Pontefract Castle at Pontefract was among such properties under threat which roused Bolingbroke to return to England to claim his rights to the Duchy of Lancaster and the properties of his father. Act 2, scene 1, of Shakespeare's play "Richard II" relates Bolingbroke’s homecoming in the words of Northumberland in the speech of the eight tall ships:- When he landed at Ravenspur on the Humber he made straight way for his castle at Pontefract. The King, being in Ireland at the time, was in no position to oppose Bolingbroke who deposed Richard and took the crown for himself as Henry IV. Richard
John de Braose Braose. His grandfather had had his lands seized and his grandmother Maud de St. Valery had been captured by forces of King John of England in 1210. She was imprisoned, along with John's father William, in Corfe Castle and walled alive inside the dungeon. Both mother and son starved to death on the King's orders. This was probably due to John's grandfather's conflict with the monarch, open rebellion and subsequent alliance with Llewelyn the Great. John's nickname "Tadody" means "fatherless" in the Welsh. At his family's fall from Royal favour John de Braose was initially hidden on Gower and spent