In the last year of the same century Richard II. died in imprisonment in the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place. Hardyng’s Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another in the lines: ‘The Kyng the[n] sent Kyng Richard to Ledis, There to be kepte surely in previtee, Fro the[n]s after to Pykeryng we[n]t he nedes, And to Knauesburgh after led was he, But to Pountfrete last where he did die.’ Archbishop Scrope affirmed that Richard died of starvation, while Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer. _King Richard._ How now! what means death in this rude assault? Villain, thy own hand yields thy death’s instrument. (_Snatching an axe from a servant and killing him._) Go thou, and fill another room in hell. (_He kills another. Then Exton strikes him down._) That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand Hath with the King’s blood stain’d the King’s own land. Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high; Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die. On the west side of the castle ruins some broken walls are pointed out as Richard’s chamber, on what evidence I do not know. During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a ‘gentleman volunteer’ of the garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes, and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before recent times.