Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/231

 written by Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor (father of Sir Christopher), who was born in the year 1589. "The wicked and tyrannical Prince, King Richard III," he wrote, "being slain at Bosworth, his body was begged by the Nuns of Leicester (sic), and buried in their Chapel there; at the dissolution whereof the place of his burial happened to fall into the bounds of a citizen's garden, which being after purchased by Mr. Robert Herrick (sometime Mayor of Leicester) was by him covered with a handsome stone pillar, three foot high, with this inscription, 'Here lies the body of Richard III, some time King of England.' This he showed me (Chr. Wren) walking in his garden. Anno 1612." The future Dean was at that time 23 years of age, and tutor to the eldest son of Sir William Herrick, of Beaumanor.

The site of the Grey Friars, where Richard was buried, had been sold to Robert Herrick by Sir Robert Catlyn. Samuel Herrick, Robert's great grandson, sold it in 1711 to Thomas Noble, whose devisee, Roger Ruding, of Westcotes, after allotting a piece of ground throughout for a common street now called New Street, sold it to different purchasers. The mansionhouse with its gardens, lying on the eastward side of the Grey Friars Estate, was conveyed in 1752 to Richard Garle, whose heirs, after his death in 1776, sold it to Thomas Pares. Thomas Pares enlarged the house, which was considered "the principal private residence in Leicester"; but in 1824, the year of his own death, he seems to have sold all the property, excepting the site of Pares' Banking House, to Beaumont Burnaby. Beaumont Burnaby, who died there, devised "the messuage or mansion house formerly called "The Grey Friars" to his wife Mary Burnaby. It appears then to have been divided into two separate houses, one of which was occupied by Mrs. Burnaby, who died there on February 7th, 1866, having by her will devised the property to Trustees upon Trust for sale. The Trustees of her Will afterwards conveyed it for the sum of £6,400 to Messrs. Alfred Burgess, George Toller, George Baines, Richard Angrave and Charles R. Crossley. These gentlemen had taken the conveyance as Trustees for the Leicester Corporation, and 183