Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales was a title granted to princes born in Wales from the 12th century onwards. One of the last Welsh princes, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, was killed in battle in 1282 by Edward I, King of England, whose son Edward was invested as the first English Prince of Wales in 1301. Since the 14th century, the title has been a dynastic title granted to the heir apparent to the English or British monarch, but the failure to be granted the title does not affect the rights to royal succession; the title is granted to the heir apparent as a personal honour or dignity, is not heritable, merging with the Crown on accession to the throne. The title Earl of Chester is always given in conjunction with that of Prince of Wales; the Prince of Wales has other titles and honours. The current and longest-serving Prince of Wales is Prince Charles, the eldest son of Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and 15 other independent Commonwealth realms as well as Head of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations; the wife of the Prince of Wales is entitled to the title Princess of Wales.
Prince Charles's first wife, used that title but his second wife, uses only the title Duchess of Cornwall because the other title has become so popularly associated with Diana. The Prince of Wales is the heir apparent of the monarch of the United Kingdom. No formal public role or responsibility has been legislated by Parliament or otherwise delegated to him by law or custom, either as heir apparent or as Prince of Wales; the current Prince now assists the Queen in the performance of her duties, for example, representing the Queen when welcoming dignitaries to London and attending State dinners during State visits. He has represented the Queen and the United Kingdom overseas at state and ceremonial occasions such as state funerals; the Queen has given the Prince of Wales the authority to issue royal warrants. For most of the post-Roman period, Wales was divided into several smaller states. Before the Norman conquest of England, the most powerful Welsh ruler at any given time was known as King of the Britons.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, this title evolved into Prince of Wales. In Latin, the new title was Princeps Walliae, in Welsh it was Tywysog Cymru; the literal translation of Tywysog is "leader". Only a handful of native princes had their claim to the overlordship of Wales recognised by the English Crown; the first known to have used such a title was Owain Gwynedd, adopting the title Prince of the Welsh around 1165 after earlier using rex Waliae. His grandson Llywelyn the Great is not known to have used the title "Prince of Wales" as such, although his use, from around 1230, of the style "Prince of Aberffraw, Lord of Snowdon" was tantamount to a proclamation of authority over most of Wales, he did use the title "Prince of North Wales" as did his predecessor Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd. In 1240, the title was theoretically inherited by his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn, though he is not known to have used it. Instead he styled himself as "Prince of Wales" around 1244. In 1246, his nephew Llywelyn ap Gruffudd succeeded to the throne of Gwynedd, used the style as early as 1258.
In 1267, with the signing of the Treaty of Montgomery, he was recognised by both King Henry III of England and the representative of the Papacy as Prince of Wales. In 1282, Llywelyn was killed during Edward I of England's invasion of Wales and although his brother Dafydd ap Gruffudd succeeded to the Welsh princeship, issuing documents as prince, his principality was not recognised by the English Crown. Three Welshmen, claimed the title of Prince of Wales after 1283; the first was Madog ap Llywelyn, a member of the House of Gwynedd, who led a nationwide revolt in 1294-5, defeating English forces in battle near Denbigh and seizing Caernarfon Castle. His revolt was suppressed, after the Battle of Maes Moydog in March 1295, the prince was imprisoned in London. In the 1370s, Owain Lawgoch, an English-born descendant of one of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd's brothers, claimed the title of Prince of Wales, but was assassinated in France in 1378 before he could return to Wales to claim his inheritance, it is Owain Glyndŵr, whom many Welsh people regard as having been the last native Prince.
On 16 September 1400, he was proclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters, held parliaments at Harlech Castle and elsewhere during his revolt, which encompassed all of Wales. It was not until 1409 that his revolt in quest of Welsh independence was suppressed by Henry IV; the tradition of conferring the title "Prince of Wales" on the heir apparent of the monarch is considered to have begun in 1301, when King Edward I of England invested his son Edward of Caernarfon with the title at a Parliament held in Lincoln. According to legend, the king had promised the Welsh that he would name "a prince born in Wales, who did not speak a word of English" and produced his infant son, born at Caernarfon, to their surprise. However, the story may well be apocryphal, as it can only be traced to the 16th century, and, in the time of Edward I, the English aristocracy spoke Norman French, not English. William Camden wrote in his 1607 work Britannia that the title "Prince of Wales" was not conferred automatically upon the eldest living son o
Yorkshire
Yorkshire, formally known as the County of York, is a historic county of Northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Due to its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have been subject to periodic reform. Throughout these changes, Yorkshire has continued to be recognised as a geographical territory and cultural region; the name is familiar and well understood across the United Kingdom and is in common use in the media and the military, features in the titles of current areas of civil administration such as North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. Within the borders of the historic county of Yorkshire are vast stretches of unspoiled countryside; this can be found in the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors and with the open aspect of some of the major cities. Yorkshire has been named "God's Own County" or "God's Own Country"; the emblem of Yorkshire is the White Rose of the English royal House of York, the most used flag representative of Yorkshire is the White Rose on a blue background, which after nearly fifty years of use, was recognised by the Flag Institute on 29 July 2008.
Yorkshire Day, held annually on 1 August, is a celebration of the general culture of Yorkshire, ranging from its history to its own dialect. Yorkshire is covered by different Government Office Regions. Most of the county falls within Yorkshire and the Humber while the extreme northern part of the county, such as Middlesbrough, Redcar and Startforth, falls within North East England. Small areas in the west of the county are covered by the North West England region. Yorkshire or the County of York was so named as it is the shire of York's Shire. "York" comes from the Viking name for Jórvík. "Shire" is from scir meaning care or official charge. The "shire" suffix is locally pronounced /-ʃə/ "shuh", or /-ʃiə/, a homophone of "sheer". Early inhabitants of Yorkshire were Celts, who formed two separate tribes, the Brigantes and the Parisi; the Brigantes controlled territory which became all of the North Riding of Yorkshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. The tribe controlled most of Northern England and more territory than any other Celtic tribe in England.
That they had the Yorkshire area as their heartland is evident in that Isurium Brigantum was the capital town of their civitas under Roman rule. Six of the nine Brigantian poleis described by Claudius Ptolemaeus in the Geographia fall within the historic county; the Parisi, who controlled the area that would become the East Riding of Yorkshire, might have been related to the Parisii of Lutetia Parisiorum, Gaul. Their capital was at Petuaria, close to the Humber Estuary. Although the Roman conquest of Britain began in 43 AD, the Brigantes remained in control of their kingdom as a client state of Rome for an extended period, reigned over by the Brigantian monarchs Cartimandua and her husband Venutius; this situation suited both the Romans and the Brigantes, who were known as the most militant tribe in Britain. Queen Cartimandua left her husband Venutius for his armour bearer, setting off a chain of events which changed control of the region. Cartimandua, due to her good relationship with the Romans, was able to keep control of the kingdom.
At the second attempt, Venutius seized the kingdom, but the Romans, under general Petillius Cerialis, conquered the Brigantes in 71 AD. The fortified city of Eboracum was named as capital of Britannia Inferior and joint capital of all Roman Britain; the emperor Septimius Severus ruled the Roman Empire from Eboracum for the two years before his death. Another emperor, Constantius Chlorus, died in Eboracum during a visit in 306 AD; this saw his son Constantine the Great, who became renowned for his contributions to Christianity, proclaimed emperor in the city. In the early 5th century, the Roman rule ceased with the withdrawal of the last active Roman troops. By this stage, the Western Empire was in intermittent decline. After the Romans left, small Celtic kingdoms arose in the region, including the Kingdom of Ebrauc around York and the Kingdom of Elmet to the west. Elmet remained independent from the Germanic Northumbrian Angles until some time in the early 7th century, when King Edwin of Northumbria expelled its last king and annexed the region.
At its greatest extent, Northumbria stretched from the Irish Sea to the North Sea and from Edinburgh down to Hallamshire in the south. Scandinavian York or Danish/Norwegian York is a term used by historians for the south of Northumbria during the period of the late 9th century and first half of the 10th century, when it was dominated by Norse warrior-kings. Norse monarchy controlled varying amounts of Northumbria from 875 to 954, however the area was invaded and conquered for short periods by England between 927 and 954 before being annexed into England in 954, it was associated with the much longer-lived Kingdom of Dublin throughout this period. An army of Danish Vikings, the Great Heathen Army as its enemies referred to it, invaded Northumbrian territory in 866 AD; the Danes conquered and assumed what is now York and renamed it Jórvík, making it the capital city of a new Danish kingdom under the same name. The area which this kingdom covered included most of Southern Northumbria equivalent to the borders of Yorkshire extending further West.
The Danes went on to conque
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Oldham, Stockport, Trafford and the cities of Manchester and Salford. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972. Greater Manchester spans 493 square miles, which covers the territory of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, the second most populous urban area in the UK, it is landlocked and borders Cheshire, West Yorkshire and Merseyside. There is a mix of high-density urban areas, semi-rural and rural locations in Greater Manchester, but land use is urban—the product of concentric urbanisation and industrialisation which occurred during the 19th century when the region flourished as the global centre of the cotton industry, it has a focused central business district, formed by Manchester city centre and the adjoining parts of Salford and Trafford, but Greater Manchester is a polycentric county with ten metropolitan districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs.
Greater Manchester is governed by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which consists of political leaders from each of the ten metropolitan borough councils, plus a directly elected mayor, with responsibility for economic development and transport. Andy Burnham is the inaugural Mayor of Greater Manchester, elected in 2017. For the 12 years following 1974 the county had a two-tier system of local government; the county council was abolished in 1986, so its districts became unitary authority areas. However, the metropolitan county continued to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference, as a ceremonial county, with a Lord Lieutenant and a High Sheriff. Several county-wide services were co-ordinated through the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities between 1985 and 2011. Before the creation of the metropolitan county, the name SELNEC was used for the area, from the initials of "South East Lancashire North East Cheshire". Greater Manchester is an amalgamation of 70 former local government districts from the former administrative counties of Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and eight independent county boroughs.
Since deindustrialisation in the mid-20th century, Greater Manchester has emerged as an exporter of media and digital content and dance music, association football. Although the modern county of Greater Manchester was not created until 1974, the history of its constituent settlements goes back centuries. There is evidence of Iron Age habitation at Mellor, Celtic activity in a settlement named Chochion, believed to have been an area of Wigan settled by the Brigantes. Stretford was part of the land believed to have been occupied by the Celtic Brigantes tribe, lay on their border with the Cornovii on the southern side of the River Mersey; the remains of 1st-century forts at Castlefield in Manchester, Castleshaw Roman fort in Saddleworth, are evidence of Roman occupation. Much of the region was omitted from the Domesday Book of 1086. During the Middle Ages, much of what became Greater Manchester lay within the hundred of Salfordshire – an ancient division of the county of Lancashire. Salfordshire encompassed several parishes and townships, some of which, like Rochdale, were important market towns and centres of England's woollen trade.
The development of what became Greater Manchester is attributed to a shared tradition of domestic flannel and fustian cloth production, which encouraged a system of cross-regional trade. In the late-18th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed the local domestic system. Infrastructure such as rows of terraced housing and roads were constructed to house labour, transport goods, produce cotton goods on an industrial scale for a global market; the townships in and around Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by a boom in industrial textile production and processing. This population increase resulted in the "vigorous concentric growth" of a conurbation between Manchester and an arc of surrounding mill towns, formed from a steady accretion of houses and transport infrastructure. Places such as Bury and Bolton played a central economic role nationally, by the end of the 19th century had become some of the most important and productive cotton-producing towns in the world.
However, it was Manchester, the most populous settlement, a major city, the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods, the natural centre of its region. By 1835 "Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world". In the 1910s, local government reforms to administer this conurbation as a single entity were proposed. In the 18th century, German traders had coined the name Manchesterthum to cover the region in and around Manchester. However, the English term "Greater Mancheste
Henry IV of England
Henry IV known as Henry Bolingbroke, was King of England from 1399 to 1413, asserted the claim of his grandfather, Edward III, to the Kingdom of France. Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, his father, John of Gaunt, was the fourth son of King Edward III and enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of his nephew King Richard II whom Henry deposed. Henry's mother was Blanche of Lancaster, heiress to the great Lancashire estates of her father Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster. Henry, having succeeded his father as 2nd Duke of Lancaster, when he became king thus founded the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenet English monarchy, he was the first King of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English rather than French. One of Henry's elder sisters, Philippa of Lancaster, married King John I of Portugal, the other, Elizabeth of Lancaster, was the mother of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter, his younger half-sister Katherine of Lancaster, the daughter of his father's second wife, Constance of Castile, was queen consort of the King of Castile.
He had four natural half-siblings born of Katherine Swynford his sisters' governess his father's longstanding mistress and third wife. These four illegitimate children were given the surname Beaufort from their birthplace at the Château de Beaufort in Champagne, France. Henry's relationship with his stepmother, Katherine Swynford, was a positive one, but his relationship with the Beauforts varied. In youth he seems to have been close to all of them, but rivalries with Henry and Thomas Beaufort proved problematic after 1406. Ralph Neville, who had married Henry's half-sister Joan Beaufort, remained one of his strongest supporters, so did his eldest half-brother John Beaufort though Henry revoked Richard II's grant to John of a marquessate. Thomas Swynford, a son from Katherine's first marriage to Sir Hugh Swynford, was another loyal companion. Thomas was Constable of Pontefract Castle. Henry's half-sister Joan Beaufort was the grandmother of Edward IV and Richard III. Joan's daughter Cecily married Richard, Duke of York and had several offspring, including Edward IV and Richard III, making Joan the grandmother of two Yorkist kings of England.
Henry experienced a rather more inconsistent relationship with King Richard II. 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 other 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 70 to 80 household knights. During this campaign he bought captured Lithuanian women and children and took them back to Königsberg to be converted. Henry's second expedition to Lithuania in 1392 illustrates the financial benefits to the Order of these guest crusaders, his small army consisted of over 100 men, including longbow archers and six minstrels, at a total cost to the Lancastrian purse of £4,360. 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 and at the Mount of Olives. 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 Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk regarding Richard II's rule was interpreted as treason by Henry and Henry reported it to the king; the two dukes agreed to undergo a duel of honour at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbray's 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 February 1399. Without explanation, Richard cancelled the legal documents that would have allowed Henry to inherit Gaunt's land automatically. Instead, Henry would be required to ask for the lands from Richard. After some hesitation, Henry met with the exiled Thomas Arundel, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who had lost his position because of his involvement with the Lords Appellant.
Henry and Arundel returned to England. With Arundel as his advisor, Henry began a military campaign, confiscating land from those who opposed him and ordering his soldiers to destroy much of Cheshire. Henry announced that his intention was to reclaim his rights as Duke of Lancaster, though he gained enough power and support to have himself declared King Henry IV, imprison King Richard and bypass Richard's 7-year-old heir-presumptive, Edmund de Mortimer. Henry's coronation, on 13 October 1399 at Westminster Abbey, may have marked the first time since the Norman Conquest when the monarch made an address in English. Henry consulted with Parliament but was sometimes at odds with the members over ecclesiastical matters. On Arundel's advice, Henry obtained from Parliament the enactment of De heretico comburendo in 1401, w
Merseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and the city of Liverpool. Merseyside, created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972, takes its name from the River Mersey. Merseyside spans 249 square miles of land which border Lancashire, Greater Manchester and the Irish Sea to the west. North Wales is across the Dee Estuary. There is a mix of high density urban areas, semi-rural and rural locations in Merseyside, but overwhelmingly the land use is urban, it has a focused central business district, formed by Liverpool City Centre, but Merseyside is a polycentric county with five metropolitan districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs. The Liverpool Urban Area is the fifth most populous conurbation in England, dominates the geographic centre of the county, while the smaller Birkenhead Urban Area dominates the Wirral Peninsula in the south.
For the 12 years following 1974 the county had a two-tier system of local government. The county council was abolished in 1986, so its districts are now unitary authority areas. However, the metropolitan county continues to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference, several county-wide services are co-ordinated by authorities and joint-boards, such as Merseytravel, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and the Merseyside Police; the boroughs of Merseyside are joined by the neighbouring borough of Halton in Cheshire to form the Liverpool City Region, a local enterprise partnership and combined authority area. Merseyside is an amalgamation of 22 former local government districts from the former administrative counties of Lancashire and six autonomous county boroughs centred on Birkenhead, Liverpool, Southport, St Helens, Wallasey. Merseyside was designated as a "Special Review" area in the Local Government Act 1958, the Local Government Commission for England started a review of this area in 1962, based around the core county boroughs of Liverpool/Bootle/Birkenhead/Wallasey.
Further areas, including Widnes and Runcorn, were added to the Special Review Area by Order in 1965. Draft proposals were published in 1965, but the commission never completed its final proposals as it was abolished in 1966. Instead, a Royal Commission was set up to review English local government and its report proposed a much wider Merseyside metropolitan area covering southwest Lancashire and northwest Cheshire, extending as far south as Chester and as far north as the River Ribble; this would have included four districts: Southport/Crosby, Liverpool/Bootle, St Helens/Widnes and Wirral/Chester. In 1970 the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive was set up, covering Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley, but excluding Southport and St Helens; the Redcliffe-Maud Report was rejected by the incoming Conservative Party government, but the concept of a two-tier metropolitan area based on the Mersey area was retained. A White Paper was published in 1971; the Local Government Bill presented to Parliament involved a substantial trimming from the White Paper, excluding the northern and southern fringes of the area, excluding Chester, Ellesmere Port.
Further alterations took place in Parliament, with Skelmersdale being removed from the area, a proposed district including St Helens and Huyton being subdivided into what are now the metropolitan boroughs of St Helens and Knowsley. Merseyside was created on 1 April 1974 from areas parts of the administrative counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, along with the county boroughs of Birkenhead, Liverpool, St Helens. Following the creation of Merseyside, Merseytravel expanded to take in St Southport. Between 1974 and 1986 the county had a two-tier system of local government with the five boroughs sharing power with the Merseyside County Council. However, in 1986 the government of Margaret Thatcher abolished the county council along with all other metropolitan county councils, so its boroughs are now unitary authorities. Merseyside is divided into two parts by the Mersey Estuary, the Wirral is located on the west side of the estuary, upon the Wirral Peninsula and the rest of the county is located on the east side of the estuary.
The eastern part of Merseyside borders onto Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, with both parts of the county bordering Cheshire to the south. The territory comprising the county of Merseyside formed part of the administrative counties of Lancashire and Cheshire; the two parts are linked by the two Mersey Tunnels, the Wirral Line of Merseyrail, the Mersey Ferry. Merseyside contains green belt interspersed throughout the county, surrounding the Liverpool urban area, as well as across the Mersey in the Wirral area, with further pockets extending towards and surrounding Southport, as part of the western edge of the North West Green Belt, it was first drawn up from the 1950s. All the county's districts contain some portion of belt. Raby on the Wirral is Merseyside's green belt. Ipsos MORI polls in the boroughs of Sefton
Peter II, Count of Savoy
Peter II, called the Little Charlemagne, held the Honour of Richmond, Yorkshire from April 1240 until his death and was Count of Savoy from 1263 until his death. He built the Savoy Palace in London. Peter was the seventh of nine sons of Thomas I of Savoy and Margaret of Geneva, the uncle of the English queen Eleanor of Provence, he was born in Suze in the County of Albon. As a younger son of a noble house, Peter's father started his career in the church, getting him an appointment as a canon at Lausanne, where he worked his way up to acting bishop before a new permanent bishop came in 1231. At that point, Peter had been growing restless with church life. Upon the death of his father, Peter demanded substantial portions of the County from his eldest brother Amadeus; the brothers all got together in 1234 at Chillon, where they negotiated a settlement which recognized Amadeus as the head of the house. From this, Peter received control of key castles which helped him to expand his control in the area of Geneva.
His brother William negotiated a marriage for him with Agnes of Faucigny, which helped provide territory of his own, so he caused less trouble for his elder brothers. His desire to further extend his territory led him into conflict with his uncle, William II of Geneva. Around 1236, Peter was captured by his cousin Rudolf; when the resulting conflict was concluded in 1237, Amadeus forced William to sign a treaty which required Geneva to pay 20,000 marks and the castle of Arlod. In 1240, when Peter's brother Philip was in a contested election for the Bishop of Lausanne against Jean de Cossonay, a Geneva supported candidate, Peter brought 6000 troops, though the battle did not get resolved decisively, he continued to force to take further control of lands surrounding Savoy. In May 1244 Rudolph III, Count of Gruyère, surrendered Gruyères Castle to Peter, who gave it to William, the second son of Rudolph, with the agreement that William and his heirs would serve Peter and his family. On 29 May 1244 Cossonay surrendered significant territories to Peter and Amadeus, retaining them only under the overlordship of Savoy.
He continued to gain control of key towns and trade routes throughout the Pays de Vaud by enfeofing them to the younger sons of the previous rulers. He was responsible for the significant renovations of the Château de Chillon, by 1253 he was the protector of Bern. One scholar suggests that French is the language of western Switzerland due to Peter's extensive conquests in the region. In January 1236, Eleanor of Provence, Peter's niece, married King Henry III. On 20 April 1240 Peter was given the Honour of Richmond by Henry III who invited him to England about the end of the year, knighted him on 5 January 1241 when he became known popularly as Earl of Richmond although he never assumed the title, nor was it given to him in official documents. In February 1246 he was granted land between the Strand and the Thames, where Peter built the Savoy Palace in 1263, on the site of the present Savoy Hotel, it was destroyed during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. By his will, the Honour of Richmond was left to his niece queen Eleanor, who transferred it to the crown.
In 1241, Henry sent Peter to gather support for a pending invasion of Poitou. He travelled to Duke of Burgundy. In February 1242, Peter was sent into Poitou to see, he managed to escape. He travelled to Provence to negotiate the marriage of his niece Sanchia of Provence to Henry's brother Richard. In 1246, Peter went back in part to seal a marriage deal with Amadeus. In February 1247, he returned to England with Alice of Amadeus's granddaughter by Beatrice, she was married to Baron of Pontefract that May. Boston, on the river Witham, had over many years become an important port for Lincoln; the town was held by the Dukes of Brittany until about 1200. In 1241, Peter obtained the manor of Boston at the same time, it was restored to Duke of Brittany, on Peter's death. Donington manor is thought to have been passed from John de la Rye to Peter of Savoy about 1255, when a charter was granted for a market to be held at the manor on Saturdays. In the same year, a similar grant was made for the holding of a fair on 15 August to be held at the manor.
A separate charter was granted to Peter on 8 April 1255 by the king to hold a market on Mondays. In 1246, the king granted Peter the castle of Pevensey. Peter sided with Earl of Leicester, in the Second Barons' War; when Peter's nephew Boniface, Count of Savoy, died without heirs in 1263, the question of the succession to Savoy lay unanswered. Besides Peter, there was another possible claimant, the fifteen-year-old Thomas III of Piedmont, the eldest son of Peter's elder brother Thomas, Count of Flanders. Peter was recognised as count over his nephew; this led to a dispute between Savoy and Piedmont, to outlast Peter and Thomas. Peter brought many ideas back from his travels around Europe to improve Savoy, he started building castles with a more round form, rather than the square which had existed to that point in Savoy. He divided those into castellanies, he established an office of accounts at Chambéry to more manage financial matters. He was the first count of Savoy to issue laws to cover the whole county.
Peter came into conflict with Rudolf of Habsburg, Rudolf occupied Peter's
BrightHouse (retailer)
Caversham Finance Limited, trading as BrightHouse, is the largest rent-to-own company in the United Kingdom, with over 270 stores. It is a national chain that provides home electronics, domestic appliances, household furniture and related products. Caversham Finance Limited is owned by private equity firm Apollo Management. In October 2017, the company was ordered by the financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, to pay 249,000 customers £14.8m due to the firm not compensating customers who had cancelled agreements after one down payment and to those who signed up to "unaffordable" lending agreements. The FCA said the retailer had treated customers unfairly. Brighthouse was founded by Thorn EMI in April 1994 as Crazy George, intended to be a sister company to Radio Rentals. Crazy George was rebranded as BrightHouse in 2002. Caversham Finance Limited, having been a subsidiary of Thorn Group plc, was taken private in September 1998 in a deal arranged and financed by the Principal Finance Group of Nomura.
The company was bought by Vision Capital in July 2007. It was sold to Apollo Management in December 2017. Brighthouse employed more than 3,000 staff as of 2012. and had 311 stores as of January 2017. Brighthouse's revenue was £351.7 million for the year ending 31 March 2015, its pre-tax profits were £19.6 million. In 2017 Brighthouse submitted a reform plan to its regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, following criticism of its lending practices, announced plans to close 28 stores. On 5 February 2019, Brighthouse announced that 30 stores were set to close due to poor trading conditions. At the same time as the FCA are targeting the pay to own industry, Brighthouse are under serious pressure from competitors. AO's Founder, John Roberts announced their own plans to test washing machines at only £2 a week. BrightHouse stocks brands that include Samsung, Philips, Acer, LG, Baird, Beko, BlackBerry and Nokia; the company charges interest of between 69.9% and 99.9% APR, charges for delivery and compulsory warranties.
An investigation by the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme in 2016 cited an example of a washing machine costing £358, with a £55 delivery and installation charge and compulsory £136 warranty. The total cost of the appliance was £1,092 at Brighthouse's typical interest rate of 69.9%. Some sources suggest Brighthouse makes it impossible to compare prices, though ex-chief executive Leo McKee said the retailer benefits through a "really obsessive" approach to customer service, with "aspirational products at competitive prices", claiming that though an active comparison is not obvious, it compares with other retail competitors. Furniture accounts for about 20 per cent of sales and visual for 30 per cent, domestic appliances for 20 per cent and technology for 30 per cent. In 2008, BrightHouse won Best High Street Recycler at the National Recycling Awards. Moreover, the company won a Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice. In October 2007, BrightHouse announced an exclusive agreement with Five to sponsor the Trisha Goddard show.
BrightHouse partnered the NSPCC in 2009. As well as running various fundraising events for the charity, BrightHouse has posters and promotional material in their stores to raise awareness. In May 2009, an investigation by BBC Newsbeat suggested that BrightHouse mistreated customers who missed payments. A former employee told Newsbeat that the company tried to repossess goods without obtaining a court order, saying "We would just lie our way around it. Tell them we had the legal right to be there, refuse to leave until they gave us the stuff." Commercial director Hamish Paton denied the company mistreated its customers, saying "We would only take the goods with the consent of the customer". Chris Tapp, director of charity Credit Action called for the Office of Fair Trading to investigate; the company's lending practices have been criticised for targeting the "poorest, most desperate families" and operating in the "most deprived areas" of the UK. Other customers end up paying more than twice what they would have paid absent BrightHouse's finance charges.
Their base prices have been noted to be higher than those of upscale mainstream retailers such as Harrods. In 2015 BrightHouse, along with its two largest competitors PerfectHome and Buy as You View, were criticised by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Debt and Personal Finance. According to Parliamentary group chair Yvonne Fovargue, "Rent-to-own stores like BrightHouse charge inflated prices to some of the poorest people in the country. Customers are obliged to take out additional warranties and insurance, as a result paying several times the true value of the goods." BrightHouse chief executive Leo Mckee defended the company, saying that "We are proud to serve our customer base of lower income families. The service we provide gives them access to high-quality products for their homes at competitive prices."In 2016 former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband joined a campaign against Brighthouse in his Doncaster constituency. Miliband accused the company of trying to "fleece" customers with expensive insurance and of harassing people who fall behind on their payments, urged the public to use a local credit union instead.
An investigation for the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme in 2016 found that the company was selling to vulnerable people. The programme cited an example of a man with learning difficulties and mental illness, paying Brighthouse for five separate items out of his benefit payments, it featured an autistic man who purchased a PlayStation 4 from Brighthouse despite not u
