west of Pontefract, in a comparatively small space, and connected with a wonderful network of railways, lie Wakefield, Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and a dozen smaller centres of manufacture, while further south are Barnsley and Sheffield. It seems unfair that a district contributing so much to England’s wealth should be repaid by gloomy skies and depressing landscapes.
Wakefield has a fine Perpendicular church with a tall crocketed spire, which became a cathedral in 1888, when the new diocese was formed. The chantry on the bridge over the Calder is entirely a modern reconstruction. It is, however, so richly carved, and so deceptive in its appearance of age, through the weathering of the Caen stone employed, that even Ruskin was under some misapprehension in regard to its age. There is nothing in the town to connect it with Goldsmith’s ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ and it is not known if he ever visited the place.
The great black city of Leeds has a nucleus consisting of several fine streets possessing numbers of modern buildings, making an imposing effect worthy of the fifth English city and the commercial capital of Yorkshire. New public buildings, banks, shops, or whatever they may be, however white they commence their existence, in a very short time are toned down to the uniform sable tones of the whole city. Clock-faces stand out with painful whiteness against the sooty stonework of towers and gables, and the only colour to be seen is restricted to the shop-windows. Architects should remember the atmosphere of Leeds, and use coloured glazed bricks and porcelain extensively, so that whole buildings could every year be washed down from the roofs to the ground, and cheer the citizens of the great town with their cleanliness and colour. In City Square, just outside the stations of the Midland, Great Northern, and other