Today In History
Pontefract Castle
- Pontefract Castle 14th Century
- 1370 On 11th October 1370, the ailing Black Prince appointed his brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and lord of Pontefract, as his lieutenant in Aquitaine after Gaunt had participated in the siege of Limoges even engaging in hand-to-hand fighting in the undermining tunnels. The Black Prince then returned to England leaving his brother in charge.
- Pontefract Castle 16th Century
- 1536 On 11th October 1536, having received Sir Brian Hastings’ letter from Hatfield advising Lord Darcy, in Pontefract, to send a force immediately to York ‘ to overawe their faction in that city’ (rebels from Howdenshire and Marshland intending to march on York in the Pilgrimage of Grace), Darcy replied: ‘I am putting all the gentlemen within my room in readiness at an hour’s warning, when I shall know the King’s pleasure…If you have any certainty from above let me share it’.
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1619 A manuscript dated 11th October 1619 declared: ‘ Out of Queen Anne her Joynture. The King (James I) granted &c. and all o’r mann’r of Pontefract in the county of Yorke & other counties wheresoever that hon’r extendeth……..’ A jointure was an estate settled on a wife for the period during which she survived her husband, in lien of a dower. Anne had died in March of that year.
Sandal Castle
- Sandal Castle 12th Century
- 1159 On 11th October 1159, William of Blois, 4th Earl of Surrey, died. William had taken ownership of Sandal Castle in 1148. William's parents were Stephen, Count of Boulogne, and Matilda Contessa de Boulogne. William had been born circa 1137 but did not want to be king, so his father Stephen acknowledged his cousin Matilda’s son, Henry, as his successor. The two centuries between the death of William of Blois in 1159 and the last Earl of Surrey in 1347 mark the period when the timber castle at Sandal was reconstructed in stone and received its full complement of buildings, which lasted until their destruction in the Civil War.
- Sandal Castle 15th Century
- 1483 On 11th October 1483, Richard III, lord of Sandal, was made aware of the Duke of Buckingham’s participation in plots and rebellions that were breaking out. Buckingham had been a trusted and loyal adviser to Richard, being with him at the arrest of Anthony Woodville and instrumental in Richard’s gaining the throne. He had been appointed Chief Justice over Wales and two months before had been commissioned to investigate treasons in London. His role in the so-called murder (or spiriting away) of the Princes in the Tower has been much debated over the centuries with claims of acting at Richard’s command, selfishly seeking the crown himself, or even pursuing Edward V’s ‘rightful’ inheritance, all put forward. A possible motivation for his rebellion is cited as Edward IV’s keeping of thirty-eight manors on Henry Bohun’s death which Buckingham regarded as his inheritance. Buckingham was executed for treason on 2nd November 1483.