Leeds: Castle of Queens

When Leeds Castle came on the market in 1924, William Randolph Hearst was ready to buy it — that is, until he saw it. On paper it seemed to be the perfect opulent party pad. Located just east of London in Kent's Medway Valley, it was a real royal castle, eight centuries old, yet fully habitable and ready for renovation. We can only imagine Hearst's disappointment when he finally saw it (and promptly nixed the deal). Where are the looming walls? The soaring battlements? The holes for pouring boiling oil on attacking soldiers? The dramatic keep, with a dungeon full of torture instruments? Sure, it had a moat (and a darn good one) but . . . what happened to the rest of the castle?

Fortunately for the rest of us, Hearst gave it a pass, leaving it to a much more appreciative and tasteful buyer: wealthy socialite Olive Wilson Filmer, later known as Lady Baillie. The daughter of an English lord and an American oil heiress, Lady Baillie moved gracefully through the social elite that only old money and aristocratic ties could penetrate. When she visited Leeds Castle in 1926 she could see what Hearst could not — that, with its 500 acres of parkland and 5000 acres of surrounding farms, it was one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Leeds enters history as a royal estate of the Saxon kings, at least as early as 850 AD. The Saxon monarchy didn't go much for castles, but they did fortify their large stone mill on the River Len. In all likelihood, this mill sat on a sharp meander curve of the little river, with its outflow forming a cutoff on the narrow meander neck; this formed a backwater lake in the old meander channel, with two islands in the middle. And this is what you see today. The two islands are now wholly taken up by the castle, while the meander lake forms the wide, lovely moat that surrounds it. As for that Saxon mill, its ruins still guard the stone bridge crossing over to the castle.

In 1119 one of the great Norman noble families gained the estate from the king and began constructing the modern castle. They used the fortified mill as an entrance defense. From there a drawbridge and gatehouse led to the large island, surrounded by curtain walls and functioning as the castle's bailey, a large open area dedicated to domestic and garrison functions. The small island, protected by wide stretches of water and reachable only by a bridge from the bailey, they converted into their keep — a tower where the noble family kept its private quarters and entertained its noble retainers. Much of Leeds sophisticated beauty stems from this very practical arrangement, perfected by 1290.

In particular, the three story keep, now known as the "Gloriette", adds much to the structure's charm and grace. Most medieval keeps are tall, narrow, massive towers that sit isolated in the middle of the bailey as a final line of defense. In contrast, Leeds' keep is low, wide, and beautifully proportioned. It looks like a single structure, built of golden limestone in a D-shape, taking up the entire small island, linked to the main island by an enclosed bridge sitting on narrow arches. In fact it is a range of structures surrounding a small inner courtyard, the Fountain Court — in medieval times the keep's water supply, and now an enchanting little space.

In truth, Leeds' was always more of a fortified manor than a military structure, and its keep built for comfort and beauty rather than for withstanding sieges. This is what made it so attractive to the kings of England — and, most especially, their queens. In 1278 King Edward I gained control of the Leeds castle and estate, and promptly made it a country retreat for himself and his beloved queen, Eleanor of Castile. While Edward improved the moat and strengthened the defenses (the thirty-foot walls that still rise from the water are his), Eleanor converted the castle keep into the luxurious Gloriette, a Moorish term she introduced from her native Spain. Edward survived Eleanor and remarried; Leeds then became the principal residence of his new queen, Margaret, remaining so throughout her widowhood. This became the traditional pattern for the English royal family for the next three centuries.

In fact, Leeds' only serious military action came from this arrangement. Edward II's queen, Isabella, tried to enter Leeds Castle only to find it in possession of one Lord Badlesmere, to whom the king had given it without bothering to inform Isabella. Words were spoken and tempers rose; Badlesmere's archers fired on the queen's party, killing several of its members. Legal grant or no, the enraged king besieged the castle, quickly took it over, and beheaded Badlesmere. Queen Isabella regained the castle and held it till her death.

Leeds Castle continued as the home of the queens of England until the reign of Henry VIII. Henry lavishly rebuilt Leeds as a grand palace for his first queen, Catherine of Aragon. However, when that marriage turned ill, Henry retained possession of Leeds and used it as a stopover point in his many trips between London and the continent. When Henry was succeeded by his young son Edward VI, Edward's Protectors gave it away to one of Henry's ministers. Leeds left the possession of the queens of England forever.

Of all the medieval queens to call Leeds home, the castle's modern curators have singled out one special woman to profile — Queen Catherine de Valois, who married Henry V in 1420 and took possession of the castle in 1422. There are good and practical reasons for this; the curators possess original records detailing the uses of the Gloriette's rooms and their contents from 1414 and 1422, and this certainly makes a reconstruction easier. However, Catherine is interesting and important enough in her own right. At the time of Henry V's death she was just twenty-one, a beautiful French princess in a strange land. She had a scandalous affair with an obscure young Welshman named Owen Tudor, landing them both in jail for a time. Later they married, and their grandson, Henry VII, founded the Tudor dynasty.

Queen Catherine's rooms in the Gloriette are now carefully reconstructed to their 1422 appearance. The Queen's sumptuous bedchamber has walls covered in damask embroidered with the monogram HC tied in a lover's knot, symbolizing the hoped-for union of England and France in the marriage of Henry and Catherine. The monograms continue on the rich red bedcovers and draperies (the bed is queen-sized), and on a day-bed raised on a dias and topped by draperies shaped into a crown — an impressive place from which to receive visitors. Next door is luxury of a more practical kind, an accurate reconstruction of Queen Catherine's bath, hung with white linen; it emptied through a valve in the floor.

Leeds remained a private residence from the time of the Tudors to the time of the Windsors. Some owners kept it up better than others. By the 1920's it was not in the best of shape. One of William Randolph Hearst's agents put it eloquently, if not grammatically, "Needs expenditure large sum to make it habitable not a bath in place only lighting oil lamps servant quarters down dungeons." One presumes that the $875,000 that Lady Baillie paid for it went as much for the five thousand surrounding acres as this run-down old pile.

Lady Baillie spent the next fifty years whipping Leeds Castle into shape. She retained Paris' finest decorators of the era, Armand Albert Rateau and Stéphane Boudin, to reconstruct the interiors in a stunning 17th century French style. On the larger island, the main castle structure had been reconstructed by Henry VIII, then re-reconstructed in the high Jacobean style, then (in 1822) re-re-reconstructed back to Henry VIII's style — thus earning the title the "New Castle". This became an area for guests and for entertaining. The Gloriette, attached to the New Castle by an enclosed bridge, became a private sanctuary for Lady Baillie and her family. Her bedroom, carefully preserved and open to public view, retains its 1936 Régence decor by Boudin; its gilt-edged blue paneling was wire brushed, limed, glazed, and then finished with beeswax to give it that ancient look.

Not all of Lady Baillie's decorating was French in style, and some of the Gloriette's most impressively ancient-looking features date from the 1920's instead of the 1220's. In the Fountain Court, a lovely half-timbered wall looks so old that you wonder why Henry VIII hadn't replaced it — yet it was built new as part of Lady Baillie's improvements, softening the tall stone walls that loom over the court. Just as old-looking is a circular staircase, lined with roughly carved oak panels, anchored by a single massive oak trunk topped by an enigmatic laughing crusader, another addition by Lady Baillie, designed by Rateau.

More than any of the queens of Leeds' history, Lady Baillie's influence suffuses the castle. One example: Lady Baillie adored birds. Porcelain birds, carved birds, bird prints, bird paintings are found in nearly every room. In the 1950s she took a further step; she developed an aviary that today holds over a hundred species. Redesigned and expanded in 1988, Lady Baillie's aviary now hosts a successful breeding program aimed at reintroducing threatened species to their native environments.

Lady Baillie was more than a decorator or improver. She was an artist, and Leeds was her canvas. Surrounded by water and framed by lakes, the golden stone of Leeds Castle is merely the centerpiece of a gently gardened landscape. Glades of trees grow in harmonious combinations; flowers brighten edges, seemingly at random, throughout the season; ducks congregate in ponds, search the lawns for snails, and happily bother strolling visitors. But the single most impressive element may well be the black swans. Imported by Lady Baillie from Australia, they thrive and prosper in the moat, lakes, and ponds; they glare grumpily at gawkers, then casually strut and pose as if to say "I was going to do this anyway — I am definitely not showing off for you."

Lady Baillie has left Leeds Castle for all of us. Upon her death in 1974 she bequeathed her beloved castle to the Leeds Foundation to keep it preserved and accessible for all times. It is the Leeds Foundation that has researched and restored the Catherine de Valois rooms, expanded the size and mission of the aviary, and continued the growth and maturity of the castle gardens. It is the Leeds Foundation that has made the castle a venue for the performing arts as well as a site for such festivals as an annual hot air balloon gathering and the largest fireworks display in southeast England. And it is the Leeds Foundation that has established a small, world-class conference center (with 21 rooms) in the New Castle, that (among other accomplishments) has hosted the preliminary talks for the Camp David Accords. They have preserved intact the room where Cyrus Vance, Moshe Dayan, and Ibrahim Karmel sat down together — the United States, Israel, and Egypt at the same table for the first time. Then and now, Lady Baillie and her daughters look down approvingly from their portrait on the wall.