In 1241 and 1242 a Mongol army destroyed the royal army of Hungary and rode across most of the kingdom. It is tempting to say Beckov was destroyed by them — all over Slovakia that is what people say about their local castle — but here, as in most places, it is the wrong way round. What the invasion did was convince King Béla IV that earth banks and timber palisades were worthless, and he pressed his nobles to build in stone on high rock. Beckov is one of the results. Sources put the stone castle differently, some as early as the twelfth century and some in the middle of the thirteenth, but the castle you can walk through belongs to the age that followed the Mongols, not to the one they ended.V rokoch 1241 a 1242 mongolské vojsko rozdrvilo uhorskú kráľovskú armádu a prešlo väčšinou kráľovstva. Je lákavé povedať, že Beckov zničili Mongoli — presne to sa na Slovensku hovorí takmer o každom hrade —, lenže tu, ako na väčšine miest, je to naopak. Vpád presvedčil kráľa Bela IV., že hlinené valy a drevené palisády nie sú na nič, a ten začal tlačiť na šľachtu, aby stavala z kameňa a na skalách. Beckov je jedným z výsledkov. Pramene kladú kamenný hrad rozdielne — jedny už do dvanásteho storočia, iné do polovice trinásteho —, no hrad, ktorým sa dnes dá prejsť, patrí do doby po Mongoloch, nie do tej, ktorú Mongoli ukončili.
