Leeds Castle is a castle in Kent, England, 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Maidstone. It is built on islands in a lake formed by the River Len to the east of the village of Leeds and is a historic Grade I listed estate. A castle has existed on the site since 857. In the 13th century, it came into the hands of King Edward I, for whom it became a favourite residence; in the 16th century, Henry VIII used it as a dwelling for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The present castle dates mostly from the early 19th century. Its last private owner, Olive, Lady Baillie, left the castle in trust to open it to the public. It has been open since 1976.
History
Medieval and Tudor
From 857, the site was owned by a Saxon chief called Led or Leed who built a wooden structure on two islands in the middle of the River Len. In 1119, Robert de Crevecoeur rebuilt it in stone as a Norman stronghold and Leeds Castle descended through the de Crevecoeur family until the 1260s. What form this Norman stronghold took is uncertain because it was rebuilt and transformed in the following centuries. Adrian Pettifer speculates that it may have been a motte and bailey. In 1278, the castle was bought by King Edward I's Queen, Eleanor of Castile, through the purchase of the debt bond from Jewish moneylenders forced to sell at a considerable discount as a result of Edward's own excessive tax demands. As a favoured residence of Edward's, it saw considerable investment. The king enhanced its defences, and it was probably Edward who created the lake that surrounds the castle. A barbican spanning three islands was also built and a gloriette with apartments for the king and queen was added. In the Late Middle Ages, the growth of the royal household meant fewer residences could accommodate the monarchy when they visited. As a result, expenditure on royal residences in south east England generally decreased except for the Tower of London and Windsor Castle. The activity at Leeds Castle during the reign of Edward I was a notable exception to this pattern. The castle was captured on 31 October 1321 by the forces of Edward II from Margaret de Clare, Baroness Badlesmere, wife of the castle's constable, Bartholomew de Badlesmere, 1st Baron Badlesmere, who had left her in charge during his absence. The King had besieged Leeds after she had refused Edward's consort Isabella of France admittance in her husband's absence; when the latter sought to force an entry, Lady Badlesmere instructed her archers to shoot at Isabella and her party, six of whom were killed. Lady Badlesmere was kept prisoner in the Tower of London until November 1322. After Edward II died in 1327 his widow took over Leeds Castle as her primary residence. Richard II's first wife, Anne of Bohemia, spent the winter of 1381 at the castle on her way to be married to the king. In 1395, Richard received the French chronicler Jean Froissart there, as described in Froissart's Chronicles. Henry VIII transformed the castle in 1519 for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. A painting commemorating his meeting with Francis I of France still hangs there. The glazier Galyon Hone reworked and restored the chapel windows in 1536. In 1544, Hone returned to repair windows in the lodgings and a banqueting house in the garden for a visit by Catherine Parr. In 1552 Leeds Castle was granted to Sir Anthony St Leger (d.1559) of Ulcombe, Kent, whose grandfather Ralph I St Leger (d.1470), of Ulcombe, Sheriff of Kent in 1467/8, had been Constable of Leeds Castle.
17th and 18th centuries
The St Leger family continued to own the castle until Sir Warham St Leger sold it to Sir Richard Smythe in 1618. Smythe's daughters sold the castle to Sir Thomas Colepeper of Hollingbourne. An early embroidered silk quilt from Bengal dating from the 1620s, held by the Colonial Williamsburg museum, has an ownership label of Catherine Colepeper, connecting it to Leeds Castle and the Smythe and Colepeper families. Richard Smythe's brother Thomas Smythe was a founder and governor of the English East India Company. The castle escaped destruction during the English Civil War because its owner, Sir Cheney Culpeper, sided with the Parliamentarians. The castle was used as both an arsenal and a prison during the war. Other members of the Culpeper family had sided with the Royalists, John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper, having been granted more than 5,000,000 acres (20,000 km2) of land in Virginia in reward for assisting the escape of the king's son, Charles, the Prince of Wales. This legacy was to prove vital for the castle's fortunes. Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, was born at the castle in 1693 and settled in North America to oversee the Culpeper estates, cementing an ongoing connection between the castle and America. There is a commemorative sundial at the castle telling the time in Belvoir, Virginia and a corresponding sundial in America. Fairfax was the great-grandson of Thomas Fairfax who led the parliamentarian attack at the nearby Battle of Maidstone in 1648 and whose doublet worn during the battle is on display.
19th century
Robert Fairfax owned the castle for 46 years until 1793 when it passed to the Wykeham Martins. Sale of the family estates in Virginia released a large sum of money that allowed extensive repair and the remodelling of the castle in a Tudor style, completed in 1823, that resulted in the appearance today.
20th century
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