was changed to decapitation. After sentence was passed, he said, "Shall I
die without answer?" He was not, however, permitted to speak; but a
certain Gascoign took him away, and having put an old hood over his head,
set him on a lean mare without a bridle. Being attended by a Dominican
friar as his confessor, he was carried out of the town amidst the insults
of the people; and there beheaded. Thus fell Thomas, Earl of Lancaster,
the first Prince of the Blood, being uncle to Edward II. who condemned him
to death. Several of his adherents were hanged at Pontefract.

The next royal blood that stained Pontefract castle was that of King
Richard II. who was here murdered or starved to death; though there is a
tradition that it was merely given out that Richard had starved himself to
death, and that he escaped from Pontefract to Mull, whence he shortly
proceeded to the mainland of Scotland, where, for nineteen years, he was
entertained in an honourable but secret captivity.[3] The matter remains
in tragic darkness.[4] In the succeeding reign of Henry IV. Richard
Scroope, archbishop of York, being taken prisoner, was in Pontefract
castle, condemned to death. Next in the calendar of atrocities committed
within these drear walls, were the murders of Anthony Woodville, Earl
Rivers; Richard, Lord Grey; Sir Thomas Vaughan; and Sir Richard Hawse, in
1483; by Richard III., whom Shakspeare makes to whine forth:


O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison!
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls,
Richard II. here was hack'd to death;
And for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.