This Coming Week In History

This week in history

Date	Event
12/1/1454	On 12th January 1454, Queen Margaret presented a bill of five articles to the council requesting that a regent (Margaret herself) with ‘whole rule of this land’ be appointed until her husband, Henry VI recovered from his mental incapacity. This regent would have the right to appoint ‘the chancellor, the treasurer, the privy seal and all other officers of this land, with sheriffs and all other officers that the king should make….(together with the power)…to give all the bishoprics of this land and all other benefices belonging to the king’s gift..’ This was Margaret’s bold move to try to prevent Richard, Duke of York’s (lord of Sandal Castle) assumption of power during (and beyond?) Henry’s incapacitation and the impending threat to the interests of her four-months-old son, Prince Edward.
13/1/1396	John of Gaunt was one of the great custodians of Pontefract castle and when his second wife, Constance of Castile, died on 24th March 1394, he was now free to marry his long-standing mistress, Katherine Swynford (sister-in-law of Chaucer), on 13th January 1396. John and Katherine had had four children - the Beauforts - who would become the ancestors of the great Tudor dynasty through their great granddaughter Margaret Beaufort and her marriage to Edmund Tudor. Edmund was the son of Catherine de Valois, the former queen of Henry V and her second husband, Owen Tudor. Margaret and Edmund's son, Henry Tudor, would defeat Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 to become Henry VII.
13/1/1649	On 13th January 1649, Thomas Margetts wrote to Parliamentarian Captain Adam Baynes in London from Pontefract: ‘ The Ma. General lately returned hither from the disbanding of two Militia Regiments of Horse, and is now gone to the disbanding of Coll. Bethel and the foot regiments lately before Scarborough……The Enemy is yet resolute and keeps us upon hard duty…..Our guns and mortar pieces, together with the ammunition, is now come into this Town, and they will play very shortly. They now and then drop away out of the Castle, but are still very active with their great and small shot to prevent our work. The proceedings in relation to Charles Stuart are well enough resented by the well-affected in these parts, and are glad the business goes on so fast, as it probably tends to the preventing of malicious designs and loss of Justice….Coll. Lilburne (later a regicide) gone to London and most of the other officers out of town, except Coll. Bright (who you know dissents)……’
14/1/1236	On 14th January 1236, John de Lacy, Baron of Pontefract and Constable of Chester, was present at the marriage of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence, acting, in many ways, as an officer holding back the crowds.
15/1/1322	By mid January 1322, Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March and a key ally of Thomas of Lancaster, surrendered to Edward II at Shrewsbury. Mortimer’s faith in Lancaster had been destroyed by the failure of Thomas to leave his northern fortress at Pontefract  during the Despenser War. Support for Lancaster was ebbing away, and as Edward II began to march north, Lancaster would try to reach his northern fortress at Dunstanburgh, only to be surrounded and defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge on the 16th March 1322. Lancaster had opened private negotiations with Scotland aiming at a Scots-baronial alliance to coerce Edward II and on 15th January he was granted a safe conduct to visit the Scots, using the provocative code-name 'King Arthur'.
15/1/1346	On 15th January 1346, Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, brother of the executed’ traitor’ Thomas, Earl of Lancaster and lord of Pontefract, and last surviving grandchild of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence was buried in Leicester. His first cousin once removed, Edward III, and niece, Queen Isabella, attended along with many English nobles and most of the Earl’s six daughters. Some years later, his son, Henry of Grosmont, had his remains transferred to the collegiate church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke in Leicester, his extension of his father’s 1330 foundation.
15/1/1394	During the Parliament of January 1394, John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, petitioned for his son, Henry of Lancaster, to be the king’s heir claiming preposterously (some say) that his first wife Blanche’s great-grandfather, Edmund (Crouchback) of Lancaster, had been the true elder son of Henry III but had been overlooked in favour of his brother Edward I on account of Edmund’s physical deformity. This would have made Edward I’s nephew, Thomas of Lancaster, the next rightful king and thereafter his descendants. The nonsensical nature of this line of reasoning was apparent in not only Edward I having been over five years older than his brother, Edmund, but that it would have invalidated John of Gaunt’s own high rank and status as a true king’s son.
15/1/1469	In January 1469, Edward IV’s youngest brother, sixteen-years-old Richard, lord of Sandal, headed a commission at Salisbury investigating charges against key figures accused of plotting with the exiled Lancastrians. Sir Thomas Hungerford and Henry Courtenay, heir to the earldom of Devon, had been arrested the previous November along with John de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Hungerford’s father had been executed in 1464; Courtenay’s younger brother was in Flanders being funded by Charles the Bold; de Vere’s father and older brother had been executed in 1462. Amongst the commissioners were the king’s brother-in-law, Anthony Woodville and the Devon noble, Humphrey, Lord Stafford. Their guilty verdict was a formality and Hungerford and Courtenay were hanged, eviscerated whilst still conscious, then beheaded. Oxford was released from the Tower with sureties imposed for his future good behaviour.
15/1/1645	In January 1645, Colonel William ‘Blowface’ Forbes of the besieging Parliamentary forces around Pontefract Castle was injured. A Parliamentarian newspaper reported: ‘Pontefract Castle is still closely besieged by the L Fairfax his forces: Sir Thomas Fairfax was lately in great danger of being shot by a canon (sic) bullet from the castle which came between him and the Colonel Forbes; the waft of it feld Sir Thomas to the ground and spoyled one side of the Colonel’s face and eyes. Our forces are in great probability of taking it and will be able no doubt speedily to requite those in the castle for their obstinacy and insolency.’ Soon after recovering, Forbes married Mary, a woman twenty years his junior and the daughter of Pontefract’s former Royalist governor, Sir John Redman.
16/1/1645	On 16th January 1645, Nathan Drake's detailed accounts of the siege of Pontefract Castle recorded that when the besieged heard that the besiegers were about to plant their ordnance 'against the Piper Tower and betwixt that and the Round Tower, where there was a hollow place all the way down to the well, the gentlemen and souldyers fell all upon carrying of earth and rubbish, and so filled up the place in a little space, and we rammed up the way that passed through Piper Tower, with earth four or five yards thick. The beseeged playd 1 cannon into the closes below the Towne amongst the cutters up of clothes, but what was killed is not knowne, but they came there no more.'
17/1/1425	On 17th January 1425, Robert Waterton, Steward and Constable of Pontefract Castle and Master Forester, who had had custody of Richard II, Charles, Duke of Orleans, Jean I, Duke of Bourbon, James I of Scotland and the son of the Earl of Athol died at Methley. In addition, he was at various times Constable at Tickhill and Donnington castles, Henry IV’s Master of Horse, chief steward of the northern areas of the Duchy of Lancaster (later chamberlain) and Sheriff of Lincolnshire. He was one of the executors of Henry IV’s will. His military and diplomatic skills were evidenced by his part in quelling the Percy ‘revolts’ of 1403 and 1408 and negotiations with ambassadors from France.
17/1/1645	On this day in 1645, the first serious action of the first siege at Pontefract Castle began. Parliamentarian gun batteries started an intense bombardment of the castle. Cannon fire lasted five days and in this time 1367 shots were fired at the defenders. Here is a photo of two of the cannon balls found over 360 years later, still lodged in the castle walls!
18/1/1382	On 18th January 1382, John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, escorted sixteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia, eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, into London for her impending wedding to Richard II.
18/1/1425	On 18th January 1425, Richard Plantagenet’s (Duke of York and lord of Sandal Castle), uncle, Edmund Mortimer, died of plague after having been sent to Ireland. Richard now assumed the titles of Earl of March and Ulster and the Mortimer lands in Wales and border territories. These lands, however, were held in trust by Mortimer’s widow, Anne Stafford by reason of Richard’s ‘nonage’ (minority).

Last week in history

Date	Event
6/1/1148	On 6th January 1148, William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey, was killed at the Battle of Mount Cadmus in Anatolia whilst accompanying his second cousin, Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade, and the Sandal estate passed to Isabel de Warenne, who married the younger son of King Stephen, William of Blois. When William died in 1159, Henry II was on the throne of England and he immediately married Isabel to his illegitimate half brother Hamelin de Plantagenet. The earliest buildings of stone at Sandal are likely to be the work of Hamelin.
6/1/1367	On 6th January 1367, Richard II was born 1367 in Bordeaux. His father was Edward the Black Prince and his mother Joan the 4th Countess of Kent. Richard died  in 1400 whilst imprisoned at Pontefract Castle, aged 33.
6/1/1400	According to a French text, ‘The Betrayal and Death of Richard II’, on 6th January 1400, Sir Piers Exton (or Bucton or Buxton) with the knowledge of Charles VI of France, was commanded by Henry IV ‘to go and deliver (Richard) straightaway from this world’ at Pontefract Castle. It seems that Bucton was only to kill Richard if he fell into rebel hands as Richard’s death is most probably six weeks later.
6/1/1400	Richard of Bordeaux, the former King Richard II, turned 33 years old in prison at Pontefract on 6th January 1400.
6/1/1649	On 6th January 1649, Cornet John Baynes wrote from the besieging forces at Pontefract Castle to Captain Adam Baynes in Gray’s Inn Lane, London: ‘COUSEN……There’s nothing here of concernment yet happens. The Guns will be here next week. Our men are raising new batteries….The Major-General (Lambert) is not yet returned to Pontefract from reducing parts of the Militia. All good people here are glad, and desire to hear of speedy justice, delays being often dangerous…’. The latter sentiments relate to the impending trial and execution of the King and ‘the delays’ to justice being denied on (Royalist) Sir Marmaduke Langdale’s escape from gaol.
6/1/1649	On 6th January 1649, Cornet John Baynes wrote from York to Captain Adam Baynes in Gray’s Inn Lane, London: ‘…Pontefract Castle yet in Capacity to dispute with us a longe time. They devise new waies to p’iudice us, & doe us much harme, but att last I hope we shall pay them home for all. Many men not satisfied with the Army’s proceedings…..’
6/1/1649	On 6th January 1649, Thomas Margetts wrote to Parliamentarian Captain Adam Baynes in London from Pontefract using the once-a-week post: '…..We have lately had several Councils of war here for the trial of offenders, wherein we have proceeded to the execution of exemplary Justice upon some, to the great satisfaction of the country and reformation of the army here……The well-affected in these parts do greatly rejoice (the malignants are as much troubled) a. t your gallant proceedings against Charles Stuart……….We would fain be doing something in these parts while we are together; when we are gone into larger quarters (as when this Castle is taken)….The poor people in these parts are afraid of Jocky (Scots) again, hearing rumour as if they were preparing for a second Invasion; And I perceive that is the great hope of this besieged enemy….’
7/1/1397	On 7th January 1397, seven-years-old Isabella of Valois, wife of Richard II and eldest daughter of Charles VI of France, was crowned Queen of England, the day after her husband’s thirtieth birthday.
7/1/2010	On 7th January 2010, the BBC first broadcast Michael Portillo interviewing Tom Dixon of Pontefract in his series ‘Great British Railway Journeys’ on his travels from Pontefract to Bridlington. Tom claimed to have (then) the last growing liquorice bush in Pontefract at the house of his great grandfather built in 1810. Tom showed Michael a liquorice boot made by Hillabys of Pontefract which the company had devised for United Artists’ 1925 Charlie Chaplin film 'The Gold Rush' in which the starving Little Tramp cooks and eats his footwear. Liquorice had been grown and stored at Pontefract Castle around the time of the Civil War and for many years after.
8/1/1400	On 8th January 1400, after a failed plot (Epiphany Rising) by the Earls of Salisbury, Huntingdon (Richard’s half-brother), Rutland and Kent (Richard’s nephew) and the Lord Despenser to seize Henry IV and his sons and arrange for Richard II's release from imprisonment at Pontefract Castle, Salisbury was lynched at Cirencester. Lord Despenser managed to escape to Bristol but was murdered on the 15th January. The Earl of Huntingdon was seized at Pleshey in Essex and beheaded for his role in the attempted coup.
8/1/1645	On 8th January 1645, Pontefract Castle’s governor, Sir Richard Lowther, sent 140 horsemen to Newark to conserve supplies of food and fuel at the besieged garrison and employ them more usefully elsewhere.
9/1/1360	On 9th January 1360, Edward III commented upon his pregnant daughter-in-law, Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, that he wished her to stay with Queen Philippa for the last few months of her pregnancy ‘because of the concern that we feel for her condition’. His son, John of Gaunt, had been in France on campaign since October 1359.
9/1/1367	On 9th January 1367, Richard of Bordeaux (the future Richard II who died at Pontefract Castle) was baptised in the cathedral of St Andre in Bordeaux. His christening was attended by three kings including James of Majorca (in exile) and Leo of Armenia.
9/1/1452	On 9th January 1452, Richard, Duke of York, lord of Sandal Castle, was at Ludlow and issued a formal protest of his loyalty to Henry VI and denial of any treasonous plans. He offered to take an oath to Bishop Reginald Boulers of Hereford and John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, if they would come and administer it.
10/1/1321	The siege of royalist Tickhill Castle (whose constable was William de Aune) by Thomas of Lancaster, lord of Pontefract, in his rebellion against Edward II, provoked Edward to crush Lancaster finally. The siege had begun by 10th January 1321 and news of it was evidently brought to the king at Gloucester for, in the ten days that he was there, preparations were put in hand for a full-scale campaign. Lancaster's siege was ultimately unsuccessful. A file of twenty letters under the privy and secret seals, dating from 14th September 1320 to 11th March 1322, shows the King constantly pressing Aune for news, enjoining the strictest secrecy, urging him to fortify his castle, and asking for full reports on the comings and goings of the barons in Yorkshire.
10/1/1425	On 10th January 1425, Robert Waterton, Constable of Pontefract Castle, wrote his will only seven days before his death. It included a bequest of 24 marks (nearly £19,000 in today's money) a year for three chaplains to pray for three souls in addition to his own: his wife, Henry IV and, surprisingly, the soul of Richard II. No mention was made of Henry V.
10/1/1538	A survey of Pontefract Castle was made in 1538 on the 10th and 12th of January by Sir Henry Savell, Sir George Lawson and Robert Chaloner, advised by John Forman (mason), John Tomson (carpenter) and Tomas Jackson (founder). Excerpts included: ‘; lxx (70) foder of newe leed ov’ and besides the old leed of the same Castell woll serve to cov’ newe all such howses within the said Castell as haith been cov’yd with leed of lait….; xx (20) Toone of Tymber wolle serve for the repa’con of tymber worke for the said Castell…’
10/1/1649	On 10th January 1649, after Oliver Cromwell had written the previous November to the Committee of the Lords and Commons, regarding Pontefract Castle’s situation and request for his besieging forces of further arms and ordnance, ‘six good battering guns, of no less calibre than demi-cannons, with match, powder, bullets and three of the biggest mortars, with shells’ plus other materiel arrived.
10/1/1814	On 10th January 1814, Irish poet Aubrey de Vere was born. In 1896, his sonnet about Pontefract Castle was published and although a frequent visitor to the Lake District in veneration of Wordsworth, it is not known if he toured Pontefract Castle: ‘PONTEFRACT CASTLE; OR, TREASON’S TWOFOLD REQUEST WIND-WASTED castle without crown of towers! Dread dungeon keep, watching the dying day! A crownless king, great Edward’s grandson, lay Wasting in thee, and counting prisoned hours: A century passed: the Faith’s embattled Powers Thus far advanced; here stood, a stag at bay: The eighth Henry trembled in his blood-stained bowers:- Thou saw’st that’ Pilgrimage of Grace’ decay! Two Woes thou saw’st; the fall of England’s Crown, That drowned in blood her old Nobility; Then, baser plague, the old Temples trampled down I mark of that Red Sea which rolls between England that is, and England that hath been!
10/1/2019	On 10th January 2019, 'The Sacred King' was filmed in the 'dungeon' at Pontefract Castle. It was a filmed version of the often-called ‘prison speech’ from William Shakespeare’s historical tragedy Richard II, taken from the beginning of Act 5, Scene 5. The scene of the king’s final speech had never been filmed at the historic site before. The Sacred King was directed by Yvonne Morley, filmed by Ben Porter, performed by Mark Burghagen with music by Shakespeare contemporary John Dowland, performed by tenor John Potter and lutenist Jacob Heringman
11/1/1329	On the 11th January 1329, Henry of Lancaster, later lord of Pontefract, surrendered to Edward III at Bedford after marching to meet Roger Mortimer’s army which had been sacking and burning Lancaster’s manors in Warwickshire and Leicestershire and seizing his city of Leicester. The king’s uncles, the Earls of Kent and Norfolk, had abandoned Lancaster to re-join the royal court. Despite Archbishop Mepeham having interceded on his behalf, Lancaster was fined £11,000 (£12.2 million in today’s money): the fine never being paid.
12/1/1454	On 12th January 1454, Queen Margaret presented a bill of five articles to the council requesting that a regent (Margaret herself) with ‘whole rule of this land’ be appointed until her husband, Henry VI recovered from his mental incapacity. This regent would have the right to appoint ‘the chancellor, the treasurer, the privy seal and all other officers of this land, with sheriffs and all other officers that the king should make….(together with the power)…to give all the bishoprics of this land and all other benefices belonging to the king’s gift..’ This was Margaret’s bold move to try to prevent Richard, Duke of York’s (lord of Sandal Castle) assumption of power during (and beyond?) Henry’s incapacitation and the impending threat to the interests of her four-months-old son, Prince Edward.

Next week in history

Date	Event
20/1/1236	On 20th January 1236, John de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was in attendance at the coronation of Henry III’s Queen (Eleanor of Provence). It was at the coronation feast and court celebrations afterwards that John befriended and ‘sponsored’ Simon de Montfort.
20/1/1307	On 20th January 1307, Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was one of two Commissioners to open parliament in Carlisle.
20/1/1320	On 20th January 1320, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, lord of Pontefract, refused to attend the Parliament at York, fearing for his safety in his quarrels with Edward II.
20/1/1327	On 20th January 1327, at Kenilworth Castle, owned by Henry of Lancaster, later lord of Pontefract when his executed brother Thomas’s titles and lands were restored to Henry, Edward II agreed to resign his crown to his son, later Edward III.
20/1/1330	On 20th January 1330, Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, brother of the executed’ traitor’ Thomas, Earl of Lancaster and lord of Pontefract, founded a hospital in Leicester, possibly, some surmise, to mark his fiftieth year or as acknowledgement to the plight of the handicapped; he was suffering worsening vision if not total blindness by this time.
20/1/1382	On 20th January 1382, fifteen-year-old Richard II, the most famous prisoner to be later held at Pontefract Castle, was married to sixteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia in Westminster Abbey by the Bishop of London, Robert Baybrooke.
21/1/1342	On 21st January 1342, John of Gaunt, future lord of Pontefract, and not yet two-years-old, was made Earl of Richmond. The official confirmation was made on 20th September that year.
21/1/1390	On 21st January 1390, John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, was re-sworn as a Privy Councillor to Richard II.
21/1/1645	For the 21st January 1645, Nathan Drake, diarist, recorded: ‘Captin Browne was killed in the Barbican with a muskitt bullitt from the beseegers. About that time was one John Spence killed in the barbican by overcharging his owne muskitt wch burst & killed him.’
21/1/1645	On 21st January 1645, Nathan Drake, Royalist diarist, recorded: ‘about 11 a Clock, there came a Drumme to the gates from Forbes and Beate a parly. word was brought to the Governor who sent to know his business. He tould them he had a letter from Coll. Forbes to the Governor. The governor returned answer, he would receive no letters…unlesse they would sease battering..’
21/1/1652	On 21st January 1652, it was reported by The Parliament Committee for Advance of Money (set up in November 1642, and ceasing in 1656, to produce voluntary loans and subsequently compulsory assessments for the fight against Charles I and from 1645 to uncover the concealed resources of Royalist ‘delinquents’) that Lady Savile, widow of Sir William Savile of Thornhill, ‘went to Sheffield, then a King’s garrison, contributing money, horses, and arms and encouraging the soldiers to fight against Parliament, and stayed there till its surrender. Also that she was privy to the design of betraying Pontefract Castle to the King in 1648, and much assisted the enemy. Also that her late husband was a commander under the Earl of Newcastle, and a notorious delinquent.’
22/1/1382	On 22nd January 1382, Anne of Bohemia, eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, was crowned Queen of England (to Richard II) by the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay. John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, was in attendance and gave the queen a silver enamelled ewer on an elaborate stand. During the week-long festivities after the wedding, Gaunt provided minstrels for the jousts at Smithfield, with his son, Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), displaying his considerable jousting talents.
22/1/1425	In late January 1425, Richard Neville, later to be Earl of Salisbury and brother-in-law to Richard, Duke of York, was made Constable of Pontefract Castle, succeeding Robert Waterton.
22/1/1645	On 22nd January 1645, the English Commissioners with the Scotch (sic) Army wrote from Grantham to Lieutenant-General Leslie: ‘We have received very sad complaints of horse lately quartered at Stayncross and those parts in Yorkshire under Major Blair, how they took clothes and free quarter, and assessed great sums of money, take horses and when the owners redeem them for money take both horses and money, and that one of them committed a rape ; some said the Reformadoes of your army, com¬ mitting many oppressions at Tickhill, were taken by the inhabitants to Pontefract Castle, of whom those of the Scotch nation the Committee have written to you shall be sent to receive justice at your hands, and the English Irish and French shall receive the punishment appointed by Parliament…..’
23/1/1396	In January 1396, John Of Gaunt was newly-married to his mistress, Katherine Swynford. The Duke and Duchess made a short trip to the North before facing the court. Possibly, John wanted to 'test the water' by taking Katherine on a tour of his domains and by the 23rd January, they were lodged at Pontefract Castle. The royal lodgings were in the turreted trefoil donjon which John had heightened 20 years earlier. The couple would have resided in great luxury as John had lavished huge sums of money on his castle. The image is of John of Gaunt.
23/1/1600	On 23rd January 1600, Alexander Keirincx, a Flemish landscape artist, was born in Antwerp. He was commissioned by Charles I of England (probably to note the king’s visit to Scotland in 1639) to paint a series of ten or more paintings of royal castles and places in England and Scotland and it is believed his depiction of the grandeur of Pontefract Castle was done in 1640. He died in Amsterdam on 7th October 1652.
23/1/1643	On 23rd January 1643, the Marquess of Newcastle retreated from Pontefract when Parliamentarian Sir Thomas Fairfax threatened his lines of communication having already taken Leeds and Wakefield from Lord Savile.
24/1/1537	On 24th January 1537, after Lord Darcy (Constable of Pontefract Castle during the Pilgrimage of Grace) had written to Henry VIII asking to be excused from a summons to attend court because of illness and infirmity, the king wrote to him thanking him for his services and ordered him to victual the castle secretly in case of further uprisings in view of the Beverley ‘disturbances’. Preparations were made for the Lord Admiral to take over Pontefract from Darcy and Sir Richard Tempest to cede Sandal Castle to Sir Henry Saville.
24/1/1897	‘The Chemist and Druggist’ reported that on 24th January 1897 ‘A fire broke out at Pontefract on Sunday, January 24 (1897), resulting in the complete destruction of a liquorice-factory belonging to Councillor A. Taylor White. A large quantity of machinery for the making of " Pontefract cakes " was destroyed, and also a few tons of finished cakes, as well as a considerable weight of raw material.’
25/1/1140	On 25th January 1140, ‘Archbishop’ Thurstan of York, fulfilling his vow to enter the Cluniac order of monks, took his vows at the Priory of St John, Pontefract which had been founded by Robert de Lacy in 1090.
25/1/1205	On 25th January 1205, Roger de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was a witness of letters patent and close authorising King John’s officials to retain and destroy false coins. There was widespread concern during this part of the king’s reign regarding the quality of coinage in circulation and the debasing of the currency particularly given King John’s persistent demands for funds regarding his foreign campaigns, castle repairs, garrisons’ reinforcements etc.
25/1/1277	On 25th January 1277, Sir Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was with Edward I at Worcester preparing for a military campaign in Wales against the 'rebel' leader, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. By the end of this month, at Oswestry, Henry arrived with a notable company of seven barons, twenty-five knights, sixty-eight troopers and one hundred plus lances. By 1st July, prior to the main, impending campaign, Sir Henry had helped King Edward receive the homage of five Welsh rulers and in early September was with the king helping to capture Anglesey.
25/1/1278	On 25th January 1278, Sir Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was authorised by Edward I to travel to Brabant to arrange the future marriage of his daughter, Margaret, to John, heir to the Duke of Brabant.
25/1/1287	Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln and lord of Pontefract, was with Edmund of Lancaster visiting Gascony when he made his will on or around 25th January 1287 in Bordeaux, although it was later cancelled. In it he left £100 (£97,000 today) each to the poor scholars of Oxford and Cambridge and made reference to £1,000 (£970,000 today) he had deposited at Lincoln Cathedral in case his then five-years-old daughter, Alice, did not marry.
25/1/1537	On 25th January 1537, Henry VIII wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury concerning the new Bigod uprising, following the Pilgrimage of Grace, in North Yorkshire, and the Earl’s health. In the letter, he also declared that so long as Lord Darcy did his duty regarding preventing further troubles in and around Pontefract and holding the castle, the king would regard him with as much favour as if the rebellion had never happened.
26/1/1354	On 26th January 1354, Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster and lord of Pontefract, was made Commissioner to ‘treat’ with the King of Navarre by Edward III.