Syon Abbey of Isleworth on the left, Middlesex, bank. Sheen had been a favourite residence of the last Plantagenet king Richard II (1377–1399) and his beloved wife Anne of Bohemia. When Anne died there of plague in 1394, Richard cursed the place where they had found great happiness and razed the palace to the ground. His throne was usurped by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, who ruled as Henry IV (1399–1413), who was involved in the murder of Richard in 1400, and in that of Archbishop Richard le Scrope, and made a vow to expiate his guilt by founding 3
Pontefract Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in West Yorkshire, England, near the A1 (or Great North Road) and the M62 motorway. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the five towns in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield and has a population of 28,250, increasing to 30,881 at the 2011 Census. Pontefract's motto is "Post mortem patris pro filio", Latin for "After the death of the father, support the son", a reference to the English Civil War Royalist sympathies. At the end of the 11th century, the modern township of Pontefract consisted