Leicester in 100 Dates E-Book

Natasha Sheldon

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 117

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Experience 100 key dates that shaped Leicester's history, highlighted its people's genius (or stupidity) and embraced the unexpected. Featuring an amazing mix of social, criminal and sporting events, this book reveals a past that will fascinate, delight and even shock both residents and visitors of the city. 16 February 1847 - The Whipping Toms, a group of men with license to whip any person remaining at the Shrove Tuesday Fair after 2 p.m., made one final stand before the tradition was abolished. 19 November 1940 - A total of 150 bombs fell on the city as part of what came to be known as the 'Leicester Blitz', in which 108 people were killed and 284 injured. 4 February 2013 - Leicester University confirmed that the skeleton found under a car park in the city in 2012 was that of King Richard III.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Leicester in 100 Dates

1094 22 February

1173 28 July

1199 26 December

1255 22 October

1300 26 December

1389 2 November

1399 3 February

1414 30 April

1426 18 February

1462 5 May

1485 22 August

1489 21 September

1519 16 May

1530 29 November

1538 28 August

1554 9 March

1556 21 April

1577 10 May

1589 17 February

1593 4 November

1603 1 May

1605 3 February

1645 31st May

1717 4 August

1766 30 September

1771 11 September

1773 15 March

1774 28 March

1778 17 May

1785 29 April

1787 1 December

1793 17 April

1794 27 October

1817 17 April

1832 17 July

1832 11 August

1836 29 January

1836 10 February

1841 5 July

1842 19 August

1847 16 February

1849 19 June

1853 3 March

1853 21 December

1856 25 July

1861 7 January

1868 18 July

1870 25 March

1876 7 August

1877 23 October

1878 22 April

1882 29 May

1885 23 March

1886 22 February

1887 5 January

1889 8 March

1891 31 August

1892 16 September

1896 9 November

1900 7 February

1902 2 May

1904 12 May

1904 18 May

1905 4 June

1907 11 April

1912 15 April

1916 13 April

1916 22 April

1917 28 January

1918 11 November

1919 14 June

1919 29 June

1920 12 June

1921 4 October

1925 4 July

1926 2 December

1929 26 February

1932 5 April

1935 13 July

1936 9 March

1939 9 June

1940 19 November

1946 12 March

1953 9 May

1961 5 April

1967 8 November

1972 29 September

1981 10 July

1981 9 October

1984 10 September

1985 2 August

1987 11 June

1997 1 April

1997 28 July

2001 30 June

2008 24 August

2009 25 July

2011 5 May

2012 8 March

2013 4 February

Bibliography

Copyright

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express her gratitude to the the staff at Leicester Record Office.

And to Neil, for the gift of time.

Introduction

You may not think it, but Leicester is an ancient city. One of the oldest in Britain, in fact.

Stretching back beyond the housing estates, shopping complexes, sports stadiums, offices and roads is a long history, dating to the Romans and beyond. Here you will find the Ratae Corieltauvorum, ‘the walled place of the Coritani’, the settlement of the local Celtic tribe whose lands around the River Soar became a substantial Roman municipal city, some of which remains today. Then comes the Leicester of the Saxons, Danes and Vikings, who alternately built and destroyed the town and left their mark on many of the modern street names. The Leicester of the Middle Ages was a thriving market town, whose guilds constructed its finest remaining medieval building, the guildhall, and whose castle played host to kings and parliaments – and saw its fair share of destruction.

Evidence of the wealth brought to the town by the Industrial Revolution is all around, in the remains of hosiery factories and the grand civic buildings of the Victorian period. But Leicester was also a town of innovators: radicals and reformers who may not have made their mark physically on the fabric of the town, but did help shape it in other, more subtle ways.

Each of these different phases of Leicester’s life have acted as building blocks, slowly constructing the modern, multicultural city we know today. Trying to find 100 days to represent the historical building project that is Leicester is a difficult task, not least because there are so many to choose from!

It is made somewhat easier by the fact that some events simply cannot be included, because they cannot be dated. So it is not possible to include interesting and important events such as the construction of the Roman forum, the recapture of Leicester from the Danes by Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, or Simon de Montfort’s expulsion of the Jews from his half of the honour of Leicester (only for his aunt to give them sanctuary on her share of the honour) because there are no exact dates for these events.

But what can be included are 100 of the datable events from Leicester’s history that will hopefully show how the past and the present of this fascinating town connect. Each ‘brick’ is included not only to describe the great moments of Leicester’s life and its role in history, but also the smaller events that give a feeling for the character of the town and its people. They will show not only how certain things have evolved over time helping with an understanding of modern Leicester but also how, in terms of human experience, so much ultimately stays the same.

1094

22 February

After the Battle of Hastings, the manor of Leicester, along with 100 others – sixty-five of them in Leicestershire – were awarded to Hugh de Grandmesnil, a close companion and major supporter of William the Conqueror. De Grandmesnil became Leicester’s earl and its sheriff and settled down to make improvements to his new town.

In 1080, he repaired Leicester Castle and its adjoining church of St Mary de Castro. The improved castle defences came in particularly useful when, after King William’s death, de Grandmesnil came under attack because of his support for Duke Robert against the new king, William Rufus.

But de Grandmesnil survived and on this day in 1094, Leicester’s first Norman earl died at Leicester Castle. Yet, despite having lived out so much of his life in England, the earl’s heart belonged to Normandy and that was precisely where he wanted his earthly remains to lie. On his death, his body was preserved in salt and sewn up in an ox hide. It was then sent back to Normandy, where it was buried on the south side of the chapter house of St Evroul. His wife had already made the journey at her death and so de Grandmesnil was buried at her side.

1173

28 July

Today, Leicester was ‘dismantled to wear the badge of its owner’s disobedience’.

Robert Blanchemains, Earl of Leicester, was a chief supporter of Queen Eleanor and her children in their rebellion against King Henry II. Leicester became a ‘chief refuge for the disaffected’, so, on 4 July, the king’s forces besieged the town in an attempt to break the earl’s power.

Robert was captured at Bury St Edmunds and taken prisoner. But still Leicester held out. According to contemporary chronicler Matthew Paris, the Saxon townspeople were ‘obliged’ to fight by the earl’s Norman soldiers, rather than from any loyalty to their lord. Either way, it did them little good. When the King’s High Justiciary, Richard de Lucy, finally breached Leicester’s walls, the earl’s soldiers retreated to the castle to make a last stand, leaving the people of Leicester to fight for their survival.

Leicester burned as the king’s men ‘fired’ the town. What they did not burn was destroyed by ‘force of men and engines’. Finally, when the town walls were destroyed, the people surrendered. They bought their lives with £300 worth of silver, but many were also exiled from Leicester as punishment for their resistance. Some parishes were so conclusively destroyed that orchards, rather than houses, covered the land for many years to come.

1199

26 December

The Portmanmoot was the town council of Leicester. Pre-Norman in origin, it was composed of twenty-four prominent townsmen, or jurats, presided over by the alderman (a precursor of the mayor). The Portmanmoot punished crime, controlled trade and commerce and effectively administered the town.

But its powers were limited by its obligations to its lord and the king – until today, for King John issued a royal charter, giving the Portmanmoot unprecedented powers and freedoms to trade and deal in land. The charter granted ‘to the burgesses of the town of Leicester that they may go and come freely and without hindrance and may trade through all our land with all things and with their merchandise’ and that ‘all purchases and sales of lands of the town of Leicester which are and which shall be made reasonably in the portmanmoot of the town shall remain firm and stable’.

No other town in England received such freedoms until the signing of Magna Carta. But Leicester’s privileges were given for a reason and came with a price. For while the king was giving up his right to a share in any deals the Portmanmoot might make, it had to pay him a ‘fee farm’ or yearly ‘rent’ for the freehold of the town, therefore guaranteeing John much-needed income for his military endeavours.

1255

22 October

Today a law was passed which revolutionised the method of inheritance in Leicester. Up until this point, the town had practiced ultimogeniture, or the ‘Borough English’ method of inheritance. This meant that the youngest son or daughter inherited, rather than the eldest as in the growing Norman practice of primogeniture.

Ultimogeniture was also the method of inheritance commonly practised amongst unfree peasants and villeins. The elder children would usually leave home to make their own way in the world, leaving younger siblings to care for their elderly parents, and so inherit from them.

The pride of the Burgesses of Leicester no doubt suffered from the indignity of being obliged to pass on their property like peasants, while their neighbours in Nottingham inherited according to the French system of primogeniture. But ultimogeniture was also damaging. In practice, it meant splitting inheritances between all offspring, not just the youngest, impoverishing estates and so weakening businesses in Leicester.

So the burgesses petitioned their earl, Simon de Montfort, for a change in the law and on this day he was able to oblige. He secured a royal sanction to allow the eldest son to inherit ‘for the improvement of the state of the town which on account of the feebleness and youthfulness of the heirs for a long time past has almost fallen into ruin and decay’.

1300

26 December

An extract from the borough records relates an incident from this night in 1300 that illustrates the dangerous state of the streets of medieval Leicester after dark.

On this, St Stephen’s Day, a William of Loughborough was out walking late along a lane near St Martin’s church. It was some hours after curfew, so William should have been at home. But he was not the only one who was on the streets when he should not have been. While walking near the church, he encountered a man named Adam, a servant of a Lady Pitchford, who was accompanied by Richard Smith of Leicester.

Whether the three already knew each other and what exactly transpired between them is not recorded. But Adam and Richard Smith were armed and as a result of a quarrel, fuelled by Christmas drink or perhaps an attempt at robbery, Adam shot William of Loughborough through the back with a barbed arrow.

Adam immediately fled the scene in a panic, while for some inexplicable reason, a much cooler-headed Richard Smith lingered long enough to slice off the fingers of the still-living William’s left hand.

William lived through his ordeal ‘until the third hour’, long enough to make it home to his wife, tell his tale and receive the last rites.

1389

2 November

In the fourteenth century, the heretical Lollards were a growing threat to the authority of the Church. Looking to the scriptures rather than priests for guidance, they denied the Eucharist was the body of Christ and dismissed the validity of the images of the saints and church relics. Most damning of all, they undermined the authority of the clergy by insisting that lay people could also preach and teach.

The problem was of sufficient cause for concern for the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Courteney, to summon an ecclesiastic court at Leicester Abbey on 1 November 1389. A number of Leicester citizens – Roger Dexter, Nicholas Taylor, Richard Wagstaff, Michael Scrivener, William Smith, John Henry, William Parchmener and Roger Goldsmith – were charged with Lollardy. They did not appear and so were found guilty and excommunicated in their absence.

The condemned Lollards went into hiding in Leicester, so measures had to be taken to ensure the town gave them up for exile or repentance. So on this day, the archbishop laid the whole town under an interdict: until the fugitives were found, the people of Leicester were denied Christian offices. No church services could be held in the town and the people could not be attended to by a priest – denying them crucial sacraments such as the last rites and funerals.

1399

3 February

Today, John of Gaunt, Earl of Leicester and Duke of Lancaster, died at Leicester Castle, reputedly his favourite of the thirty residences in his duchy.

The duchy was so vast that it was virtually an independent state within England. This made John of Gaunt – a son of Edward III, uncle to the then king, Richard II, and the richest nobleman in England – a force to be reckoned with.

Many attribute the ‘time-honoured Lancastrian’s’ death at just 58 to grief over the exile of his son, Henry Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke had quarrelled with Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, who had accused him of treasonous remarks. The king had exiled Henry but supposedly remained on friendly terms with his uncle. He reputedly visited the duke during his illness bearing a bundle of documents and, although they conversed amicably, after reading the papers John took a turn for the worse and died soon afterwards. Others, however, state that the three-times married notorious womaniser was killed by a venereal disease.

But whatever the cause of John’s death, it became the ultimate trigger in the deposition of one king and the ascension of another. On his uncle’s death, Richard deprived his errant cousin of his inheritance, causing Bolingbroke to invade England, overthrow Richard and proclaim himself Henry IV.

1414

30 April