Aylesbury, United Kingdom

In 1450, a religious institution called the Guild of St Mary was founded in Aylesbury by John Kemp, Archbishop of York. Known popularly as the Guild of Our Lady, it became a meeting place for local dignitaries and a hotbed of political intrigue. The guild was influential in the outcome of the Wars of the Roses. Its premises at the Chantry are extant, although the site in Church Street now used mainly for retail.

Aylesbury was declared the new county town of Buckinghamshire in 1529 by King Henry VIII. Aylesbury Manor was among the many properties belonging to Thomas Boleyn, the father of Anne Boleyn, and it is rumoured that the change was made by the King to curry favour with the family. The plague decimated the population in 1603/4.

The town played a large part in the English Civil War when it became a stronghold for the Parliamentarian forces, like many market towns a nursing-ground of Puritan sentiment and, in 1642, the Battle of Aylesbury was fought and won by the Parliamentarians. Its proximity to Great Hampden, home of John Hampden has made of Hampden a local hero; his silhouette was used on the emblem of Aylesbury Vale District Council and his statue stands prominently in the town centre. Aylesbury-born composer, Rutland Boughton (1878–1960), possibly inspired by the statue of John Hampden, created a symphony based on Oliver Cromwell.

On 18 March 1664, Robert Bruce, 2nd Earl of Elgin in the Peerage of Scotland was created 1st Earl of Ailesbury.

The grade II* listed Jacobean mansion of Hartwell adjoining the south-west of the town was the residence of French king Louis XVIII during his exile (1810–1814); Bourbon Street is named after the king. Louis' wife, Marie Joséphine of Savoy, died at Hartwell in 1810 and is the only French queen to have died on English soil. After her death, her body was carried first to Westminster Abbey and, one year later, to Sardinia where the Savoy King of Sardinia had withdrawn during Napoleonic occupation of Turin and Piedmont; she is buried in the Cathedral of Cagliari.

Aylesbury's heraldic crest displays the Aylesbury duck, which has been bred here since the birth of the Industrial Revolution, although only one breeder of true Aylesbury ducks, Richard Waller, remains today

The town also received international publicity in 1963 when the culprits responsible for the Great Train Robbery (1963) were tried at Aylesbury Rural District Council Offices in Walton Street and sentenced at Aylesbury Crown Court. The robbery took place at Bridego Bridge, a railway bridge at Ledburn, about 6 miles (10 km) from the town.

A notable institution is Aylesbury Grammar School which was founded in 1598. The original building is now part of the County Museum buildings in Church Street and has grade II* architecture; other grammar schools now include Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School and Aylesbury High School. Other notable buildings are the King's Head Inn, (which, with the Fleece Inn at Bretforton, Worcestershire, is one of the few public houses in the country owned by the National Trust and still run as a public house) and the Queens Park Centre.

James Henry Govier, the British painter and etcher, lived at Aylesbury. He produced a number of works relating to the town, including the church, canal, Walton, Aylesbury Gaol, the King's Head Inn and views of the town during the 1940s and 1950s; examples of which can be seen in the Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury.0

The town is the birthplace of the Paralympic Games. During the 1948 Olympics in London, German-British neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann, set up a small sporting event for World War II veterans known as the World Wheelchair and Amputee Games (WWAG) at Stoke Mandeville Hospital's Rehabilitation Facility. This eventually led to the growth of the phenomenon of the modern Paralympic Games that has been held immediately after every summer Olympic Games since 1988; the WWAG was held most years at Stoke Mandeville until 1997, when it has been held in other countries and cities ever since. During the 2012 Paralympics, the official mascot was called "Mandeville".

The Rothschild Family acquired many large country estates and stately homes around and near the town. These include Waddesdon Manor in nearby Waddesdon Village, Halton House near Wendover, and Tring Park in Tring, across the border in Hertfordshire. Today, most of these properties belong to the National Trust. They have brought in increased tourism to the town and the surrounding areas.