Kenilworth

On her birthday we thought we would go and visit Kenilworth Castle, as I am interested in history and just may have an ancestral connection to the people and the place, though I didn't know this when I went to see the castle!

The castle became a ruin shortly after the Civil War. It had been in existence since time Norman times, changed hands several times, sometimes a property belonging to an Earl or Duke, and many times it belongs to different members of the Royal family through the generations.

The castle came into the Duke of Lancaster's family through Henry III's son Edmund when he was created 1st Earl of Lancaster. The Lancastrian Duchy grew to be the richest in the land. John of Gaunt (Edward III's 4th son) married the heiress Blanche, their son eventually became Henry IV, after he usurped the throne from Richard II, who had treated Henry very badly banishing him and confiscating all the Lancastrian wealth, after John of Gaunt died, with not much in the way of a known cause, unless it was pure jealousy.

John of Gaunt did a lot of work on the place, he created the Great Hall, together with remodelled apartments, services and kitchens. It was here that his 'second' family Katherine Swynford (3 sons and one daughter), his long term mistress, lived most of the time, one of their favourite places. Although Katherine's children were all born illegitimatel, when John of Gaunt married Katherine, later in life, he persuaded Richard II to make them legitimate.

It was later owned by Robert Dudley a favourite of Elizabeth I and this is mentioned several times around the castle. Dudley laid out the Elizabethan gardens and they can still be seen today.

Kenilworth survived under James I, but under Charles I the Parliamentarian Army took it over in the opening months of the Civil War.

As this would prove to be costly to keep a garrison there, the new regime ordered that the North wall of the keep be destroyd and also the curtain wall.

So this is why much of it is in ruins today.