ownership passed to Richard, the Duke of York. During the Wars of the Roses, Denbigh was fought over by the rival Lancastrian and Yorkist factions. Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke and a Lancastrian supporter, was declared the constable of the castle by Henry VI in 1457 but the fortification remained in the hands of the Yorkists. After the Lancastrian victory at the Battle of Ludford Bridge, Jasper was able to force the garrison to surrender and finally took possession of the castle in 1460. The war then turned in favour of the Yorkists and despite the castle's new garrison holding out for several months under Roger Puleston, it was recaptured by Sir Richard Herbert in late 1461. The new Yorkist regime made William Herbert, Jasper's rival to the title of Earl of Pembroke, the constable and steward of Denbigh in 1467. Jasper returned to Denbigh in 1468 and although he could not take the castle, he burnt the interior of the walled town. The attack spurred an exodus from the walled town to the newer suburbs. By the end of 16th century the inner area had been largely abandoned, coming to form part of the external defences of the castle and the Burgess Gate on the town walls became the town gaol. In 1586, the antiquarian William Camden could observe that the "old town is now deserted". Much of the castle had fallen into decline by 1530 but six years later the castle became the centre for administrating the new county of Denbighshire, with the great gatehouse and nearby towers being used as a courthouse, prison and associated buildings by the county authorities. The remainder of the castle had fallen into ruin by 1561. Robert Dudley, later made the Earl of Leicester, was granted a lease of the castle in 1563, partially because the Crown was trying to reduce the costs of maintaining the dilapidated property. During Dudley's tenure, Denbigh Castle was used as a place of imprisonment for those considered traitors by the officials of the Crown, including many dissidents towards the Elizabethan religious settlement. The most famous such prisoner was the Welsh poet and underground Catholic schoolmaster Richard Gwyn, who was imprisoned at Denbigh Castle from September 1581 to the Spring of 1582. After Gwyn's execution on October 15, 1584, his head and one of his quarters were spiked upon Denbigh Castle. The other three quarters were