‘More than Almsmen: Brotherhood and Belonging at the Lord Leycester Hospital, 1571-1700’.

This display explores the lives of the ‘brethren’ men who lived at the Lord Leycester Hospital between its foundation in 1571 and 1700. For centuries, attention has focused on the hospital’s founder, Robert Dudley, and his heirs, the Sidney family. This exhibition shifts the spotlight away from these well-known figures to the brethren themselves, asking who they were, how they were chosen and what daily life at the hospital was like. 

Despite the later reputation of the Lord Leycester as a home for ex-servicemen, this exhibition shows that the Lord Leycester was home to a remarkably diverse group of people. Through their stories, we see how complex webs of power operated that connected monarchs to their subjects, how patronage operated within major aristocratic households, and how ordinary people lived nearly four hundred years ago.