Powys Castle, or the Castle of Powisland, was first chosen as a military position, and an appropriate site for the palace of a chieftain, by Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, a prince of British extraction, who signalised himself in the reign of Henry the First. He commenced his castle here about the year 1110, but being assassinated by his own kinsman, left his design unfinished. It is rather probable that the assassin took possession of the place, and completed the building of the castle; for in the year 1191, various depredations being committed in the marshes, Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the absence of Richard the First, who was engaged in the Crusades, marched into Wales at the head of a powerful force, and laid siege to the castle, which was then in a state of defence and occupied by the Welsh. It was now fortified anew, and a garrison placed in it, which was very soon after dispossessed by Gwenwynwyn, whose name the fortress then bore. Llewellyn ap Jorwerth next reduced this apparently untenable position, in the year 1223, when it received the newer title of Castell Gôch, or Red Castle, from the colour of the stone in the outer walls. The grandson of Gwenwynwyn continued in possession, and left it to his only daughter, Hawys Gadarn, or Hawys the Hardy. Her uncles being disposed to question the legality of her father’s will, she wisely attached herself to Edward the Second, who bestowed her in marriage on John de Charlton, of Wellington, in Shropshire, in 1268. By the marriage of Sir John Grey, of Northumberland, with Jane, eldest daughter of Lord Powys, the barony and castle passed into that family, and continued with the Greys until the reign of Henry the Eighth, when the title became extinct. Sir William Herbert, second son of the Earl of Pembroke, appears the next occupant, his title being derived by a purchase, effected some time in the reign of Queen Elisabeth. This person was ancestor to the Marquises of Powys. In the year 1644 the castle was taken by Sir Thomas Myddleton, who suffered it to be plundered, and compelled Lord Powys to compound with parliament for his estates. The title became extinct, by failure of issue, in the year 1800, and was revived in the person of Edward, Lord Clive, now Earl of Powys, brother-in-law to the last earl of the former line.