York

Cloth and the wool and grain trade with the Low Countries kept York rich in the later Middle Ages, and much of that wealth went into the Minster, which was finally declared complete and consecrated in 1472, after its central tower had collapsed and been raised again. In 1389 Richard II made the city's mayor a Lord Mayor, second in precedence only to London's, though York lost its liberties for a year after backing Archbishop Richard Scrope's rising against Henry IV in 1405.

The Tudor century was harder. The Dissolution swept away the city's friaries and hospitals, among them St Leonard's, the largest in the north, and after the Pilgrimage of Grace Henry VIII placed the Council of the North in the empty St Mary's Abbey, keeping royal government in York until 1641. In 1644 a Parliamentary army besieged the city; Prince Rupert relieved it, only to be crushed at Marston Moor, and York surrendered to Sir Thomas Fairfax. Later, as the Ouse silted and Leeds and Hull took its trade, York became the social capital of the northern gentry, with its Mansion House, Assembly Rooms and racecourse.