English and British royal mistress her. Richard II (6 January 1367– February 1400) was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed on 30 September 1399. A member of the close circle around the king was Robert De Vere, Earl of Oxford (Aubrey De Vere's nephew), who emerged as the King's favourite. De Vere's lineage, while an ancient one, was relatively modest in the peerage of England. Richard's close friendship to De Vere was disagreeable to the political establishment and this displeasure was exacerbated by the earl's elevation to the new title of Duke of Ireland in 1386. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham suggested the
Pontefract third siege, Pontefract inhabitants, fearing a fourth, petitioned Parliament for the castle to be slighted. In their view, the castle was a magnet for trouble, and in April 1649 demolition began. the ruins of the castle remain and are publicly accessible. Pontefract was the site of Pontefract Priory, a Cluniac priory founded in 1090 by Robert de Lacy dedicated to St John the Evangelist. The priory was dissolved by royal authority in 1539. The abbey maintained the Chartularies of St John, a collection of historic documents later discovered among family papers by Thomas Levett, the High Sheriff of Rutland and