1.
Lincolnshire
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Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It also borders Northamptonshire in the south for just 20 yards, Englands shortest county boundary, the county town is Lincoln, where the county council has its headquarters. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire is composed of the county of Lincolnshire. Therefore, part of the county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. The county is the second-largest of the English ceremonial counties and one that is predominantly agricultural in land use, the county is fifth largest of the two-tier counties, as the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire are not included. The county can be broken down into a number of geographical sub-regions including, Lincolnshire derived from the merging of the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Lindsey with that controlled by the Danelaw borough of Stamford. For some time the county was called Lindsey, and it is recorded as such in the 11th-century Domesday Book. In 1888 when county councils were set up, Lindsey, Holland and these survived until 1974, when Holland, Kesteven, and most of Lindsey were unified into Lincolnshire. A local government reform in 1996 abolished Humberside, and the south of the Humber was allocated to the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire. These two areas became part of Lincolnshire for ceremonial such as the Lord-Lieutenancy, but are not covered by the Lincolnshire police and are in the Yorkshire. The remaining districts of Lincolnshire are Boston, East Lindsey, Lincoln, North Kesteven, South Holland, South Kesteven and they are part of the East Midlands region. Lincolnshire is home to Woolsthorpe Manor, birthplace and home of Sir Isaac Newton and he attended The Kings School, Grantham and its library has preserved his signature, applied to a window sill when he was a teenager. Lincolnshire is an area, growing large amounts of wheat, barley, sugar beet. In South Lincolnshire, where the soil is rich in nutrients, some of the most common crops include potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers. Most such companies are long gone, and Lincolnshire is no longer an engineering centre, however, as a result of the current economic climate some food production facilities have closed down, this has caused some reduction in the levels of migrant workers. The large number of people from Portugal is still obvious in the town of Boston. A coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Independents currently controls Lincolnshire County Council, the Conservative Party comfortably controlled the County Council following the 2009 local elections, in which they increased their majority to 43 seats. The Labour Party lost a total of 15 seats including 7 in Lincoln, the Lincolnshire Independents gained a total of four seats, although one of their number moved to the Conservative group during 2010, increasing the number of Conservative seats to 61
2.
Bolingbroke, Lincolnshire
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Bolingbroke, now called Old Bolingbroke, is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2001 census was 298 in 128 households, the parish population at the census 2011 had risen to 325. Bolingbroke is 3 miles west of Spilsby, the village of New Bolingbroke is 6 miles to the south-west. The Prime Meridian passes through the parish to the west of Old Bolingbroke, Bolingbroke appears in the Domesday survey as Bolingborg, one of 38 places associated with Stori of Bolingbroke at the time of the Norman conquest. William de Roumare, Earl of Lincoln, built Old Bolingbroke Castle in the 12th century as a motte, in the early 13th century a new castle was constructed at the present site by Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester. Later John of Gaunt, the son of Edward III, acquired the castle, in 1367 it was the birthplace of Johns son, Henry, known as Henry Bolingbroke, who became King Henry IV of England. The castle was under siege in 1643 during the Civil War when the Royalists used it to troops prior to the Battle of Winceby. The last remaining structure fell down in 1815, the site became a grassy hillock, which archeologists excavated in the 1970s. The village sits in a valley of the Lincolnshire Wolds. These eventually become what is known to the south as Hagnaby Beck, the village is at about 25m above sea level. To the North West the land rises to the 105m on Horncastle Hill, to the north west the road called Spilsby Hill climbs to a separate high point at Highfield Farm. Between these two the narrow Sow Dale leads down to the village, where another Knoll called Knoll Hill stands, Sow Dale is the largest of the narrow valleys that cut through the Spilsby Sandstone ridge that forms the high plateau above the village. The traditional grazed landscape is now represented by two nature reserves only, only the Lower one is in the parish, the upper one is adjacent to the boundary. Another hill to the south east more high ground forms Keal Hill and Hall Hill where the boundary is drawn. So there is another small dale leading down into the village from the east, to the southwest another hill known as Kirkby Hill is topped with a former windmill that sits just within the parish boundary. The high portions of the parish are composed of the Spilsby Sandstone, the parish boundary is complex, but can be summarised as surrounding the village, which is broadly central, and enclosing the rising ground in all directions. It generally does not include the plateau above the village, no major roads cross the parish, but the village is joined by minor roads to many surrounding settlements. There are, and were, no railway connections, events at the castle site are overseen by Heritage Lincolnshire, and locally by The friends of Bolingbroke Castle, who also arrange other local charitable functions
3.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
4.
Defensive wall
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A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements, beyond their defensive utility, many walls also had important symbolic functions – representing the status and independence of the communities they embraced. Existing ancient walls are almost always masonry structures, although brick, depending on the topography of the area surrounding the city or the settlement the wall is intended to protect, elements of the terrain may be incorporated in order to make the wall more effective. Walls may only be crossed by entering the city gate and are often supplemented with towers. Simpler defensive walls of earth or stone, thrown up around hillforts, ringworks, early castles, from very early history to modern times, walls have been a near necessity for every city. Uruk in ancient Sumer is one of the worlds oldest known walled cities, before that, the city of Jericho in what is now the West Bank had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium BC. The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified. By about 3500 B. C. hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus floodplain, many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets. Mundigak in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun dried bricks, babylon was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world, especially as a result of the building program of Nebuchadnezzar, who expanded the walls and built the Ishtar Gate. Exceptions were few — notably, ancient Sparta and ancient Rome did not have walls for a long time, initially, these fortifications were simple constructions of wood and earth, which were later replaced by mixed constructions of stones piled on top of each other without mortar. In Central Europe, the Celts built large fortified settlements which the Romans called oppida, the fortifications were continuously expanded and improved. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, in classical era Greece, the city of Athens built a long set of parallel stone walls called the Long Walls that reached their guarded seaport at Piraeus. Large tempered earth walls were built in ancient China since the Shang Dynasty, although stone walls were built in China during the Warring States, mass conversion to stone architecture did not begin in earnest until the Tang Dynasty. The large walls of Pingyao serve as one example, likewise, the famous walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing were established in the early 15th century by the Yongle Emperor. The Romans fortified their cities with massive, mortar-bound stone walls, the most famous of these are the largely extant Aurelian Walls of Rome and the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, together with partial remains elsewhere. These are mostly city gates, like the Porta Nigra in Trier or Newport Arch in Lincoln, apart from these, the early Middle Ages also saw the creation of some towns built around castles. These cities were only protected by simple stone walls and more usually by a combination of both walls and ditches. From the 12th century AD hundreds of settlements of all sizes were founded all across Europe and these cities are easy to recognise due to their regular layout and large market spaces
5.
Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester
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For the other Earls of Chester named Ranulf, see Earl of Chester. He was described as almost the last relic of the feudal aristocracy of the Conquest. Ranulf, born in 1170, was the eldest son of Hugh de Kevelioc and he was said to have been small in physical stature. He succeeded to the earldom of Chester as a minor and was knighted in 1188 or 1189, although he used, not inconsistently, the style Duke of Brittany, he never had the control of the duchy, and is not known to have played an important role there. Richard Coeur de Lion, Johns brother, had no legitimate issue. The King had named Arthur of Brittany as his adopted son, Henry did not envy the Duchess and wanted her married to a magnate whom he could trust. The marriage gave Ranulf control of the earldom of Richmond, but it wasnt a success, in 1196, King Richard I of England nominated the nine-year-old Arthur as his heir, and summoned him and his mother, Duchess Constance, to Normandy. Constance left Nantes and travelled towards Rouen, on the way she was abducted by her estranged husband. Richard, furious, marched to Brittany at the head of an army, Arthur was secretly taken away by his tutor to the French court to be brought up with Louis, son of the French king Philip II. In 1199, Constance escaped from her husband and their marriage was dissolved on the grounds of desertion. In 1200 Ranulf cemented his power in Normandy by marrying Clemence of Fougères, she was the daughter of William of Fougères, widow of Alan de Dinant and he had opposed Johns attempted coup of 1193–4, and retained many contacts with partisans of his former stepson Arthur. He spent most of 1199–1204 in France and his loyalty was bought by John with further patronage. However the King was suspicious of the Earl, perhaps with some reason, in the winter of 1204-5, Ranulph, suspected of dealings with the rebellious Welsh and of contemplating revolt himself, had extensive estates temporarily confiscated by the king. This episode apparently convinced Ranulph to show loyalty in future, thereafter he was showered with royal favours. In return he fought John’s Welsh wars 1209–12, helped secure the peace with the pope in 1213–14, and was with the king in Poitou in 1214. Loyal to the king in 1215–16, he was one of the few magnates to witness the Magna Carta of 1215 and he played a leading military role in the civil war by virtue of his extensive estates and numerous castles. Ranulf stood with William Marshal and the Earls of Derby and Warwick with the King, Chester was appointed in 1215 Lord of the County of Lancashire with the power to appoint sheriffs. He was also High Sheriff of Lancashire, High Sheriff of Staffordshire, on Johns death in 1216, Ranulfs influence increased further
6.
Lumber
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Lumber, or timber is wood that has been processed into beams and planks, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber may also refer to currently un-needed furniture, as in Lumber room, or an awkward gait, ultimately derived from the look of unfashionable, Lumber may be supplied either rough-sawn, or surfaced on one or more of its faces. Besides pulpwood, rough lumber is the raw material for furniture-making and it is available in many species, usually hardwoods, but it is also readily available in softwoods, such as white pine and red pine, because of their low cost. Lumber is mainly used for structural purposes but has other uses as well. It is classified more commonly as a softwood than as a hardwood, in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Britain, the term timber describes sawn wood products, such as floor boards. In the United States and Canada, generally timber describes standing or felled trees, before they are milled into boards, Timber there also describes sawn lumber not less than 5 inches in its smallest dimension. The latter includes the often partly finished lumber used in timber-frame construction, remanufactured lumber is the result of secondary or tertiary processing/cutting of previously milled lumber. Specifically, it is cut for industrial or wood-packaging use. Lumber is cut by ripsaw or resaw to create dimensions that are not usually processed by a primary sawmill, resawing is the splitting of 1-inch through 12-inch hardwood or softwood lumber into two or more thinner pieces of full-length boards. For example, splitting a ten-foot 2×4 into two ten-foot 1×4s is considered resawing, structural lumber may also be produced from recycled plastic and new plastic stock. Its introduction has been opposed by the forestry industry. Blending fiberglass in plastic lumber enhances its strength, durability, logs are converted into timber by being sawn, hewn, or split. Sawing with a rip saw is the most common method, because sawing allows logs of lower quality, with grain and large knots. There are various types of sawing, Plain sawn —A log sawn through without adjusting the position of the log, quarter sawn and rift sawn—These terms have been confused in history but generally mean lumber sawn so the annual rings are reasonably perpendicular to the sides of the lumber. Boxed heart—The pith remains within the piece with some allowance for exposure, heart center—the center core of a log. Free of heart center —A side-cut timber without any pith, free of knots —No knots are present. Dimensional lumber is lumber that is cut to standardized width and depth, carpenters extensively use dimensional lumber in framing wooden buildings. Common sizes include 2×4, 2×6, and 4×4, the length of a board is usually specified separately from the width and depth
7.
Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
8.
Battle of Winceby
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The Battle of Winceby took place on 11 October 1643 during the English Civil War near the village of Winceby, Lincolnshire about 4 miles east of Horncastle. During the summer of 1643, the Royalists laid plans to win the war by marching on London. While these sieges were under way, Charles I of England decided to make the best use of his time by reducing Gloucester, Parliamentary forces relieved Gloucester on 5 September. Meanwhile, the second Royalist siege of Hull had commenced, fortunately for the Parliamentary forces, the sea communications of Kingston upon Hull were open. In return, the old Lord Fairfax, who remained in Hull, received infantry reinforcements, on 9 October Parliamentary forces under Manchester laid siege to Bolingbroke Castle. After a sharp skirmish they took Horncastle from an outlying detachment of Fairfaxs force. The Parliamentary detachment reported back to the army that the Royalists were moving towards them. The next morning, leaving men to stop the Bolingbroke garrison from launching a sortie, Manchester arrayed his army on Kirkby Hill. Sometime between 12,00 and 14,00 hours he ordered an advance towards Horncastle. The Parliamentary horse, which moved faster than the infantry, met the Royalists advancing in the direction at Winceby. The field of battle was not ideal as the land falls away into sharp gullies on one side, the two forces were roughly the same size and composition because, as with the Parliamentarians, the Royalist infantry was not present. The ensuing battle lasted about half an hour, cromwell feigned a retreat and lured the Royalists from a good defensive position onto flat ground. A small party of Parliamentarians advanced on the Royalists who discharged their weapons at them, cromwell then led his main body of horse in a charge hoping to press home his attack before the Royalists had time to reload. But dismounted Royalist dragoons managed to fire a volley, hitting several of the Ironsides. Cromwell had his shot from under him, apparently by Sir Ingram Hopton. Royalist cavalry under Sir William Savile counterattacked hitting Cromwells right flank and they in turn were attacked in the flank by Fairfaxs horse. In the resulting melee, the Royalists lost cohesion when the command by Savile to about face was taken to be an order to retreat and Saviles horse fled the battle. On the Roundheads left wing the Cavaliers enjoyed greater initial success, a flanking attack by Cromwells reformed cavalry was enough to cause the Royalists to flee the field in confusion back towards Newark
9.
Henry IV of England
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Henry IV, also known as Henry of Bolingbroke, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1399 to 1413, and asserted the claim of his grandfather, Edward III, to the Kingdom of France. Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, one of Henrys elder sisters, Philippa of Lancaster, married John I of Portugal, and the other, Elizabeth, was the mother of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter. His younger half-sister Catherine, the daughter of his fathers second wife and he also had four half-siblings by Katherine Swynford, originally his sisters governess, then his fathers longstanding mistress, and later his third wife. These four children were given the surname Beaufort after a castle their father held in Champagne, Henrys relationship with his stepmother, Katherine Swynford, was a positive one, but his relationship with the Beauforts varied. In youth he seems to have close to all of them. His brother-in-law Ralph Neville remained one of his strongest supporters, and so did his eldest half-brother John Beaufort, Thomas Swynford, a son from Katherines first marriage to Sir Hugh Swynford, was another loyal companion. Thomas was Constable of Pontefract Castle, where King Richard II is said to have died, Henrys half-sister Joan Beaufort through his fathers relationship with Katherine Swynford was the grandmother of Edward IV and Richard III. Joan had married Ralph Neville, the 1st Earl of Westmorland, when their daughter Cecily married Richard Plantagenet, the 3rd Duke of York, and had several offspring, including Edward IV and Richard III, Joan became the grandmother of two York kings of England. Henry experienced a rather more inconsistent relationship with King Richard II than his father had, first cousins and childhood playmates, they were admitted together to the Order of the Garter in 1377, but Henry participated in the Lords Appellants rebellion against the king in 1387. After regaining power, Richard did not punish Henry, although he did execute or exile many of the rebellious barons. In fact, Richard elevated Henry from Earl of Derby to Duke of Hereford, Henry spent the full year of 1390 supporting the unsuccessful siege of Vilnius by Teutonic Knights with his 300 fellow knights. During this campaign he bought 300 captured Lithuanian princes and then took them back to England. Henrys second expedition to Lithuania in 1392 illustrates the benefits to the Order of these guest crusaders. His small army consisted of over 100 men, including longbow archers and six minstrels, despite the efforts of Henry and his English crusaders, two years of attacks on Vilnius proved fruitless. In 1392–93 Henry undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he made offerings at the Holy Sepulchre, later he vowed to lead a crusade to free Jerusalem from the infidel, but he died before this could be accomplished. The relationship between Henry Bolingbroke and the king met with a second crisis, in 1398, a remark by Bolingbroke regarding Richard IIs rule was interpreted as treason by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk. The two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honour at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbrays home in Coventry, yet before the duel could take place, Richard II decided to banish Henry from the kingdom to avoid further bloodshed. Mowbray himself was exiled for life, John of Gaunt died in 1399
