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00:00For me, a great British castle is a fortress, a palace, a home.
00:10And a symbol of power, majesty and fear.
00:16For nearly 1,000 years,
00:18castles have shaped Britain's famous landscape.
00:24These magnificent buildings have been home
00:27to some of the greatest heroes and villains in our national history.
00:32And many of them still stand proudly today,
00:35bursting with incredible stories of warfare,
00:39treachery, intrigue, passion and murder.
00:45Join me, Dan Jones,
00:47as I uncover the secrets behind six great British castles.
00:54This time I'm in Leeds Castle,
00:56not the Leeds in Yorkshire, this one's in Kent.
00:59It's been called the loveliest castle in England.
01:02But scratch that perfect surface and you'll discover its darker side.
01:07Leeds Castle might look pretty and genteel,
01:10but its history certainly isn't for the faint-hearted.
01:14MUSIC
01:24For hundreds of years, building a castle was the ultimate macho statement.
01:29Big and aggressive, castles usually bristle with historical testosterone.
01:34But not this one.
01:36Leeds Castle has seen its fair share of war and terror,
01:40but it holds a fascinating secret.
01:43Because its history has mostly been shaped not by men, but by women.
01:50There's been a castle here at Leeds for nearly 900 years,
01:54but what you see today is largely the work of one woman,
01:58Olive Lady Bailey, the daughter of an English baron
02:02and a wealthy American heiress.
02:04Lady Bailey was one of the great hostesses of her age.
02:08She bought Leeds Castle in 1926
02:11and turned it into one of the most glamorous party houses in England.
02:17Her guests included the controversial heir to the British throne,
02:21Edward, Duke of Windsor, and his wife, Wallis Simpson.
02:25Movie stars like Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Stewart.
02:29The great Winston Churchill and even James Bond creator Ian Fleming.
02:34During the 1930s, they enjoyed lavish dinners and parties,
02:38played tennis and croquet,
02:40and even swam in a pool with its own wave machine.
02:44But there was far more to Leeds than banquets and blowouts,
02:48and the castle's charmed life was about to change dramatically.
02:58When the Second World War broke out in 1939,
03:02Leeds Castle became a secret centre of British military research.
03:06Now, instead of parties, there were flamethrowers being tested on the lawn...
03:13..to prepare to defend England against Nazi invasion.
03:19It's that play-hard, fight-hard mentality
03:22that's summed up this castle throughout the ages.
03:25From the outside, it's beautiful, glamorous, feminine even.
03:29But beneath that veneer, it's no stranger to menace and violence.
03:37Britain, of course, has another famous Leeds in Yorkshire.
03:41Here in Kent, the name comes from the Old English word hilida,
03:45which means a babbling stream.
03:50The first castle built on this site around the year 1100
03:54was the work of a Norman knight
03:56with the impossibly romantic name of Robert de Crevecoeur,
04:00or Robert the Broken-Hearted.
04:03Sitting on three small islands in an artificial lake formed by the River Lenn,
04:08it really is a masterful piece of medieval engineering
04:12to manipulate the natural power of the river into a man-made moat.
04:17And it means Leeds Castle is cunningly defended by water on every side.
04:23Sadly, Robert the Broken-Hearted went broke and had to sell up.
04:29Much later, in 1278, the castle was purchased by the Queen of England,
04:34Edward I's Spanish wife, Eleanor.
04:37It was the start of a long royal association.
04:44Queen Eleanor, or Eleanor of Castile,
04:47was a successful businesswoman and a property magnate in her own right.
04:51And under her instruction,
04:53the king's engineers began substantial alterations to the castle.
04:58With the moat and the barbican providing defences,
05:01the rest of the castle was free to be an elegant home for a very impressive queen.
05:09Eleanor extended the castle on the smaller island
05:12and called it her Gloriette,
05:14the name of a fantasy tower in a popular 12th-century poem.
05:19In Eleanor's time, it would have been a single-storied structure around a courtyard
05:24with timber walls and a leaded roof,
05:26a main hall, a banqueting hall and apartments.
05:33But it wasn't just the decor Eleanor was interested in.
05:36She also brought new European notions about personal hygiene,
05:40at a time when most English lords and ladies were not so big on washing.
05:4613th-century documents record the building of the queen's baths here at Leeds,
05:51and archaeologists have now found the baths in what was once thought to be a boathouse.
05:59So, originally, this would have been one of the earliest English bathhouses that was built,
06:04and it was built by Eleanor of Castile towards the end of the 13th century.
06:08It would have been lined with rygate stone tiles.
06:11It would have been seriously opulent. It may even have been fed by piped water.
06:14Eleanor sounds like quite a lover of luxury. Is that fair?
06:18Absolutely. She was famous for having glazed windows and carpets in her rooms.
06:23It actually caused a lot of controversy, because it was seen as a bit too luxurious,
06:26not quite the done thing.
06:28She also owned forks, in a period when nobody ate with forks.
06:32Eleanor travelled constantly with her husband, because she hated being separated from him.
06:37And they obviously had a good time on the road,
06:40because whenever she returned to Leeds Castle, she was expecting yet another baby.
06:45She was almost constantly pregnant, wasn't she?
06:47She was. We know of at least 16 children. Most of them didn't survive to adulthood.
06:52But she was basically pregnant for most of the years of her marriage,
06:55which eventually came to undermine her health.
07:03Eleanor died at the age of 49, after 36 years of marriage.
07:08Leeds Castle passed back into the hands of her husband, King Edward I, but not for long.
07:15After mourning Eleanor for several years, the six-year-old king married again.
07:20His new wife was the King of France's sister, Princess Margaret.
07:25She was 17, and people called her the Flower of the French.
07:30In 1299, Edward and his new teenage wife, Margaret, spent their honeymoon here at Leeds.
07:36And just a few weeks later, the king gave Margaret a very special gift, the castle itself.
07:42She was getting one of the finest royal residences in England.
07:48Leeds Castle's association with England's queens gave it a reputation as an idyllic pleasure palace.
07:54But that was all about to change, as the castle was thrust into one of the bloodiest rebellions of the Middle Ages.
08:02At the heart of it all was one of the most unpopular and spiteful kings in British history.
08:13During the 13th century, Leeds Castle had been run as a palace by two wives of Edward I.
08:19But when Edward's son, Edward II, came to the throne, he proved to be a big letdown.
08:26Thanks to him, Leeds would become embroiled in one of the bloodiest rebellions of the entire Middle Ages.
08:37Edward II was one of the most useless and unpopular kings of the Middle Ages.
08:42He was thrashed in battle by the Scots, and he infuriated the English barons
08:47with his outrageous favouritism towards a handful of intimate friends.
08:53But he was still the king, and if you crossed him, things turned very nasty very quickly.
09:02One of Edward's most trusted favourites was a talented knight and politician called Bartholomew Badalsmere.
09:08He came from the village of Badalsmere, just a few miles away from Leeds Castle,
09:13and he made a stellar career for himself in royal service.
09:18He fought in foreign wars, he put down Welsh rebellions,
09:22he even went to Rome to talk to the Pope on behalf of the king.
09:30In return for all that loyal service, Edward made Badalsmere rich,
09:34and one of the prizes he rewarded him with was Leeds Castle, which Badalsmere received in 1318.
09:40But that was where all his problems began.
09:44In 1321, just three years after Badalsmere was given Leeds Castle,
09:49a rebellion broke out against the king.
09:52Many of his barons protested against the growing influence of one of the king's favourites,
09:57the ruthless Hugh Dispenser.
09:59Dispenser was a major rival to Badalsmere at court.
10:04After much agonising, Badalsmere decided to join the rebellion against the king.
10:09It was the wrong choice.
10:12Edward II was enraged at Badalsmere's disloyalty.
10:16He ordered him to hand Leeds Castle back to the crown.
10:20Badalsmere refused.
10:22Instead, he fled to join up with other rebels in Oxford.
10:26He left Leeds Castle under the command of his wife, Margaret.
10:30Once again, a woman was in control.
10:33The king responded immediately, but curiously,
10:37The king responded immediately, but curiously,
10:40instead of handling the matter himself,
10:43he sent his wife, Queen Isabella, to do his dirty work.
10:47A devious plan was underway.
10:52In early October 1321, Queen Isabella rode up to the gates of Leeds Castle
10:58and asked Margaret Badalsmere to let her in.
11:07She said she'd been on pilgrimage to Canterbury just down the road
11:11and she needed somewhere to rest.
11:14But Margaret only had to take one look to see that that wasn't true.
11:18For a start, Isabella was backed up by a posse of heavily armed royal soldiers.
11:23She hadn't exactly popped round for tea and biscuits.
11:31Since Margaret's husband was in rebellion against the king
11:34and he'd told her to keep the castle safe, she refused to let the queen in.
11:38It must have been a very tense stand-off.
11:42Then, in the heat of the moment, the soldiers within the castle
11:46started shooting a volley of arrows.
11:51In the skirmish that followed, several of the queen's men were killed.
11:56Now, this looked very bad,
11:58but actually it's what Edward II had wanted all along.
12:02Shooting arrows at my wife.
12:05Now he had the perfect excuse to humiliate Badalsmere for abandoning him.
12:12On 23rd October 1321, Edward sent an army to besiege Leeds Castle
12:18and this time the king led the siege himself.
12:22Faced with overwhelming odds, it took just a week for Leeds Castle to cave in.
12:27Margaret surrendered, hoping for mercy,
12:31but Edward II wasn't feeling merciful.
12:34He put 13 of the castle's garrison to death.
12:38Margaret and her children were all packed off to the Tower of London
12:42to be imprisoned at the king's pleasure.
12:45In April 1322, Badalsmere himself was captured.
12:49He was dragged through the streets of Canterbury behind a horse.
12:53Then he was hanged and finally beheaded,
12:56with his head displayed over one of the city's gates
12:59as a warning to other would-be rebels.
13:05With Badalsmere dead and his wife Margaret in the Tower,
13:08Leeds Castle was confiscated by the crown,
13:11but ultimately it wouldn't be Edward II who enjoyed it,
13:16By 1326, England was fed up to the bat teeth with Edward II.
13:21He'd made enemies of almost everyone, including his wife.
13:26Along with her lover, a baron called Roger Mortimer,
13:29Queen Isabella raised an army against her useless husband.
13:33She conquered Leeds Castle, but it was not long
13:36before she was captured by the King of England.
13:40According to Mortimer, Queen Isabella raised an army
13:43against her useless husband.
13:45She captured him and forced him to abdicate the crown,
13:49and eventually had him murdered.
13:51Along with her newfound power, royal records from the 1320s
13:55show that Queen Isabella now began building up her property portfolio
14:00and her dower, effectively her pension.
14:03It says here she's increasing her dower
14:06from 4,500 marks to 20,000 marks.
14:09That's a huge increase.
14:11It's like going from £2 million to £10 million today.
14:16And she's laying claim to lands and castles
14:19in Norfolk, Suffolk, Leicestershire,
14:22and we can see here the castle and manor of Leeds.
14:29Isabella's links with Leeds would last for the rest of her life.
14:33She was still holding the castle on her death in 1358, aged 66.
14:39It was a fitting home for a woman who toppled a king.
14:50In all, some six queens of England have claimed
14:53or been gifted Leeds Castle.
14:55At the end of the 14th century,
14:57Richard II gave it to his wife, Anne of Bohemia.
15:00A few years later, King Henry IV gave it to his second wife,
15:04the French Duchess Joan of Navarre.
15:07But for Joan, Leeds Castle would not only be her home,
15:11it would also be her prison.
15:17Joan of Navarre was the wealthiest woman in England,
15:20but she had one big problem, her stepson, King Henry V.
15:25He spent his whole reign fighting
15:27a ruinously expensive war against France,
15:30and when it came to raising war funds, no-one was off limits.
15:35So in 1419, he accused his wealthy stepmother of witchcraft,
15:40confiscated her lands and possessions,
15:43and had her imprisoned at a series of castles,
15:46including her own home here at Leeds.
15:50Joan was accused of using sorcery and necromancy,
15:54using magic and communicating with the dead.
15:57As it turned out, she was never even tried.
16:00It would have been a royal scandal if she were found guilty,
16:03and acquittal would have forced Henry to return her money.
16:06So he just kept her locked up.
16:08For four years, Joan was kept here as the royal witch.
16:14If you want some kind of proof that all of this was basically a sham
16:18to help pay for the king's wars in France,
16:21look at the accounts for Joan's imprisonment.
16:24She had a stable, horses, 19 grooms.
16:28She had a constant stream of guests.
16:30One of them even stayed for nine months,
16:32and there were bills for a birdcage and the repair of a harp.
16:36It wasn't easy being a witch.
16:41Eventually, Henry had his stepmother released, quietly,
16:45as if the entire episode had never happened.
16:48But Joan wasn't the only witch to be imprisoned in Leeds Castle.
16:52Within 20 years, this place would be a prison
16:55for a much more devious and cunning woman
16:58who was married to an eminent duke.
17:01Her name was Eleanor Cobham.
17:03For me, Eleanor Cobham is one of the most intriguing women
17:07in British history.
17:09Her husband was Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
17:12uncle to the useless and idiotic King Henry VI.
17:16She was the power behind the throne,
17:18but more importantly, while Henry was childless,
17:22Humphrey was also his heir.
17:25If anything should happen to Henry,
17:28Humphrey would become king and Eleanor would become queen.
17:32And it's that fact that got Eleanor into so much trouble.
17:38In the summer of 1440,
17:41Eleanor decided to have her fortune told.
17:46She went to the best astrologers of the day,
17:49her personal physician, Thomas Southwell,
17:52and a brilliant Oxford scholar called Roger Bolingbroke.
17:56The reading they gave her was explosive.
17:59According to the horoscope, the king was due to fall ill
18:03and die in July or August of the next year.
18:06Eleanor's husband would inherit the throne and she would be queen.
18:14It was such a breathtaking prediction
18:17that news of it began to spread around the country.
18:24When news of Eleanor's fortune-telling reached the king,
18:27he was deeply troubled.
18:29This fatal illness was due to strike within months.
18:34The king's advisers then commissioned a second horoscope
18:38that conveniently rubbished Eleanor's claims.
18:42Then they had her and her astrologers arrested,
18:45locked up in Leeds Castle and questioned.
18:49She'd messed with the most important man in the land, the king himself.
18:54And while she was here, the charges kept on mounting up.
18:58She was accused of having consulted a witch called Marjorie Jordmain,
19:02who'd given her a potion to help her conceive a child.
19:06Things weren't looking good for Eleanor Cobham.
19:12Ronald Hutton is one of Britain's leading experts
19:15in witchcraft and folklore.
19:17Ronald, today we think about horoscopes as mumbo-jumbo,
19:22it's at best a bit of fun.
19:24Was it like that in the 15th century?
19:26In the 15th century, horoscopes looked like the science of the future,
19:30so top astrologers were rather like nuclear physicists in the 1930s.
19:35They could really have been on to something.
19:37Eleanor was supposed to have been involved in, on the one hand,
19:41astrology divining the future, but on the other hand,
19:44she was accused of trying to procure love potions.
19:47Can you give me an example of a spell or an incantation from the time?
19:53This is a spell to Venus.
19:55That's why it's an effigy in green wax.
19:58It's actually you because it's got your hair in it.
20:01It's to enable you to be even more attractive to audiences,
20:05which I think most presenters would wish.
20:08Venus, known as the Lady, Nourishing One, Gorgeous One, Queen of Beauty,
20:12Giver of Sweet Madness, Treasure Made Flesh.
20:15Bless this man, hear him, heal him, hold him.
20:21I feel better already. You look... Thank you.
20:30Do you think Eleanor Cobham was guilty?
20:32We'll never know.
20:34Framing political opponents by charging them with working magic
20:38is a favourite trick of the French and English royal families
20:42on either side of 1400.
20:45Eleanor Cobham was charged with 18 counts of treasonable necromancy,
20:50conjuring up the spirits of the dead in order to influence future events,
20:55and she was imprisoned in Leeds Castle to await her trial.
21:02Eleanor must have been terrified by the dreadful punishments
21:05handed out to her accomplices.
21:07Roger Bolingbroke, a highly respected academic,
21:12was hanged, drawn and quartered.
21:14The physician, Southwell, was lucky to die in the Tower of London
21:18before meeting the same fate.
21:20And the witch, Marjorie Jordemain, was sentenced to be burned alive.
21:25This was a particularly ghastly way to go, tied to a stake
21:29and surrounded by wood and fuel, which was then set alight.
21:34Eleanor herself was spared, but humiliated.
21:38She was forcibly divorced from her husband.
21:41She was made to walk barefoot through the crowded streets of London,
21:45carrying a lighted taper to signify her penance,
21:48a ritual usually reserved for common prostitutes.
21:52And then she was sentenced to life imprisonment,
21:55finally ending up 300 miles away at Beaumaris Castle in Wales.
22:00Where she would die, her life and her reputation utterly destroyed.
22:09Fortunately, not everyone's experience of Leeds Castle
22:12was as harrowing as Eleanor's.
22:14In fact, the 16th century would see the castle transformed
22:18for the arrival of Britain's most famous king
22:21on his way to the Tudor version of a rock festival.
22:24When Henry VIII stopped by,
22:26he came with an entourage of thousands,
22:28and Leeds Castle would have to be ready.
22:36During the Middle Ages, a succession of English queens
22:39had turned Leeds Castle in Kent
22:41into an impressive and well-maintained royal residence
22:45and an occasional prison.
22:47But by the 16th century,
22:49the castle had been ignored by the Crown for decades
22:52and had fallen into disrepair.
22:55The arrival of the Tudor dynasty
22:57signalled a revival in the fortunes of Leeds Castle,
23:00which is apt, because the Tudor royal line
23:03may literally have been conceived here.
23:09The Tudors are the most famous and notorious dynasty
23:13in British royal history,
23:15including big names like Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
23:19But this family actually had quite humble
23:22and very illicit beginnings, probably in this castle.
23:33Those beginnings go back to one of the many queens
23:36to occupy Leeds Castle,
23:38Catherine de Valois, the wife of King Henry V.
23:42When Henry V died of dysentery in 1427,
23:46when Henry V died of dysentery in 1422,
23:50he left Catherine a widow at the age of 20.
23:53Their only child, the son and heir to the throne,
23:56was just nine months old.
23:59Catherine's main responsibility was to raise the infant king,
24:03but that didn't take up all her time.
24:08One member of the queen's household particularly caught her eye.
24:11He was a dashing Welsh squire
24:13by the name of Owen at Meredith at Tudor, or Owen Tudor.
24:18Catherine and Owen began an affair
24:20which produced at least three sons.
24:23To prevent this scandal from becoming public knowledge,
24:26they spent their time away from the court at London
24:29at more discreet castles like this one in Leeds.
24:36After all, where better than an island fortress
24:39in the Kent countryside
24:41to keep a scandalous liaison from public gaze?
24:46Owen and Catherine's marriage might have been a guilty secret at the time,
24:50but it would go on to shape British history
24:53because their eldest son was the father of Henry VII,
24:57the first Tudor king
24:59and the man who established the Tudor royal dynasty.
25:03In 1520, the secret lovers Catherine and Owen's great-grandson,
25:09King Henry VIII,
25:11planned a historic meeting with the French king, Francis I.
25:18And as part of this road trip,
25:20the king and his queen, Catherine of Aragon,
25:23would be stopping off at Leeds Castle,
25:26a kind of medieval motorway services.
25:30But it would be no ordinary stay.
25:35Henry's ultimate destination was France
25:38for an event that would be a bit like the Olympics
25:41crossed with a G20 summit crossed with Glastonbury.
25:45The idea was that Henry and the French king, Francis I,
25:49would gather together their diplomatic corps and their whole courts
25:53and have a party featuring pageantry, music and sport
25:59Most famously, Henry and Francis had a personal wrestling match,
26:03which Francis actually won.
26:05These were two of the greatest kings in Europe
26:08trying to outdo each other
26:10and all camping under tents made of gold cloth.
26:14Hence the name given to this gathering,
26:16the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
26:23Now, obviously, Henry and his court needed to get there
26:27and this painting on display at the Banqueting Hall in Leeds Castle
26:31gives you a sense of the scale of the travelling circus.
26:35It's showing Henry's ships leaving Dover.
26:38I think there are about 27 of them.
26:41And right in the middle is Henry's flagship.
26:44That's the ship that Henry and his queen, Catherine of Aragon,
26:47would have travelled on.
26:49But more than that, you get a sense
26:51of the sheer numbers of people bustling around.
26:55Most of those people would have stayed right here at Leeds Castle.
26:59More than 5,000 of them.
27:06Since 1517, Henry had been ordering major works on Leeds Castle,
27:12making it the perfect palatial pit stop
27:15for a king and queen en route to France.
27:18An upper storey was added to the small Gloriette,
27:22with new apartments including a bedchamber and a bathroom.
27:26This new floor was exclusively reserved for the queen
27:30and her closest household staff.
27:33The maidens' tower was built especially to accommodate
27:36the queen's ladies-in-waiting.
27:39Catherine's total entourage added up to 1,200 staff and 800 horses.
27:48The more I look at this painting,
27:50I feel almost overwhelmed by the opulence of Henry's court.
27:54The ships, the money, the people, the fine clothes.
27:58I think more than anything else,
28:00it tells you about the sheer extravagance of kingship
28:03in the 16th century.
28:09Maybe it's thanks to paintings like this one,
28:12but the Tudors are remembered for their conspicuous consumption.
28:16Good old Henry liked his dinner.
28:19A feast fit for this king included soup, herring, cod, pike,
28:24salmon, haddock, porpoise, seal, lobsters,
28:28custard tart, fritters and fruit.
28:31And that was just the first course.
28:38At Hampton Court Palace, there's a replica of the massive wine fountain
28:43Henry took to the Field of Cloth of Gold.
28:47They also have a working Tudor kitchen.
28:52I've come here to meet an expert in Tudor cooking, Mark Meltonville.
28:57So we know when the Tudor court came to Leeds Castle
29:01that there were hundreds, thousands of people
29:04and they got through a huge amount of food.
29:07Was this typical of the Tudor court?
29:09That's the whole point. The court consumes conspicuously.
29:12What you do is everything on a large scale.
29:15You are the king, you are the whole country moving.
29:18And so everything that you do has to be fantastic, the best of the best.
29:22So you bring in spices, you bring in things from everywhere.
29:25Food miles are really important in Tudor diets. The further the better.
29:29And there's a kind of showiness about food at the Tudor court.
29:32You don't get much more showy than the peacock there.
29:34An exotic Asian bird, which you could have just roasted or boiled.
29:37No-one knows it's a peacock if you do that.
29:39How do you let them know it's a peacock?
29:41Well, the recipe says to skin it but don't pluck it first.
29:44So lift the whole skin off, feathers and all.
29:47You slowly roast the bird and when he's done, on the plate,
29:50lay the skin and feathers back on,
29:52dress it up as if it looks like it's alive, bring it into the hall.
29:55It's all about having the things that other people can't.
29:58At the end of the day, it tastes not much different to chicken.
30:01And he's got, of course, in his kitchen, beef roasting on a spit,
30:04just as we've got over here.
30:06Yeah, you don't just boil something in a pot.
30:08You use a tonne of oak just to roast some meat up for people.
30:15This fireplace, one of Henry's original ones,
30:18just like the one you see in the tents in the field of Cloth of Gold.
30:21Huge spits covered in meat.
30:23This is the best way of treating fresh meat.
30:25A good spit turner will turn at the right speed
30:28to keep all the juices in the meat, to make it tender and juicy.
30:32OK, juice into the meat. I think we should stop talking and try some of this.
30:37Wow, that looks amazing.
30:39So there we are, royal roast beef.
30:42Smells delicious.
30:44Mm, really good.
30:47Really good, yeah.
30:50It's a little custard tart.
30:52It's got dates in, but it's been made green with parsley.
30:55And the base of the pastry is sweetened with marabou.
30:58With marabou?
31:00Yeah.
31:02It's actually quite sweet, particularly with the dates,
31:04but then you can really taste the parsley in there,
31:06which is a kind of weird combination.
31:08That actually looks very appetising.
31:11This, I don't want to offend you, is less pleasant-looking.
31:15What is this?
31:17The name of it in the recipe book is obolettes, or obolettis,
31:20and it's a cream and egg and cheese mix.
31:22It doesn't look very good because it's split, it's curdled.
31:27It's a bit of a mess.
31:29It's a bit of a mess because it's split, it's curdled.
31:32Smells cheesy.
31:36But actually, I mean, it's a very strange kind of sensation.
31:40You know, it is lumpy and sort of watery at the same time,
31:44but it tastes quite nice.
31:46It's got a kind of depth of flavour, it's quite savoury.
31:48Well, eat that with a big hunk of bread, mug of beer,
31:50I think we're going to be OK.
31:52Now I'm sold. Now I'm sold. You should have done that to start with.
31:56So, really, all of this isn't just about eating well,
32:00having delicious food, it's about status,
32:02it's about sending a message that,
32:04I am the king and this is my world.
32:07It's more than just the king, it's the message about your country.
32:10It's, I am England, we are great,
32:12look at what I provide just for my court,
32:15it must be so special, I must be in charge.
32:18Amazing. Thank you, Mark.
32:26As Henry VIII's love life became increasingly complicated,
32:31the tradition of Leeds Castle being given to a queen ended.
32:37In 1552, after 300 years of royal ownership,
32:41the castle was granted to a trusted knight, Sir Antony St Leger,
32:46for helping to quell an uprising in Ireland.
32:49His rent was just £10 per year.
32:52From then on, this perfect, pretty castle changed hands at least five times,
32:58but remained in private ownership, for better or worse.
33:03Over time, the Gloriette fell into ruin.
33:06Most of the medieval buildings were demolished in the 17th century.
33:11This building, called the New Castle, only dates from the early 1800s.
33:17This was the era of the stately home,
33:20when a castle like Leeds no longer needed to be a fortress,
33:24but a celebration of aristocracy and wealth, if you had it.
33:29It goes without saying you need vast amounts of money
33:32to maintain a place like this.
33:34Leeds Castle has brought plenty of families to the brink of bankruptcy.
33:38In the early 1920s, it was up for sale again,
33:42but it was up for sale again, this time to pay for death taxes.
33:47And it was in a pretty bad state.
33:49Whole sections of the castle were lying empty
33:52and thousands of acres of parkland had been neglected.
33:58Its heyday as the playground of kings and queens
34:02had become a distant memory,
34:04but another golden age was about to dawn.
34:08The future was new money from the new world.
34:13American dollars.
34:15Leeds Castle had found what it always needed, another strong lady,
34:20a wealthy Anglo-American heiress looking for the ultimate fixer-upper.
34:25She decided this would probably do.
34:30Her name was Olive Padgett, though by her third marriage
34:34she'd gained the more glamorous title Lady Bailey.
34:38Under her ownership, Leeds Castle would be back to its magnificent best.
34:43But darker times were also on the horizon
34:46as the castle took on a key role in Britain's fight against the Nazis
34:51in a mission straight out of the pages of a James Bond story.
34:56Leeds Castle had been a playground for medieval queens,
35:00an occasional prison and a pleasure palace
35:03for the great Tudor monarch Henry VIII.
35:06In the 20th century, it was transformed again under a new owner,
35:11the wealthy Anglo-American heiress Olive Padgett,
35:14or as she became known, Lady Bailey.
35:19You know, the more I learn about Olive Padgett,
35:22You know, the more I learn about Olive Padgett,
35:25the more I like her.
35:27She was born in America, educated in Paris
35:30and volunteered as a nurse during the First World War.
35:33She married a war hero and had two daughters, then divorced.
35:37She married again the same year and the happy couple bought Leeds Castle.
35:42Now she divorced again, but she kept the castle.
35:46After that divorce, she married Sir Adrian Bailey,
35:50which gained her the title Lady Bailey.
35:53She turned what had been a tumble-down wreck
35:56into a fairy-tale stately home.
35:59She didn't just have the taste, she had the money.
36:04She'd buy exotic birds on her travels and fly them home first class.
36:09Llamas and zebras were bought
36:11and allowed to roam freely around the grounds.
36:14It was all simply marvellous.
36:18Lady Bailey worked closely with a famous interior designer,
36:22Stéphane Boudin, who went on to create the French Rooms
36:26at the White House for Jacqueline Kennedy during the 1960s.
36:30In the 50 years that Lady Bailey owned this place,
36:33Leeds became one of the greatest castles in Britain
36:36and she was renowned for her parties.
36:39The guest lists included politicians and diplomats,
36:42actors and musicians, socialites and royalty from across Europe.
36:47Lady Bailey employed a permanent staff of 40
36:51to maintain the daily life of her castle.
36:54Not as many as the 5,000 that followed
36:56Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, but still pretty impressive.
37:00She also developed friendships with powerful political figures
37:04like future Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Antony Eden,
37:08ambassadors and high-ranking civil servants.
37:11Her reputation as a discreet and charming hostess
37:15meant she frequently had the ear and the undivided attention of important men.
37:20Then, in 1939, World War II broke out and the party stopped.
37:28Leeds Castle had to adapt to the times.
37:42Lady Bailey moved her whole family and her household
37:46here into the Gloriette.
37:48Outside, the moat was drained to prevent reflection on the water
37:53from attracting the Luftwaffe's bombs.
38:00Then Lady Bailey did something unexpected and incredibly patriotic.
38:05She gave over Leeds to the war effort.
38:08The new castle, her own home, became an emergency hospital.
38:16The Battle of Britain began in the summer of 1940
38:20and much of the fighting took place in these skies above Kent.
38:24And here's a quote from Pauline, one of Lady Bailey's daughters.
38:28She said,
38:29''We could watch dogfights in the air
38:32''and sometimes we'd search for Nazi pilots who'd been shot down.
38:36''I remember I'd take a pitchfork
38:38''and wondered what in the world I'd do if I ever found one.''
38:50We shall fight on the beaches.
38:52We shall fight on the landing grounds.
38:55We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
38:58We shall fight in the hills.
39:01We shall never surrender.
39:07To help deal with casualties,
39:09the castle was taken over by the Army Medical Corps,
39:12who used this room as an operating theatre for the wounded.
39:16The castle was also used for the rehabilitation of badly burned airmen
39:21who were treated by the pioneering plastic surgeon Archie Mackindo.
39:25He saved the lives of countless pilots
39:28and those who benefited from his skills and his treatments
39:32were known as the Guinea Pig Club.
39:34By the end of the war, there were 649 members.
39:48But Leeds Castle was much more than just a makeshift hospital.
39:53Among Lady Bailey's collection of famous and powerful friends
39:57were David Margerson, the Secretary of State for War,
40:01and Geoffrey Lloyd, the head of the Petroleum Warfare Department,
40:05a secret government agency set up to develop deadly new weapons
40:09to defend Britain from Nazi invasion.
40:20Because they were such good friends,
40:22and probably because Geoffrey Lloyd knew he could trust Lady Bailey's
40:27absolute loyalty and discretion,
40:30she allowed him to test petroleum warfare weapons on the castle lawns.
40:46Petroleum warfare was very new and very deadly.
40:50Weapons ranged from burning roadblocks to raging seas full of burning oil
40:55to simply hand-held flamethrowers that could be fired down foxholes,
40:59into trenches or directly at troops.
41:03When these were demonstrated to admirals and generals,
41:06they were usually as appalled as they were amazed.
41:12But Churchill was impressed,
41:14and he wrote as much in a letter to the team at Leeds.
41:18There must be no faltering in the drive to nurture in the British people
41:22by all possible means the virtues of skills and inventiveness.
41:28These are the true characteristics of a virile nation in a technological age.
41:47The castle survived the war without being damaged,
41:51although bombs were dropped on the castle grounds,
41:54apparently killing one of Lady Bailey's llamas.
41:58In 1974, Lady Bailey died.
42:02But she wanted Leeds Castle to live on,
42:05and she left behind a trust and £1.4 million
42:09to make sure it remained a living, vibrant castle.
42:16Calling Leeds Castle the loveliest castle in England
42:20does it a major disservice, because beneath that undoubted beauty
42:25there's a core as hard as those stone walls.
42:29This is a castle that's been shaped by strong women,
42:32and it's played a full and fearsome role
42:36in the political and military history of our nation.
43:20.