There are many historic events of deep interest connected with the story of this warrior pile. Like the artist of the brazen bull, Edward was the first who was necessitated to make trial of the sufficiency of his new state prison. Here he was besieged and nearly reduced by famine, and only rescued from such a critical situation by the providential arrival of a fleet with supplies. This was also the appointed rendezvous of forty thousand loyalists who attached themselves to the fortunes of King Richard the Second, and were destined to check the career of Bolingbroke. Here Percy and King Richard held an interview, from which it would appear that the unhappy prince mistrusted his faithful friends; for, secretly withdrawing from Conway, he put himself into the hands of Northumberland, at Flint, by whom he was betrayed into the power of his rival. Amongst its different vicissitudes Conway Castle was once converted into a public treasury, and discharged its trust with honour and good fortune. In the civil wars of King Charles’s time, being held by Dr. Williams, archbishop of York, for the king, the country gentlemen entrusted to his Grace’s keeping their title deeds, plate, and most valuable moveables. This trust he cheerfully undertook and made himself entirely responsible for their value by giving to each depositor a personal receipt. In the May of 1645, Prince Rupert was appointed governor of the castle, and by his order Sir John Owen was substituted for the archbishop in the guardianship of the valuables lodged within. Sir John constantly evading the archbishop’s applications on the subject of the deposit, the prelate, to avoid his own ruin, and seeing no prospect of a return to regal government, joined the Parliamentarians, assisted Mytton in the reduction of the castle, and having again got into possession of those treasures for which he had pledged himself, restored them uninjured to the respective owners. For these services parliament granted him a free pardon and a release from all his sequestrations. The singular beauty of this fortress appears to have obtained for it not only the admiration but the respect of the ruin-making conquerors of the seventeenth century; but being at last granted by Charles the Second to Lord Conway, while it was still roofed and perfect, that gothic personage dismantled the entire structure, and sold the lead, iron, timber, and all other disposable materials which could be easily separated.