At war in a foreign country, jailed by your own son and traded as a teenager as part of a business proposition: The ladies of Leeds Castle saw it all

There is a permanent multimedia exhibition at Leeds Castle called Queens with Means, which sounds like the kind of Real Housewives spin-off show I want to watch. Leeds Castle is the perfect setting for drama. I can see it now — an introduction where women in various states of plague and traumatic childbirth turn around to the camera grinning soullessly: ‘My dowry might be small but my passion for war with France is the biggest in Kent.’ Count me in.

Leeds Castle near Maidstone, Kent, is not nicknamed The Ladies' Castle for nothing. It has been owned by no less than six queens since the 9th century and one rather fabulous and extremely generous heiress, Lady Olive Baillie. When she died in 1974 she left the castle to a public trust so that, for the first time in its history, it could be enjoyed by Queens without Means, i.e. us.

The castle website describes what you might find behind its walls as ‘a glamorous history filled with strong and visionary women’ and ‘decades of delicious decadence’. As such I had hoped I might be able to turn up some salacious and scandalous stories about the women who lived there over the past 900 years or so, and, in a way, I have. Although perhaps ‘salacious and scandalous’, by the standards of several hundred years ago, might now more commonly be referred to as ‘horrifying, devastating and nightmarish’.

Nevertheless, I persisted in pursuit of gossip and intrigue and found that there is a thread which weaves these women together. It is perhaps not terribly glamorous, but I was struck by their incredible (and I mean incredible) resilience. The kind of resilience you might not believe is possible until you find yourself at war in a foreign country, jailed indefinitely by your own son or — I don’t know — a teenage widow being traded as part of a business proposition to your husband’s brother.

There is always an element of villainy in these sorts of things. There has to be in order to keep people interested. Perhaps ‘villain’ might have been too strong a word at the time for Queen Eleanor of Castile, who purchased the castle in the late 13th century, but she was certainly known to be unpopular, gaining an ‘unsavoury reputation’, according to the authors of The Palgrave Dictionary of Medieval Anglo-Jewish History. Queen Eleanor acquired a number of estates between 1278 and 1290 (including Leeds Castle) by purchasing debts owed by Christian landowners to Jewish moneylenders that entitled her to take ownership of the land that had been pledged against the debt — exploiting both middling landowners and perpetuating anti-semitism (Jews were not allowed to own land at this time) — giving her a double whammy in the unlikeability stakes.

It is because of Queen Eleanor’s remarkable, albeit nefarious, business acumen that the castle became the property of so many women after her. She is also responsible for building the famous Gloriette (the second, smaller island construction, which is part of Leeds Castle) and for the transformation of the castle from a dour fortress into a cherished residence. Should you be so inclined, Leeds Castle has a new exhibition called Pilgrimage of Love: Eleanor of Castile, beginning from March 9 in which you can meet the ‘world’s first historical AI avatar’ (I’m assuming we’re not counting ABBA Voyage here) Eleanor of Castile herself, and learn more about her quite extraordinary life and the legacy she left behind.

Queen Eleanor was utterly beloved by her husband Edward I, but while he was obviously devastated when she died, he was also concerned that he only had one son and urgently needed a back-up heir. Enter, Queen Margaret of France. Poor Margaret. She was such an unwanted bride. Edward originally wanted to marry her sister Blanche, but couldn’t as she had gotten hitched to Rudolph, the son of the king of Germany. Edward literally declared war on France when he found out he couldn’t have her, such was his passion. A full five years later, however, it had waned somewhat, and he finally agreed to take Margaret’s hand after a series of beneficial treaties had been arranged. His son — who would eventually become King Edward II — married Margaret’s niece, Isabella, as part of the same wonderfully romantic business deal. Margaret was, at least, granted Leeds Castle as a wedding present, which quite frankly is the least that she deserved.

Edward II also added a splash of drama to the Leeds Castle story arc. He was rumoured to be homosexual, and so enamoured with the soldier Piers Gaveston that he gave him the jewellery of Isabella — by then the Queen — to wear and ‘visited his bed more than hers’, according to the historical writer John Carmi Parsons.

Edward II’s biggest marital mistake, however, was made after his mother’s death, when he inherited Leeds Castle. He did not immediately sign it over to his wife, but instead signed it over to the nobleman Bartholemew de Badlesmere and, oh dear, did he pay for it. Queen Isabella, daughter of Philip IV and Joan I of Navarre and sometimes described as the she-wolf of France, is my favourite of them all, because when she and her army turned up one night and Badlesmere refused them entry she simply stormed the castle and took it. She held it until her death in 1358.

It wasn’t until 1382 that a woman took back ownership of the castle when Queen Anne of Bohemia was given it as a wedding present from her husband Richard II at the ripe old age of 15. Sadly she died just 12 years later of the plague.

In 1403, Leeds Castle was turned over to Henry IV’s Queen, Joan of Navarre, who in turn gifted it to Thomas Arundel. Joan of Navarre was, quite thrillingly, accused by her step-son (Henry V), and charged with plotting to kill him by the ‘most high and horrible means’ namely, witchcraft. She was imprisoned in Leeds Castle twice before finally being released after a merciful change of heart, and allowed to live out the remainder of her life in peace.

It was Queen Catherine de Valois, however, who was entirely responsible for Leeds Castle becoming a Tudor Palace through having a secret scandalous affair with, and ultimately marrying, the lower-ranking Sir Owen Tudor.

In 1517, King Henry VIII renovated Leeds Castle for his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, adding an upper floor that still bears Spanish motifs, suggesting this was entirely for the Queen’s use. The lesson here is: just because a man adds an entire Spanish themed floor to his palace for you, it does not mean he is in it for the long haul.

Leeds Castle didn’t find itself in the hands of a woman again until 1925 when the Anglo-American heiress Lady Olive Baillie purchased it and entirely renovated it, having architects and designers create her ‘glorious gothic fantasy’, as described by the Leeds Castle website. During the 1930s, when you could find llamas and zebras wandering the grounds, Lady Baillie threw lavish parties cementing the castle’s reputation for being a home occupied by glamorous women. Imagine being such a phenomenal hostess — of everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Ian Fleming to The Grand Duke of Russia — that yours is the lasting legacy of a 900-year-old property occupied by so many memorable inhabitants. Awe-inspiring stuff.

Glamorous and decadent is certainly one way to describe the history of The Ladies' Castle, but I’d say that it’s rather more complicated than that — and certainly worth digging into the grittier side of the lives of the women who lived there. These were not all likeable women — far from it in some cases — and certainly not by today’s standards, but they are remarkable and complex.

That is to say, the most marvellous thing about these extraordinary women to this day is that they were real. These brilliant, gender-defying characters from centuries ago are so vivid, it feels as though one could conjure them up right in front of us — and in a way we can, with the help of AI and a bit of imagination. Despite our wildly different lives, there is familiarity there, some point of human connection, and something to keep women tuned in to our own history as we walk the same halls they did, all those hundreds of years ago.

Queens with Means is a permanent attraction at Leeds Castle and included in the price of admission. Pilgrimage of Love: Eleanor of Castile, is open from March 9.