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
Edmund de Lacy, Baron of Pontefract his mother Margaret de Quincy and on her death would have inherited the Earldom of Lincoln that vested in her. (His father had only been Earl by rights of his wife.) As he predeceased his mother he never became the Earl of Lincoln. He was an important landholder in northern England, with a strategic manor at Stanbury which was important for east-west communication, and as Lord of the Honour of Pontefract he possessed Pontefract Castle. He was brought up at the royal court of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, and made a 'Savoyard' marriage to one of