“Kings and Leek”

Whatlinks the years 1902, 1911, 1937 and 1953? The answer is that they all mark the last four coronations of British monarchs. The next in line will be May 6. It occurred to me to think which monarch either visited or who carried out an action that had a direct impact on Leek.

By Bill Cawley

I have three candidates whose reign had an impact on the town. I will do it in reverse order.

George V 1910 – 1936: The first one is the present monarch’s great grandfather who did much to rescue the monarch from the libertine excesses of his father Edward VII. In truth Edward was a bit of a waste of space and seemed to exist for pleasure only.

Rudyard Kipling called him “corpulent voluptuary” which probably explains why Kipling never got a knighthood his evocations of empire deserved.

George on the other hand was a model of personal integrity. His wife Queen Mary had visited the area as a young German Princess in the 1890s as Princess of Teck. The royal couple had visited Leek in 1900 as the Duke and Duchess of York to open the Technical School in Leek.

They were crowned in 1911 and the occasion was well marked in the town with a great floral gantry erected in Stockwell Street to celebrate the coronation. George and Mary stayed at the house of Sir Arthur Nicholson Highfields House in April 1913. The King and Sir Arthur shared an interest in shire horses and the mill owner was considered to be one of the country’s premier owners of these magnificent beasts. It should be added that perhaps there was a certain nervousness at Highfields as the Queen had a reputation as a kleptomaniac.

Leek does not feature as a stopping off place for monarchs in the years that followed, the 1913 visit Queen Victoria visited Staffordshire but it was the Black Country and the legend is that she ordered the blinds pulled down to avoid looking at the industrial landscape.

Leek did have the passing visit of George II’s son William, Duke of Cumberland in pursuit of the Scots rebels in 1745. Charles II had an encounter with the Staffordshire Oak Tree when escaping Worcester and the roundheads after his defeat in 1651.

In fact, it is fair to say that the Stuarts never did have a happy time in Staffordshire. Charles’s grandmother Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned at Chartley and Tutbury Castles on the way to her appointment with the headsman in 1589.

Queen Elizabeth 1st visited Stafford and her father Henry VIII, Tutbury near Burton at the beginning of his reign. The Wars of the Roses touched Staffordshire with the Battle of Blore heath with Henry VI’s Queen Margaret viewing the Lancastrian defeat from Mucklestone Church tower in 1459. Richard III may have been killed by Ranulph of Rudyard in 1485 at Bosworth.

Our next monarch to take an interest in Leek was Edward II 1307- 27. A monarch that was regarded as a disaster by many historians losing the Battle of Bannockburn and his grip on Scotland. Then there was the issue of favourites particularly Piers Gaveston and an alleged gay relationship.

Another was Hugh Despenser who was executed in 1326. He was stabbed in the stomach, beheaded and chopped into bits. The bones found at Hulton Abbey would indicate that the victim suffered such a fate. There is a story that I read somewhere that he was present at the reconsecration of St Edward’s Church after it burnt down in 1297. Certainly, he was a visitor to Staffordshire as he was in Tutbury in 1320s. From what I understand about his character he seems to have been a man born completely in the wrong time. He did not deserve his end meeting (allegedly) with the wrong end of a red-hot poker.

Edward had the common touch for which he was despised for by the nobility. He did not like tournaments and his favourite sport was swimming. The country was hit by famine during his reign, even the king himself was unable to eat when they could not find bread in St Albans. He was unlucky.

John 1199- 1216: John has a dreadful reputation but it was John who granted the Market Charter to Leek in 1207. This was a consequence of the king needing to raise additional revenue as a consequence of losing all his family’s possessions and land in Normandy. John stands poorly in comparison with his brother the courageous Richard the Lion Heart who only spent a short period in England before going on the Third Crusade and in consequence bankrupting the country.

John followed in the steps of his father Henry II who energetically got round the country administering justice. John was in his father’s mould in being a serious administrator. He was probably the first King since the Conqueror to know England very well. His awareness of the country was assisted by his enthusiastic pursuit of game. John was a keen hunter and there is evidence that he hunted throughout the Midlands, the North and the West Country.

As a consequence, he was one of the few medieval monarchs to encourage the building of bridges and improving roads. He was also the first to recognise the pottery industry in Staffordshire as an order for 4,000 plates and 500 cups was made to supply a Christmas banquet at Tewkesbury in 1204.