On 14th November…

On 15th November…

655 - The pagan King Penda of Mercia died at the Battle of Winwaed. He was defeated by the Christian King Oswiu of Bernicia, another kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England. Oswiu’s win helped him to gain power over the northern kingdoms in England uniting them into the larger kingdom of Northumbria.

On 16th November…

42BCE - The Roman Emperor Tiberius was born in Rome. He was the second Roman Emperor and the adopted son of Augustus Caesar, also known as Octavius, the first man to become Emperor of Rome.

On 17th November…

680 - Hilda of Whitby died. She was the great-niece of King Edwin of Northumbria and was one of the most famous figures of Christian Anglo-Saxon England. She was the founding abbess of Whitby monastery which was home to both monks and nuns. Local legend says that Hilda rid the area of snakes and evil serpents by praying to God to remove the snake’s heads and to turn their bodies to stone, she then threw them off the top of the Abbey Cliff and then the snakes all turned to stone in the heat of her anger. There are many ammonite fossils along the beach below that resemble headless snakes.

1292 - John Balliol became King of Scotland following the deaths of both King Alexander III and his 7-year-old granddaughter, Margaret, the Maid of Norway. John was proclaimed king by King Edward I of England who had been called upon to help decide on a new king for Scotland by Scottish nobles who couldn’t agree who should be the next king. Unfortunately for John Balliol the king of England had made him submit and recognise himself as John’s superior and expected John to be loyal to England. This angered the Scottish nobles who insisted that King John Balliol refuse to help England with its war against France and instead sign a treaty with France. King Edward was furious at the Scottish betrayal and marched an army into Scotland where he defeated John Balliol at the Battle of Dunbar and stripped him of his royal status. Edward also removed the Scottish Stone of Destiny, where the Kings of Scotland were crowned, to stop Scotland from being able to make another king. This began the Scottish Wars of Independence.

On 18th November…

1477 - William Caxton printed the first dated book in England using the printing press. It was called ‘Dictes and Sayenges of the Phylosophers’.

1910 - More than 100 female protestors were arrested when Suffragettes tried to storm the Houses of Parliament on what became known as Black Friday. Suffragettes were women who were fighting for the rights of all women to be able to vote. Violence raged between the demonstrators, police, and crowds of on-lookers. All the women were released without charge the next day. Reports of the day given in the newspapers by journalists, by the police and by Suffragettes all differed drastically, each side manipulating the story to their advantage.

1987 - A fire on the London Underground at Kings Cross Station killed 31 people including a senior fire-fighter. The fire is believed to have started when a lit match dropped through a gap on the wooden escalators and set fire to grease and litter beneath. After the tragedy new safety measures were brought into place; smoking was now banned on the Underground and all wooden escalators in every station were replaced with metal ones.

On 19th November…

On 20th November…

869 - King Edmund, a Saxon king of East Anglia was killed by Vikings who had tied him to a tree, shot him with arrows and then beheaded him. He was killed after being defeated in battle and because he refused to give up his Christian faith; because of this he became known as both Edmund the Martyr and St Edmund. Before his death, King Edmund had fought alongside King Alfred the Great in battle and his remains were moved to Bury St Edmunds where King Athelstan founded a shrine to him. The shrine became a place of national pilgrimage. Did you know that he was the original patron saint of England before St George was adopted as the patron saint?

1992 - A fire broke out at Windsor Castle when a faulty spotlight set fire to a curtain. The fire damaged 115 rooms, burned for 15 hours and took 225 firefighters to put out. Luckily nobody died and only two works of art were destroyed as many pieces had been removed in advance of works being carried out. Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and is an official residence of Queen Elizabeth II.