Pembroke Castle
After the Norman conquest of England in 1054, an Anglo-Norman lord built Pembroke Castle in 1089 as the Normans moved to subdue Celtic Wales, commencing a legendary contest of nationalities. The castle became the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, a hereditary position granted by the English crown. Nonetheless, over the centuries Pembroke served both as the center of English hegemony (including ownership by Richard II, the Lion-Hearted, of the House of Plantagenet) and as the locus of insurrections led by Welsh princes. In the 15th century, the first Tudor prince (later crowned Henry II, King of England) was born here to a 13 year-old mother of Plantagenet/Lancastrian descent and a noble Welsh father (deceased at the child’s birth) with Lancastrian connections. In the seventeenth century, at the start of the English Civil War, Pembroke allied with Parliament, but when its masters shifted allegience to the Crown, Oliver Cromwell arrived at Pembroke to lead a Parliamentary siege that recaptured the fortress. Cromwell encouraged the destruction of the castle, but it was rehabilitated in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries in recognition of its historical and architectural importance. Pembroke, Wales (1 June, 2017)
Pembroke Castle
After the Norman conquest of England in 1054, an Anglo-Norman lord built Pembroke Castle in 1089 as the Normans moved to subdue Celtic Wales, commencing a legendary contest of nationalities. The castle became the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, a hereditary position granted by the English crown. Nonetheless, over the centuries Pembroke served both as the center of English hegemony (including ownership by Richard II, the Lion-Hearted, of the House of Plantagenet) and as the locus of insurrections led by Welsh princes. In the 15th century, the first Tudor prince (later crowned Henry II, King of England) was born here to a 13 year-old mother of Plantagenet/Lancastrian descent and a noble Welsh father (deceased at the child’s birth) with Lancastrian connections. In the seventeenth century, at the start of the English Civil War, Pembroke allied with Parliament, but when its masters shifted allegience to the Crown, Oliver Cromwell arrived at Pembroke to lead a Parliamentary siege that recaptured the fortress. Cromwell encouraged the destruction of the castle, but it was rehabilitated in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries in recognition of its historical and architectural importance. Pembroke, Wales (1 June, 2017)