It is also written in the same documents, in regard to the tenure of this castle and town, likewise of the “castle and town of Tenbigh, of the Grange of Kingswood, of the Convent of Croytargath, and of the manors of Castle-Martin and Tregoire, that Reginald Grey, at the coronation of King Henry the Fourth, made suit to carry the second sword, but in vain; for answer was made him, that those castles and possessions were in the King’s hands, in the same manner as the town and castle of Pembroke now are”--[that is, at the date of the present extract.] <g>The Siege.</g>--We now proceed to give a few details of Pembroke Castle, as it figures in the chronicles of <g>Richard</g> the Third and <g>Charles</g> the First. * * * * * The more rational and less bigoted part of the nation regarded Henry, Earl of Richmond, as the future deliverer of the kingdom, from the thraldom it endured from the tyranny of the sanguinary King Richard; for in Henry were to be united the pretensions of both the “Houses” of York and Lancaster. The Earl was, meanwhile, resident in Brittany, and living on good terms with the duke of that Province, who appeared to favour his claims, and treated him with marked respect and hospitality. But the circumstance that more immediately favoured his accession to the throne of England was the following:--Morton, Bishop of Ely, was confined in the Castle of Brecon, in custody of Henry, Duke of Buckingham, who had been a minion of Richard, and a powerful instrument of his advancement to the throne; but finding that his services in a bad cause were forgotten, and that Richard refused to ratify his claims to the Bohun estates and titles--to which he was heir--Buckingham entered warmly into the plans concerted by Morton and others for the recall of Richmond, and by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Edward the Fourth, to establish a double right to the throne. Dugdale assigns another reason for Buckingham’s secession from the usurper: after asserting that he was reinstated in those possessions which he claimed as a descendant of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and giving him an abstract of the instrument that put him in possession, he adds his opinion on the alteration which took place in his political sentiments, and ascribes it either to a remorse of conscience for raising Richard to the throne, after the murder of his nephews, or finding himself neglected by him: but with this question we have nothing to do.[382] Having concerted the plan of elevating Richmond to the throne, the secret was intrusted to Sir Rhys-ap-Thomas, and Richard Kyffin, Dean of Bangor--both strenuous friends of the House of Lancaster--who transmitted, by means of fishing-boats, the necessary intelligence to the Earl of Richmond, with assurance of all possible aid on his arrival in Wales. This was an occasion too alluring for the Welsh Bards to continue silent; one of