Henry, Earl of Lancaster, ancestor of Henry the Fourth, founded church and Hospital in the four acres of ground adjoining the Castle. He surrounded them with a wall and a defensible gateway—the “Magazine Gateway,” as it is now called. By Hospital, of course, we understand almshouse. It was designed, oddly enough, for fifty infirm old men, and five women as nurses. The Hospital, “restored” in 1776, was again restored, and very largely rebuilt, in 1902; the work excellently well done. Interesting relics of ancient days are preserved in the hall. There stands the so-called “Duke of Lancaster’s Porridge-pot,” a fine bell-metal cauldron of sixty-one gallons capacity, whence the Hospitallers were helped. What a capacity for porridge! Others more or less resembling it are found in England, notably the Nuns’ Cauldron at Laycock Abbey, Wiltshire.
TRINITY HOSPITAL PORRIDGE-POT.
In the hall is also to be seen “Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket Piece,” a salt-box or nutmeg-grater dated 1579, inscribed “This belongeth to the Olde Ospitall”; and with the moral maxims: “Thinke ° wel ° and ° say ° wel ° bvtrather ° do ° wel”; and “Flee ° idilness ° and ° be ° wel ° occupied.”
THE TOWN WATCH
In the chapel is the finely robed effigy of Mary de Bohun, mother of Henry the Fifth. Seven morions and a number of breastplates, with a group of halberds disposed upon the walls, once belonged to the Town Watch, and are relics of the way in which Leicester was policed in Good Queen Bess’s glorious days.
ST. MARY’S.
The Newarke is changing, like all else. A sign of the times is the new Technical School on the site of St. Mary’s. But that is a striking view as you enter by Wyggeston’s Chantry House, and see the spire of St. Mary de Castro behind one of the old Castle arches. The Castle is a mere memory now, and where the Keep stood is at this time a bowling-green; but the Great Hall remains, where Parliaments met in 1414, 1426, and 1450; in those days when the Legislature was a more or less perambulating body, following the King to heel, like a dog. Faced nowadays with brick, none would suspect the antiquity of the Great Hall, now used as an Assize Court.
The natural pendant to the Assize Court is, of course, the Gaol; but that is removed by the length of a long street from the place of judgment. In it is stored the Leicester gibbet, last used in 1832, when one Cook, a bookbinder, who carried on business in a yard off Wellington Street, was hanged for a peculiarly revolting murder. A Mr. Paas, of London, a manufacturer of brass ornaments used in the bookbinding trade, had been accustomed to call upon him, and Cook, expecting his visit, had evidently prepared to murder him for sake of the gold he carried. The unfortunate man put up at the “Stag and Pheasant” inn, and, saying he would soon return, made his call upon Cook the last of the day. He was never again seen alive. Cook appears to have killed him with the iron handle of his press, afterwards hacking his body in pieces and burning it on an immense fire. His story of a quarrel, and of accidentally killing Mr. Paas, was, in view of the preparations he had made—of laying in an unusual quantity of coal, having a hatchet re-ground, and giving his errand-boy a holiday—not believed; and eventually he pleaded guilty and posed as a contrite sinner. After he had been duly hanged, his body was gibbeted in Saffron Lane, on the outskirts of the town. The spectacle seems to have been popular, according to the following testimony: