Editing Pontefract (section)

===Early modern history===
In Elizabethan times the castle and the town were both referred to as "Pomfret".<ref name=H2G2/> [[William Shakespeare]]'s play ''[[Richard III (play)|Richard III]]'' mentions the castle:<br />

<blockquote>
Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,<br />
Fatal and ominous to noble peers!<br />
Within the guilty closure of thy walls<br />
Richard the second here was hack'd to death;<br />
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,<br />
We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.<ref name=H2G2/>
</blockquote>

[[File:The New Church within the Old, All Saints, Bondgate, Pontefract. - geograph.org.uk - 239265.jpg|thumb|The new church within the old. After [[All Saints' Church, Pontefract|All Saints' Church]] was damaged during the [[English Civil War|civil war]] a new one was built within.]]
Pontefract suffered throughout the [[English Civil War]]. In 1648–49 the castle was laid siege by [[Oliver Cromwell]], who said it was "... one of the strongest inland garrisons in the kingdom."<ref name=H2G2>[http://h2g2.com/approved_entry/A2350108 "Yorkshire's Castles: Pontefract Castle"]; H2G2.com, Not Panicking Ltd.</ref> Three sieges by the Parliamentarians left the town "impoverished and depopulated".<ref name=petition>Padgett 166–169</ref> In March 1649, after the third siege, Pontefract inhabitants, fearing a fourth, petitioned Parliament for the castle to be [[slighted]].<ref name=petition/> The castle was a magnet for trouble,<ref name=petition/> and demolition began in April 1649.<ref name=petition/>  The castle ruins are publicly accessible.
[[Pontefract Priory]], a [[Cluniac]] priory founded in 1090 by Robert de Lacy dedicated to [[John the Evangelist|St John the Evangelist]] was [[Dissolution of the Monasteries|dissolved]] by royal authority in 1539.<ref>{{cite book|section=Houses of Cluniac monks: Priory of Pontefract |title=A History of the County of York: Volume 3 |editor-first=William |editor-last=Page |editor-link=William Page (historian) |location=London |year=1974 |pages=184–186 |via=British History Online |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/vol3/pp184-186 |access-date=3 October 2022}}</ref> The priory maintained the Chartularies of St John, a collection of historic documents later discovered among family papers by [[Thomas Levett]], the [[High Sheriff of Rutland]], a native of Yorkshire, who gave them to [[Roger Dodsworth]], an [[antiquary]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/collectaneatopo17nichgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/collectaneatopo17nichgoog/page/n112 103]|quote=pontefract levet.|title=Collectanea Topographica Et Genealogica|first1=Frederic|last1=Madden|first2=Bulkeley|last2=Bandinel|date=1 May 1835|publisher=J. B. Nichols and son|access-date=1 May 2019|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> They were published by the [[Yorkshire Archaeological Society]].<!--by the way, this is a really poor ref, what on earth can be understood by it? Has anyone really read and understood it; if they have I would dearly love to have it explained to me (lucidly please!):[[user talk:jodosma]]
--><ref>''Early Yorkshire Charters: being a collection of documents anterior to the thirteenth century made from the public records, monastic chartularies, Roger Dodsworth's manuscripts and other available sources''; edited by William Farrer. 3 vols. Edinburgh: Printed for the editor by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., 1914–16</ref>