- Pontefract Castle 13th Century
- 1286 - On 13th May 1286, Sir Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract, accompanied Edward I on his journey to France to pay homage to the new French king, Philip IV, for the dukedom of Gascony and to attempt to broker a peace between Aragon and France (agreed in July 1286). Other notable royal members of this entourage included Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, the king’s brother and the Earl of Gloucester. Henry spent three years abroad, returning in 1289.
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1645 - On 13th May 1645, Nathan Drake, Royalist diarist, recorded: 'This day we kill one of the Enemyes upon Baghill, and 2 from the Round Tower, and divers more were hurt.They grow now so fearfull that they will scarcely looke out of their Trenches…’
- Pontefract Castle 19th Century
- 1899 - On 13th May 1899, the ‘Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer’ reported that on Whit Monday and Tuesday, Professor Charles Horace Fleet, renowned parachutist and balloonist, would be at Pontefract Castle with the largest balloon in the world, standing 115 feet high with a circumference of 200 feet.