- Pontefract Castle 10th Century
- 946 - On 26th May 946 (St Augustine’s Day), Eadred (grandson of Alfred the Great), around twenty-three years old, succeeded his elder brother King Edmund I as King of the English. Although later to bring the kingdom of Northumbria under complete English control with the defeat of Eric Bloodaxe in 954, Eadred received the submission of the sub-kings of England and the Northumbrian ealdormen at Tanshelf (part of modern-day Pontefract) in 947.
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1645 - On 26th May 1645, Nathan Drake, Royalist diarist, recorded: ‘This day, being whitson Munday……..Jubbe & a boy went out of the Castle to fetch in some grasse for the horses and Cattell….but, they being too negligent to looke well about them, the boy was shott in the mouth side, & thorow the Cheeke, but not any mortall wound, and Jubbe was taken prisoner & Caryed up into the towne, where, they finding him to be a simple man, many Came about him & gave him good store of stronge Ale till the had soundly foxt him, thinking then to have gott good Intelligence out of him, and in the night brought him towards Newhall (there to be examined)…but he tooke his opportunety & slipt away from them & Came into the Castle againe before 11 aClock. This night also Came in Captin Washington from Sandall, who went thither the Fridday night before, and brought good newes of the Princes good p’ceedinges….’