Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/113

 churchyard, and the large gardens and grounds belonging to the Order extended from the upper end of the Market Place nearly as far as the old High Street. One of the Gateways opened on Friar Lane, and there was another entrance from what is now called Peacock Lane. The church was destroyed soon after the dissolution of the monastery, and some of its old stones and timber were used for the repair of St. Martin's church.

Nichols has collected a few particulars of this Priory; but the most exciting event in its history happened in 1402, when two of the brethren were hanged at Leicester, for saying that Richard the Second was still alive, and the Prior himself was drawn and quartered in his religious habit at Tyburn for a similar offence.

After the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and the death of Richard III., his body was brought to Leicester, and interred in the church of the Grey Friars. Ten years afterwards, "a fair tomb of mingled-coloured marble adorned with his statue" was erected over his remains by his successor, Henry the Seventh. Leland states that "a knight called Mutton, some time Mayor of Leicester," was buried there, but no Mayor of this name is known. The tomb which Leland noticed was in all probability that of Sir William Moton, of Peckleton, Knight, who, according to Burton, was buried at the church of the Grey Friars in Leicester in the year 1362.

The collegiate church founded by Henry, Duke of Lancaster, in honour of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, was an enlargement of his father's original foundation, which had provided a Hospital within the Newarke. In the year 1353 he obtained a bull for carrying out his design, and in the following year royal letters patent were issued, granting him license to build a monastery in honour of the Annunciation of Our Lady out of his father's hospital, and to ordain a college of dean and canons secular. The Statutes for the regulation of the new foundation were 79