There are at least three theories which attempt to explain his death: He was starved to death by his keepers, he starved himself to death or he was murdered by Sir Piers (Peter) Exton on 14 February 1399 or 1400. Little is known of the precise nature of his demise in particular Shakespeare may have "adjusted" the facts for his own purposes. King Richard II was murdered at the castle in 1400. The de Lacys lived in the castle for more than two centuries and were holders of the castle and the Honour of Pontefract from 1067 until the death of Alice de Lacy in 1348. Pontefract Castle began as a wooden motte and bailey castle, built before 1086 and later rebuilt in stone.
Main articles: de Lacy and Pontefract de Lacys' family treeĪfter the Norman conquest in 1066 almost all of Yorkshire came under the ownership of followers of William the Conqueror, one of whom was Ilbert de Lacy who became the owner of Tateshale (Tanshelf) where he began to build a castle.
In the Anglo-Saxon period a part of the modern township of Pontefract was known by the Anglo-Scandinavian name of Kirkby. The area which is now the town market place was the original meeting place of the Osgoldcross wapentake. The church is likely to be at Tanshelf and may have been similar to the church at Ledsham. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of the church on The Booths in Pontefract, off North Baileygate, below the castle. Tanshelf also had a church, a fishery and three mills. But the actual size of the population might be as much as four or five times larger than this as the people listed are landholders, and therefore the Domesday Book does not take their families into account. The town had a priest, 60 petty burgesses, 16 cottagers, 16 villagers and 8 smallholders, amounting to a total of 101 people. When the Domesday Book was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086, Tanshelf was still a sizeable settlement for the period. King Eadred did not enjoy Northumbria's support for long, and a year later the kingdom voted Eric Bloodaxe King of York. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes its first reference to Tanshelf in the year 947 when King Eadred of England met with the ruling council of Northumbria to accept its submission. The Anglo-Scandinavian township of Tanshelf recorded variously as Tateshale, Tateshalla, Tateshalle or Tatessella in the Domesday Book of 1086 existed in the region that is today occupied by the town of Pontefract. And even today, the major streets in Pontefract are designated by the Danish word 'gate' e.g. In Yorkshire, place-name locations often contain the distinctive Danish '-by' i.e. The modern township of Pontefract consisted of two Anglo-Scandinavian settlements, known as Tanshelf and Kirkby. The period of Yorkshire's history between the demise of the Viking king Eric Bloodaxe in 954 and the arrival of the Normans in 1068 is known as the Anglo-Scandinavian age. This is believed to form part of an alternative route from Doncaster to York via Castleford and Tadcaster, as a diversion of the major Roman road Ermine Street, which may have been used to avoid having to cross the River Humber near North Ferriby during rough weather conditions over the Humber. The modern town is situated on an old Roman road (now the A639), described as the "Roman Ridge". Once the survey was complete, the construction continued. In 2007 a suspected extension of Ferrybridge Henge – a Neolithic henge – was discovered near Pontefract during a survey in preparation for the construction of a row of houses. Pontefract was not recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book, but it was noted as Pontefracto in 1090, four years after the Domesday survey.
The name "Pontefract" originates from the Latin for "broken bridge", formed of the elements pons ('bridge') and fractus ('broken'). Historians believe that it is this historical event which gives the township of Pontefract its modern name. Such a crossing point would have been important in the town's early days, providing access between Pontefract and other settlements to the north and east, such as York. The 11th-century historian, Orderic Vitalis, recorded that, in 1069, William the Conqueror travelled across Yorkshire to put down an uprising which had sacked York, but that, upon his journey to the city, he discovered that the crossing of the River Aire at what is modern-day Pontefract had been blockaded by a group of local Anglo-Scandinavian insurgents, who had broken the bridge and held the opposite bank in force. At the end of the 11th century, the modern township of Pontefract consisted of two distinct and separate localities known as Tanshelf and Kirkby.