Siege! 2006

For 12 weeks of summer 1644, York was under siege. The fate of the city changed the course of history...

Siege! A celebration of The Great and Close Siege of York with events in York city centre throughout the day. EVENT 1 10.30am City Walls walk EVENT 2 1.00pm Siege! EVENT 3 2.00pm The Sealed Knot EVENT 4 4.00pm Lectures EVENT 5 6.30pm Civil War marching and drinking songs EVENT 6 7.30pm The Ebor Singers in York Minster

10.30am at entrance to Museum Gardens
A 3-mile walk of the city walls, in particular looking at the scars inflicted upon the city’s fortification during the Siege.

Free admission
1.00pm at St Helen’s Church, St Helen’s Square

Siege! Children from Heworth Primary School and All Saints Roman Catholic School and members of The Ebor Singers guide you through the events of the Siege, with music and drama!

Free admission
From 2.00pm in College Street

Meet members of  Sir Thomas Glenham’s Regiment of Foote, and find out what life was like for the soldiers who defended York during the Siege!  The Regiment belongs to the Sealed Knot, an English Civil War reconstruction society.

Free admission
From 4.00pm at St William’s College

A series of lectures exploring social, historical and musical context of this turbulent time. 

4.00pm Preachers and the Civil War
Dr William Sheils (University of York)

4.30pm City Under Fire: stories of the siege
Anthony Martin (Northern Historic Tours)

5.00pm Images of Virtue and War: re-discovered music for Queen Henrietta’s Roman Catholic Chapel
Dr Jonathan Wainwright (University of York)

5.30pm Music for Troubled Times?: Psalms for the Siege of York
Dr Paul Gameson (The Ebor Singers)

6.00pm Discussion

Tea and refreshments will be provided.

6.30pm at St William’s College

A reception before the 7.30pm concert, accompanied by Civil War drinking and marching songs sung by The Ebor Singers and joined by members of the Sealed Knot.

7.30pm in The Quire, York Minster
(With permission of the Dean and Chapter)

THE EBOR SINGERS

On 16 June 1644, Trinity Sunday, the forces besieging the north of the city mined the city walls at Marygate ‘in time of Common-Prayer at the Minster’ which was ‘squeezing full’ with the local population and Royalist Army. Join the choir for a programme of 17th-century choral music by Byrd and Gibbons, and music written for performance in the Minster during the Siege including works by William Lawes, a musician of Charles I who died during the Siege of Chester in 1645.