Castle of Leeds

The castle of Leeds is an English castle.

History

There is more than thousand years, the Saxons called it Esledes and with time, this name was transformed into " Leeds ". Did the manor of Leeds belong already to the royal family saxonne at the time of the reign of Ethelbert IV (856? -860). In the years which preceded the Conquest, the king Edouard the Confessor yielded the manor to the powerful house of Godwin.

In 1090, Guillaume II Rufus yielded the manor to a cousin, Hamo de Crèvecœur which had gone there with his/her father. In 1119 Robert de Crèvecœur began the construction of the first stone castle. The Keep or principal fortification, was built on the site of current the Gloriette. It is possible that without the existence of the strengthened mill, located close to the Len river, the castle had never been built where it is, Though it is difficult to date it with precision, it is certain that the mill is former to the Domesday Book (kind of inventory drawn up to index the English grounds) 1086.

The domestic buildings were located inside the enclosing wall on the largest island, which was connected to the keep by a Pont-levis overhanging a ditch filled with water. After the battle of Evesham in 1265, the family fell into the decline and Sir Robert de Crèvecœur was constrained to yield the castle to Sir Roger de Leyburn. The son of this last, Guillaume, 1st Lord Leyburn, did itself transfer of the castle with Edouard I {{er}} and his queen, Éléonore de Castille in 1278.

Thus the long royal possession of the castle of Leeds started. Edouard Ier and his queen, Éléonore, girl of holy Ferdinand III, king of Castille, liked Leeds and came there to rest and drive out. The Éléonore queen introduced certain refinements of her southernmost fatherland, very influenced by the Moors, like the carpets on the floors and with the walls as well as the use of glass for the windows. At the time medieval, the marriage almost exclusively represented for the kings a means of increasing or of safeguarding their power. It was in the aim of protection the southern border of its French possessions in Gascogne that Edouard married Éléonore.

The marriage had been concluded for reasons of State, but like his/her parents, Henri III and Éléonore of Provence, king Edouard and his Éléonore queen ended up liking.

Edouard Ier made make important modifications to the castle and part of what one can see today comes from the work completed by the engineers from the king. Tie left the site, they improved the dams which surrounded the ditch S. Protégé by a Barbacane of a not very common design connected to the strengthened mill and the body from guard, dam was built to retain water. A retaining wall, of approximately 9 meters in height was set up, with peak in water, the largest island and was reinforced by intervals by semicircular turrets which in the beginning were equipped with upper floors with Meurtrière S and sheltered reserves. The domestic buildings occupied most of the principal island, connected by a drawbridge to the keep, called Gloriette (a Spanish term here indicating a house with the intersection of a Moorish garden; there still, under the influence of Éléonore de Castille).

The Éléonore queen died in 1290 and in 1293, the king made build a small vault with the castle with the memory of its beloved queen. The small vault was devoted and increased by the successive monarchs until his dissolution at the time of the Réforme in 1544.

In 1299, in order to improve the relations with the France, Edouard I {{er}} married Marguerite, sister of Philippe III the Bold one, king de France, and they passed their honeymoon to the castle of Leeds. The king yielded Leeds to his queen, thus inaugurating the tradition according to which the castle became a Douaire Queens of England, castle that they kept during their widowhood.

The things less better occurred for Edouard II and his queen, Isabelle, girl of Philippe IV the Beautiful one, king de France. Neglecting to inform his wife of it, it yielded the castle to Bartholomew, 1st Lord Badlesmere, Lord Régisseur of the House. One night, in 1321, the Queen arrived at the castle to seek rest and shelter there; one did not let it enter and it was even attacked by archers who tackled the royal group, killing several of its members. Dissatisfied with this reception, the King besieged the castle, captured Badlesmere and made it decapitate. Six years later, Edouard was deposited and assassinated, but the Isabelle Queen preserved the castle until her death in 1358. Where the two kings Edouard precedents had stopped, the following king, Edouard III, continued their work; he made increase the park and improve the castle.

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