26 July 1581
By the Act of Abjuration the Dutch Low Countries 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 under Prince Rupert completed the capture of Bristol. It was probably the high-water mark of royalist fortunes in the Civil War.
26 July 1680
Notorious Restoration poet, courtier and rake John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester died, aged 33, at Woodstock.
26 July 1745
Gosden Common near Guildford hosts the first recorded women’s cricket match, between the villages of Bramley and Hambledon, with both sides dressed in cricketing whites and sporting blue and red ribbons in their hair.
26 July 1882
The premiere of Parsifal, Richard Wagner’s last completed opera, took place at the Festival Theatre in Bayreuth. The conductor was Wagner’s lifelong friend Hermann Levi.
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