Richard Dereham’s warrant for admission to the Lord Leycester (June 1591)
Issued by Queen Elizabeth I from Greenwich Palace
Warwickshire County Record Office, CR1600/LH18
Issued by Queen Elizabeth I, the warrant of Richard Dereham, a maimed soldier, is one of the earliest documents that explains the process and grounds for admission to the Lord Leycester.
The Queen appears to have been the hospital’s patron and overseen admissions in the years between the deaths of Robert Dudley and his brother Ambrose in 1588 and 1590 respectively, and before Robert Sidney had proved himself as Dudley’s rightful heir.
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By the Queen
Elizabeth:
Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. Letting you within consideration of the good and faithful service done unto us in the wars by our well beloved subject Richard Dereham and of his hurts and maims received in the said war, we have given and grant and by this present do give and grant unto him during his natural life, a room in our almshouse founded by the late Earl of Leicester in the town of Warwick. If any such be now void or for want of present vacation, in the next that shall fall void by death, surrender, or forfeiture or otherwise with all manner of fees, wages, profits, customs, duties and allowances to the same room belonging, and in as large and ample manner, as any of the almspersons there already placed have and enjoy or of right ought to have and enjoy, having always all such interest as other person or persons have heretofore hold of us by the like grant.
And this our letter shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge on his behalf.