- Pontefract Castle 13th Century
- 1232 - On 23rd November 1232, by a charter dated at Northampton, John de Lacy, Baron of Pontefract and his wife, Margaret (only daughter and heir of Robert de Quincy, Earl of Winchester and Hawyse, youngest sister and co-heir of Ranulph de Mechines, Earl of Chester and Lincoln) were formally invested by Henry III as 2nd Earl and 2nd Countess of Lincoln. John obtained the title by right of his wife who, herself, had inherited the title via her mother and uncle who had died on 26th October that year. Ranulph had formally granted the Earldom of Lincoln to his sister ‘to the end that she might be countess, and that her heirs might also enjoy the earldom’. Margaret had specifically requested the king that her husband, John de Lacy, be created Earl of Lincoln with remainder to the heirs of his body by her. Ranulph’s principal barony, Bolingbroke, was retained by de Lacy’s mother-in-law, Hawyse until her death in 1243. Hawyse, herself, had been granted the title by formal charter in April 1231 and was invested as suo jure 1st Countess of Lincoln on the day after her brother Ranulph’s death, effectively holding it for less than a month.
- Pontefract Castle 16th Century
- 1539 -
On 23rd November 1539, the Cluniac Priory of St John the Evangelist in Pontefract, which had been founded by Robert de Lacy in around 1090, was surrendered to Henry VIII's commissioners. The commissioners' report said that they had 'quietly takine the surrenders and dissolvyed the monasterie of Pountfrette, wher we perceyved no murmure ore gruge in any behalfe bot wer thankefully receyvede.' Pensions were granted to the prior (£50, nearly £50,000 in today's money) and twelve brethren. The prior, James Thwaytes, was then appointed Dean of St. Clement's for life. - Sandal Castle 15th Century
- 1450 - On 23rd November 1450, Richard, Duke of York (lord of Sandal Castle), arrived late to the parliament in London called by Henry VI for the 6th November. York was accompanied by his nephew, John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, and a ‘great multitude of supporters’ with a naked sword borne before them through the city’s streets. York and Norfolk had been plotting to pack parliament with their own supporters to counteract the influence of Henry’s regime embodied in Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset.
