Motor tours in Yorkshire

by Mrs. Rodolph Stawell

The names of those to whom it has been fatal make a long list. The most illustrious name on that list is Richard Plantagenet.

That Richard was by some means done to death in this castle is, I believe, certain; but how he died and where is unknown. The old tale that tells how Sir Piers Exton and his eight men rushed into the room where the imprisoned king was dining, and how Richard "right valiantly defended himself," but was finally struck on the head with a poleaxe by Sir Piers, who "withal ridded him of his life in an instant," was discredited when Richard's grave at Westminster was opened, and the skull, which was perfectly preserved, showed no mark of a blow. Another theory is the one believed by Northumberland and Harry Hotspur, who accused Henry IV. of having traitorously caused their sovereign lord and his "with hunger, cold, and thirst to perish, to be murdered." If we skirt the lawn-tennis court and turn down a little path to the left we shall find, behind the raised bowling-alley, a fragment of vaulted ceiling and a wall with three little recesses in it. This is reputed to be Richard's prison. I do not know if there be any real evidence that it was so. There is certainly not the evidence of a continuous tradition; for until the siege destroyed it a room in the round tower was shown to visitors as the scene of Piers Exton's fabulous exploit with the poleaxe—a room in which there was a post all hacked and cut by the blows aimed at the King! When the post disappeared the scene of Richard's death moved to this Gascoign Tower where we see the vaulted ceiling. It is curious how often the only fragment left of a building happens to be the scene of the event in the building's history that is most likely to appeal to popular sentiment. One grows suspicious of local traditions!

Richard II. was not the only prince to be imprisoned in Pontefract Castle. James I. of Scotland was here, and with him were the Dukes of Orléans and Bourbon and other prisoners taken on the field of Agincourt. Henry V. was a little anxious at one time lest he should lose "the remnant of his prisoners of France," for a plot was on foot to rescue them. "I will," wrote the King, "that the Duke of Orléans be kept still within the Castle of Pomfret, without going to Robert's Place or to any other disport; for it is better he lack his disport than we were deceived of all the remnant."

Of all those who actually met their death here Thomas Earl of Lancaster—he whom Gaveston called the Actor—had the hardest fate. The place belonged to him, and he had done much for it. Among other things he built or repaired the tower called Swillington, the tower that was destined to be his own prison, whose fragments we may see down there guarding the moat on the north side. His hatred of Gaveston and the Despencers, Edward II.'s favourites, brought him to this plight; to this dark tower whose walls he had made so thick, whose entrance was a trap-door in the roof; to his mock trial by his enemies in the great hall that stood here on the north side of the lawn; to his condemnation and ignominious death. It was here within this court, somewhere near the northern boundary wall, that he stood facing the Despencers as they venomously sent him to the block; it was here that he uttered his last despairing words: "Shall I die without answer?" Then they muffled his head in an old hood and set him, the King's uncle, on "a lean mare without a bridle," and so led him out among the mocking soldiers to his death. We can see, from the castle ramparts, the hill where he was beheaded. It is called St. Thomas's Hill to this day, for later on he was canonised and his grave in St. John's Priory became a shrine. The site of the priory—the monastery that Camden industriously omitted—is between the hill and the castle.

Pontefract was fatal to many of Edward IV.'s followers and kin. Before his final triumph at Tewkesbury some of his supporters were imprisoned here. "John Pylkyngton, Mr. W. att Cliff, and Fowler ar taken," we read in the Paston Letters, "and in the Castyll of Pomfrett, and ar lyck to dye hastyly, withowte they be dead." Very hastily, too, and without trial, Edward's brother-in-law Lord Rivers, and stepson Sir Richard Grey died here by order of Richard III.

It really seems as though there had been something sinister in the atmosphere of this place. Even its one gay memory—the visit of Henry VIII. and his fifth bride—is overshadowed by the scaffold; for it was here that Katherine Howard put a weapon into her husband's hand by making Francis Derham her private secretary.

Indeed Pontefract has no cheerful annals: they are all of battle, murder, and sudden death. There was very little bloodshed, I believe, when the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace took the castle; but who can guess how many died during the three sieges of the Civil War? The place was Crown property, but after two sieges it surrendered to the army of the Parliament. It is rather difficult to ascertain by what particular form of treachery it was recovered by the Royalists. The deed was done, in any case, by one Colonel Marris, whom Clarendon describes as "a stout and bold undertaker in attempts of the greatest danger." Stout and bold he certainly was, but not very attractive; for he began by deserting the royal cause, and then, when he wished to turn his coat again, was enabled to carry out his plot by his close friendship with the governor. Being always welcome he made friends with some of the guard. The garrison, as it happened, needed new beds, so when Marris and some others appeared at the gates laden with beds they were admitted at once. They carried the beds into that solid-looking house that was on our right as we entered the castle, the house that bears the arms of Lancaster over the door. It was the Main Guardhouse. There they flung the beds upon the floor and overpowered the friendly guard.

So Pontefract came back to the Crown, the Parliamentary garrison were imprisoned in the magazine, and the third siege began. The magazine in which Colonel Cotterell and his men lived for eleven weeks is under the lawn-tennis court. If you borrow a taper from the custodian you can go down into it, and read, on the wall of the staircase, the names that some of these soldiers cut in the stone.

When the time came for discussing terms of surrender General Lambert said that Marris and five others must be given up to him. The governor asked and was granted six days in which the six men might do their best to escape. On the fifth day they had all disappeared and the garrison surrendered. Two of the six, however, were still within the castle, in a secret place beneath the Pipe Tower, which stood over there beyond the Norman Keep. They were walled up "with great store of waste stones," and had food for a month beside them. The situation was a critical one. They heard their garrison march away, some to Newark, some to the enemy's camp, some to their homes, the officers with their horses and arms, even the men with Portmantles and Snapsacks; heard the rumbling of the three waggons that carried the wounded; heard, during ten awful days, the incessant clamour and crash of the first hurried dismantling of the castle, the clamour that might be their death at any moment; heard at last the withdrawal of the Parliamentary troops. Then they took down their wall of waste stones, and stole away.