Leeds Castle [antikvár]

FOREWORDby sir arthur bryant chRaised on an island on the site of a Kentish thane's stronghold, Leeds Castle, oldest and most romantic of England's 'stately homes', was first built in stone by a Norman baron in the reign of William the Conqueror's son, Henry I, nearly nine hundred years ago. A century and a half later, on the accession of Edward I - the King whose adage that what concerns all should be approved by all, makes him, more than any other of our sovereigns, the real founder of our Parliament-this formidable baronial fortress, as it then was, came into the possession of the Crown. For the next three centuries a royal palace and the 'lady's castle' of six of England's medieval queens, it later passed, through royal grant and subsequent purchases, into the hands of three famous English families - the St Legers, the Culpepers and the Fairfaxes - until, in our own century, it was bought from its then owners, the Wykeham-Martins, by Lady BailUe - daughter, by his American Whitney wife, of my old friend the late Almeric Paget, Lord Queenborough, whose grandfather commanded the British cavalry at Waterloo. It was Olive Baillie's lifelong love for, and devoted restoration of, this ancient and beautiful castle with its lovely park and gardens, together with her vision and generosity which, after a lapse of four centuries, brought about its re-dedication to the service of the nation.The arms shown at the top of the page are those of Edward land Eleanor of Castile, the first of England's queens to hold Leeds Castle.It is strange how often the history of this romantic castle has impinged on the wider history of both England and America. The earliest of the Queens whose loved home it was, was the Spanish princess Eleanor of Castile, who saved the life of her crusading husband after he was struck down by an assassin's poisoned dagger at Acre. Edward's love for this noble, stately woman, with her long, dark, Spanish tresses and calm Gothic featru-es, proved the guiding star of his life, the happiest part of which was spent with her at Leeds Castle. 'My harp is turned to mourning,' he wrote after she died, 'in life I loved her dearly, nor can 1 cease to love her in death.' At every place where her bier rested on its journey to Westminster, he raised a cross in her memory, the name of the last of which, the chere reine (or Charing) cross, has survived in that of the London thoroughfare where Dr Johnson maintained that the full tide of human existence was best to be encountered.Another royal romance associated with Leeds Castle was that of