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| Anglo-Saxons
and Danes |
Formed
part of the kingdom of Northumbria
which itself had been formed from the smaller kingdoms of Bernicia
and Deira. Deira reached from the Humber
in the south to the river Tees in the north. North of the Tees reaching
as far as the Firth of Forth lay the kingdom of Bernicia of which
Bamburgh was the capital.
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|
Historic
Events
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| Major
Battles |
In
1066 at the Battle
of Stamford Bridge, Harold
II defeated a Viking army led by two of the three claimants
to his recently acquired crown. Both the King of Norway and
Tostig, Harold's banished brother, were killed during the battle.
After the victory Harold headed south to meet the third claimant:
William, Duke of Normandy; who would defeat him at the Battle
of Hastings in Sussex.
In
1460 the Battle
of Wakefield took place near Sandal Castle. It was
part of the Wars
of the Roses, a series of battles for the throne from 1455-85
between the Houses of York and Lancaster. The Lancastrians under
the Duke of Somerset defeated the Yorkists, killing their leader
Richard,
Duke of York and his son Edmund, Earl of Rutland. The death
of York and his son was not the end of the Yorkist cause as
two other sons - Edward IV and Richard III - would eventually
ascend the throne.
In
1461 the Battle
of Towton was a further battle in the Wars
of the Roses and with nearly 30,000 casualties, England's
bloodiest. The Lancastrians under the Duke of Somerset were
defeated by the Yorkists under Edward, Duke of York who afterwards
was crowned Edward
IV.
Edward
IV
In
1644 the Battle
of Marston Moor was a major battle in the English
Civil Wars,
which took place from 1642-51 between supporters of the monarchy
and supporters of Parliament. The Parliamentarians with their
allies the Scots defeated the Royalists taking control of the
north of England.
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| Landings
and Departures |
The
exiled Henry Bolingbroke
landed at Ravenspur in 1399 before deposing his cousin Richard
II to become Henry
IV, the first monarch of the House of Lancaster.
Henry
IV
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| Rebellions
and Plots |
In
1536 Robert
Aske lead a rebellion which became known as the Pilgrimage
of Grace. A large rebel army occupied York and then
marched on Doncaster. Protesting Henry VIII's plans for the
Dissolution of the Monasteries during the Reformation they only
dispersed after receiving promises of concessions. These never
materialised, instead Aske and other leaders were captured and
executed in York the following year.
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| Important
Events |
The
first Benedictine monasteries
to be set up in the north of England were founded around 670
in Ripon and Hexham. The Benedictines - who would become the
largest monastic order in the country - based their order on
the Benedictine Rule, formulated by St Benedict of Nursia at
the monastery he had founded in 529 at Monte Cassino in Italy.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages the order had established
245 houses in England, Scotland and Wales.
Ripon
Cathedral
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| Inventors
and Scientists |
The inventor John
Harrison was born in Foulby in 1693. In
1759 he invented the marine chronometer, a clock accurate enough to
keep time even after months at sea. The clock, called H4, would revolutionise
shipping as it enabled longitude to be measured for the first time.
The chemist Joseph
Priestley was
born in Leeds in 1733. As a clergyman he began studying chemistry
in the 1760s an interest which would make him a pioneer in the field
and one of the discoverers of oxygen. His scientific views often clashed
with his religious role and his writings led to many seeing him as
an atheist, triggering controversy on several occasions. After a mob
attacked his house he decided to move to London and then in 1794 emigrated
to the USA, where he died in 1804.
Joseph
Priestley
Every man, when he comes to be sensible of his natural rights, and
to feel his own importance, will consider himself as fully equal to
any other person whatever.
An Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768)
The physician John
Snow was born in York in 1813. He
experienced the cholera outbreaks which increasingly affected the
country from the 1830s and on moving to London began to investigate
the disease there.
His research led him to a conclusion which went against the general
acceptance that the disease was airborne and caused by foul air. After
one outbreak, Snow marked on a map the individual cholera cases in
the area and was able to trace their source of drinking water to a
specific pump in Soho. The well was found to have been contaminated
by raw sewage and once the pump was closed the cases of cholera dropped
dramatically. He could therefore prove that the disease was waterborne
and caused by polluted water.
This discovery would bring far-reaching changes in public health and
the water and sewage systems of the big cities, especially in London
where the then heavily polluted River Thames had been used as a source
for drinking water.
Cholera
epidemics and London's 'Great Stink'
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| Monarchs |
|
House of Normandy |
House of Normandy |
William
the Conqueror's youngest son Henry
I
was born at Selby in 1068. The only one of the four Norman monarchs
to be born in England, he succeeded his elder brother William
II in 1100.
On Henry's death in France
in 1135 the succession became unclear, for William, his only
legitimate son and heir, had drowned in the White
Ship which sank in the English Channel
in 1120. Henry had only one other legitimate child, a daughter,
Matilda.
But England was not yet ready for a female monarch and so it
was Henry's nephew Stephen
who became king, a succession which would lead to civil war.
Henry
I
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Places
of Interest
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|
Universities |
The
University
of Leeds received its Royal Charter in 1904 developing out
of the Leeds School of Medicine (founded 1831) and the Yorkshire
College of Science (founded 1874). It
was one of the six civic universities founded in the country's
new industrial centres which also included Sheffield,
Manchester,
Liverpool,
Birmingham
and Bristol.
This new generation of "redbrick" universities (to
be followed by more throughout the 20th century) were the first
to be founded in England after those at Oxford,
Cambridge,
Durham and
London.
The
University
of Sheffield received its Royal Charter in 1905 developing
out of the Sheffield School of Medicine (founded 1828), Firth
College (established 1879) and the Sheffield Technical School
(established 1884). It
was one of the six civic universities founded in the country's
new industrial centres which also included Leeds,
Manchester,
Liverpool,
Birmingham
and
Bristol.
This new generation of "redbrick" universities (to
be followed by more throughout the 20th century) were the first
to be founded in England after those at Oxford,
Cambridge,
Durham and
London.
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Prime
Ministers
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|
Prime Ministers |
Prime
Minister in 1765-66 and again in 1782, Charles Wentworth, the Marquess
of Rockingham was born in the county in 1730, possibly at Wentworth
Woodhouse near Rotherham, the family's ancestral seat where he grew
up. He was buried at York
Minster in
1782.
Marquess
of Rockingham
Born
in Morley in 1852, Herbert
Henry Asquith
became Prime Minister from 1908-16. His Liberal administration introduced
old-age pensions for the first time but in 1916, two years into World
War One, he was replaced by David Lloyd George.
Herbert
Henry Asquith
Harold
Wilson,
twice Prime Minister in 1964-70 and 1974-76, was born as James Harold
Wilson in 1916 at Cowlersley in Huddersfield.
Harold
Wilson
This party is a moral crusade, or it is nothing.
(Speech at the Labour Party Conference, 1962)
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Writers
and Poets
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The
poet Laurence Eusden was baptized
in 1688 at the village of Spofforth where his father was rector.
He was appointed Poet
Laureate
in 1718, succeeding Nicholas Rowe. He held the post until hs death
in 1730 when he was succeeded by Colley Cibber.
Poets
laureate
The
three Bronte sisters Anne,
Charlotte
and Emily,
were all born at Thornton in 1816, 1818 and 1820. The family moved
to the village of Haworth
in 1820 when their father became clergyman there. Emily who wrote
Wuthering Heights died at Haworth
parsonage in 1848. Charlotte who wrote Jane Eyre died
there in 1855. They are both buried in the village. Their sister
Anne died whilst visiting Scarborough in 1849, where she had once
worked as a governess. She is buried in the town.
Bronte Sisters
Emily
Bronte
Poetry Archive: Emily Bronte
The
poet Alfred Austin was born in Leeds
in 1835. In 1896 he followed Alfred Tennyson as
Poet
Laureate
and was succeeded on his death in 1913 by Robert Bridges.
Alfred
Austin
Poets
laureate
J.B.
Priestley was born as John Boynton
Priestley in Bradford in 1894. He was buried at Hubbersholme in
1984.
J.B.
Priestley
J.B. Priestley Society
The
poet W.H.
Auden was born as Wystan Hugh Auden in York in 1907. He became
friends with Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis whilst studying
at Oxford where he also met Christopher Isherwood, with whom he
emigrated to the USA in 1939. Both writers became U.S. citizens
in 1946.
These writers would reflect and chronicle the political and social
upheavals and divisions of the decade leading up to the outbreak
of World War II. In 1957 Auden had purchased a summer home in the
Austrian village of Kirchstetten, close to Vienna. In 1973 - en
route to England - he died in a hotel in the historical centre of
the capital. He is buried in Kirchstetten, where his former house
can still be visited.
W.H.
Auden
Auden Society
The sky is darkening like a stain;
Something is going to fall like rain,
And it won't be flowers.
The Witnesses (1935)
I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
As
I Walked Out One Evening (1940)
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
September
1, 1939 (1940)
Sob, heavy world,
Sob as you spin
Mantled in mist, remote from the happy.
The Age of Anxiety (1947)
The
poet Ted
Hughes was born in Mytholmroyd in 1930. In 1984 he became
Poet
Laureate
on the death of Sir John Betjeman until his own death in 1998.
Ted
Hughes
With
Sylvia Plath
Poets
laureate
J.L.
Carr, the author of A Month in the Country, was born
as James Lloyd Carr in the village of Carlton Miniott in 1912.
J.L.
Carr
That rose, Sara van Fleet ... I still have
it. Pressed in a book. My Bannister-Fletcher, as a matter
of fact. Someday, after a sale, a stranger will find it there and
wonder why.
A Month in the Country (1980)
If I'd stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose
not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that
there will be another marvellous thing around each corner fades.
It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies.
A Month in the Country (1980)
The
American-born poet Sylvia
Plath was buried at Heptonstall in 1963.
Sylvia
Plath
With
Ted Hughes
The
poet Simon
Armitage was born in Marsden in 1963. In 2009 he succeeded
Carol Ann Duufy as poet laureate, a position he will hold for 10
years.
Simon
Armitage
Poets
laureate
Simon
Armitage website
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