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Current state of Bedford Castle bailey

Bedford Castle, a castle in Bedford, England (grid reference TL053497).

It was the seat of the Barony of Bedford. Seized from the Beauchamps by Falkes de Breauté one of the royal partisans, it was the scene of three sieges before being demolished on the king's order in 1224 [1]

In 919 Edward the Elder built the town's first known fortress, on the south side of the River Ouse and there received the area's submission. This fortress was destroyed by the Danes. William II of England gave the barony of Bedford to Paine de Beauchamp, who built a new, very strong castle.

Of this castle, William Camden said, "while it stood, there was no storm of civil war that did not burst upon it". Stephen of England took it by surrender and gave honourable terms to the garrison. In the First Barons' War William de Beauchamp received the barons into the castle. However, Faukes de Brent was sent by King John of England to gain its surrender and did so in a few days, for which John gave him the castle and the barony. After Faukes had fortified his castle and rendered it nearly impregnable - it is said that he pulled down the Church of St. Paul for materials - he became an oppressive landlord and was eventually fined £3000 by the king's justices sitting at Dunstable. Enraged at this, Faukes sent his brother and a troop of men-at-arms to bring the justices to the castle by force, but they had prior knowledge of this - two of them escaped, and only Henry Braybrooke was taken and abused.

By now even the king had had enough of Faukes' behaviour and, marching to the castle in person with Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury (the Church had suffered so much from De Brent's raids that it granted a voluntary aid to the king, and for every hide of their lands furnished two labourers to work the engines employed in the siege - these included a siege tower), and the chief peers of the realm, demanded that he back down. Confident in the castle's defences, Faukes de Brent refused. However, the ensuing siege went badly for him and, leaving his brother William de Brent as governor of the castle, he fled to a church at Coventry. In Faukes' absence and with all help gone, William after a while surrendered the castle, and was hanged with twenty-four knights and eighty soldiers.

Through the mediation of the Bishop of Coventry, Faukes obtained the royal pardon, on condition that he left the realm. Culmo, another brother, was also pardoned. Henry called the castle "the nursery of sedition'" and ordered it to be dismantled and its moats to be filled up. Although this order was not fully carried out (its ruins were seen 250 years later and Camden recorded that in his lifetime the ruins then overhung the river on the east side of the town), nothing can now be seen of it.

• 19th century account
• 20th c account

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Coordinates: 52.13558° N 0.46291° W