lofty stories, with narrow slits for windows, and rooms in each gable. Little is known of the castle after its alienation to the Dominicans in 1275, until the reign of Henry VI. It appears to have come to the Crown, and was in the possession of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, fourth son of King Henry IV., to whom it had probably been granted by that king. In 1428 it was partially destroyed by fire, but was re-edified by the duke, who continued to reside within its walls until his death. Incurring the jealousy and hatred of Margaret of Anjou and her faction, the duke, who was arrested on a charge of high treason when attending the Parliament of St. Edmundsbury, 1446, at the instance of the queen was committed to prison, and there murdered by suffocation or strangulation, when the castle reverted to the Crown. In 1460 the Earl of Warwick defeated the Lancastrians at the second battle of St. Alban's, the result of which was a deputation to Edward, Earl of March, now Duke of York, and living in Baynard Castle, to request him to assume the Crown; and it was from its portals that he went in procession to St. Paul's to hear the _Te Deum_ sung for the Yorkist Victory, and hence to Westminster, to be vested in the mantle of Royalty, after which he summoned a great council of barons and ecclesiastics to Baynard Castle, to consult with them on the state of the realm. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was residing in Baynard Castle, after the murder of his nephews, when he was waited upon by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, for the purpose of requesting him to assume the Crown. Shakespeare delineates the scene with wonderfully graphic power in his drama of _King Richard III._, act 3, scene 7. King Henry VII. occupied the castle as a place of residence some three or four years; and Henry VIII. expended large sums of money in repairs and embellishment, and entertained there the King of Castile, but appears to have granted it to the Earl of Pembroke, a gentleman of the bedchamber, who had married Anne, sister of Queen Katherine Parr. On the death of Edward VI. he favoured the pretensions of Lady Jane Grey to the Crown, but almost immediately changed his opinion; and in his City castle a council was held, where it was determined that Mary, King Edward's sister, should succeed, and she was at once proclaimed Queen at Cheapside Cross. In the reign of Elizabeth it appears to have been occupied by Sir John Fortescue, master of the wardrobe, close by, and the Queen is said to have supped there occasionally. It afterwards became the town residence of the Earls of Shrewsbury, coming to that family, probably, through the marriage of John, the tenth earl, with Mary, daughter of Sir Francis Fortescue, and so remained until the Great Fire of 1666, when the venerable old castle, which had witnessed so many important and tragical events connected with the City of which it was the guardian, was finally, and for ever, destroyed, not a vestige now remaining.