Castles may seem grand romantic edifices, especially when constructed of pale stone and surrounded by a mirroring lake, but they were built for warfare and subjugation.
For Leeds Castle, strategically sited between the English Channel port of Dover and the capital, London, the spur was the successful invasion of England in 1066 by Normandy, now a region of northern France. The manor of ‘Esledes’ found itself transferred by force into the hands of the de Crèvecoeur family.
Within fifty years the de Crèvecoeurs felt secure enough and, more significantly, rich enough, to exchange the family’s wood and earthwork stronghold for the start of what is recognisable today.
Two rocky outcrops were chosen in the valley of the River Len. The smaller held the main fortification of the stone keep, and across what might have been a double drawbridge the larger island held the bailey where the service buildings and industry were situated. Doubtless the river was then re-routed to ensure it created an encircling moat, though certainly not the great lake seen today.
It wasn’t long before the fortifications were earning their… er… keep. In 1139, during what is now referred to by history as ‘The Anarchy’, the castle was besieged and taken by Stephen of Blois in his successful bid for the English crown, though Leeds soon returned to the family. But castles don’t come cheap, to build or maintain, and debts mounted — which is when the first of the six Royal Queens stepped in.
Eleanor of Castile, wife of Plantagenet King Edward I, bought the castle in 1278. A shrewd woman, she understood how easily a widowed queen could fall to penury, or worse. Leeds was purchased as part of her expanding personal property portfolio.
With the royal engineers at her disposal, she began to turn the castle into a fortified palace, including the building of a barbican in front of the gatehouse, a revetment wall with towers 30 feet high around the bailey island, and a Great Hall in its grounds. The keep was fashioned into withdrawing apartments and became known as the Gloriette, a nod to her Spanish heritage. It stands today much as it did in 1290 when Eleanor died at the age of 49.
Nine years later, to improve souring relations with France — always a tetchy association — her widowed husband married the French king’s sister, Margaret, forty years his junior. Their honeymoon was spent at Leeds, and within weeks Edward had granted her the castle, perhaps in an echo to his first love. Margaret outlived him, but only by eleven years.
On her death, Edward II ensured Leeds Castle reverted to the Crown, granting its custody to the Lord Steward of the Royal Household. But Edward II’s reign was turbulent, to say the least. When his queen, Isabella, attempted to seek shelter there, the wife of the incumbent had archers see off her party. Six were killed.
The moral here is never mess with a medieval king. Leeds Castle was besieged, the wife imprisoned in The Tower (of London), and the Lord Steward executed, despite not being on site at the time of the stand-off.
When Edward II was murdered six years later — rumour had it on the connivance of his queen — Isabella took control of the castle until her death in 1358, when it reverted to the Crown and her son.
By this time relations with France had deteriorated into a series of conflicts known to modern history as the Hundred Years War. King Edward III set about bolstering the fortifications of Leeds Castle with two portcullises, new outer gates, and improvements to the machicolation, the projecting gallery over the gatehouse entrance through which missiles could be dropped on attackers who had penetrated the barbican. Life in the 14th century was precarious, not just via threats from nearby kingdoms, or members of one’s family.
The fourth queen to hold the castle in her own right was Anne of Bohemia, spouse of Richard II, who had gifted it on their marriage. Alas, she died of plague twelve years later, aged 28. Sometimes internal, and external strife is the least of royalty’s problems.
Henry IV continued the tradition, in 1403 presenting Leeds Castle to his second wife, Joan of Navarre, after their marriage. But when he died and the crown passed to King Henry V, his celebrated eldest son, Henry fell out with his step-mother in spectacular style.
In 1419 Joan was charged with plotting his death by witchcraft, deprived of her revenues, and confined in the dilapidated, Roman-era, Pevensey Castle on the south coast. However, despite the serious accusation she was never brought to trial. Had her step-son merely wanted the 10,000 marks a year income his father had allotted Joan for life? That’s approximately £6,600 at the time, around £4.5m (USA $6.1m) today.
Within weeks of his impending death, age 35, Henry V relented and Joan was allowed to return to Leeds. It was a short stay. Henry bequeathed the castle to his widow, Catherine de Valois, the sixth and final queen to own it until her own death in 1437.
Catherine’s grandson by her second marriage was Henry Tudor. In 1485 he brought the Wars of the Roses to a close by taking Bosworth Field and the crown from King Richard III, to begin the Tudor dynasty as King Henry VII.
The most celebrated of the Tudors was his son, King Henry VIII, who kept Leeds Castle for the Crown. Again, serious refurbishment was lavished on it for use by himself and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, as can be seen inside the Gloriette and the rectangular stone building now called the Maiden’s Tower.
In 1520 the pair spent a well-documented night at the castle — along with a retinue of 5,000 — en route to France for the show of one-upmanship referred to as ‘The Field of Cloth of Gold’ due to so much expensive fabric, woven with silk and gold thread, on display.
It was during the reign of Henry VIII the castle passed into private hands, first via a lease and then by outright sale.
During the English Civil War of the 1640s, when King Charles I lost his kingdom, his crown and his head, the castle’s then owner, Sir Cheney Culpepper, sided with the successful Parliamentarians. Thus, the castle was not “slighted”: ie, razed to the ground.
Alas, with the restoration of the monarchy, when Charles II was crowned, Sir Cheney was financially ruined. Leeds Castle was sold to a royalist kinsman whose family had been rewarded for their loyalty with five million acres in the Virginia Colony of the ‘New World’.
Over the following centuries, within the bailey the original Tudor Great Hall was demolished to be rebuilt at least twice, once as a Jacobean mansion, and in 1820 as the New Castle in mock-Tudor style. The surrounding parklands also took on their modern appearance.
Wars, however, continued to prevail. After World War 1 Leeds Castle was sold to fulfil crippling death duty taxation, and the castle welcomed its final female owner, Mrs Olive Wilson-Filmer, an Anglo-American heiress with very deep pockets — which she would need.
Showing the tenacity of earlier female owners, she ensured she held onto Leeds Castle through a divorce, and on her re-marriage she became Olive, Lady Baillie. Her vision never wavered of a reinstated medieval castle with the modern comforts of the 20th century. She was renowned for her house parties throughout the 1930s, and as well as Hollywood stars, she entertained politicians, statesmen and, yet again, royalty graced the refurbished halls.
Despite her wealth, Lady Baillie was pragmatic. With the onset of World War 2 and the retreat from Dunkirk, she moved her household into the Gloriette allowing the New Castle to become a hospital, and the parkland grounds a weapons research facility.
After the war, as her health began to deteriorate, the spectre loomed of having Leeds Castle broken up to pay death duties. Instead, she placed ownership of the property into the hands of a charitable trust, which runs it to this day.
Over half a million visitors a year flock to Leeds Castle, many as day-trippers. Some, as we did, holiday within the grounds, enjoying its extensive parklands and terraced gardens, and wonderfully serene views over the Great Water during the quiet of a summer evening.
Visitors can also stay within the castle’s bailey walls. Rooms are available in the late-Tudor Maiden’s Tower.
Sources: Personal visit, Leeds Castle guidebook, various Wikipedia pages, and a number of relevant history books.
A fabulous post. This castle has been on my wish list for years and has now gone up the list. I would love to have met Olive…