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It was then that Ethelfleda, daughter of Saxon king Alfred the Great, put a fort on raised ground next to the river Avon to help defend the Midlands kingdom of Mercia from the Vikings. William the Conqeror built a more traditional-looking castle at the spot in , two years after he claimed the English throne in the Norman Conquest. The castle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and Grade I listed building, with a collection of armoury second only to that of the Tower of London.
Over its long history, it has been owned by 36 different individuals, plus four periods as Crown property under seven different monarchs. It was the family seat of the Earls of Warwick, which included inheritance through the female line so the castle has had three woman or girl owners. At least three of the owners died in battle, while two were executed and one murdered.
In , the wife of castle owner Roger Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick, handed the castle over to the invading army of Henry II after she was tricked into thinking her husband was dead. Beaumont actually did collapse and die when he heard what she had done. Royal favourite Piers Gaveston - rumoured to have been the lover of Edward II - was imprisoned there before he was executed at Blacklow Hill, near Warwick.
Edward II himself is said to have been killed by the insertion of a red-hot poker. And the Gunpowder Plot conspirators stole horses from Warwick Castle when they fled after their scheme failed.
