pear surprising when we consider what effects may be produced
by the decays of time and accident, by the accumulation of soil, and
encroachments of buildings.

During the disputes concerning the succession, on the death of the
Conqueror, the Grentemaisnells seized Leicester castle, and held it for
duke Robert. This subjected it to the fury of the successful partizans
of William Rufus, and the castle lay for some time in a dismantled state.
In the next reign it was granted by Henry to his favourite Robert first
earl of Leicester, who repaired the damages and it became the principal
place of residence of himself and the second earl, Robert Bossu. The
third earl Robert surnamed Blanchmains, encreased his property and power,
by his marriage with Petronilla, or Parnel, the heiress of the
Grentemaisnells, but the violent temper of this earl involved him in
disputes with king Henry the second, whose forces under the command of
the Chief Justiciary, Richard de Lucy, took Leicester and its castle by
assault, and reduced both to an almost uninhabited heap of ruins.
Blanchmains regained however the favor of his king and was restored to
his estates, but both he and his son, Robert Fitz-Parnel engaging in the
crusades, the town of Leicester was but ill rebuilt, and the castle
remained in a state of delapidation for many years. Fitz-Parnel dying
without issue, the _honor_ of Leicester, as part of the Bellomont estates
were called, passed into the family of Simon de Montfort, in consequence
of his marriage with one of the sisters of Fitz-Parnels. But the
Montfort earls of Leicester, both father and son, were too much engaged
in the busy transactions of their times to pay much attention to their
property at Leicester. After the death of the latter, in the Battle of
Evesham, the Leicester property was conferred by Henry the third on his
second son Edmond earl of Lancaster, whose second son Henry, heir and
successor to Thomas earl of Lancaster, beheaded at Pontefract, in the
year 1322 made Leicester his principal place of residence, and under him
and the two next succeeding earls, the castle recovered and probably
surpassed its former state of splendor.

When the dukes of Lancaster ascended the throne, Leicester tho'
frequently honored with their presence, received no permanent benefit,
and tho' several parliaments were held there in the reign of Henry the
sixth, the castle had so far decayed in the time of Richard the third,
that