Leicester has a history of lockdowns

Leicester lockdowns

Leicester was forced to impose the first local lockdown, in response to a reported surge in cases of coronavirus.

— The city was last locked down from the rest of the country on 30 May 1645, when a 10,000-strong royalist force led by Prince Rupert and Charles I himself besieged the town and demanded it to surrender. The parliamentarians, who consisted of 480 garrisoned soldiers, 900 townsmen and 150 volunteers from the rest of Leicestershire, were heavily outnumbered. Moreover, the city’s medieval walls had mostly gone, and had to be hurriedly replaced by earth banks. Even so, the parliamentarians inflicted large losses on the royalists as they breached its defences — to be repaid with a brutal repression when the royalists eventually overpowered the city.

— Although he won on that day, Charles confessed on the eve of his execution that his treatment of Leicester had been a turning point against him.