Pontefract Castle II was captured by Henry Bolingbroke's supporters in August 1399 and initially imprisoned in the Tower of London. Sometime before Christmas that year he was moved to Pontefract Castle (via Knaresborough) where he remained under guard until his death, perhaps on 14 February 1400. William Shakespeare's play Richard III mentions this incident: Various chroniclers suggest that Richard was starved to death by his captors, and others suggest he starved himself. A contemporary French chronicler suggested that Richard II had been hacked to death, but this is, according to the ODNB, "almost certainly fictitious". In 1536, the castle's guardian, Thomas Darcy,
Barciany Castle Barciany Castle Barciany Castle, or Ordensburg Barten, is a 14th-century Teutonic Castle in Barciany village in Kętrzyn County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. Barciany Castle was first mentioned in 1325 as a wooden structure. In the late 14th century the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Winrich von Kniprode decided to place the seat of a Komtur. The construction of a brick castle started in 1377, ending around 1400, with later additions in the 15th century. The castle remained under the rule of the Order until the moment of its secularization, when it became the seat of the steward of