Castle is laying on the top of oblong hill. This mountain ridge has northwest-southeast orientation and raises more than 200 meters above river Ondrejnice. Originally there were two seperate castles, each standing on the opposite end of the 190 meters long top of the hill and only after a few centuries later they became joined by fortification walls.
The name of the castle stayed unexplained for a long time. There were speculations, that the word "Hukvaldy" comes from mutilated german word
"Hukes Wache", which means Hukes Watchtower, but noone could have said who the Huke was. On some documents found in the region and dated 1240, there was a name found
"Arnoldus comes de Huckeswagen", which sounds very similarly to the name of the castle and is suggesting its probable original owner. He was invited to Moravia by king Premysl Otakar I.
Son of Arnold Huckeswagen sold the castle in the half of the 13
th century to a rich and mighty feudal bishop Bruno from Oloumouc, who lead the castle to prosperity. After death of Premysl Otakar II. some feudal wars broke out and castle was endangered by attacks from neigbours from Opava. After death of Bruno and after assassination of Vaclav III. in 1306 financial situation of the bishopric of Olomouc worsened so much, that in 1316 it had to put the castle in pawn. For many years then the castle had been put in pawn repeatedly and then tried to get back again by bishops from Olomouc.
During the reign of king Charles IV., the church became stronger again, bishop of Olomouc was promoted by the king and in 1355 the bishopric of Oloumouc was able to buy the castle back and rebuild and enlarge it. The Pope's Bull from 1359 and 1360 forbade to bishops to put the castle in pawn any time more in future.
But after Charles IV's death during weak reign of his son Vaclav IV. the bishops of Olomouc got again in financial problems and put it in pawn again. For the next more than hundred years the bishops were trying unsuccessfully to get the castle back. It changed many owners in that time: Zikmund, Hussites, Jiri z Podebrad, bishop Tas, Jiri z Podebrad again and finally in 1469, when
Matyas Korvin was elected for king, bishop Tas succeeded in getting the caslte back for the bishops. This last quarter of the 15
th century a heavy building and reconstruction works took place. During that reconstruction the living part in the southeast of the castle was enlarged and on the northeast part there was built a new building called "Kulatina". Improvement of the fortification was needed too because of increasing danger of turkish attack. In 1529 the Turks came up to Vienna.
New humanistic antireformation bishops got in charge of bishopric of Olomouc in the first half of the 18
th 
century. Under their leadership
a new renaissance palace was built in northern part of the castle and a prison for "evil" priests was built there too. They continued in furhter fortification of the castle. Very important step was joining of the northern and southern part of the castle with protection walls and digging of 146 meters deep well, which removed the water-supply problem. Another step was grounding of famous game garden. Their next ancestor solved his financial problems again by renting the castle to the town Pribor. As the owner didn't take care of the castle very much it was under heavy pressure during peasant rebellion in 1598 and uprising of the Estates in 1619. This uprising was ended after
"the Battle on the White Mountain" in 1921. In 1626 the castle survived the 3/4 of a year long seige by Danish troops.
New cardinal bishop Leopold Vilem, son of Ferdinand II., decided that due to the defending power of the castle it will be made treasury for the bishopric of Olomouc. Leopold Vilem removed the old renaissance fortifications and constructed instead a
new stronger baroque fortifications and watchtowers. These better ramparts were able to overcome attacks of Swedes in 1643 and 1645, Thokoly in 1680 and all other attacks during silezian wars in 1742 and 1753.
On the 5
th November 1762 there was a great fire which changed this proud castle into a ruin. During the 19
th century the romantic movement was the only power which tried to keep the castle for the next generations. Unfortunately the ruins served like a source of building material for many growing villages and towns in the neigbourhood, what only helped in worsening of its shape. Nowadays there was much effort shown to put the castle in better condition again and reconstruction is still in process.
Guide 
