Chapter II: Part 2

When the Romans penetrated into Britain under the reign of Claudius, they found it almost in every part, crowded with woods, and infested with morasses; and as the natives well knew how to avail themeslves of these fastnesses, the island could never be considered as effectually conquered till it was rendered accessible to the march of the legions, and means were provided for speedy communication of intelligence from even the most distant parts of the provinces. On this account their Cohorts early applied themselves to the task of forming roads; nor did they cease their labours till in the time of Antoninus, they had opened passages thro' the island in all directions. In the reign of that emperor, these works, connected with others which they had already constructed on the continent, formed a great chain of communication, which, passing thro' Rome, from the Pict's wall, or north west, to Jerusalem, nearly the southeast point of the empire, was drawn out to the length of 4080 Roman, or as Mr. Reynolds has shewn, of so many British statute miles. Along these roads proper relays of horses were stationed at short distances, and it seems that couriers could travel with ease above an hundred miles a day. Two of these roads, as already observed, passed thro' Leicester. One, the _Via Devana_, leading from Camalodunum, or Colchester, in Essex, to _Deva_, of west Chester, a distance of about two hundred miles, has been lately discovered by some ingenious and able Antiquaries of the University of Cambridge.

It enters Leicestershire in the neighbourhood of Rockingham; continues a strait road for many miles till it nearly reaches Leicester, and passing thro' the town it is found to leave the county near Ashby-de-la-Zouch. The other road, called the _Via_ _Fossata_ or Fosse, always known, and every where remarkable, traverses the island in a north-east direction, from near Grimsby on the coast of Lincolnshire, passes thro' Bath, and terminates at Seaton, a village situated on the coast of Devonshire, a distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles. This road enters Leicesteshire at a place called Seg's Hill, on the wolds, or antiently wild and uncultivated parts of the county; from thence it passes the village of Thurmaston and approaches the East gates of Leicester, by the street called the Belgrave Gate. On the south-west of the town it is again recognized in the Narborough road, and from that village it proceeds again a solitary lane till it enters Warwickshire at High Cross, where it crosses the no less celebrated Roman road, the Watling-Street. It is well known that in the formation of these roads, the Romans spared no cost and labour. From the remains of some of them it appears that upon a bed of sand they spread a coating of gravel, upon which the pebbles, and sometimes hewn or squared stones were laid, firmly compacted together in a bed of cement. This, we have reason to believe, was the structure of such of the roads in this island as are distinguished by the title of _Street_, a word derived from the Latin _Strata_, meaning formed of layers. But such pains were not, it is probable, taken in all cases; and from the name of one of the roads passing thro' Leicester, the _Fosse_, an abbreviation of the Latin _Via Fossata_, meaning the way ditched, or dug, we cannot but conclude that it was a road raised by the spade and formed with a rampart, and probably covered with gravel in the manner of our present turnpike roads. The same may also be said of the _Via Divana_, whose rampart, now covered with grass, the ingenious discoverers observed in many places.

When the Saxons subdued this island, after the departure of the Romans, to preserve a ready communication between distant places formed no part of then rude and simple policy. Hence the best roads of the Romans were neglected by them, and since the Romans had either forbidden, or the inclination of the Britons had dissuaded them from erecting villages on the line of public roads, those roads became useless, and their lasting materials are only to be found, tho' not distinguished, in the foundations of the neighbouring habitations. As it would always be more easy to carry away the materials of a Roman road than dig for them in a quarry, it has happened that those materials have been in general so intirely removed, as to leave almost no where any other trace, than history and tradition, of their existence.

From the departure of the Romans in 445, to the beginning of the eighteenth century, the roads of this Island received little or no improvement from the legislative powers, except by an order in the reign of Henry the second, that roads should be cleared of woods and made open that travellers might have leisure, if they should find it prudent, to prepare to resist the almost armies of robbers which were spread over the face of almost every county. Roads, being no longer regulated by any system, to pass from place to place so as to avoid as well as might be the inconveniences of woods, bogs, and sloughs, became the only business of the traveller. It was thus by accident the line of our present roads was formed, and to this their frequent circuits and other inconveniences are owing.

During the period above mentioned they were in general so bad as to be useless for the passage of any other carriages than carts, and for these only in the summer season; so that the people inhabiting the same country as the Britons, who are said to have had numbers and great variety of cars of all kinds, were so exclusively confined to the use of horses and mules, that scarcely any other mode of conveyance was known even in London, and this so late as in the reigns of Elizabeth and James the first; for it is certain that when the great Shakespeare fled from his country and came to town, his first means of subsistence were the pittances he might earn by holding the horses of the persons who had come from different parts of London to see the plays then performed at the Bankside Theatre.

It is not indeed to be asserted that till the eighteenth century our roads never received any repairs, for necessity would frequently call for something of the kind in most places; nor yet that Toll Bars were antiently wholly unknown; for it is certain that a Gate or Bar was first erected in the reign of Edward the first, at a place now called Holborn Bars in London, for the purpose of collecting tolls for the repairs of the roads. But it must be allowed that the art of constructing a good and firm road was ill understood, and worse attended to; and when, in the beginning of the last century, turnpike roads were first made, it was imagined that the only good form was that of a ridge and furrow lying across the road on the line of its direction. Turnpike gates were also in many places considered as such impositions that even in the beginning of the reign of George the second, some persons contested the payment, several were frequently seen together, especially at newly erected gates, suffering an interruption in their journey rather than submit to what they deemed an imposition. Every one who understands the true conveniences of life will rejoice, that both the formation and repairs of roads, and also the usefulness of turn-pike tolls are now better understood; that even countries once held to be inaccessible are now open at all times and at all seasons to the traveller, and that most of our roads are now so well suited to the purposes not only of convenience but of pleasure, that we have no reason to lament the destruction of the Roman ways, or even not to think that we have within these few years greatly surpassed them in the expedition of our mails and all the conveniences and comforts of travelling.

On this western side of the town, where its environs afford the attraction of woody scenery, the stranger is invited to prolong his stroll round _Ruding's Walk_. This walk, tho' a continuation of the plantation that encloses West-cotes, is liberally left open by its possessor, who generously shares with the public the pleasure of his cool and shady scenery. Where the walk, after winding thro' a flourishing shrubbery, enters a grove of tall and venerable elms, the churches and buildings of the town, broken by the intermediate trees of the paddock, and the long line of distance varied by villages, scattered dwellings and corn-mills, unite in a rich and pleasing prospect.

On turning towards the West, the lover of contrast may for a moment call to his imagination the dark, heavy, and almost impenetrable forest which covered these lands in the twelfth century, and depicture figures of the inhabitants of Leicester bearing from thence their allowed load of wood, the supply for their hearths, and for this privilege, paying at the West bridge, their toll of _brigg silver_ to their feudal Baron. To this picture he will oppose the present scene of pasturage, flocks, and free husbandmen, cultivating the earth under the protection of just and equal laws. The slightest glance at past ages is a moral study, that renders us not only satisfied but grateful.

We cannot pass West-cotes, without noticing an object in the possession of Mr. Ruding, highly interesting to the admirers of the fine Arts. This is a picture in painted glass, representing Mutius Scaevola affording Porsena an astonishing proof of his resolution by burning that hand which had assassinated the secretary instead of the king. The exquisite finish, and perfect preservation of this small piece bespeak it of the antient Flemish school, whose artists according to Guicciardini, invented the mode of burning their colours into the glass so as to secure them from the corrosion of water, wind, or even time. There is no department of the delightful art of painting that so much excites wonder as this. When, in examining this piece, it is considered that every tint and demi-tint of the highly relieved drapery, every stroke of the distant tents and towers, was laid on in a fusile state; that delicate command of skill which could prevent the shades from liquefying into each other, and arrest every touch in its assigned place, so as to produce the effects of the most finished oil painting, cannot be sufficiently admired.

Entering the town we pass the Braunston Gate, to the bridge of the same name, crossing the old Soar, and soon arrive at the West bridge, which crosses the new Soar. From hence the canal, taking the name of Union Canal, proceeds toward Market Harborough. On the corner of an old house upon the bridge, is an antient wooden bracket, which formerly supported a bell, by some supposed to have been used by the mendicant brothers of the neighbouring monastery of St. Augustine, who here took their station to beg alms, or, which is more probable, it might have been the bell belonging to the porter of the gate which stood here.

The street called Apple-gate, that leads us to the church of St. Nicholas, will not be passed without interest by those who recollect that on this spot, where the ground rises in a gentle ascent from the river, the Legions of Rome established their town; and we are now arrived at an object which brings them more forcibly to remembrance, a massy arched wall, commonly termed, from its bounding the quarter antiently inhabited by the Jews, the _Jewry Wall_.

This ruin, so minutely described by many Antiquaries, will afford to curious and learned observers, a valuable specimen of the mode of building practised by the Romans, but the uses for which it was designed, will, most probably, for ever elude their researches. They will not however, forbear their conjectures concerning it; of these, two have obtained most credit; one, that it was a temple of the Roman Janus; and the other, the Janua, or great Gate-way, of the Roman town. The latter seems chiefly supported by the assertion of the learned Leman, that the line of the Fosse, having joined the Via Devana, runs thro' this spot. But whoever minutely examines the arches, will not easily overcome the objections which the work affords to oppose this opinion; or assign a reason why a city no larger than our Ratae should have a Gateway with so many openings; nor does any satisfactory answer occur to the query why a gate should be placed in what seems to have been the central part of the antient city. And perhaps all the evidence for the other opinion rests upon the dark sooty coat that encrusts the interior of the arches; an appearance which the smoak of the town would easily produce in one century. Indeed, little, it seems, can be concluded from the present outside of the work; for as we cannot conceive that the Romans would have elected so rough an edifice, it must be supposed that the present remains were originally coated with workmanship more worthy of such polished builders. If, however we must indulge a conjecture, we shall be led to imagine, from the slight remain of ornament, which is only the fragment of a niche, that this wall was either part of a Roman temple or bath. Still however such an opinion rests, and must rest, on nothing but conjecture, since the remains are too scanty to afford sufficient data for a settled opinion. Thus may we take our leave of this remarkable object, which, tho' incontrovertibly of Roman origin, and likely to exist when the church built with its stolen spoils shall be no more, must continue for ever, as it is at present, an interesting mystery.

The adjoining church of St. Nicholas is a small edifice of very rude and consequently very antient construction. It has evidently been built at different periods. It consists only of two aisles, the north one having long since been taken down; the south aisle is gothic, and the other, properly the nave, is of that massy unornamented style, in use before and at the conquest; from the circumstance of its being built with the materials of the neighbouring Roman work, it will perhaps be no anachronism to assign to it a date prior to that period. The tower is also Saxon; and the spire having been damaged by the wind is now taken down.

The area, eastward of the churchyard, is called _Holy Bones_; bones of oxen having been there dug up in sufficient numbers to induce the belief that it was once a place of sacrifice. The church of St. Augustine which stood on this spot, is supposed to have been destroyed before the conquest.

At the corner of this area is a charity school, established on the bounty bequeathed by Ald. Gabriel Newton, for the clothing and educating thirty five boys; and in the terms of the founder's will, "instructing them in toning and psalmody."

In a lane not far from St. Nicholas' church, called Harvey Lane, is the meeting house of the Calvinistic Baptists, which is capable of containing 500 persons.

From St. Nicholas' street, we again arrive at the High-Cross, and proceed southward, along High-Cross-Street. In this street, in the house of Mr. Stephens, are the remains of a chantry or chapel, established for the purpose of saying masses for the dead, once belonging to St. Martins church. They consist of a range of windows, exhibiting in curiously painted glass, a regular series of sacred history.

The next object, worthy of attention, at which we arrive, is an elegant gothic building, with an inscription "_Consanguinitarium_, 1792." It consists of five neat dwellings, to which is annexed a yearly stipend of upwards of 60l. and was built by John Johnson, Esq. a well-known Architect as a perpetual home for such of his relations as may not be favored by successful fortune.

Turning down a narrow alley, called Castle Street, we arrive at a spacious area, on the right of which is a charity school, built in 1785, belonging to the parish of St. Mary, which clothes and educates 45 boys and 35 girls.

The visitor will now have a full view of St. Mary's church, antiently known by the distinguishing addition of _infra_ or _juxta Castrum_, a building in which he will perceive, huddled together, specimens of various kinds of architecture, from the Norman gothic of the north chancel, to the very modern gothic of the spire; a mixture which evinces the antiquity of the church, marks the disasters of violence, accident, and time, and proves that the neighbourhood of the castle, within whose outer ballium or precincts it stood, was often most dangerous. That there was a church, on this spot in the Saxon times, seems almost certain, from some bricks apparently the workmanship of that people, found in the chancel; and the cheveron work round the windows of this chancel proves that the first Norman Earl of Leicester, Robert de Bellomont, when he repaired the mischiefs of the Norman conquest, or rather of the attack made by William Rufus upon the property of the Grentemaisnells, constructed a church on a plan nearly like the present, and adorned it with all the ornaments of the architecture of his times. This Earl founded in it a college of twelve canons, of whom the Dean was most probably one, and among other donations for their support, he endowed it with the patronage of all the other churches of Leicester, St. Margaret's excepted. These, his son and successor, Robert, surnamed Bossu, converted into regular canons, and removed them, with great additional donations to the Abbey in the meadows. He seems however to have continued an establishment of eight canons in the collegiate church, tho' with revenues comparatively small, since their income, at the dissolution of the monasteries, was valued only at 23l. 12s. 11d. That the number of these canons remained unchanged at the time of the dissolution, appears probable from the circumstance of seven cranes and a socket for an eighth being still found in a kind of press, or ark, as it is called, in the vestry, for the purpose of suspending the priests' vestments.

The inside of the church is spacious and commodious, and has lately been rendered still more so by converting the gothic arches of the south side of the nave into one bold semicircular arch whose span is 39 feet, and erecting a gallery in the wide south aisle, said to have been built by John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster.

In the great choir or chapel called Trinity choir, at the east end of the great south aisle, (for the aisles of our churches were formerly often divided into chapels, but of which in this church no traces now remain), was held a _Guild_ or Fraternity, called _Trinity Guild_, founded in the reign of Henry the Seventh, by Sir Richard Sacheverel, Kt. and the good Lady Hungerford. Collections were made four times a year, of the brethren and sisters belonging to this Society, whatever it might be, for Antiquaries have not rendered the point sufficiently clear, but from their meetings being held in churches, it is most probable that they were of a religious nature. The money when collected was applied to meet various expenses, but chiefly to pay the wages of their priest, perhaps their confessor, and to supply their great feast held annually on Trinity Sunday, for which, according to the account of the steward and wardens, the following articles were purchased, A.D. 1508.

s. d.

A dozen of Ale 1 8 A fat Sheep 2 4 Seven Lambs 7 0 Thirty Chickens 1 11 Two gallons of Cream 0 8 0.5qr. of Malt 2 0 Fourteen Geese 4 3

From a curious and ingenious Mathematical Essay on the comparative prices of similar articles in different ages, presented to the society of Antiquaries, we have here the pleasure of offering to the attention of our visitor, the following valuable remarks.

"The generality of readers when they look into the records of antient
times, are forcibly struck by the seeming lowness of the prices of
every article of common demand, when compared with the modern prices.
When they find that an ox was formerly sold for a few shillings, and
the price of a quarter of corn calculated in pence, they are led to
envy the supposed cheapness of those ages, and to bewail the
distressing dearness of the present. Nothing however can be more
absurd than the whining complaints founded upon such facts; for since
the cheapness of living depends not so much upon the price given for
every article of prime necessity, as upon the means by which, to use
a common expression, the purchase may be afforded, we must, if we
wish to form a proper judgment on the subject, rightly compare these
means as they existed in different ages, otherwise our conclusions
will be not only idle, but sometimes mischievous.

"It is very certain that money is a commodity, no less than the
articles it is employed to purchase, and like them, its absolute
value is depreciated or lowered by abundance. Since the discovery of
America, the quantity of gold and silver brought into general
circulation, and of late, the general and extensive use of paper
money which represents real specie, produces the same effect as would
arise from a still greater encrease of it. From this natural
depreciation alone of the value of coin, it follows that were all
other circumstances to have continued the same, the relative value of
money would have decreased, or a greater number of pieces of the same
denomination would be now required to produce the same effect as
formerly, and therefore that it will be necessary to multiply any sum
of money of the present age, into some certain number, in order to
learn the effect of the same sum in an assigned preceding age."

From this multiplication it is demonstrated that the price of the dozen of Ale, for which the Trinity Guild paid 20d. is equivalent to something more than 6d. a quart;--the fat sheep at 2s. 4d. to 1l. 11s. 4d.--the seven lambs at 7s. to 16s. each;--the thirty chickens at 23d. to rather more than 2s. 6d. the couple;--the two gallons of cream at 8d. to 2s. 8d. a quart;--the half quarter of malt at 2s. to 3l. 4s. the quarter;--the fourteen geese at 4s. 3d. to nearly 5s. each.

In the reign of the Norman kings, articles, but especially corn, were dearer than at present. In Henry the sevenths reign meat was cheaper, but other articles dearer than at present. We now return to the church of St. Mary.

In the year 1783, the spire which had several times been injured by lightening, was so much shattered by a fresh stroke as to require to be taken down to the battlements. It was rebuilt under the direction of an architect, of the name of Cheshire at an expense, exclusive of the old materials, of 245l. 10s. the height of the spire from the ground 61 yards. In this church, in which for many years he officiated as curate, is interred the Rev. W. Bickerstaffe, a man of great simplicity of manners, and urbanity of disposition; who by his laborious and minute researches materially assisted the Topographers of Leicester.

Near the north door of this church is a passage leading under an old fashioned building forming a gate-way into an area called the castle yard. That the present structure was the gate-way of the castle when it was tenable as a place of defence, cannot, for a moment be imagined; but that there was always an entrance at this place we are well assured, for the adjoining building on the left is known by the name of the Porter's Lodge, and it must therefore be concluded that the present was built upon the scite of the antient gate-way, and that it was constructed with the timbers and other materials taken in later ages from some part of the castle which had been taken down.

At this gateway was preserved, till within a few years past, an antient ceremony expressive of the homage formerly paid by the magistrates of Leicester, to the feudal Lords of the castle. The mayor knocking for admittance at the gate was received by the constable of the castle, while the mace was sloped in token of homage; he then took an oath of allegiance to the king as heir to the Lancastrian property; the latter ceremony, agreeable to one of the corporation charters, is still performed, but in private. The office of constable of the castle, which in the beginning of the reign of Mary, was held by Henry duke of Suffolk, with the annual fee of sixty shillings and eight pence, is now retained only nominally.

Opposite the gate-way stands a building most probably erected by the first of the Bellomonts, tho' the modern front which meets the eye effectually conceals all the outward traces of antiquity. The inside of the edifice however is a room exceedingly curious. Its area is large, being about seventy-eight feet long, twenty-four high and fifty-one broad. It is framed into a sort of aisles, by two rows of tall and massy oaken pillars, which serve to support a large and weighty covering of slate. This vast room was the antient hall of the castle, in which the earls of Leicester, and afterwards the dukes of Lancaster, alternately held their courts, and consumed in rude but plenteous hospitality, at the head of their visitors, or their vassals, the rent of their estates then usually paid in kind. On the south end appear the traces of a door-way, which probably was the entrance into a gallery that has often, among other purposes, served as an orchestra for the minstrels and musicians of former days. This hall, during the reigns of several of the Lancastrian princes was the scene of frequent Parliaments, whose transactions our provincial historians have carefully recorded. At present it is used only for the holding the assizes and other country meetings, to which purpose it is, from its length, so well adapted, that, tho' the business of the civil and crown bars is carried on at the same time at the opposite ends of the room, the pleadings of the one do not in the least interrupt the pleadings of the other.

The reflecting visitor, who may choose to compare the uses to which this place is now applied, with the purposes for which it was built, will not fail to derive from the comparison so very favorable to the present times, a satisfaction most worthy the benevolent heart. Instead of the rude licentious carousals of the Bellomonts, when the baron domineered, even in drunkenness, over his assembled slaves, we often see large bodies of the inhabitants of the county, men worthy of freedom and possessing it, assembled to consider with decorum, and to decide with unawed, unbiassed judgment, upon measures of no little importance to the kingdom of England. And instead of the savage violence, or idiot folly which mostly dictated the award of every kind of property, in those feudal times, we see happily substituted the fair examination of the witnesses, the eloquent pleadings of the barristers, the learned observations of the Judge, and the impartial decisions of the Jury, nobly co-operating to investigate truth, and to decide, according to right, the means alike of happiness and virtue. In what manner, and by what degrees this happy change was effected, the following well authenticated anecdote may serve to shew.

Robert de Bellomont, the first earl, sitting in the apartment of the keep of his castle at Leicester, heard a loud shout in the neighbouring fields. Enquiring into the cause, he found that it was given by the partizans of a combatant who was then fighting a duel with his near relation to ascertain the right to a certain piece of land in St. Mary's field. The cruelty and absurdity of such a mode of decision seems to have been forcibly impressed upon the mind of the earl, by this affecting circumstance; and he agreed with the burgesses and inhabitants of Leicester, on the payment of one penny for every house that had a gable or gavel in the High-street (a payment afterwards known by the term _gavel pence_) that all pleas of the above mentioned nature should be determined by a jury of twenty four persons.

From the county hall, or castle, as it is commonly called, a road to the right leads to an antient gate-way strongly built and once furnished with a port-cullis, and every requisite for defence. The embattled parapet being much decayed, was taken down a few years ago, and its roof is now reduced to one of an ordinary form. When this alteration was made, the arms of the dukes of Lancaster by whom the gate-way was undoubtedly built were destroyed on the outside; but on the inside, at the spring of the arch, two mutilated figures, one of a lion, the other of a bear, doubtless some of their devices, still remain. The lion passant, it is well known, formed part of the arms of that family, and the muzzled bear was a symbol used on the seal by Edward the first in his transactions with Scotland. Nothing can be more probable than that the Lancastrian princes would ornament their buildings with a figure which would serve to preserve the memory of their descent from so renowned a monarch.

The stranger must now be requested to pass thro' the uninviting doorway of the adjoining public house; and he will be led by an easy ascent up to the _mount_, or perhaps the scite of the keep of the castle, which tho' lately lowered considerably for the purpose of converting it into a Bowling-green, yet affords a pleasant station for a view of the environs of Leicester, and is the spot from which the best idea can be formed of the antient form and boundaries of the fortifications.

It is well known that the fast Saxons built few or no castles, for having nearly exterminated the Britons, during the long continued warfare that preceded their conquest of that people, they had no occasion for strong fortresses to secure the possession of the territories they had acquired; and in the later ages of their dynasty they were too indolent and ignorant to undertake such works with spirit and effect, notwithstanding the frequent and sudden inroads of the Danes, rendered such places of retreat highly necessary, and the great Alfred earnestly recommended their construction. Hence the places of defence found in this island at the conquest, were few in number, and those generally too slight to resist the continued attacks of time. For this reason the antiquary need not endeavour to extend his researches after the state of the castle of Leicester beyond the time of the arrival of William the Norman. On the division of the provinces made by that monarch, Leicester became part of the royal demesne; a castle was erected to ensure the submission of the inhabitants, and the wardenship of it entrusted to Hugh Grentemaisnell baron of Hinckly, who possessed considerable property in the neighbourhood. This castle, like other Norman works of the same kind, would have its barbican or out-work, defending the gate and bridge over the outer ditch would be commanded by a strong wall, eight or ten feet thick, and between twenty and thirty high, with a parapet, and crennels at the top, towers at proper distances, and a gate-way opening into the town. It would, we may presume, extend from the river below the Newark round by St. Mary's church, and then, turning towards the river again, whose waters were brought by a cut across the morass lying on the west side, to wash that part of the wall, and fill the ditch, would thus enclose what was called the outer Bayle or Ballium. Within this, at a distance not now to be ascertained, but probably not less than eighty or an hundred yards, another, similar, but perhaps stronger fortification, would extend from, and to the river, and this entered at the gates already described, would enclose the inner Bayle, where stood the lofty massy keep, the hall, and all the apartments and rooms belonging to the noble and potent owners. Although the curious will be inclined to join in the pathetic laments of the writer of the memoirs of Leicester, (Throsby) that the just position of the castle and its extent in former times cannot be known; yet strong probability will almost authorize us to believe that the account here given does not vary very widely from the truth; for these conjectures are directly confirmed by the well still open on the top of the castle hill or keep, and by the entire remains of a large cellar, forty-nine feet long and eighteen wide, nearly adjoining the great hall, on the west. That more traces should not be discoverable will not appear surprising when we consider what effects may be produced by the decays of time and accident, by the accumulation of soil, and encroachments of buildings.

During the disputes concerning the succession, on the death of the Conqueror, the Grentemaisnells seized Leicester castle, and held it for duke Robert. This subjected it to the fury of the successful partizans of William Rufus, and the castle lay for some time in a dismantled state. In the next reign it was granted by Henry to his favourite Robert first earl of Leicester, who repaired the damages and it became the principal place of residence of himself and the second earl, Robert Bossu. The third earl Robert surnamed Blanchmains, encreased his property and power, by his marriage with Petronilla, or Parnel, the heiress of the Grentemaisnells, but the violent temper of this earl involved him in disputes with king Henry the second, whose forces under the command of the Chief Justiciary, Richard de Lucy, took Leicester and its castle by assault, and reduced both to an almost uninhabited heap of ruins. Blanchmains regained however the favor of his king and was restored to his estates, but both he and his son, Robert Fitz-Parnel engaging in the crusades, the town of Leicester was but ill rebuilt, and the castle remained in a state of delapidation for many years. Fitz-Parnel dying without issue, the _honor_ of Leicester, as part of the Bellomont estates were called, passed into the family of Simon de Montfort, in consequence of his marriage with one of the sisters of Fitz-Parnels. But the Montfort earls of Leicester, both father and son, were too much engaged in the busy transactions of their times to pay much attention to their property at Leicester. After the death of the latter, in the Battle of Evesham, the Leicester property was conferred by Henry the third on his second son Edmond earl of Lancaster, whose second son Henry, heir and successor to Thomas earl of Lancaster, beheaded at Pontefract, in the year 1322 made Leicester his principal place of residence, and under him and the two next succeeding earls, the castle recovered and probably surpassed its former state of splendor.

When the dukes of Lancaster ascended the throne, Leicester tho' frequently honored with their presence, received no permanent benefit, and tho' several parliaments were held there in the reign of Henry the sixth, the castle had so far decayed in the time of Richard the third, that that monarch chose rather to sleep at an inn a few evenings before his fall, than occupy the royal apartments in the castle. From this time the castle seems to have made constant progress to decay, so that in the reign of Charles the first, orders, dated the ninth of his reign, were issued to the sheriff Wm. Heyrick, Esq. of Beaumanor (as appears from papers in the possession of that family) "to take down the old pieces of our castle at Leicester, to repair the castle house, wherein the audit hath been formerly kept, and is hereafter to be kept, and wherein our records of the honor of Leicester do now remain; to sell the stones, timber, &c. but not to interfere with the vault there, nor the stalls leading therefrom."

From others of the same papers it appears that the timber sold for 3l. 5s. 8d. the freestone, and iron work for 36l. 14s. 4d. and that the repairs above ordered cost about 50l. Thus was the castle reduced to nearly its present state, and tho' the Antiquary may in the eagerness of his curiosity lament that so little of it now remains, yet he must surely rejoice in his reflecting moments that such structures are not now necessary for the defence of the kingdom, and that the fortunes of the noblemen are now spent in a way calculated to encourage the arts and promote industry, rather than in maintaining in these castles a set of idle retainers, ever ready to assist them in disturbing the peace of the realm, and still more ready to insult and injure the humble inhabitants in then neighbourhood.

Descending from the castle mount, and passing thro' the south gale-way of the castle yard, the visitor enters a district of the town called the Newark, (New Work) became the edifices it contained were new when compared with the buildings of the castle. They owed their foundation to Henry, the third earl of Lancaster, and his son Henry first duke of that title. By these two noblemen they were nearly finished, and what was wanting towards their completion was afterwards added by John of Gaunt. They must then have formed a magnificent addition to the antient dignity of the castle. The remains of the walls which enclosed this area enable us to affirm that its form was a long square, bounded on the north by the castle, on the east by the streets of the suburbs of the town, on the south by the fields, and on the west by the river.

Judging from what remains of these walls, we feel inclined to maintain that they were rather calculated to enclose, than strongly protect, the buildings they surrounded; for if the walls now standing be the original walls, they were not capable of resisting the modes of attack usually practised in the age in which they were built; nor is the gate-way that still remains entire, formed with towers to command, or with grooves for a port-cullis to defend, the entrance. Indeed if the state of England during the age of the founders be considered, magnificence rather than great strength might be expected to be their object, and magnificent truly were the buildings of the Newark. The gate-way now known by the name of the Magazine, from the circumstance of its being the arsenal of the county, is large and spacious, yet grandly massive; and the form of its arches, which partake of the style of the most modern gothic, tho' built at the time when, according to the opinions of the most learned Antiquaries, that truly beautiful species of architecture was not generally established, prove the ready attention of the founders to the progress of the arts.

This gate-way led to an area, which tho' nearly surrounded by buildings, was much more spacious than the present wide street, an area worthy the dukes of Lancaster. On the south another gate, similar to the Magazine now standing, opened into the court opposite the strong south gate of the castle, and on the west rose a college, a church, and an hospital, which completed the grandeur of the Newark. These latter buildings formed a lesser quadrangle or court, having on the north the present old, or Trinity Hospital, built and endowed for an hundred poor people, and ten women to serve them. On the south stood a church dedicated to St. Mary, and cloysters; the former called by Leland "not large but faire;" the "floures and knottes in whose vault were gilded," he says, by the rich cardinal of Winchester; the latter, (the cloysters,) were both "large and faire;" the houses in the compace of the area of the college for the Prebendaries (standing on the west side) the same author says, "be very praty," and the walls and gates of the college occupying the east side of the court, he says, "be very stately." Nor did the princes of Lancaster limit their designs to magnificent structures; this college was as well filled as the hospital, for it contained a dean and twelve prebendaries; thirteen vicars choral, three clerks, six choristers and one verger, in all thirty-six persons; and the endowment was adequate to the establishment, for the revenues at the dissolution amounted to 595l. 12s. 11d. Among the various donations to this college, the following taken from the Parliamentary rolls of the year 1450, will not be found unworthy the attention of the curious. The king (Henry the seventh) grants to the dean and Canons of the church collegiate of our lady at Leicester, "a tunne of wynne to be taken by the chief botteller of England in our port of Kingston upon Hull," and it is added "they never had no wynne granted to them by us nor our progenitors afore this time to sing with, nor otherwise."

When it is considered that the castle just surveyed occupies a station most pleasant as well as commanding; that from the buildings of the Newark it derived all the splendor which the arts and taste of the times could bestow, and that its adjoining a large, well fortified, and not ill built town was calculated to contribute most essentially to the convenience of its possessors, it will appear to have been one of the most agreeable residences in the kingdom for such powerful noblemen as were the dukes of Lancaster; nor will the visitor be surprised to find that it was occasionally used as a seat by the kings, its owners.

But of all the periods of its history that will surely appear most interesting, in which Henry de Gresmond, first earl of Derby, and on the death of his father, earl and then duke of Lancaster, already renowned thro' Europe for his atchievements in arms, aud crowned with laurels from the fields of Guienne, where he taught the English how to conquer at Crecy and Agincourt, returned to reside at Leicester, and to add to the distinction of wise and brave the still more valuable title of _good_, which he was about to earn by the practice of almost every virtue at this place. Then indeed was Leicester castle the scene of true splendor and magnificence, for it was the scene of bounty influenced by benevolence and guided by religion, of taste supported by expense yet directed by judgment and regulated by prudence, and of elegance such as the most accomplished knight of that most perfect age of chivalry might be expected to display. This nobleman died of a pestilential disorder at the castle, in the year 1361, greatly lamented by the inhabitants of Leicester. The order of his funeral appointed by himself, and curiously recorded by our local historians, is a pleasing proof of his good sense and piety; the body being taken in a hearse from St. Mary's near the castle, to his collegiate church as he directed, "without the pomp of armed men, horses covered, or other vanities"--and the rank of the deceased alone denoted by the magnitude of five tapers, each weighing one hundred pounds, and fifty torches.

The buildings of the Newark continued nearly in the state already described till the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, when Robert Boone the last dean, terrified by the power of the tyrant Henry, and alarmed by the unjustifiable rigours of the king's commissioners, surrendered his house and received with the rest of his brethren, trifling pensions for life, from this period the buildings of the college being unsupported by any fund sunk into decay, or were applied to purposes widely different from the intention of the founders. The church, cloysters, and gate-way are entirely removed, with the exception of two arches of the vault under the former, which are still to be seen firm and strong in a cellar of the house, now a boarding school.

The old hospital itself seems also to have been infected with the contagion of ruin, for tho' spared by the rapacious hand of Henry, the number of poor in the house 64 men and 36 women, are reduced from their original allowance of seven pence weekly, to the now scanty stipend of two shillings, which arises from the rents of lands and tenements in Leicester, and its vicinity. The house has been reduced to its present form by contracting the dimensions of the old one; for that standing in need of considerable repairs, his present Majesty, to whom, as heir to the dutchy of Lancaster, the expensive privilege of repairing it belongs, gave the produce of the sale of an estate at Thurnby in this neighbourhood, which had escheated to the crown, for that purpose.

At the east end is a small chapel in which prayers are read twice a day, and where some mutilated monumental figures, probably of the Huntingdon family, are still to be seen.

Nothing farther remains to be noticed concerning this interesting part of the town, except that the south gateway was beaten down by the king's forces at the storming of the place in the spring of the year 1645, when they left only a part of the jamb on the eastern side standing. One of the prebendal houses on the west side of the antient quadrangle of the college has, within these few years, been purchased for the vicarage house of St. Mary's parish. Opposite the old hospital a house has been lately erected as an Asylum for the reception and education of poor female children.

From the Newark, in a lane opposite to which called Mill-Stone lane, is a Meeting-House of the Methodists, we proceed along South gate or

HORSEPOOL-STREET,

At the end of this street, situated on a gentle eminence affording the desirable advantages of a dry soil and open air, we perceive one of those edifices which a country more than nominally christian must ever be careful to erect, a house of refuge for sick poverty. The Infirmary, which owes the origin of its institution to W. Watts, M. D. was built in 1771, nearly on the scite of the antient chapel of St. Sepulchre, and is a plain neat building with two wings, fronted by a garden, the entrance to which is ornamented with a very handsome iron gate the gift of the late truly benevolent Shuckbrugh Ashby, Esq. of Quenby. The house is built upon a plan which for its convenience and utility received the approbation of the great Howard, whose experience and observation qualified him for a competent judge. It is calculated to admit, exclusive of the fever ward, 54 patients, without restriction to county or nation. Its funds, notwithstanding the exemplary liberality it has excited, are, owing to the pressure of the times, scarcely adequate to its support. Adjoining the Infirmary is an Asylum for the reception of indigent Lunatics.

At the distance of a quarter of a mile from the Infirmary, are some remains of a Roman labour, called the _Raw Dikes_, these banks of earth four yards in height, running parralel to each other in nearly a right line to the extent of 639 yards, the space between them 13 yards, were some years ago levelled to the ground except the the length of about 150 yards at the end farthest from the town. It was a generally received opinion that they were the fortifications of a Roman camp, till the supposition of their having been a _cursus_ or race course, was started by Dr. Stukely. If it is to be admitted that they formed an area for horse races, of which the Romans are known to have been extravagantly fond, we may imagine that the sport here practiced consisted in horses running at liberty without riders between the banks; traces of such a race run in an enclosed space may be found in the _Corso dei Barberi_, now practiced in the streets of Florence; {125} the Italians having in many instances preserved the original customs of the Romans. But the question must still hang in a balance whether the Raw Dykes were the scene of Roman games, or

_The massy mound, the rampart once_
_Of iron war in antient barbarous times_.

From the Infirmary, if the visitor wishes to close his walk, he may enter the town by the Hotel; if he feel inclined to extend it, he will find himself recompensed by the pleasure his eye may receive from a lengthened stroll up the public promenade, called the _New Walk_. This walk three quarters of a mile long, and twenty feet wide, was made by public subscription in 1785; the ground the gift of the corporation.

Following the ascent of the walk, we gain on the left a pleasing peep up a vale watered by the Soar, where the smooth green of the meadows is contrasted and broken by woody lines and formed into a picture by the church and village of Aylestone, and the distant tufted eminances decorated by the tower of Narborough. A little imagination might give the scene a trait of the picturesque, by placing among the meadows near Aylestone, the white tents and streaming banners of king Charles' camp, there pitched a few days before his attack on the garrison of Leicester; or it might advance the royal army a little nearer to its station in St. Mary's field, from whence the batteries against the town were first opened. Still continuing to ascend, the walk affords along its curving line many stations from which the town with its churches appears in several pleasing points of view.

Returning by the London toll-gate if the traveller wishes to obtain a full view of a fine prospect, he will turn aside from the road, and mount the steps of one of the neighbouring mills. From such a station the clustered buildings of the town extend before the eye in full unbroken sweep; beyond it the grounds near Beaumont Leys varied in their tints by tufted hedge-rows, and streaky cultivated fields, blend into the grey softness overspreading those beautiful slopes of hill into which the eminences of Charnwood forest, Brown-rig, Hunter's hill, Bradgate park, Bardon and Markfield knoll, rise and fall. These hills, running from hence, in a northern direction compose the first part of the chain or ridge, that, from the easy irregularity and elegant line it here displays rises at length into the more grand and picturesque hills that form the peak of Derbyshire. The abbey and the adjacent villages pleasingly vary the scene on the right, from whence it melts away into the blue distance of the neighbourhood of Melton, the north-east part of the county.

As we descend along the London road, watching the hills more and more hid by the town, the road bends into a curve, and here takes the name of Granby Street; many ranges of buildings having been here erected within the last fifteen years. Turning to the left, we again arrive at the town by the entrance into _Hotel Street_.

That ingenuity of improvement not only in the conveniences, but the recreations of life, which has lately advanced so rapidly as well in the provincial towns as in the capital, led the inhabitants of Leicester into a plan for the erection of new edifices appropriated to the purposes of public amusement. The considerable buildings, which in this place arrest the stranger's eye were accordingly erected by J. Johnson, Esq. architect, on subscription shares.

The front of the

HOTEL,

which name it bears, having been originally designed for that purpose, may from the grandeur of its windows, its statues, bassi relievi, and other decorations, be justly considered as the first modern architectural ornament of the town. Here a room, whose spacious dimensions, (being seventy-five feet by thirty-three,) and elegant decorations, adapt it in a distinguished manner for scenes of numerous and polished society, is appropriated to the use of the public balls. Its coved ceiling is enriched with three circular paintings of Aurora, Urania, and Night, from the pencil of Reinagle, who has also graced the walls with paintings of dancing nymphs. Beside the eight beautiful lustres, branches of lights are held by four statues from the designs of Bacon.

Uniting under the same roof, every convenience for the gratification of taste, and the amusement of the mind, a coffee room handsomely furnished and supplied with all the London papers, affords the gentlemen of the town and country as well as the stranger, to whom its door is open, an agreeable and commodious resort, while on the opposite side a spacious bookseller's shop furnishes the literary enquirer with a series of all the new publications.