Curse
Beware the Castle
Warned to shun castles, the Duke died beneath an inn sign called the Castle.
See it clearly
- What's there
- A plaque where the inn once stood
- Legend from
- 1455
- Tone
- Dark history
At the next corner in St Albans, a duke warned to beware of castles died in 1455 outside an inn called the Castle.
Before the first battle of the Wars of the Roses, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, is said to have been warned by the soothsayer Roger Bolingbroke to shun castles, no simple matter for a medieval nobleman. On 22 May 1455 the Yorkists stormed into St Albans and routed the king's army within half an hour. Somerset took refuge in an inn, but surrounded and desperate, he burst out into the street, killing several men before he was cut down. The inn was the Castle, and he died in front of its sign. A blue plaque on the corner of Victoria Street and Chequer Street now marks the spot.