Kenilworth Castle was founded in the early 1120s by Geoffrey de Clinton, Lord Chamberlain to Henry I. The castle's original form probably consisted of a motte, an earthen mound surmounted by wooden buildings; however, the stone great tower may have been part of the original design. Clinton was a local rival to Roger de Beaumont, the Earl of Warwick and owner of the neighbouring Warwick Castle, and the king made Clinton the sheriff in Warwickshire to act as a counterbalance to Beaumont's power. Clinton had begun to lose the king's favour after 1130, and when he died in 1133 his son, also called Geoffrey, was only a minor. Geoffrey and his uncle William de Clinton were forced to come to terms with Beaumont; this set-back, and the difficult years of the Anarchy (1135–54), delayed any further development of the castle. Henry II succeeded to the throne at the end of the Anarchy but during the revolt of 1173–74 he faced a significant uprising led by his son, Henry, backed by the French crown. The conflict spread across England and Kenilworth was garrisoned by Henry II's forces; Geoffrey II de Clinton died in this period and the castle was taken fully into royal possession, a sign of its military importance. By this point Kenilworth Castle consisted of the great keep, the inner bailey wall, a basic causeway across the smaller lake that preceded the creation of the Great Mere, and the local chase for hunting.
Henry's successor, Richard I, paid relatively little attention to Kenilworth, but under King John significant building resumed at the castle. When John was excommunicated in 1208, he embarked on a programme of rebuilding and enhancing several major royal castles. At Kenilworth he built the outer bailey wall in stone and improved the other defences, including creating Mortimer's and Lunn's Towers. He also significantly improved the castle's water defences by damming the Finham and Inchford Brooks, creating the Great Mere. The result was to turn Kenilworth into one of the largest English castles of the time. John was forced to cede the castle to the baronial opposition as part of the guarantee of the Magna Carta, before it reverted to royal control early in the reign of his son, Henry III. Henry III granted Kenilworth in 1244 to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who later became a leader in the Second Barons' War (1263–67) against the king, using Kenilworth as the centre of his operations. Initially the conflict went badly for King Henry, and after the Battle of Lewes in 1264 he was forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, under which his son, Prince Edward, was given over to the rebels as a hostage. Edward was taken back to Kenilworth, where chroniclers considered he was held in unduly harsh conditions. Released in early 1265, Edward then defeated Montfort at the Battle of Evesham; the surviving rebels under the leadership of Henry de Hastings, Montfort's constable at Kenilworth, regrouped at the castle the following spring. Edward's forces proceeded to lay siege to the rebels.
The Siege of Kenilworth Castle in 1266 was "probably the longest in English history" according to historian Norman Pounds, and at the time was also the largest siege to have occurred in England in terms of the number of soldiers involved. Simon de Monfort's son, Simon VI de Montfort, promised in January 1266 to hand over the castle to the king. Five months later this had not happened, and Henry III laid siege to Kenilworth Castle on 21 June. Protected by the extensive water defences, the castle withstood the attack, despite Edward targeting the weaker north wall, employing huge siege towers and even attempting a night attack using barges brought from Chester. The distance between the royal trebuchets and the walls severely reduced their effectiveness, and heavier trebuchets had to be sent for from London. Papal intervention through the legate Ottobuono finally resulted in the compromise of the Dictum of Kenilworth, under which the rebels were allowed to re-purchase their confiscated lands provided they surrendered the castle; the siege ended on 14 December 1266. Henry granted Kenilworth to his son, Edmund Crouchback, in 1267. Edmund held many tournaments at Kenilworth in the late 13th century, including a huge event in 1279, presided over by the royal favourite Roger de Mortimer, in which a hundred knights competed for three days in the tiltyard in an event called "the Round Table", in imitation of the popular Arthurian legends
Edmund Crouchback passed on the castle to his eldest son, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in 1298. Lancaster married Alice de Lacy, which made him the richest nobleman in England. Kenilworth became the primary castle of the Lancaster estates, replacing Bolingbroke, and acted as both a social and a financial centre for Thomas. Thomas built the first great hall at the castle from 1314 to 1317 and constructed the Water Tower along the outer bailey, as well as increasing the size of the chase. Lancaster, with support from many of the other English barons, found himself in increasing opposition to Edward II. War broke out in 1322, and Lancaster was captured at the Battle of Boroughbridge and executed. His estates, including Kenilworth, were confiscated by the crown. Edward and his wife, Isabella of France, spent Christmas 1323 at Kenilworth, amidst major celebrations.
In 1326, however, Edward was deposed by an alliance of Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer. Edward was eventually captured by Isabella's forces and the custody of the king was assigned to Henry, Earl of Lancaster, who had backed Isabella's invasion. Henry, reoccupying most of the Lancaster lands, was made constable of Kenilworth and Edward was transported there in late 1326; Henry's legal title to the castle was finally confirmed the following year. Kenilworth was chosen for this purpose by Isabella probably both because it was a major fortification, and also because of the symbolism of its former owners' links to popular ideals of freedom and good government. Royal writs were issued in Edward's name by Isabella from Kenilworth until the next year. A deputation of leading barons led by Bishop Orleton was then sent to Kenilworth to first persuade Edward to resign and, when that failed, to inform him that he had been deposed as king. Edward formally resigned as king in the great hall of the castle on 21 January 1326. As the months went by, however, it became clear that Kenilworth was proving a less than ideal location to imprison Edward. The castle was in a prominent part of the Midlands, in an area that held several nobles who still supported Edward and were believed to be trying to rescue him. Henry's loyalty was also coming under question. In due course, Isabella and Mortimer had Edward moved by night to Berkeley Castle, where he died shortly afterwards. Isabella continued to use Kenilworth as a royal castle until her fall from power in 1330.
Henry of Grosmont, the Duke of Lancaster, inherited the castle from his father in 1345 and remodelled the great hall with a grander interior and roof. On his death Blanche of Lancaster inherited the castle. Blanche married John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward III; their union, and combined resources, made John the second richest man in England next to the king himself. After Blanche's death, John married Constance, who had a claim to the kingdom of Castile, and John styled himself the king of Castile and León. Kenilworth was one of the most important of his thirty or more castles in England. John began building at Kenilworth between 1373 and 1380 in a style designed to reinforce his royal claims in Iberia. John constructed a grander great hall, the Strong Tower, Saintlowe Tower, the state apartments and the new kitchen complex. When not campaigning abroad, John spent much of his time at Kenilworth and Leicester, and used Kenilworth even more after 1395 when his health began to decline. In his final years, John made extensive repairs to the whole of the castle complex. Henry IV, John of Gaunt's son, returned Kenilworth to royal ownership when he took the throne in 1399 and made extensive use of the castle. Henry V also used Kenilworth extensively, but preferred to stay in the Pleasance, the mock castle he had built on the other side of the Great Mere. According to the contemporary chronicler John Strecche the French openly mocked Henry in 1414 by sending him a gift of tennis balls at Kenilworth. The French aim was to imply a lack of martial prowess; according to Strecche, the gift spurred Henry's decision to fight the Agincourt campaign. The account was used by Shakespeare as the basis for a scene in his play Henry V.
With the mental collapse of King Henry VI, Queen Margaret used the Duchy of Lancaster lands in the Midlands, including Kenilworth, as one of her key bases of military support. Margaret removed Henry from London in 1456 for his own safety and until 1461, Henry's court divided almost all its time among Kenilworth, Leicester and Tutbury Castle for the purposes of protection. Kenilworth remained an important Lancastrian stronghold for the rest of the war, often acting as a military balance to the nearby castle of Warwick. With the victory of Henry VII at Bosworth, Kenilworth again received royal attention; Henry visited frequently and had a tennis court constructed at the castle for his use. His son, Henry VIII, decided that Kenilworth should be maintained as a royal castle. He abandoned the Pleasance and had part of the timber construction moved into the base court of the castle. The castle remained in royal hands until it was given to John Dudley in 1553. Dudley came to prominence under Henry VIII and became the leading political figure under Edward VI. Dudley was a patron of John Shute, an early exponent of classical architecture in England, and began the process of modernising Kenilworth. Before his execution in 1553 by Queen Mary for attempting to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, Dudley had built the new stable block and widened the tiltyard to its current form.
Kenilworth was restored to Dudley's son, Robert, Earl of Leicester, in 1563, four years after the succession of Elizabeth I to the throne. Leicester's power and wealth, including monopolies and grants of new lands, depended ultimately on his remaining a favourite of the queen. Leicester continued his father's modernisation of Kenilworth, attempting to ensure that Kenilworth would attract the interest of Elizabeth during her regular tours around the country. Elizabeth visited in 1566 and 1568, by which time Leicester had employed William Spicer to rebuild and extend the castle so as to provide modern accommodation for the royal court and symbolically boost his own claims to noble heritage. After negotiation with his tenants, Leicester also increased the size of the chase once again. The result has been termed an English "Renaissance palace". Elizabeth viewed the partially finished results at Kenilworth in 1572, but the complete effect of Leicester's work was only apparent during the queen's last visit in 1575. Leicester was keen to impress Elizabeth in a final attempt to convince her to marry him, and no expense was spared. Elizabeth brought an entourage of thirty-one barons and four hundred staff for the royal visit that lasted an exceptional nineteen days; twenty horsemen a day arrived at the castle to communicate royal messages. Leicester entertained the Queen and much of the neighbouring region with pageants, fireworks, bear baiting, mystery plays, hunting and lavish banquets. The cost was reputed to have amounted to many thousand pounds, almost bankrupting Leicester. The event was considered a huge success and formed the longest stay at such a property during any of Elizabeth's tours, yet the queen did not decide to marry Leicester.
The Civil War broke out in 1642. During its early campaigns, Kenilworth formed a useful counterbalance to the Parliamentary stronghold of Warwick. Kenilworth was used by Charles on his advance to Edgehill in October 1642 as a base for raids on Parliamentary strongholds in the Midlands. After the battle, however, the royalist garrison was withdrawn on the approach of Lord Brooke, and the castle was then garrisoned by parliamentary forces. In April 1643 the new governor of the castle, Hastings Ingram, was arrested as a suspected Royalist double agent. By January 1645 the Parliamentary forces in Coventry had strengthened their hold on the castle, and attempts by Royalist forces to dislodge them from Warwickshire failed. Security concerns continued after the end of the War and in 1649 Parliament ordered the slighting of Kenilworth. One wall of the great tower, various parts of the outer bailey and the battlements were destroyed, but not before the building was surveyed by the antiquarian William Dugdale, who published his results in 1656. Colonel Joseph Hawkesworth, responsible for the implementation of the slighting, acquired the estate for himself and converted Leicester's gatehouse into a house; part of the base court was turned into a farm, and many of the remaining buildings were stripped for their materials. In 1660 Charles II was restored to the throne, and Hawkesworth was promptly evicted from Kenilworth. The Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria, briefly regained the castle, with the Earls of Monmouth acting as stewards once again, but after her death King Charles II granted the castle to Sir Edward Hyde, whom he later created Baron Hyde of Hindon and Earl of Clarendon. The ruined castle continued to be used as a farm, with the gatehouse as the principal dwelling; the King's Gate was added to the outer bailey wall during this period for the use of farm workers.
Kenilworth remained a ruin during the 18th and 19th centuries, still used as a farm but increasingly also popular as a tourist attraction. The first guidebook to the castle, A Concise history and description of Kenilworth Castle, was printed in 1777 with many later editions following in the coming decades. The castle's cultural prominence increased after Sir Walter Scott wrote Kenilworth in 1821 describing the royal visit of Queen Elizabeth. Very loosely based on the events of 1575, Scott's story reinvented aspects of the castle and its history to tell the story of "the pathetic, beautiful, undisciplined heroine Amy Robsart and the steely Elizabeth I". It popularised Kenilworth Castle in the Victorian imagination as a romantic Elizabethan location. Kenilworth spawned "numerous stage adaptations and burlesques, at least eleven operas, popular redactions, and even a scene in a set of dioramas for home display", including Sir Arthur Sullivan's 1865 cantata The Masque at Kenilworth. J. M. W. Turner painted several watercolours of the castle. The number of visitors increased, including Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens. Work was undertaken during the 19th century to protect the stonework from further decline, with particular efforts to remove ivy from the castle in the 1860s
Wheelchair Access : The kitchen area and Great Hall have level access. The upper floors are mainly reached by spiral staircases. There is a low level introductory display which is accessible to wheelchair users in the stables. The Garden is accessible with compacted gravel paths and smooth grass. Benches are provided. Leicester’s Gatehouse and exhibition have access for wheelchair users to all floors via a lift. For the visually there are sensory experiences and objects to touch such as trebuchet balls. Assistance dogs are welcome and there is a bowl to provide water.
Location : Castle Green, Off Castle Road, Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 1NG
Transport: Warwick OR Coventry (National Rail) then bus . Bus Routes : Johnsons of Henley 539, Travel West Midlands 11 & 11X and Stagecoach U12 all serve Kenilworth.
Opening Times : Daily 10:00 to 18:00
Tickets : Adults £11.20; Concessions £10.10; Children £6.70
Tel: 01926 852078
