Editing Leeds Castle (section)

===17th and 18th centuries===
{{Multiple image|direction=horizontal|align=left|image1=Leeds Maidstone Fairfax Doublet 1648.jpg|image2=Leeds Cuirassier 1640 civil war armour.jpg|width1=163|width2=163|caption1=Doublet worn by Fairfax at the [[Battle of Maidstone]] in 1648|caption2=Civil War [[cuirassier]] armour at Leeds {{circa|1640}}}}
The St Leger family continued to own the castle until Sir Warham St Leger sold it to Sir [[Richard Smythe]] in 1618.{{sfn|McCann|2002|p=14}} Smythe's daughters sold the castle to Sir Thomas Colepeper of [[Hollingbourne]].<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Charles Wykeham Martin |last=Martin |first=Charles Wykeham |title=The History and Description of Leeds Castle, Kent |year=1869 |publisher=Nichols and Sons |location=Westminster |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ElQ-AQAAIAAJ |access-date=2023-02-08 |via=Google Books |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230208013843/https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_History_and_Description_of_Leeds_Cas.html?id=ElQ-AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_entity&hl=en&gl=GB&ovdme=1&redir_esc=y |archive-date=2023-02-08 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|pages157–159}} An early embroidered silk [[quilt]] from [[Bengal]] dating from the 1620s, held by the [[Colonial Williamsburg]] museum, has an ownership label of Catherine Colepeper, connecting it to Leeds Castle and the Smythe and Colepeper families. Richard Smythe's brother [[Thomas Smythe]] was a founder and governor of the English [[East India Company]].<ref>Linda Baumgarten and Kimberly Smith Ivey, ''Four Centuries of Quilts: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection'', (Yale, 2014), pp. 16–17.</ref>

The castle escaped destruction during the [[English Civil War]] because its owner, Sir [[Cheney Culpeper]], sided with the [[Roundhead|Parliamentarians]].{{sfn|McCann|2002|p=75}} The castle was used as both an arsenal and a prison during the war. Other members of the Culpeper family had sided with the [[Cavalier|Royalists]], [[John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper]], having been granted more than {{cvt|5000000|acre|km2}} of land in [[Virginia]] in reward for assisting the escape of the king's son, Charles, [[Charles II of England|the Prince of Wales]].<ref name="Guidebook">{{harvnb|McCann|2002}}</ref> This legacy was to prove vital for the castle's fortunes.

[[Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron]] was born at the castle in 1693 and settled in [[Colonial America|North America]] to oversee the Culpeper estates, cementing an ongoing connection between the castle and America. There is a commemorative sundial at the castle telling the time in [[Belvoir, Virginia]] and a corresponding sundial in America.<ref name="Guidebook"/>
Fairfax was the great-grandson of [[Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron|Thomas Fairfax]] who led the parliamentarian attack at the nearby [[Battle of Maidstone]] in 1648 and whose [[Doublet (clothing)|doublet]] worn during the battle is on display.