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,
Pontefract ballads make specific reference to the village of Wentbridge, which is an outlying village of the modern town of Pontefract. In addition, Michael Drayton's "Poly-Olbion" Song 28 (67–70) composed in 1622 speaks of Robin Hood's death and clearly states that the outlaw died at Saxon 'Kirkby', modern Pontefract. The historian S. A. La' Chance proposes that Robin Hood died at Saint Nicholas's hospital, Kirkby, which was attached to All Saints' Church. In commemoration of Wakefield's connections to Robin Hood, a plaque has been placed on the bridge that crosses the River Went. In Elizabethan times the castle, and Pontefract itself,