This Day in History: 1326-11-16

On 16th November 1326, Henry of Lancaster, brother of the executed Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and later to be lord of Pontefract, caught the fleeing Edward II and Hugh Despenser, the Younger, near Llantrisant, Wales. The king had been trying to reach Neath to escape his wife’s, Queen Isabella’s, invasion to overthrow him. He was kept prisoner in the keeping of Henry at Monmouth Castle. Despenser suffered a grisly execution of hanging, disembowelment, castration and beheading in Hereford market-place on 24th November.