- Pontefract Castle 14th Century
- 1327 - The Annales Paulini gives the date of 11th June 1327 when Thomas Dunheved, a Dominican friar, was captured in the village of Budbrooke. He was the leader of a gang which had attempted to free Edward of Caernarfon (former Edward II) from captivity in Berkeley Castle. Dunheved was taken to Queen Isabella and then imprisoned in Pontefract Castle.
- 1381 - On 11th June 1381, Richard II and his court moved to the safety of the Tower of London after a body of Kent rebels sought to destroy ‘traitors’ surrounding the king. John of Gaunt’s, lord of Pontefract, son, Henry of Bolingbroke (later Henry IV) was amongst the besieged nobles. Gaunt, meanwhile, was in NE England for negotiations with the Scots at Berwick.
- Pontefract Castle 15th Century
- 1483 - On 11th June 1483, Richard Duke of Gloucester (ostensibly believing/proclaiming there was a plot against him) wrote a request to Lord Ralph Neville to meet with his men at Pontefract prior to marching to London.
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1645 -
On 11th June 1645, about two o'clock, all the men in the Royalist castle were ordered to arms by the governor. After receiving their orders, they sallied forth in different directions. Their attack was centred mainly on the work around the church. Captain Joshua Walker and twenty men sallied with the first party into the church where they were to remain for twenty-four hours. They took with them sufficient match powder and ammunition. Entering the steeple they kept up fire against the enemy at every opportunity. All Saints Church (Low Church) was still held by the besieged because no major Parliamentary works separated it from the castle. After Captain Flood had taken the works, a party of the Parliamentary forces came down to reoccupy it, whereupon they were fired on from the steeple, killing twelve men among whom were three officers, and wounded several others.
The sally was supported by cannon shots from the castle and the besiegers lost forty men killed, eleven taken prisoner and a considerable number wounded. A quantity of muskets, pikes, powder, match and ammunition was taken into the castle. The siege of Pontefract Castle had now been carried on for several months and there did not appear to be any prospect of it being taken by storm or surrendered by capitulation. The Parliamentary high command was dissatisfied with the commanding officer and the way in which the siege had been conducted. An order came to Lord Fairfax to remove Sands and to appoint Colonel General Poyntz to the command. - Sandal Castle 13th Century
- 1258 - On 11th June1258, a parliament including John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal castle, met at Oxford with the nobles asking Henry III to reaffirm his commitment to the Great Charters and appoint a Justiciar (soon to be Hugh Bigod, younger brother of the Earl of Norfolk) to help sort out the king's financial troubles. Although Henry agreed to put the new arrangements in place, de Warenne (married to the kings half-sister Alice de Lusignan) and William de Valence, the king's half-brother, opposed them. The outcome of these discussions was the royally sealed document, the Provisions of Oxford, and despite his reservations, de Warenne (a Henry supporter at the time) was one of the twenty-four member panel/council (half chosen by the king, half chosen by the barons) overseeing the Provisions’ enactment. The Provisions not only required the king to be advised by the council but the overseeing of the entire administration of Parliament and the reforming of the king’s and queen’s households. In attempting to avert civil war, it was a similar, albeit not as onerous, restriction of royal authority as Magna Carta of 1215.
