[Illustration: LEICESTER ABBEY.]
The city of Leicester, which is now chiefly noted for the manufacture of
hosiery, was founded by the Britons, and was subsequently the Roman city
of Ratae. Many Roman remains still exist here, notably the ancient Jewry
wall, which is seventy-five feet long and five feet high, and which
formed part of the town-wall. Many old houses are found in Leicester,
and just north of the city are the ruins of Leicester Abbey, This noted
religious house was founded in the twelfth century, and stood on a
meadow watered by the river Soar. It was richly endowed, and was
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but its chief fame comes from its being
the last residence of Cardinal Wolsey. This great man, once the primate
of England, has had his downfall pathetically described by Shakespeare.
The king summoned him to London to stand trial for treason, and on his
way Wolsey became so ill that he was obliged to rest at Leicester, where
he was met at the abbey-gate by the abbot and entire convent. Aware of
his approaching dissolution, the fallen cardinal said, "Father abbot, I
have come hither to lay my bones among you." The next day he died, and
to the surrounding monks, as the last sacrament was administered, he
said, "If I had served God as diligently as I have done the king, He
would not have given me over in my gray hairs." The remains were
interred by torchlight before daybreak on St. Andrew's Day, 1530, and to
show the vanity of all things earthly tradition says that after the
destruction of the abbey the stone coffin in which they were buried was
used as a horse-trough for a neighboring inn. Nothing remains of the
abbey as Wolsey saw it excepting the gate in the east wall through which
he entered. The present ruins are fragments of a house built afterwards.
The foundations that can still be traced show that it was a grand old
building. The gardens and park now raise vegetables for the Leicester
market.
[Illustration: GATEWAY, NEWGATE STREET, LEICESTER.]
Leicester Castle still exists only in a portion of the great hall, but
it has been enlarged and modernized, and is now used for the county
offices. The castle was built after the Norman Conquest to keep the
townspeople in check. It was afterwards a stronghold of Simon de
Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and it then became part of the Duchy of
Lancaster. The Dukes of Lancaster restored it, and lived there
frequently in great pomp, and they also built the adjoining Hospital of
the Newarke and a singular earthwork alongside, called the Mount.
Several parliaments were held here, but after the time of Edward IV. the
castle fell into decay. There are now few remains of the original
castle, excepting part of the great hall and the Mount or earthwork of
the keep, which is about thirty feet high and one hundred feet in
diameter upon its flat, circular top. Not far from Leicester was fought
the last great battle of the "Wars of the Roses," Bosworth Field, upon
Redmoor Plain, about two miles from the village now known as Market
Bosworth. It was a moor at the time of the battle in 1485, overgrown
with thistles and scutch-grass. Shakespeare has been the most popular
historian of this battle, and the well where Richard slaked his thirst
is still pointed out, with other localities of the scenes of the famous
contest that decided the kingship of England, Richard III. giving place
to Richmond, who became Henry VII.