This Coming Week In History

This week in history

Date	Event
1/9/1192	On 1st September 1192, John De Lacy, Baron of Pontefract, Earl of Lincoln was born. He stands in history as a leading Baron in forcing King John to agree to Magna Carta.
1/9/1255	In September 1255, Sir Edmund de Lacy, Lord of Pontefract, performed a crucial service to Henry III in being part of a royal and noble party conducting Alexander III, king of Scotland who was still a minor, and his wife, Margaret (Henry’s daughter) to meet Henry. Rumours had been circulating for some time that the royal couple had been treated poorly by their Scottish guardians, Robert Ross and John Balliol.
1/9/1317	A muster had been planned by Edward II for 15th September 1317 at Newcastle, with a preliminary assembly at York or Northallerton. However, Thomas Earl of Lancaster, from his castle at Pontefract, refused to let any troops pass on to York, saying that, as he was Steward of England, if the King wished to take up arms against anyone he ought first to notify the Steward. On 1st September 1317, senior clergy and nobles (including the archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin, five bishops and the earls of Pembroke and Hereford) met Earl Thomas of Lancaster  at the Priory of Pontefract to try to effect a reconciliation between the king and Thomas. Thomas promised that he would not ride with his army nor molest anyone, would attend the next parliament in January 1318 in a peaceable manner and show King Edward II (at this time in York with Queen Isabella) due reverence. Thomas was also to remove his guards from all roads and bridges south of York. In return for this concession, Edward granted Thomas safe passage to Lincoln the following January and dismissed the majority of his own guard whilst travelling back to London.
1/9/1323	On 1st September 1323, William Melton, Archbishop of York, issued a ‘second Comand forbidding publicque veneration to Thomas, Earle of Lancaster’ who had been executed for treason at Pontefract the previous year.
1/9/1396	01-09-1396 Since marrying his mistress, Katherine Swynford in January 1396, John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, had been seeking to legitimise their four children and his petition to the pope for their recognition in canon law was granted on 1st September 1396.
2/9/1322	On 2nd September 1322, Edward II made the following declaration from Fenham, near Newcastle upon Tyne: ‘To Thomas Deyvill, keeper of the castle and honour of Pontefract. Order to permit William de Ayketon, parson of the church of Berwyk-in- Elmet, to have the profits and other things that he and his predecessors have been wont to have in the wood called ' Le Roundhaye,' as the king learns by inquisition taken by Adam de Hoperton that William and his predecessors, parsons of the said church, have received reasonable estover in the said wood from time out of mind, both before and after the wood was enclosed, to wit dead wood lying therein and branches of dry wood to burn in their chief messuage of Berwyk, by the view and delivery of the forester of the wood, and that they have had their swine and the swine of their tenants of their church in the wood quit of pannage, and their plough-oxen feeding with the lord's oxen in his several pasture, and a court of their men and tenants, and their amercements imposed upon them therein for assize of ale and other things whatsoever, and whenever their men and tenants have been attached at the court of the lords of Berewyk, they or their proctors have sought and always obtained their court of the same men and tenants.’
27/8/1483	On 27th August 1483, Richard III, whilst at Pontefract Castle with his wife, issued a signed warrant conferring on the Duke of Buckingham his share of the Bohun inheritance (lands resulting from the marriage of Eleanor de Bohun and Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III, in 1376).
27/8/1541	On 27th August 1541, Francis Dereham was appointed Queen Catherine’s (Howard) Private Secretary at Pontefract Castle; an act that was to have severe repercussions for them both.
28/8/1483	On 28th August 1483, Richard III, whilst at Pontefract Castle with his wife, appointed the Duke of Buckingham to take part, together with the Duke of Norfolk and others, in commissions of oyer and terminer (inquiries into all treasons, felonies and misdemeanours in the specified counties) in London and the counties of Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Oxford, Berkshire, Essex and Hertford.
28/8/1942	On 28th and 29th August 1942, over 450 local people staged a pageant at Pontefract Castle with soldiers and members of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (women’s branch of the British Army during World War II) portraying notable events in the castle’s history. Music was provided by the band of the York and Lancaster Regiment.
29/8/1212	On 29th August 1212, King John was at Pontefract and is reputed to have met Peter of Pontefract (or Wakefield), a hermit blessed with the gift of prophecy. Peter had foretold that by Ascension Day, 23rd May 1213, John’s crown would pass to another. Peter was imprisoned at Corfe Castle under the ‘care’ of William Harcourt. The following year, on Ascension Day, John set up his tent in a field at Ewell, feasted and openly displayed his good health and status.
29/8/1319	On 29th August 1319, John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal Castle, entered Scotland with Edward II on his unsuccessful campaign to repel the advance of Robert the Bruce into England.
29/8/1350	On 29th August 1350, Henry, 4th Earl of Lancaster, lord of Pontefract, commanding one of the ships of the English fleet, helped Edward, Prince of Wales’ grappled ship during the Battle of Winchelsea against a Castilian fleet. The prince’s younger brother, John of Gaunt, was also on board the stricken vessel. Of the forty-seven larger Castilian ships (to the English fifty), between fourteen and twenty-six were captured with several sunk. Reputedly, only two English vessels were sunk.
29/8/1483	On 29th August 1483, Richard III’s, lord of Sandal, royal progress reached York, entering under Micklegate Bar where nearly twenty-three before his father’s head had been impaled. The mayor presented the king with a gold cup containing 100 marks (£42,000 today) and another to Queen Anne.
29/8/1541	At the trial of Thomas Culpeper, which began on December 1st 1541, an indictment was made that Queen Catherine had ' on 29th August 1541, with Henry VIII, at Pomfret, and at other times and places before and after with Thomas Culpeper, late of London, one of the gentlemen of the king's privy chamber, falsely and traitorously held illicit meeting and conference to incite the said Culpeper to have carnal intercourse with her; and insinuated to him that she loved him above the king and all others. Similarly the said Culpeper incited the Queen.'
29/8/1637	On 29th August 1637, Sir Thomas Yarborough, High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1673 and MP for Pontefract 1685-86 was baptised in Snaith, Yorkshire. He had been born on the 19th of the month and died on 8th January 1709. He was also Receiver of Rents and Revenues for Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II.
30/8/1372	On 30th August 1372, Edward III made his grandson (son of Prince Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince), Richard of Bordeaux (later Richard II), guardian of the kingdom as he prepared to leave from Sandwich on his flagship, Grace de Dieu, on campaign for France. To reinforce a treaty, John of Gaunt (Edward III's fourth, and second surviving, son and lord of Pontefract Castle) had been forced to give up his earldom of Richmond to the Duke of Brittany and was informed by his father that, in the event of Prince Edward’s death, then Richard of Bordeaux would be heir to the throne, not John.
31/8/1407	On Henry VI’s accession on 31st August 1422, Robert Waterton was re-appointed to his offices of Constable at Pontefract and Tickhill Castles.
31/8/1624	On 31st August 1624, James I of England issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Pontefract prohibiting them from conveniently grinding their corn at the mills at Pontefract to the detriment of the revenue derived from the royal mills at Knottingley. In 1623, the Duchy of Lancaster had complained about this practice of by-passing the Royal Duchy Mills (formerly the ancient Soke Mills).

Last week in history

Date	Event
18/8/1257	On 18th August 1257, Sir Edmund de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was granted the right to hold a weekly market and annual fair at Tanshelf, Pontefract.
18/8/1483	On 18th August 1483, only two months after his coronation and on his ‘royal progress’, Richard III wrote to seventy-one knights and gentlemen when he stopped at Leicester on his way to York, instructing them to meet him at Pontefract Castle on the 27th of that month. Some commentators believe that Richard’s four months’ absence from London, starting merely a week or so after his coronation, was a major error and allowed the fomentation of rebellion.
19/8/1407	On 19th August 1407, Henry IV arrived at Pontefract Castle from Nottingham on his journey through the north travelling between his castles and pilgrimage sites. Henry’s wishes to lead French and Welsh campaigns that year were stymied by his increasing frailty and political and financial obstacles.
19/8/1485	On 19th August 1485, over a week since Henry Tudor’s landing in Wales, Richard III, lord of Sandal, rode the twenty-five miles from his celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary at Nottingham to his army’s muster station at Leicester. Amongst his assembled forces were the men and materiel of the Earl of Northumberland, John Howard and Robert Brackenbury. Noticeably absent were Thomas, Lord Stanley and his brother Sir William. Richard was eager for the final confrontation with his elusive enemy.
19/8/1898	On 19th August 1898, ‘The Globe’ reported: ‘The recent complaint of correspondents to the weekly paper about the lack of information afforded to visitors to Pontefract Castle will find an echo in the mind of many a traveller in our country.’
20/8/1119	On 20th August 1119, William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal Castle, fights for Henry I at the Battle of Bremule against Louis VI (the Fat) of France. Henry’s victory helped to repel Louis’ designs on English estates in Normandy.
20/8/1270	On 20th August 1270, Prince Edward (later Edward I), his brother-in-law John of Brittany and John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and lord of Sandal, left England on Crusade, having committed to such the previous year.
20/8/1321	On 20th August 1321, John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal castle, was pardoned by Edward II for anything done against the Despensers earlier that year. The Despenser War (against Hugh the Younger and Hugh the Elder) led by the Marcher Lords, Roger Mortimer and Roger de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and aided by Thomas Earl of Lancaster, was a baronial revolt against Edward II’s court favourites and the king himself.
20/8/1370	In mid-August 1370, John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, landed at Bordeaux with around one thousand men to assist his brother, the Black Prince, in its defence. Gaunt marched to Cognac where he met his younger brother, Edmund of Langley and the seriously-ill Black Prince. In attempting to reassert control in Aquitaine, the two elder brothers: offered to redistribute lands of defecting lords to those who had remained faithful to the English; pardoned deserters if they returned; mooted the notion of Gaunt becoming Lieutenant in Aquitaine because of the Black Prince’s precarious state of health.
20/8/1732	On 20th August 1732, Solomon Dupier died. Dupier had been a member of the Spanish garrison at Gibraltar in the early 18th century and is believed to have colluded with English forces when they launched a successful attack on the Rock in 1704 and afterwards moved to England, settling in Pontefract. Some years after his arrival in Pontefract his wife and three daughters contracted smallpox and he vowed that if they recovered, he would build a covered market cross in Pontefract to protect the women who came in to the town on Saturday mornings to sell their dairy produce. Albeit all four did survive it is believed that all were blinded. Dupier left money in his will to his widow to erect a Buttercross in fulfilment of his vow; £150 (nearly £24,000 today) was to be given to the building of a market cross to be completed within two years of the death of his wife. The Buttercross was built in 1734 with a flat roof which was replaced by the present hipped roof in 1763 at a cost of £46-3-10d (£6,500 today). In 1776, John Nutt brought his wife to the cross and sold her to a Mr Ryder for 5 shillings (£29 today). In 1815, another wife was auctioned for 11 shillings (£34 today). Then, it was accepted that a wife could be sold to another man with the sale constituting a legal divorce; in one instance, a woman produced a receipt in court for her sale to prove she was not committing adultery
21/8/1193	On 21st August 1193 (one source says 21st June), Robert (2) de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, died. He had had to pay a relief of 1000 marks (nearly £1.5 million in today’s money), discharged by 1181, to take possession of his lands from 1177. It is recorded that he renounced the world some time before his death and entered a monastery. Having no children, his lands passed to his cousin, Albreda de Lissours.
21/8/1649	A letter from Cornet John Baynes (now kept in the British Museum) dated from York 21st August 1649 stated: ‘ Morris and Blackburn were near escaping last night; they had got over the Castle wall, but were taken ere they got over the moat. Tomorrow they are to be executed with about thirty other prisoners’. Albeit Morris’ execution actually took place on 23rd August there could have been a delay in the expectation of a reprieve or because Morris’ fellow escapee, Blackburn, broke his leg during the escape attempt.
21/8/1783	On 21st August 1783, John Gully, an English prize-fighter, horse-race owner (won The Derby in 1832, 1846 and 1854, St Leger in 1832, 2,000 Guineas in 1844 and 1854) and politician was born. He was MP for Pontefract from 1832-37. He was portrayed by boxer, Henry Cooper, in the 1975 film, Royal Flash.
22/8/1138	On 22nd August 1138, Ilbert de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, fought against the Scots of King David I at the Battle of Northallerton (the Battle of the Standard, as it became known). King David, uncle of Empress Matilda, had made various incursions into northern England, attempting to stake claim to King Stephen of England’s territories and force Stephen to do battle on many fronts (Geoffrey of Anjou was also frequently making similar moves in Normandy). King Stephen’s English forces, under the organisation of Thurstan, Archbishop of York, reportedly killed 11,000 Scots with few English casualties. Reputedly, the field was called Bagmoor as a jibe at the amount of baggage abandoned by the fleeing Scots. The Battle of the Standard’s soubriquet was due to a ship’s mast secured to a cart from which hung the banners of St Peter, St John of Beverley and St Wilfrid of Ripon and above which was placed the ‘Body of the Lord, to be their standard-bearer and the leader of their battle’.
22/8/1263	On 22nd August 1263, John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal Castle, was made Joint Commissioner by Henry III to ‘treat with the Welsh’.
22/8/1296	On 22nd August 1296, Edward I appointed John de Warenne, 6th earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal Castle, Warden of the kingdom and land of Scotland. Scotland was to be governed by an English administrative network of predominantly English sheriffs, soldiers and constables. Edward I remarked wryly ‘a man does good business when he rids himself of a turd’. Seemingly despairing of the new position, de Warenne was soon offering the role to others and spent most of his time in northern England, including Sandal, to be as far away as possible from the Scottish weather!
22/8/1485	On 22nd August 1485,  Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth to establish the Tudor dynasty. The defeat of Richard marked the end of Sandal Castle as a royal residence and for the next one hundred and sixty years the castle would only be fitfully repaired as a centre of local administration. It became a drain on the royal finances rather than a source of prestige. Under the Stuarts, it would be allowed to decay further.
23/8/1271	On 23rd August 1271, Edmund de Lacy, son of Sir Henry de Lacy, 9th Earl of Lincoln and lord of Pontefract, was born at Denbigh. A contract of marriage to Maud de Chaworth was signed in 1287 (she was five years old and the marriage was never consummated) but Edmund drowned in a well at Denbigh Castle sometime before 30th December 1291. Edmund’s brother John fell to his death from a tower at Pontefract Castle sometime before 1311, leaving their surviving sister, Alice, to become countess of Lincoln in her own right on her father’s death.
23/8/1273	On 23rd August 1273, Sir Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, gave the Chapel of St Nicholas in Pontefract to the Abbey of St John in Pontefract.
23/8/1352	On 23rd August 1352, Edward III gave permission for Henry of Grosmont, nephew of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster and lord of Pontefract, and now himself Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Leicester and Derby and Steward of England, ‘to excuse himself in respect of things wickedly laid to his charge by the duke of Brunswyk’ and to go to France with an escort of sixty knights and an earl. In Cologne Cathedral, Henry had accused Otto, Duke of Brunswick, of being complicit in an ambush upon him by Westphalian knights in early 1352 and that this had been known by King John II of France. He had also challenged Otto to a duel which he accepted and which was to be held at the Pré-aux-Clercs. At the last minute, King John intervened declaring that Henry’s accusation had been misreported to Otto. A banquet for the two ‘contestants’ was held with Henry accepting a gift of the relic the Crown of Thorns in Sainte-Chapelle.
23/8/1541	King Henry VIII stayed at Pontefract Castle for several days in August 1541, whilst he was on a ‘northern progress’ seeking to ‘pacify’ the northern counties after the disturbances of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Leaving the Queen, Catherine Howard, at the castle on the 23rd August the king went to Wressle Castle and Hull, arriving at York on the 15th September, on his way back to Windsor. It was not until 1st November 1541 that the king became aware of the queen's alleged misconduct with one of her old lovers  (Thomas Culpeper, a distant cousin) at Pontefract Castle and earlier in the Spring of that year. Catherine was interrogated by Archbishop Cranmer and a delegation of councillors at Winchester Palace on 7th November and formally stripped of her royal title on 15th November (but her marriage to Henry was never formally annulled). A True Bill was found against her by the Justices of Doncaster on Tuesday 24th November. The Grand Jury at Doncaster condemned the Queen and after a bill of attainder was passed by Parliament on 7th February 1542,  she was executed at the Tower of London on 13th February 1542.
23/8/1648	On 23rd August 1648, Oliver Cromwell wrote to the Honourable Committee at York: ‘ GENTLEMEN I have intelligence even now come into my hands, That Duke Hamilton with a weary Body of Horse is drawing towards Pontefract where probably he may lodge himself, and rest his Horse: - as not daring to continue in those Countries whence we have driven him; the Country-people rising in such numbers, and stopping his passage at every bridge. Major-General Lambert, with a very considerable force, pursues him at the heels. I desire that you would get together what force you can, to put a stop to any further designs they may have; and so be ready to join with Major-General Lambert, if there shall be need. I am marching Northward with the greatest part of the Army; where I shall be glad to hear from you. I rest your very affectionate friend and servant.’ Hamilton led a large force from Scotland into England in support of Charles I on 8th July 1648. He was defeated by Cromwell at Preston 17th-19th August and captured two days after Cromwell’s letter above, suffering beheading on 9th March the following year.
23/8/1649	Colonel John Morris, who in June 1648 had taken control of the castle with men pretending to deliver mattresses and bedding, was hanged, drawn and quartered, as a traitor by Parliament, at York on 23rd August 1649, having been on-the-run for ten days. He was buried, at his request at Wentworth near the grave of Lord Strafford who had been executed on Tower Hill in May 1641.
23/8/1649	On 23rd August 1649, Cornet Michael Blackburn, who had escaped from the besieged Pontefract Castle with Colonel John Morris, gave a speech immediately before his execution: ‘…I am not a Gentleman by birth, but my Parents are of an honest quality and condition; I was brought up in the Protestant Religion, and in that Religion I have lived, and in that I now die; I have some five or six years engaged in this War, wherein I had no other End or Intention but to do my King true and faithful service…….I have always been faithful to him…and for his Son, the King that now is, I wonder any man of this Kingdom should have the boldness or impudence to lift up his hand against him, to keep him from his Crown whereof he is Heir apparent, and hath as good right and title to it by his Birthright, as any man living hath of his Inheritance or Possession: I pray God bless him, forgive all my enemies, and Lord Jesus receive my Spirit.’ Despite Charles I’s execution, Blackburn’s sentiments did not presage a protectorate, in the eyes of  many, at this stage with executive power lying with The Council of State and legislative functions carried out by the Rump Parliament until 1653. Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector for life on 16th December 1653 and in 1655 the first Protectorate Parliament gave way to a period of military Rule of the Major-Generals.
24/8/1323	On 24th August 1323, William Melton, Archbishop of York, noted to the Archdeacon of York that despite his monitions, the worship of Thomas of Lancaster as a saint had continued in the church of Pontefract and elsewhere: ‘nay, even the homicides and other deaths and great dangers, which have occurred and are likely to be repeated among the crowds who assemble, do not prevent the demonstrations.’
24/8/1394	On 24th August 1394, following his late attendance at Queen Anne’s funeral (wife of Richard II), on 3rd August, John of Gaunt was at Pontefract with his grieving family. His own wife Constance had died in March, whilst both Queen Anne and Mary de Bohun, the first wife of the future Henry IV, and thus his daughter-in-law, had recently died.
24/8/1460	On 24th August 1460, after the Yorkist nobles Salisbury, Warwick and the Earl of March were victorious at the Battle of Northampton, they returned to London. The remaining Lancastrians were gathering in the north and so the Yorkist lords sought to crush them. On 24th August, a commission, headed by the Yorkist lords, was charged with arresting fifteen men who were said to be uttering falsehoods to arouse discord. On the same day, the Earl of Northumberland was ordered to surrender Pontefract and Wressle Castles.
24/8/1469	On  24th July 1469, the Yorkist forces had been defeated at the Battle of Edgcote by those of Robin of Redesdale and the Earl of Warwick. Warwick, feeling frozen-out by his long-time friend, Edward IV,  had now switched sides to the Lancastrian cause. Edward, captured by Warwick’s brother George Neville at Olney, was placed in confinement at Warwick and Middleham, before being moved to Pontefract Castle. On 24th August 1469, whilst Edward was still a prisoner at Pontefract, Margaret Beaufort met with Edward’s brother, George Duke of Clarence, an ally of Warwick, to discuss how her son’s lands - Henry Tudor - would be returned to him. Margaret was desperate to use the ongoing situation to obtain the best possible outcome for Henry Tudor. On his release from Pontefract, Edward would swiftly gain revenge on the Lancastrian forces, the result of which would see Warwick flee into exile. The next two years would see this section of the Wars of the Roses reach a climax with Henry VI briefly restored, Edward IV in exile before his eventual victory at the climactic battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. Henry VI would either die or be murdered on the orders of Edward on the 21st May 1471.
24/8/1483	Following his coronation on 6th July 1483, King Richard III, in his progress through his kingdom, entered Yorkshire. On 24th August, he reached Pontefract having summoned to meet him seventy one knights and gentlemen of the North. The purpose of this meeting was to enquire into the state of local affairs and to provide direction in administering justice as he had to the Lords in London. On the same day, Prince Edward was reunited with his parents at Pontefract. While at Pontefract (some sources say  the official appointment was made at Nottingham Castle on this date but this is questionable),  Prince Edward was pronounced Prince of Wales (with a later ceremony in York) and Earl of Chester.
24/8/1578	On 24th August 1578, John Taylor, who dubbed himself ‘The Water Poet’ was born. He visited Pontefract in 1622, describing the castle as then ‘a strong, faire and ancient edifice’ having been restored and edified by the Prince of Wales, later Charles I. Ten years later, three military men journeying for pleasure through twenty-six counties found, at Pontefract ‘a high, stately, famous and princely impregnable castle…..having seven famous towers…ample enough to receive as many princes.’ Charles I was at Pontefract in 1625.

Next week in history

Date	Event
1/9/1192	On 1st September 1192, John De Lacy, Baron of Pontefract, Earl of Lincoln was born. He stands in history as a leading Baron in forcing King John to agree to Magna Carta.
1/9/1255	In September 1255, Sir Edmund de Lacy, Lord of Pontefract, performed a crucial service to Henry III in being part of a royal and noble party conducting Alexander III, king of Scotland who was still a minor, and his wife, Margaret (Henry’s daughter) to meet Henry. Rumours had been circulating for some time that the royal couple had been treated poorly by their Scottish guardians, Robert Ross and John Balliol.
1/9/1317	A muster had been planned by Edward II for 15th September 1317 at Newcastle, with a preliminary assembly at York or Northallerton. However, Thomas Earl of Lancaster, from his castle at Pontefract, refused to let any troops pass on to York, saying that, as he was Steward of England, if the King wished to take up arms against anyone he ought first to notify the Steward. On 1st September 1317, senior clergy and nobles (including the archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin, five bishops and the earls of Pembroke and Hereford) met Earl Thomas of Lancaster  at the Priory of Pontefract to try to effect a reconciliation between the king and Thomas. Thomas promised that he would not ride with his army nor molest anyone, would attend the next parliament in January 1318 in a peaceable manner and show King Edward II (at this time in York with Queen Isabella) due reverence. Thomas was also to remove his guards from all roads and bridges south of York. In return for this concession, Edward granted Thomas safe passage to Lincoln the following January and dismissed the majority of his own guard whilst travelling back to London.
1/9/1323	On 1st September 1323, William Melton, Archbishop of York, issued a ‘second Comand forbidding publicque veneration to Thomas, Earle of Lancaster’ who had been executed for treason at Pontefract the previous year.
1/9/1396	01-09-1396 Since marrying his mistress, Katherine Swynford in January 1396, John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, had been seeking to legitimise their four children and his petition to the pope for their recognition in canon law was granted on 1st September 1396.
2/9/1322	On 2nd September 1322, Edward II made the following declaration from Fenham, near Newcastle upon Tyne: ‘To Thomas Deyvill, keeper of the castle and honour of Pontefract. Order to permit William de Ayketon, parson of the church of Berwyk-in- Elmet, to have the profits and other things that he and his predecessors have been wont to have in the wood called ' Le Roundhaye,' as the king learns by inquisition taken by Adam de Hoperton that William and his predecessors, parsons of the said church, have received reasonable estover in the said wood from time out of mind, both before and after the wood was enclosed, to wit dead wood lying therein and branches of dry wood to burn in their chief messuage of Berwyk, by the view and delivery of the forester of the wood, and that they have had their swine and the swine of their tenants of their church in the wood quit of pannage, and their plough-oxen feeding with the lord's oxen in his several pasture, and a court of their men and tenants, and their amercements imposed upon them therein for assize of ale and other things whatsoever, and whenever their men and tenants have been attached at the court of the lords of Berewyk, they or their proctors have sought and always obtained their court of the same men and tenants.’
3/9/1296	On 3rd September 1296, King Edward I appointed John de Warenne - 6th Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal Castle (and victor at the Battle of Dunbar), to be Scotland’s new colonial governor based in Berwick. Scotland was to be governed by an English administrative network of predominantly English sheriffs, soldiers and constables. Edward wryly remarked: “a man does good business when he rids himself of a turd”. Seemingly despairing of his new position, de Warenne was soon offering the role to others and spent most of his time in northern England as far away as practically possible from the Scottish weather.
3/9/1312	Thomas, Earl of Lancaster and lord of Pontefract, failed to appear (as commanded by the king) on 27th August at Westminster, and it was not until 3rd September that he, and the Earls of Hereford and Warwick approached the city. For the previous fortnight, the earls had delayed at Ware in Hertfordshire, probably to gather their forces, and now they came towards the capital horsed and armed. Reports suggested that Lancaster alone brought with him a thousand horsemen and 1,500 foot; Hereford had a strong retinue of Welshmen, and Warwick more men from his earldom. Rumours multiplied. Some said that the king had proclaimed a parliament in order to take Lancaster, but that the Earl, knowing this, had brought his retinue as a safeguard: later in the month, two Londoners were imprisoned because the king had heard that, should the city be besieged by Lancaster, they and their accomplices were to open the gates and facilitate Edward’s capture in his own city. The king’s letters patent, sent to the Bishops of Norwich and Bath and Wells, the Earl of Richmond, and two others, on 3rd September, ordering them to prevent the earls coming to parliament in this way went unheeded, and the barons were soon in the city.
3/9/1645	In early September 1645,  Colonel General Poyntz tightened the siege lines around Sandal Castle and obtained four great siege guns from Hull. With protection afforded them behind earthwork batteries, the Parliamentary forces began bombarding the Castle with 60 pound cannonballs: the normal sized cannonball was 28 or 32 pounds. At the time of this bombardment, the castle was garrisoned by 100 men. After several days of bombardment, some breaches had been made in the walls of the castle.
3/9/1648	1648 On 3rd September 1648, Royalists Sir Hugh Carteret and Sir John Digby were allowed to go on parole to confer with Sir Marmaduke Langdale, held prisoner at Nottingham, regarding the surrender of Pontefract Castle. Negotiations failed and the castle held out out for a further six and a half months.
4/9/1227	On 4th September 1227, John de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was Joint Ambassador to the German Congress at Antwerp, on behalf of Henry III.
5/9/1255	On 5th September 1255, Edmund de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was styled Earl of Lincoln albeit there is some doubt as to whether he was actually invested as Earl as he predeceased his mother, Margaret de Quincy, but not his father, John de Lacy, who was Earl of Lincoln jure uxoris (by right of his wife).
6/9/1230	On 6th September 1230, John de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was Joint Commissioner, on behalf of Henry III, to make a truce with France.
6/9/1255	On 6th September 1255, Henry III arrived at Wark on his expedition to ‘rescue’ his daughter Margaret from her Scottish keepers having heard alarming reports about her physical health and depression. John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and lord of Sandal and Edmund de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln and lord of Pontefract, were in the army and attested royal charters during the expedition. Margaret was Queen to Alexander III of Scotland and they were spirited away from Edinburgh to Roxburgh and then Wark to meet Henry III albeit Alexander returned to Roxburgh almost immediately.
6/9/1380	On 6th September 1380 (renewed on 2nd May 1381), John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and lord of Pontefract Castle, was appointed the King’s Lieutenant in the Scottish Marches with the authority to negotiate and enforce truces and supervise English defences. Gaunt’s only claim to territory in this area was his castle at Dunstanburgh and his new post was a particular snub to the Percy influence, and that of other magnates in the North.
6/9/1483	On 6th September 1483, Richard III conferred Pontefract’s first Charter of Incorporation, creating John Hill as the first mayor of the borough the following July.
7/9/1319	At this time Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, lord of Pontefract, was not entirely out of favour with Edward II for, on the 7th September 1319, he successfully petitioned the king for the return of lands in Bamburgh parish which had been escheated after the defection to the Scots of Sir John de Middleton, the Earl’s tenant there.
7/9/1328	On 7th September 1328, Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, brother of the executed Thomas of Lancaster, and now restored to the earldom and control of Pontefract Castle, arrived unexpectedly at Barlings Abbey with an armed retinue and argued with Dowager Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer concerning Lancaster’s lack of influence over the young king, Edward III. They both accused him of intimidation and he was requested to bring his complaints to the next Parliament at Salisbury. Once Lancaster had left, Isabella banned all public assemblies and Mortimer travelled to Gloucester to raise his Marcher tenants.
7/9/1450	On 7th September 1450, Richard, Duke of York (lord of Sandal Castle), reached his fortress at Denbigh having been denied landing or lodging at Beaumaris on his return from being Lieutenant of Ireland. York insisted that he had returned solely to emphasise his loyalty to Henry VI. Although appointed on 30th July 1447, York had not left England until June 1449, taking with him his pregnant wife, Cecily, and an army of 600 men. By the mid-1440s, York’s financial status was proving troublesome, being owed nearly £39,000 (£47 million in today’s money) by the Crown.
7/9/1533	On 7th Sept 1533, Elizabeth I was born. Elizabeth, towards the close of her reign, repaired Pontefract Castle, and rebuilt the Chapel of St Clement within it.
7/9/1619	On 7th September 1619, Parliamentarian Major General John Lambert was born at Calton Hall, near Kirkby Malham, Yorkshire. He was promoted Commissary General of the Northern Association in January 1645, effectively deputy to Thomas Fairfax, Captain-General and commander of the New Model Army. Lambert was wounded during the first siege of Pontefract Castle when Marmaduke Langdale’s Royalist relief force made the Parliamentarians retreat. He was a leading figure in the compilation of the Instrument of Government, the ‘constitution’ of Cromwell’s Protectorate in England, and on Charles II’s Restoration was exempted from execution as he had not participated in Charles I’s trial due to his absence at the third siege of Pontefract Castle.