LEICESTER CASTLE.
THE town of Leicester stands upon moderately high ground, and on its western side is divided by a narrow valley from the opposite elevations of Glenfield and Braunstone. This valley gives passage to the Soar, the river of the county, which, flowing northwards, meanders through the meadows of the Abbey of St. Mary de Pratis, and thus, before agriculture had drained these lands, securely covered the western and northern, and, to a certain extent, the southern fronts of this very ancient and once well-fortified place.
Down the western valley, but outside the stream, and along the edge of the higher ground, was carried the Fossway, which thus, on its passage from Bennones or High Cross towards Lincoln, left the old Roman “Ratæ Coritanorum,” known to us as Leicester, about a furlong to its east.
Whether Ratæ be an original Roman, or a Latinised British name, is uncertain. Ratcliffe and Ratby occur in the district, and at the latter is a large camp of doubtful origin. Upon the language to which “Rat” belongs, depends the question of the British origin of the town.
Ratæ, if not founded, was occupied and fortified, by the Romans. The line of the wall, on the usual rectangular plan, has been traced upon the north, south, and east sides, the western defence being formed by the river, and both city and suburb are fruitful in pavements and other Roman remains. There is, however, some doubt as to whether the wall actually reached the water at the south-west angle. If, as is supposed, though upon very insufficient evidence, the fragment of Roman masonry known as the Jewry wall was really a part of the town wall, it follows that the wall was present on the west side, and there was a space between that defence and the river, and that the castle, which occupies the south-west angle, was outside the town.
Ratæ, under the name of Leicester, was also a town of great importance among the Saxons, and was nearly central in the kingdom of Mercia. It is mentioned in a Saxon charter of 819, and is said to have given the title of earl to Leofric, A.D. 716, to Algar in 838, and to other Algars and other Leofrics, and to Leofwin, the Saxon line ending with Earl Edwin, who was slain in 1071. The town, during the Danish interregnum, was one of the five burghs; and the castle, like those of Tamworth and Tutbury, is said to have been either founded or restored by Æthelflæd in 913–4, though for this solid evidence is wanting. Nevertheless, that Saxon Leicester was the seat of a very important earldom is very certain, and the residence of the lords was most probably the castle.
The town and castle were placed by the Conqueror in charge of Hugh de Grentmaisnil, lord of the neighbouring Honour and castle of Hinkley, where also is a fine mound; and whose son Yvo was vice-comes of the county under Henry I. The actual property of the Grentmaisnils, in Leicester, was one-fourth of the town; but it does not appear how this and much more of the other parts were acquired by Robert de Bellemont, Earl of Mellent, who became Earl of Leicester, and died 1118, in possession of the castle and Honour. “Juxta et infra castellum,” which may conveniently be rendered, “outside, but just beneath the castle wall,” was a collegiate church, of Saxon foundation, dedicated to St. Mary. This Robert was probably the builder, between 1106 and 1118, of the castle, including the hall, the chapel, and a tower upon the mound.
Robert Bossu, the second earl, took the part of Henry I. He strengthened and enlarged the castle. He was the founder of St. Mary de Pratis, outside the town; and, to endow this, he diminished the ecclesiastical staff, and diverted some of the lands from his father’s foundation by the castle. He died 1167.
Robert Blanchmains, his son, the third earl, married Petronilla, the heiress of the Grentmaisnils, his predecessor at Leicester, and with her obtained Hinkley, Groby (where also is a mound), and other possessions. He is reputed to have enlarged and strengthened the castle, and his constable, Anketel Mallory, held it against Henry II. until he surrendered it by the earl’s command. Also Mallory surrendered, on the same day, the castles of Groby and Mountsorrell. Both castle and town were taken, the town wall was demolished, and it is said that the part between the north and east gates was never rebuilt.
Robert Fitzparnell, the fourth earl, died childless in 1204, when Leicester Castle, and in 1206 the earldom, came to Simon de Montford, who had married Amicia, his sister and co-heir. Upon the death at Evesham of their son Simon in 1264, and his attainder, the earldom and castle were granted to Edmond, second son of Henry III., Earl of Leicester and Lancaster, and the castle has since descended with the Lancaster property, and is still a part of the duchy of that name.
Henry, Earl of Lancaster and Leicester, founded the Hospital of the Newark contiguous to the castle in 1322, and the works were completed by Henry, his son, Duke of Lancaster, in 1354. The hospital contained four acres. It reached the river, and covered the castle on the south side, and at this time one approach to the castle is across the Newark, through its handsome gatehouse.
The earls and dukes of Lancaster must have restored the castle, as they resided here very frequently, and with their usual display. When John of Gaunt granted certain privileges to the city in 1376, he reserved the castle and its mill, and the rents and services of the castle court, and its office of porter. In the castle he entertained Richard II. and his queen with great splendour in 1390.
In 1414, when Henry V. held a Parliament in the hall of the Grey Friars, he resided at the castle, and it was in the great hall of the castle that was held the Parliament of 1425–6, the Commons meeting in an apartment below it, which, however, could scarcely be the case literally, as the hall is on the ground level. It is just possible that the modern brick vaults and cells constructed under the floors of the hall for the purposes of police may replace an older substructure, into which opened the existing cellar.
Henry VI. was here in 1426, and in 1444 the castle and Honour were included in his marriage settlement. In 1450 a third Parliament was held at Leicester, but whether in the castle hall is not recorded. Edward IV. was here in 1463 and 1464, but from this period the castle seems to have been neglected, and to have fallen into great decay.
Leland, who visited Leicester about 1512, says,—“The castelle stonding nere the west bridge is at this tyme a thing of small estimation, and there is no apparaunce other [either] of high waulles or dykes. So that I think that the lodgings that now be there were made sins the tyme of the Barons’ war in Henry III. tyme, and great likelyhood there is that the castelle was much defaced in Henry II. tyme, when the waulles of Liercester were defacid.” (Itin., i., p. 16.)
Speed gives a rough perspective view of the castle and town, which, however, is very indistinct as regards the former. In 1633 Mr. Herrick, of Beaumanor, was directed by the king to remove the ruinous parts and sell their material; to repair the castle house, which contained the records of the Honour of Lancaster, and to preserve the vaults and stairs leading to it, for the use of the keep of the castle. Upon this an inquisition was taken in 1633–4, and the value recorded of the materials, “excepting the Sessions Hall and the vault under the old castle, and the stairs leading to it.” This inquisition gives several details, chiefly of parts now removed; and mentions as to be repaired “John of Groat’s kitchen, divers outhouses belonging to the Great Sessions Hall, and the ruinous pieces at the south end of the same hall; also the south gate, and the wall from this gate to the Soar, which divides the castle from the Newark; also a wall next the porch of the church.” By “keep” is no doubt meant the hall. The south gate and wall to the Soar remain, as does a wall next the (south) porch of the church.
In the civil wars, the castle was held for the king. It then fell to the Parliament; was retaken by the king in 1645, and finally yielded to the Parliament after Naseby. In the struggles the south gate was probably reduced to its present ruined condition.
In 1781, Mr. Rogers Ruding had a lease of the premises from the duchy, which specifies the south gate evidently that remaining towards the Newark, the castle house, several tenements, the mount, and the appendages to the castle, and stipulates for the holding of sessions in the great hall.
The castle stands at the south-western angle of the town, upon ground close to, and about 20 feet above, the right bank of the Soar, the three channels of which unite below the castle. The nearest of these streams is the artificial leat which supplied the castle mill, and does still supply its modern representative. From the line of the castle wall the ground slopes rapidly, and terminates in a strip of level land that forms the margin of the mill leat, therein closely resembling the river front of Taunton Castle on the Tone.
The castle seems to have been composed of a mound on its south-west quarter; a hall and other buildings on the west or river front; the church of St. Mary de Castro opposite to the hall; and on the east side a gatehouse between the church and the mound; another gatehouse close north of the church, and a wall which runs east of the church, and forms a part of the eastern boundary of its churchyard. There is also the mill which, though modern, covers the ancient site.
The area within which these remains are included is known as “The Castle View.” This evidently represents the precinct of the Norman, and probably of the Saxon castle, and has been preserved as a distinct and, in part, extra-parochial district, vested in the duchy of Lancaster. The Castle View is nearly square, and may include four or possibly five acres. In 1861 it was returned as “The Liberty of the Castle View,” and contained 29 houses and 131 persons. The boundaries are the line of the ancient circumscribing ditch, or nearly so. On the south they divide the castle from the Newark, just including the mound. On the east they take the line from the present south gatehouse, by the old wall, and thence by the edge of the road down to the mill, including the house and garden attached to the Sessions House. The ditch is everywhere filled up, but in the garden north of the Hall the line of the wall is marked by a step of from 8 to 10 feet.
This line includes St. Mary’s, which was once the collegiate church or chapel of the castle. If it be that the castle was enlarged by Robert Bossu, it is probable that the older defence just excluded the church, and took the line of the present upper gatehouse, cutting off the churchyard and church, and placing the latter “juxta et infra” the castle wall. St. Mary’s was made parochial in 1400, the rest of the View remaining extra parochial, and it is not impossible that this was a restoration to the church of its ecclesiastical position before it was included within the Norman military precinct.
The mound, though broad, is at present less lofty than is usual in the more important Saxon castles, having been lowered 40 years ago by 12 or 15 feet. It is now about 30 feet high and 100 feet diameter upon its circular top, which is quite flat, without a trace of old building upon it. It has now no ditch, and is connected with no ancient wall; but, though probably within the ancient enceinte, it may, as at Warwick and Tamworth, have actually formed a part of it. The original well still remains in the mound and is in use.
The present hall was a part of the castle proper. It is an oblong structure, like Oakham and Winchester, composed of a nave and two narrow aisles. The nave lies north and south, and is about 60 feet by 25 feet, having gables at either end, and an open high-pitched roof. Since 1633, and perhaps earlier, it has been used for judicial purposes, and divided into three parts,—a civil and criminal court, and between them an entrance lobby, and above it a grand-jury room. To enlarge the courts, the old oaken posts or piers, with carved Norman caps, have been removed, the east aisle rebuilt or cased, and the west aisle walled off for retiring-room and passages. Its older parts also are concealed by panelling and partition-walls. The original south wall of the nave remains. In it are two round-headed windows, resting upon a string-course, or set-off in the wall, with a plain chamfered moulding. The windows are small and plain, and the recesses have but little splay. These are flanked by two slender detached octagonal shafts, possibly replacing cylindrical ones, with Norman capitals, and the head of each recess is surrounded by a single bold band of chevron moulding. There is a third and small window above, near the apex of the gable, with a recess of about 2 feet opening, all quite plain. Below is a small Norman door, but apparently a very recent insertion. It may, however, represent a way into the kitchen, which was at this end.
The opposite or north end wall, forming the side of the civil court, appears also to be old, but is so plastered and pointed as to be inscrutable from the inside. It contains a large round-headed window, probably a modern insertion. From the outside the base of the wall seems original, and there is the jamb of a window in end of the east aisle.
The wall of the west aisle, towards the river, is original, and is flanked at each end by a buttress, probably of Decorated date. In drawings of the last century this building is shown as an aisle, but it has been raised, and now forms a judge’s retiring-room behind each court, and a staircase between them. In the basement are offices. This aisle contains one original window near the south end, flat pointed, with plain jambs, and a head adorned by a single chevron band. The jambs have been renewed in brick.
The hall-floor is on the ground level, but it has been largely excavated, and now contains a number of cells and vaulted passages to them beneath the court. These vaults show nothing ancient.
Until recently there were some small inferior buildings at the south end of the court. These are now replaced by a barristers’ room. The kitchen stood here till 1715, when it was removed. Beneath the site of the kitchen is a very fine vault, perhaps 40 feet long by 15 feet wide, the west wall of which is the original outer wall of the castle. The vault is of excellent ashlar, slightly four-centred and evidently Perpendicular work. At the north end is a door, now walled up, steps beyond which led up to the hall. At the other end is also a door. This was evidently a cellar and a fine one.
In the garden north of the hall, no doubt, stood the principal apartments of the old castle. Here was the Castle House of the seventeenth century. Norman rectangular keep there was certainly none.
The gatehouse towards the Newark opens from the castle, its front being outwards. It is small, having a portal passage, a lodge, and a turnpike stair, and on the upper floor, now a ruin, a portcullis chamber, and two other rooms. Its arches are four-centred. It has the broad hollow moulding of the Perpendicular period, and a square portcullis groove behind the outer entrance. Within was a door, opening inwards. The central part of the portal was boarded over. The structure is good, very early Perpendicular, the work, no doubt, of an Earl of Lancaster.
The upper or north gatehouse is framed of timber, and probably of Tudor date. It stands close north of the west end of the church, with which it was, until recently, connected by certain timber houses, used by the prebendaries. These have been pulled down.
Parts of the church are Norman, and the north aisle seems of the date of the hall of the castle, and, therefore, a part of the work of Robert de Bellomont. There is a small door in the west wall of the aisle, that may very well have opened from the base court of the castle.
In this court, in front of the hall, is a small knoll, in which were recently found two skeletons, headless, the head placed on the breast of each. This was, therefore, the place of execution in front of the hall of trial.
Should the Courts of the county of Leicester ever be lodged in a more central or more convenient building, it is to be hoped that the castle hall will be divested of its unseemly additions, and restored to its original dimension and pattern, when, probably, some correct information would be discovered as to the vaults and foundations of the buildings of the eleventh century.
Leicester Castle, mutilated as it is, is yet a very fine specimen of a Norman fortress on an earlier site. The latter represented by the mound, the former by the hall and chapel, form together a good example of the Norman practice of placing the castle proper on the level ground, and treating the mound as a part of the external defences.
Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Mr. William Napier Reeve, the deputy constable of the castle, for his care of the hall intrusted to his charge. The bâton used on all solemn occasions by the Constable or by himself is part of one of the original Norman posts that supported the roof of the nave; and the post, from its great size, must certainly have been an old tree when the castle was built, and therefore have been in growth when the mound, the work of Æthelflæd, was thrown up.