- Pontefract Castle 14th Century
- 1300 - On 7th June 1300, Sir Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, was with Edward I at Pontefract Castle in preparation for the king’s Scottish campaign. This was Edward’s second attempt to rally forces, having abandoned plans six months earlier at Berwick on Tweed due to lack of infantry. Edward’s army of ten thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry marched into Scotland in early July 1300. The royal army, including eighty-seven English barons and several knights of Brittany and Lorraine, had de Lacy in charge of one cavalry unit with the Earl of Surrey, John de St John and the king commanding the others. The ensuing siege of Caerlaverock Castle, albeit ultimately successful by Edward after several attempts, had been reputedly thwarted by only sixty Scots. A papal bull, arriving by the end of August, condemning Edward’s actions in Scotland forced an English withdrawal.
- 1327 -
Some time after Hugh Despenser the Younger's execution (a court favourite of Edward II, but loathed by Edward's wife Queen Isabella) at Hereford on 24th November 1326, Edward II was taken to Kenilworth Castle, arriving there on the 5th December 1326. Edward was then moved to Berkeley Castle and in June 1327 a gang, led by a Dominican friar and a papal chaplain called Thomas Dunheved, launched a 'rescuing' assault on Berkeley Castle. Whether Edward was freed or not (it's debatable), he was captured shortly afterwards. The gang scattered and Thomas Dunheved was captured eighteen miles from his family home in Dunchurch, Warwickshire and sent to prison in Pontefract Castle, where he died. - 1394 - On 7th June 1394, Queen Anne of Bohemia, the first wife of Richard II (who would be imprisoned at Pontefract Castle), and eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, died at Sheen Priory in Sheen, now Richmond, London.
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1645 - On 7th June 1645, Nathan Drake, Royalist diarist, recorded: ‘…but about 10 a Clock our men espied a souldier of the enemies Coming downe from Munkhill to the mill, where 2 of our men went out: one was Jonathan (Sir Jarvis Cuttler’s man) the other was Rich. Laipidge. Jonathan tooke him and brought him into the Castle & eased him of his money, but he Confessed little for he was then drunke…’
- Sandal Castle 15th Century
- 1436 - On 7th June 1436, Richard, Duke of York (lord of Sandal Castle), newly appointed Lieutenant-General of Normandy, landed at Honfleur with 5,000 men, along with the Earls of Salisbury and Suffolk, to retake fortresses in the Pays de Caux, a chalk plateau in northern Normandy between the Seine estuary and Channel coastline. Philippe of Burgundy’s Armagnac and Burgundian forces were threatening the key port of Calais and surrounding areas.
