LORD LEYCESTER HOSPITAL, WARWICK

Roger de Newbury founded the Chapel of St James above the West Gate in 1126. The latter was called the Hanging Gate as the public gallows were immediately outside. The chapel was both for travellers and as a chantry for his wife who had died young. In 1386 the chapel was given to the Guild of St George which soon amalgamated with the Guild of Holy Trinity and the Guild of the Blessed Mary to form the United Guilds of Warwick. This body built the Guildhall, the Master’s House (refaced externally c1850) and the Chaplain’s Lodging around the Courtyard by 1420; Warwick the Kingmaker (1428-71) built the Great Hall. After Henry VIII had dissolved the monasteries, he turned on the charities. Thomas Oken, Mercer and Mayor of Warwick, was living in the Master’s House as Master of the United Guilds. He transferred ownership of the buildings to the Burgesses, and so avoided their sequestration. The Guildhall was used for meetings of the Burgesses, and Warwick School also used the buildings.

John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, was created Duke of Northumberland by Henry VIII, who wished him, as a Protestant, to guide his young successor Edward VI. But the latter died aged only 15 and Dudley, thinking wrongly that the country would not accept the Catholic Mary as monarch, proposed his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey. Dudley was executed in 1553 along with his son and Lady Jane. He had three other sons, including Robert (1532-85), already imprisoned in the Tower of London. Elizabeth, the future Queen, also lived in the Tower and, being virtually the same age, they became close friends – although Robert was already married. On Mary’s death Robert, having no title or land, went off to fight for Philip II of Spain. On his return Elizabeth created him Earl of Leicester, a KG, and gave him land including Kenilworth Castle; he also became Chancellor of Oxford University.

Soldiers returning from fighting, penniless and of no abode, were a social problem which Elizabeth expected her nobles to solve. Robert acquired the building from the Burgesses to be a Hospital for 12 such men in 1571. A hospital at that time meant a shelter of a refuge, and they were set up for the sick, the old, the poor and the mad (eg Bethlehem Hospital in London, known as Bedlam). The 12 Brothers were to come from Warwick, Leamington and Stratford-on-Avon; they were each issued with a black gown, a special hat and a silver badge (showing the bear and ragged staff with an Earl’s coronet). The Master was to be a priest, living on the premises. Robert Dudley died childless but he passed the Hereditary Patronage of the Hospital to his relation, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), soldier and poet, of Penshurst, Kent. The latter’s successor, Viscount De L’Isle, VC (1909-91), found a Trollopian situation with the Master living in some luxury whilst the Brethren were ill-provided and the building ruinous. In 1950 he dismissed the Master, since when the office has been held by retired military commanders. All have been Admirals or RN Captains; Col. Lesinski is the first from the army. The Master conducts a short service in St James’ Chapel for the Brethren at 9.30am each day, except Monday (when the hospital is closed). The Chapel has no electricity, relying on candles, and is very cold in winter.

The Hospital relies entirely on money from visitors, functions and film shoots. Shakespeare’s plays were performed in the Courtyard soon after each was written. The visitors’ book contains many famous names, eg Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde. In 2013 the BBC filmed a series of programmes fronted by David Dimbleby, which included the Hospital. By chance, when sorting through old papers, a photograph of his father, Richard, with two of the Brethren taken by the Warwickshire Advertiser was discovered a few days later. The BBC had made a TV programme in May 1952 at the hospital but it was no longer in the Corporation’s archives. The beautiful gardens are open from Easter to the end of September. They contain the Master’s Vase which is 2,000 years old and came from the banks of the river Nile at Luxor. It is framed by a Norman arch which was removed from the Chapel.