For most of its history, it was used as a prison and the castle gave Lancaster the nickname of “The Hanging Town”. At the beginning of its life it started out as a medieval fortress of the North, it turned over time into one of Britain's most brutal
prisons. This castle aslo contained a court, where people came to get tried, punished and to die. The castle has more then 800 years of stories about crime and punishment. The first people to settle in Lancaster were the Romans and They settled here in
43 AD when the conquered Britain. To quell the local tribes the Romans established a fort in the centre. The word Lancaster comes from the river Lune, and castrum, the Latin word for Fort. The remains of the Roman fort can be seen in the 13th Century
curved wall, where the old fort lay. They even named the tower after the famous Roman Emperor Hadrian. The Norman Invasion in 1066 saw the castle transformed upon Williams conquest of Britain where he set to establish his network of castles to rule
over the Britain. The oldest part of the castle is the keep. Know body knows exactly who built the keep. It is thought that King David of Scotland built it as in the 1140s he held dominion over the North of England.
The keep is so big, With walls 10ft thick and stands four stories tall it probably would of taken at least 5 years to build. In 1199, King John of England began his reign (one of the worst rulers in English History) and came to the castle in 1206.
Two years later he bolstered the castle's defences. He built ditches on the south and west walls, turned the wooden walls to a large stone wall and demanded stronger fortifications in the middle. Which saw the building of Hadrians Tower. This didn't only
make it hard to attack but it made the castle hard to escape. Its where he would later prison many of his enemies in castles like these that he had built.
In 1362 Edward III gave the position of sheriff and title of Duke of Lancaster to One of his Sons, John of Gaunt. In 1377, he convinced his nephew Richard II (who just came into power) to grant him more powers to rule and turn his position into a job
for life. This effectively made him the King of Lancaster and a real threat to the crown. Come 1399, John of Gaunt died and left everything to his son, Henry Bolingbroke. Richard tried to grab the land back but Henry had so much support that he raised
an army so large, that Richard surrendered without ever having to fight. Richard II was in the tower of London and Henry Bolingbroke was King Henry IV of England. And it was him who built magnificent main keep in honor of his father.
It is 66ft high and 25ft deep, has semi octagonal towers and a iron spiked gate walled a portcullis.
The castle saw trials in the court house but not all trials were held buy judges. Some trials were held as “Trials by ordeal.” These trials were, trials in which God would decide your fate. Trial by iron, was a trial to determine your innocence, whereby
a iron bar would be heated up on and the accused would run with it for nine feet and then drop it. Their hands would then be bound and after 3 days if their hands were healed they were pronounced innocent, but if their hands were blistered and scabbed they
were found guilty of their crime.
Most punishments would of been carried out in public and would of taken place on Gallows Hill outside of the castle, to being pelted in the stocks with anything from rotten vegetables to dead cats and excrement. In Hadrian's Tower you can find a whole manner
of punishments that where used to punish people who were sentenced of their crime.
During the reign from Henry VIII Protestants became the main religion and if you were a Catholic it was seen as an act of treason which was punishable by death. One person to suffer from this fate was a priest called Edmund Arrowsmith, who was tried at
Lancaster Castle in the summer of 1628, unfortunately he was tried by famously anti-Catholic judge sir Henry Yelverton, who sentenced him to be hanged drawn and quartered. He was ordered to the worst cell in the prison where he would wait to be executed.
Until about the 1800's any hangings used to take place out on the other side of town. The condemned would leave the castle escorted by the Sheriff and his troops. A crowd would gather to go witness the public execution and a tradition began whereby he or
she was allowed to stop in the Golden Lion Pub for a final drink one last time before they were executed.
Lancaster became so famous for its court and its crime and punishments that it became immensely popular that people from all over Britain would come over to watch these court cases,
it boosted the economy of the town and saw business boom. High Lords would travel to Lancaster and stay in B&Bs and Hotels just to witness these events. Come the industrial revolution, it boosted the wealth of the town, and saw a rise in the population...
it also saw crime boom too. This though, was good for business.
On the 21st of November 1974, there was a terrorist attack that took place in Birmingham that saw two bombs kill 21 people and more than160 injured. In June 1975, the castle saw the trial take place in Lancaster's Crown Port.
The Birmingham Six were held in the cells at Lancaster and for three months walked back and forth, through the prison to the court room. Within two days, four of the six men signed confessions but they said the confessions were
brutally beaten out of them. As a result on the 15th of August 1975, they were found guilty at Lancaster Castle and given 21 life sentences for murder. They spend 16 years in British prisons before they were overturned in 1991.
The Current Duke of Lancaster is our very own present day Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. ruling over 45000 acres of land and the Duchy is worth around half a billion pounds with yearly revenues of around £60 million... This castle is one of the greatest examples
of how fear helped rule the kingdom and it really is amazing to tread on the soil of a place rich in history and become overwhelmed.