The castle and the Newarke continued to be used for
ceremonial purposes for several decades. This came to an end in the mid
fifteenth century with the outbreak of the dynastic conflict known as the Wars
of the Roses. For most of the period between 1461 and 1485 the throne was in
the possession of the House of York, who opposed the claim of the House of
Lancaster to the Crown. The Yorkists had no interest in either occupying or in
maintaining either the castle or the Newarke. By the time the Yorkist King,
Richard III, stayed in Leicester before the
Battle of Bosworth, in 1485, the royal apartments in the castle were no longer
habitable and Richard chose to stay at a local inn.
The castle still retained important functions. It still
contained one of the town’s principal parish churches and the Great Hall was
still used as a court. The use of the dwelling of the master of the castle as a
court dated back to the eleventh century. Over the centuries, however, the
legal system had been made more systematic, and rather than the local magnates
presiding over a local court, from the twelfth century major cases were heard
before judges who travelled around the country conducting trials in the name of
the Crown; a system known as the Assizes. It is likely that until the fifteenth
century judges timed their visits to Leicester
to coincide with times when the Earls and later Dukes were not in residence,
and that after that time the great hall became primarily a courthouse. Over the
generations the great hall was increasingly adapted to suit the requirements of
a court building. The private accommodation and the service wing, having fallen
into disuse in the fifteenth century had probably been demolished by the early
sixteenth century. The main entrance dates from the late seventeenth century,
and further alterations made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to
the great hall being divided into two courtrooms flanking a central staircase.
In the 1980s a new Crown Court was built elsewhere in the town and the great
hall ceased to be a courthouse.
The Newarke had rather more mixed fortunes. Even though
there would be no more Ducal tombs in the collegiate church, the college had
been richly endowed by the Dukes and continued to prosper for over two hundred
years. Its prosperity was so great that there was even talk of the church
becoming a cathedral. It even survived the dissolution of religious houses that
forced the majority of abbeys, friaries and hospitals to close during the reign
of Henry VIII. Even though the college was surrendered to the Crown in 1545,
Henry VIII was reluctant to destroy an institution that was so closely
connected with his Lancastrian ancestors so it continued to function. Edward VI
had no such reservations, and in 1548 the college was dissolved, the property
seized and the clergy pensioned off. Not long afterwards the collegiate church
was demolished.
After Dissolution the precinct became a secular suburb. The
clerical dwellings were reoccupied by the laity, and fragments of three of
these houses survive above ground today, incorporated into later buildings.
Some of the remains of the church were visible until the early twentieth
century, when an Art &
Technical School,
forerunner of De Montfort University, was built on the site. Traces of the
church are now said to be visible in the basement of the Hawthorn Building of
De Montfort University. Elements of Trinity
Hospital also survive,
although a fire and alterations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have
meant that only the chapel at the eastern end incorporates much mediaeval
fabric.
