It was here that King Richard II was murdered in the
year 1399, and the remains of the dismal chamber where this tragedy took
place still existed. During the Wars of the Roses, when in 1461 Queen
Margaret appeared in the north of Yorkshire with an army of 60,000 men,
the newly appointed King, Edward IV, sent the first portion of his army
to meet her in charge of his most influential supporter, the Earl of
Warwick, the "King Maker." The King followed him to Pontefract with the
remainder of his army, and the old castle must have witnessed a
wonderful sight when that army, to the number of 40,660 men, was
marshalled in the plains below.
But it was in the Civil War that this castle attained its greatest
recorded notoriety, for it was besieged three times by the forces of the
Parliament. Sir Thomas Fairfax was in charge of the first siege, and
took possession of the town in 1644, driving the garrison into the
castle. He had a narrow escape from death on that occasion, as a
cannon-ball passed between him and Colonel Forbes so close that the wind
caused by its passage knocked both of them down to the ground, Forbes
losing the sight of one of his eyes. The castle was strongly defended,
but just as one of the towers collapsed, a shot from the castle struck a
match, and the spark, falling into Fairfax's powder stores, caused a
tremendous explosion which killed twenty-seven of his men.
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