- Pontefract Castle 13th Century
- 1279 - On 27th April 1279, Sir Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was appointed as Joint-Lieutenant (locum tenentibus) of England i.e. king’s regent/deputy during King Edward I’s absence in France. This status was in alliance with the Bishops of Hereford and Worcester and the king’s cousin, Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall. Edward departed for France on 11th May in order to take possession of Queen Eleanor’s recently inherited county of Ponthieu and to conclude a treaty with Philip III regarding Edward’s jurisdiction in Gascony.
- Pontefract Castle 15th Century
- 1473 - On 27th April 1473, in a letter dated at Pontefract, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, granted Richard Knaresborough an annuity of six marks (£5,000 in today's money).
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1645 - On 27th April 1645, a party of the Parliamentary besiegers horse assembled about noon and marched through the Park to Ferrybridge. On seeing this, a party of brave men led by a soldier called Lowder rushed out of Pontefract Castle without a formal commander and assaulted the Parliamentary troops under the command of Sir John Savile. Having killed or wounded as many of the enemy as equalled their own number of men they retreated safely back to the castle.
- 1645 - On 27th April 1645, Nathan Drake, Royalist diarist, recorded: ‘ Sunday the beseegers Came againe from the upp’ towne to Baghill about 8 a Clocke, & there Continued all the day, shooting very hard at any they Could see either wthn or about the Castle wth about 100 musketeres, so that we Could not put forth our Cattell to grasse. in the fore no one there Came downe 3 very good hoggs downe at brode lane end, towards the Castle, and our Souldyers seeing them (out of Barbican) went out and fetcht then in wch was a good booty for the Souldyers…’
- Sandal Castle 13th Century
- 1296 - On 27th April 1296, John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal Castle, commanded the only major field action of that year in the war between Edward I and the Scots. This was the Battle of Dunbar when the Scots were comprehensively defeated. Some estimates put the Scottish dead at 10000 with 100 lords, knights and men at arms taken prisoner. Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling were soon to surrender to Edward’s forces over the next two months. The Chronicle of Lanercost records: ‘On the fifth of the kalends of May, at the ninth hour of Friday … when the Earl of Warenne and barely a fifth part of the King's army were preparing to go to bed, they [Scots] showed themselves boldly on the brow of a steep hill, provoking their enemy to combat. And although their columns were in close order and strong in numbers, before it was possible to come to close quarters [with them], they broke up and scattered more swiftly than smoke.’