Welcome  FAQs
Links  News

United Kingdom

Quaint, peculiar, funny: the United Kingdom… our "Wahlheimat".

We actually like it here: the weather (and the food) are not quite as bad as the natives (and the French) make you believe.

Full map of all UK pages

Other Things

Translate & Share

Path: Blog > Kenilworth Castle: fit for a Queen
Tags: UK  England  Warwickshire  EnglishHeritage  2022

Kenilworth Castle: fit for a Queen

 

(vero;2022-July-15)

You can also check our photo gallery dedicated to Kenilworth Castle.

Kenilworth Castle, south of Coventry and near Warwick is a castle steeped in history. It is mainly the creation of three men:Geoffrey de Clinton, John of Gaunt and Robert Dudley. View of the castle ruins. The building on the left half hidden by a tree is all that remains from the Elizabethan Palace Robert Dudley built for his Queen. View of the castle ruins. The building on the left half hidden by a tree is all that remains from the Elizabethan Palace Robert Dudley built for his Queen.

Only Leicester House survived the dismantling of the castle in the mid 17th century. This fireplace, now in Leicester House, was originally in the private apartments of Elizabeth I. Only Leicester House survived the dismantling of the castle in the mid 17th century. This fireplace, now in Leicester House, was originally in the private apartments of Elizabeth I.This is where it gets interesting: you probably know that Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, never married, but Dudley was her protégé, her favourite, and it seems that she was in love with him. She would have married him but the diplomacy of the time wanted a royal and foreign husband for the Queen so she preferred not to. Robert or no one. On his side, Robert was much enamoured with Elizabeth but was a married man. He proposed to her several times after his wife's death but he was always refused.

Robert made a point of transforming Kenilworth into a castle worthy of his Queen. The court visited Kenilworth four times: in 1565, 1568, 1572 and finally 1575. Dudley went to great lengths to welcome her: he built a new princely building next to the old ones with private apartments furnished with great luxury just for her. He also created a pleasure garden just to please her, organised parties and magnificent tournaments just to amuse her. The festivities for her last visit in 1575 were particularly magnificent and are said to have inspired Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; The pleasure garden created by Robert Dudley to please Elizabeth I. The pleasure garden created by Robert Dudley to please Elizabeth I.the Queen stayed three weeks, which was quite unheard of. This was also the last time Robert proposed to her. But all his efforts had been in vain: he was refused yet again. They remained friends nevertheless. Click here to read about Elizabeth and Robert's story.

Then came the turbulent times of the English Civil War: Kenilworth was taken by the Parliamentarian army in the opening month of the Civil War (August 1642) but the castle saw no substantial action. In 1649, anxious to avoid the cost of maintaining a garrison to protect it from a Royalist attack, the new regime ordered that Kenilworth be made indefensible so the north wall of the keep was destroyed and the outer curtain wall breached. A certain Colonel Hawkesworth bought the castle after the Civil War on behalf of a group of Parliamentary soldiers: he split the estate among his comrades and started dismantling the castle in the years that followed. The mere was drained, trees were felled, and interiors stripped out and sold. Only Leicester House was spared and became a private house. Kenilworth never recovered and fell into ruin.

Later, the ruins became famous and attracted Victorian visitors thanks in part to Walter Scott's 1821 novel Kenilworth, which romanticised the story of Robert Dudley, his wife Amy Robsart, and Elizabeth I.

Don't forget to check our photo gallery of Kenilworth Castle.

[Go to Top]

Want to read more? Go back to Petworth House: grand palatial house turned museum or go up to Blog


$ updated from: Blog.htxt Fri 16 Aug 2024 15:40:15 trvl2 — Copyright © 2024 Vero and Thomas Lauer unless otherwise stated | All rights reserved $