- Pontefract Castle 14th Century
- 1300 - In May 1300, Edward I, on passing through Pontefract, gave St Richard’s Dominican Friary 20s (nearly £1150 in today’s money) as a gift.
- 1386 - On 16th May 1386, an Anglo-Portuguese treaty of military and naval alliance was ratified at Westminster. Portugal was to provide John of Gaunt, lord of Pontefract, with a squadron of galleys for the invasion of Castile. Due to difficulties in hiring other ships, Gaunt’s departure was delayed and he did not sail from Plymouth until the 9th July that year.
- Pontefract Castle 16th Century
- 1528 - In May 1528, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Somerset and Richmond, and illegitimate son of Henry VIII, was staying at Pontefract Castle when outbreaks of sweating sickness were recorded in the town. William Parr wrote to Thomas Wolsey, Lord High Chancellor, that Henry was in good health but ‘there bee six persons lately disseassed within the lordship of Pountfrete…and that many young children bee sicke of the pokes nere thereabouts.’. Henry was moved to Ledestone, a house belonging to the Prior of Pontefract, three miles from the castle. The place was Ledston Hall or the manor that stood on the present site of the later hall.
- Pontefract Castle 17th Century
- 1645 -
The good news of the king's impending 'superior' forces seems to have inspired the Royalist garrison with fresh courage for on 16th May 1645 a vigorous sally was made to Monkhill and the Parliamentarians were driven from their works to their main guard at the New Hall. Another party attacked the works below the church and, seeing the enemy draw about thirty men from the barn, commenced a brisk fire upon them. The party from the castle retired to a dense orchard close by, returning the fire for half an hour and then retreating to the castle. In the night, another party went from the castle intending to destroy a new works at the bottom of the abbey close. However, the Parliamentary besiegers had received information about their intentions and had lined the hedge with infantry. From the moment the party sallied out of the garrison they were met by brisk fire, which they returned for some time and then retreated to the castle with two of their men wounded. It was believed that a woman going out of the castle had passed the information to the besiegers. - Sandal Castle 13th Century
- 1234 - On 16th May 1234, William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, lord of Sandal, attended the great council at Gloucester along with the archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin, the bishops of Bath, Durham, Carlisle, Coventry and Rochester and the earls of Cornwall, Derby, Hereford and Warwick. This council was one of the most important of Henry III’s reign; it dismissed Stephen of Seagrave and Robert Passelewe and affirmed the principle of kingship guided by great councils and subject to the law.
