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
Pontefract Priory had resulted in a reduction of the monastery's debts from 3200 marks to 350. A later, undated, visitation return gives the average number of monks at 20. Duckett prints a letter from Stephen, Prior of Pontefract in 1323, to Pierre, Abbot of Cluny, explaining that he had been prevented from making a visitation of the English Cluniac houses, owing to the presence of the king and court at Pontefract, which prevented his leaving home. In the previous year (1322) Thomas, Earl of Lancaster had been beheaded at Pontefract, and his body buried in the priory church "on the right hand