Pontefract was referred to as "Pomfret". William Shakespeare's play "Richard III" mentions the castle:<br> Pomfret is referred to in Shakespeare's Richard II also My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is changed:You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.And, madam, there is order ta'en for you;With all swift speed you must away to France Pontefract suffered throughout the English Civil War. In 1648–49 the castle was laid under siege by Oliver Cromwell, who said it was "... one of the strongest inland garrisons in the kingdom." Three sieges by the Parliamentarians left the town "impoverished and depopulated". In March 1649, after the
Pontefract cake map of the 1648 Siege of Pontefract (reproduced in Chartres) the liquorice is indicated as being grown in "garths" either side of Micklegate, the street which runs between Pontefract's Market Place and the castle. In the 18th century liquorice was used as a medicine both for humans and for horses. The Pontefract cake "was almost certainly a black cake, the portable lozenge used to make 'liquorish water', stamped with the castle lodge emblem of Pontefract to signify quality. This trade mark had been employed on Pontefract cakes since 1612, when the initials 'GS' were used, and are thought to be