The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides of the castle yard. During his advance towards York for the conquest of the north of England, William the Norman was delayed for three weeks at Castleford, owing to the river being so flooded that it could not be crossed even with boats, and it was no doubt during his enforced stay on the south side of the river that he realized the importance of the site of Pontefract; and if Ilbert de Lacy were with him at the time, it is reasonable to suppose that the Norman lord expressed to the Conqueror his liking for the neighbourhood. The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy. Henry’s great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Château Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt at relief. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who was a cousin of Edward II., was more or less in continual opposition to the king, on account of his determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with Lancaster’s full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin, and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing, he was condemned to death as a traitor, and the next day, June 19, 1322, mounted on a sorry nag without a bridle, he was led to a hill outside the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.