Pontefract Castle: An Account How it was Taken: And ho General Rainsborough was Surprised in his Quarters at Doncaster, October 29, 1648.; Written upon the Occasion of Prince Eugene's Surprising Monsieur Villeroy at Cremona. In a Letter to a Friend. By Capt. Tho. Paulden. Now Reprinted for the Widow; with some Passages taken for the Papers of Sir Marmaduke Langdale

24 pages. Approx. 6.5 inches by 8.5 inches This pamphlet has been removed from a volume. While the edges appear to have been cropped, the text is complete. RARE. Pontefract (or Pomfret) Castle is a castle ruin in the town of Pontefract, in West Yorkshire, England. King Richard II is thought to have died there. It was the site of a series of famous sieges during the 17th-century English Civil War. Royalists controlled Pontefract Castle at the start of the English Civil War. The first of three sieges began in December 1644 and continued until the following March when Marmaduke Langdale, 1st Baron Langdale of Holme arrived with Royalist reinforcements and the Parliamentarian army retreated. During the siege, mining and artillery caused damage and the Piper Tower collapsed as a result. The second siege began on 21 March 1645, shortly after the end of the first siege, and the garrison surrendered in July after hearing the news of Charles I's defeat at the Battle of Naseby. Parliament garrisoned the castle until June 1648 when Royalists sneaked into the castle and took control. Pontefract Castle was an important base for the Royalists, and raiding parties harried Parliamentarians in the area. Oliver Cromwell led the final siege of Pontefract Castle in November 1648. Charles I was executed in January, and Pontefract's garrison came to an agreement and Colonel Morrice handed over the castle to Major General John Lambert on 24 March 1649. On 27 March Parliament gave orders that Pontefract Castle should be "totally demolished & levelled to the ground" and materials from the castle would be sold off. It is still possible to visit the castle's 11th-century cellars, which were used to store military equipment during the civil war. Thomas Paulden (1626-1710?), royalist, was born in Wakefield in January 1625-6 (baptised on 25 Jan., parish register). He entered the army, and served the king during the civil war with unflinching devotion. He was probably the Captain Paulden who was taken prisoner at Naseby on 14 June 1645. In 1647 he was attending meetings of loyal gentlemen at South Kirkby and the neighbourhood, and privately enlisted disbanded troops, both horse and foot. He and his brothers William (1618-1648) and Timothy (1622-1648) seem to have been the sole confidants of the royalist colonel John Morris, to whom Overton, the parliamentary governor of Pontefract Castle, had promised to betray the castle. The removal of Overton to Hull in November 1647 rendered the plan impracticable. The royalists-the Pauldens among them-made an unsuccessful attempt at a surprise on 18 May 1648. In the successful capture of the castle by Morris on 3 June Thomas Paulden took no part, but he and his brothers were active during the siege that followed, commanding sallies, acting on councils of war, and settling points of dissension among the garrison. In October 1648 Colonel Thomas Rainsborough arrived from London to reinforce the besieging party, and was quartered at Doncaster, twelve miles from Pontefract. William Paulden then devised a scheme for seizing the person of Rainsborough. On 27 Oct., at midnight, he and twenty-two picked men left for Doncaster, which they reached at 7.30 on the morning of the 28th. After disarming the guard, four men, under pretence of bearing despatches from Cromwell, entered Rainsborough's room and claimed him as their prisoner. Rainsborough, being unarmed, offered no resistance. But, when downstairs, he 'saw himself, his lieutenant, and his sentinel at his door prisoners to three men and one that held their horses, without any party to second them;' he cried for arms, and a scuffle ensued, in which Rainsborough was killed. Paulden's party returned to Pontefract Castle unhurt the same evening, 29 Oct. The occurrence was reported in London as a deliberate murder. On the arrival of Cromwell early in November the garrison at Pontefract was closely shut up in the castle. Part of the building was blown up, and sickness prevailed am.…