Wakefield: Sandal Castle Ruins

I went for a walk to the Sandal Castle Ruins. It was another motte-and-bailey castle converted from wood and earthworks to stone. It was well-fortified with an outer motte and an inner one, a gatehouse and a drawbridge. It has a similar story as the Pontefract castle: it was under siege three times during the 1600s Civil War, and was destroyed to keep it from happening again. But before that the Wars of the Roses happened in the mid 1400s. This war was so named because the rivals for the throne each had a rose emblem--the house of York had the white rose, and the house of Lancaster had a red rose. In the Battle of Wakefield, Richard the Third was killed, becoming the last English king to die in battle. This was the subject matter of Shakespeare's play, "Henry VI, Part 1".Read more