Leicester is a city in Leicestershire, England, located along the River Soar in the East Midlands. The Corieltauvi Britons of King Lear lived in the area before the Roman conquest of Britain, with the Romans arriving in the area in 47 AD and fortifying and garrisoning the town. As Ratae Corieltauvorum, it served as the tribal capital of the Corieltauvi, and a forum and bathhouse were built in the 2nd century AD and city walls built in the 3rd century AD. It came to be known as Caer Lerion (in honor of Lear) during Sub-Roman Britain, and the Angles of Mercia conquered the city and established a bishopric known as Ligeraceaster in 679 AD. In 874 AD, the Danish Vikings conquered Leicester, and it became known as Ledeborg. The city was conquered by the army of King Edward the Elder of Wessex in 917 AD, and, from then on, it was part of England. In 1231, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester expelled the city's Jewish population, claiming that it benefited the souls of his ancestors. Following the 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field at the end of the Wars of the Roses, King Richard III of England was buried in Leicester. Leicester was also the site of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's death in 1530, and, also during the Tudor period, Queen Elizabeth I of England granted Leicester to her lover Robert Dudley. Leicester was a Parliamentarian stronghold during the English Civil War, and it was sacked by the Cavaliers on 31 May 1645 and recaptured by the Parliamentarians on 18 June 1645 following the Battle of Naseby. During the 1790s, the construction of a large canal linked Leicester to both Birmingham and London, and Leicester grew in size during the Industrial Revolution. From 1861 to 1901, Leicester's population increased from 68,100 to 211,600. Leicester became a stronghold of radicalism, with Chartist riots occurring in the town in 1842 and 1848. From 1889 to 1974, Leicester was granted borough status. In 1900, Leicester was linked too London by the Great Central Railway, and, in 1919, Leicester was granted city status in recognition of its contributions to the war effort during World War I. After World War II, mass housebuilding took place for 30 years, but the city underwent deindustrialization during the 1970s and 1980s. Many exiled Polish servicemen settled in Leicester following World War II, and they were followed by Irish economic migrants, South Asian immigrants starting in the 1960s-1970s, and Eastern Europeans following the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. In 2011, Leicester had a population of 329,839 people (508,916 in the urban area and 836,484 in the metro area), with 50.6% being White British, 37.1% Asian, 6.3% Black, 3.5% mixed race, and 2.6% other.
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