Huntingdon Castle
Huntingdon Castle is an abandoned castle in the town of Huntingdon in the English county of Cambridgeshire .
In 1068 a moth was erected there at the behest of King William the Conqueror . In the Civil War of Anarchy it belonged to King David I of Scotland , who had acquired it through his marriage to Maud, 2nd Countess of Huntingdon . He supported Empress Matilda in a battle for the English crown and the castle was badly damaged on that occasion. When the civil war was over, King David's son Henry of Scotland paid homage to King Stephen of England , who gave him the settlement of Huntingdon as a fief in addition to the castle.
In 1173 the castle still belonged to the kings of Scotland, then King William the Lion . During the revolt of 1173–1174, he took the side of Henry the Younger , the rebellious son of King Henry II of England , and the castle was besieged by Richard de Luci . The siege was taken over by Simon de St Lis but did not end until King Henry II (who had just repented at Thomas Becket's tomb ) arrived in Huntingdon. It ended the following day and King Heinrich ordered that the castle be demolished.
Parts of the castle remained, including the chapel , and the castle ruins passed through different hands. The castle was fortified again during the English Civil War . It served as a county jail for a while, and later a windmill stood on its mound . Today only this mound remains and is considered a Scheduled Monument .
Sources and web links
- Huntingdon Castle . Gatehouse Gazetteer.
- The borough of Huntingdon: Introduction, castle and borough . British History Online.
- Plantagenet Somerset Fry: The David & Charles Book of Castles . David & Charles, Newton Abbott 1980. ISBN 0-7153-7976-3
Coordinates: 52 ° 19 '36.1 " N , 0 ° 10' 54.8" W.