Under Edward IV. Leeds ceased to be assigned to the queen consort, and remained vested in the king, but the castle was no longer visited by royalty, and seems to have been allowed to fall into decay until the reign of Henry VIII., under whom Sir Henry Guildford resided here, and seems to have made considerable alterations, especially in the keep. Edward VI. alienated Leeds from the Crown in favour of Sir Anthony St. Leger about 1550, whose descendants, after 1618, sold it to Richard Smith of the Strangford ancestry, whose heir, after 1631, resold it to Thomas Colepeper of the family of the former constable. The Smith occupation was marked by the construction of a handsome Elizabethan mansion at the north end of the larger island. The Colepepers, created barons in 1644, farmed the castle, in 1655, to the Government for the safe keeping of about 600 French and Dutch prisoners, under the general charge of John Evelyn, who records himself to have “flowed the dry moat, made a new drawbridge, and brought spring water into the court of the castle to an old fountain.” The prisoners, however, much damaged the building and set fire to part of the keep. The Colepeper heiress carried the estate to her husband Thomas, fifth Lord Fairfax. Robert, the seventh lord, repaired the dwelling-house and laid out the park, and here, in 1778, entertained George III. and his queen, the latest of very many royal visits to the place. Lord Fairfax left the castle to his sister’s son, Dr. Martin, known later as Dr. Fairfax, who died 1800, and was succeeded by his brother, General Martin, on whose death, in 1821, it descended to Fiennes Wykeham, representative of the younger branch of the Wykehams of Swalcliff, where they held lands as early as the Domesday Survey, and whose son, Charles Wykeham Martin, was the author of the history of the castle. LEICESTER CASTLE. The town of Leicester stands upon moderately high ground, and on its western side is divided by a narrow valley from the opposite elevations of Glenfield and Braunstone. This valley gives passage to the Soar, the river of the county, which, flowing northwards, meanders through the meadows of the Abbey of St. Mary de Pratis, and thus, before agriculture had drained these lands, securely covered the western and northern, and, to a certain extent, the southern fronts of this very ancient and once well-fortified place. Down the western valley, but outside the stream, and along the edge of the higher ground, was carried the Fossway, which thus, on its passage from Bennones or High Cross towards Lincoln, left the old Roman “Ratæ Coritanorum,” known to us as Leicester, about a furlong to its east. Whether Ratæ be an original Roman, or a Latinised British name, is uncertain. Ratcliffe and Ratby occur in the district, and at the latter is a large camp of doubtful origin. Upon the language to which “Rat” belongs, depends the question of the British origin of the town.