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Originally, it was Kirkby in Bedale, named after Bethe-dale Brook which flows through the village. Bethe is Old English for bath.
Bedale lies 34 miles (55 km) north of Leeds, 26 miles (42 km) southwest of Middlesbrough, and 7 miles (11 km) south west of the county town of Northallerton. It was originally in Richmondshire and listed in the Domesday Book as part of Catterick wapentake, which was also known as Hangshire (so named from Hang Bank in Finghall and because of the many gallows used to execute marauding Scots); it was split again and Bedale remained in East Hang. Bedale Beck is watered by the River Swale in the Yorkshire Dales, helping the predominance of agriculture and its related small traditional trades, although tourism is increasingly important.
Before the Harrying of the North, Bedale was held by Torpin (Thorfinn), a patronym retained by the infamous Dick Turpin. The parish church also dates from this time (as evidenced by its crypt), before significant remodelling.
After being doled out by Count Alan Le Roux to his relative Bodin of Middleham for a short time, the new market town was founded by Scollandus (Henry III later confirmed this charter), a Breton officer in an hereditary position at Richmond Castle. Bedale Hall is the site of a castle built in the reign of King Edward I of England by Sir Bryan FitzAlan, Lord of the Manor of Bedale and later Baron FitzAlan. After contributing to the defeat of Llywelyn the Last, FitzAlan succeeded the Earl of Surrey as Guardian and Keeper of Scotland for Edward I and fought at the Battle of Falkirk (1298) and the siege of Caerlaverock in July 1300. Fitz Alan was involved in a fight with William Wallace that led to the death of a comrade-in-arms and held the castles of Dundee and Forfar, as well as those in the Scottish Lowlands: Roxburgh Castle and Jedburgh. This baron also built Killerby Castle and Askham Bryan in Yorkshire.
His co-heir jure uxoris, Sir Gilbert de Stapleton of Carleton, Knt., was a conspirator in the assassination of Piers Gaveston. Sir Miles Stapleton was a founding Knight of the Order of the Garter, who fought at the Siege of Calais and at the Battle of Crécy. The Stapletons were "Lollard knights" and were Lords of the Manor of Bedale for generations. Bedale had traditionally been a Lancastrian area, until the Kingmaker, Clarence and Gloucester obtained Richmond and Middleham Castles.
Following the Battle of Bosworth Field, Francis Lovell, 1st Viscount Lovell led the charge of insurgency in the Yorkist Stafford and Lovell Rebellion against Henry VII of England, attainted Earl of Richmond. The inhabitants of the region went on several recusancy strikes, such as the Pilgrimage of Grace and made trouble for John Nevill, 3rd Baron Latymer (Catherine Parr's husband before Henry VIII) in Snape Castle. This continued in the Rising of the North, with Henry VII's follower Simon Digby of Aiskew executed and replaced by Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, whose wife sold it to the native Sir William Theakston & John Jackson, after which it was resold to Cavalier Henry Peirse, whose descendents are remain in town.
During the English Civil War, Philip Stapleton continued in much of the same anti-Tudor and Stuart sentiment as Guy Fawkes, whose statement, when asked by one of the Scottish lords what he had intended to do with so much gunpowder, Fawkes answered him, "To blow you Scotch beggars back to your own native mountains!" Middleham Castle was subsequently demolished by Parliamentarians and Bedale no longer had a fortress in which to resist outside manipulation.
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