26 July 1581
By the Act of Abjuration the Dutch Low International locations formally declared their independence from King Philip II and relieved provinces and magistrates from their oaths of allegiance to the Spanish king.
26 July 1643
Royalist forces below Prince Rupert accomplished the seize of Bristol. It was most likely the high-water mark of royalist fortunes within the Civil Warfare.
26 July 1680
Infamous Restoration poet, courtier and rake John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester died, aged 33, at Woodstock.
26 July 1745
Gosden Widespread close to Guildford hosts the primary recorded ladies’s cricket match, between the villages of Bramley and Hambledon, with either side wearing cricketing whites and sporting blue and pink ribbons of their hair.
26 July 1882
The premiere of Parsifal, Richard Wagner’s final accomplished opera, passed off on the Competition Theatre in Bayreuth. The conductor was Wagner’s lifelong pal Hermann Levi.
