- Pontefract Castle 16th Century
- 1537 - On 16th April 1537, Lord Darcy, Constable of Pontefract Castle during the previous year’s Pilgrimage of Grace, was examined at the Lord Chancellor’s house regarding accusations of treason for his (in)actions in the rebellion at Pontefract. His opening remarks to his examiners were defiant:’ I am here now at your pleasure; ye may do your pleasure with me. I have read that men that have been in cases like with their prince as ye be now have come at the last to the same end that ye would now bring me unto. And so may ye come to the same.’ He accused Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and, most probably his father, the Duke of Norfolk, but directed his most bitter challenge to Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal : “ Cromwell, it is thou that art the very original and chief causer of all this rebellion and mischief, and art likewise causer of the apprehension of us that be noble men and dost daily earnestly travail to bring us to our end and to strike off our heads, and I trust that or thou die, though thou wouldst procure all the noblemen’s heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet shall there one head remain that shall strike off thy head”.
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1645 - A vigorous and successful sally was made on the 16th April 1645. Two parties of fifty Royalist musketeers went out; one, under Captain Hemsworth, went out of the lower gate to the trenches near Alderman Lunn's house and the other under Captain Munroe went from Swillington Tower up Northgate to the enemy's upper trenches. Fifty volunteers drawn from four divisions assisted these. A party of horse under Captain Beale and Cornet Speight (a cornet was the lowest commissioned officer in a cavalry regiment) was stationed near Baghill to prevent the horse of the Parliamentarians giving any assistance to their infantry during the attack. The two parties assaulted their enemy's trenches and compelled them to retreat to another trench near the bridge. The loss to the besiegers was about fifty men killed, wounded or taken and the next day the Parliamentarians were seen to carry away seven wagons loaded with wounded men.
- Pontefract Castle 20th Century
- 1939 - On 16th April 1939, before the outbreak of World War II, six thousand people attended a National Service Rally in Pontefract Castle grounds. The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer reported that this “rendered conscription unnecessary”.
- Sandal Castle 13th Century
- 1247 - In April 1247, John de Warenne, son of William de Warenne, (who had succeeded to his father's estates in 1240), married Alice de Lusignan, King Henry III's half sister. This marriage created resentment among the English nobility who did not like seeing a rich earl married to a penniless foreigner. John was the most warlike of all the Warenne earls and was largely responsible for the design of Sandal Castle in it's finished state.