Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XI: The Strand:--Southern Tributaries (continued).
Chapter XI: The Strand:--Southern Tributaries (continued).
| |
The site now covered by and Devereux Court was, as stated above, originally a portion of the Outer Temple, and, as Dugdale supposes, belonged at time to the In the reign of Edward III. it passed into the hands of the Bishops of Exeter, whose town residence was built here. It was called Exeter House, and they occupied it till the time of Henry VI. In , as readers of English history are aware, Queen Isabella, consort of Edward II., landed from France to chase the Spensers from the side of her husband, and advanced upon London. The king and his civil counsellors fled to the frontiers of Wales; but Walter Stapleton, then Bishop of Exeter, Lord Treasurer of England, held out stoutly for his sovereign in his house, and as custos of London, demanded from the Lord Mayor the keys of the City to prevent any uprising in the disaffected City. And then a scene occurred which would require the pen of a Macaulay to paint in adequate colours. says Mr. Diprose, Bishop Stapleton's remains were buried under a heap of rubbish or sand hard by his own gateway. | |
At the Reformation the house was seized on by Lord Paget, who called it after his name. The great Earl of Leicester was its next occupant. He changed it to and bequeathed it to his son-in-law, the unfortunate favourite of Queen Elizabeth, Robert, [extra_illustrations.3.67.1] , from whom it derived the name under which it was known | |
p.67 p.68 | for many years, and the memory of which is still retained in . It will be remembered that it was from this house that he made, towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, his frantic and imprudent sally, in the vain hope of exciting the citizens of London,to take up arms against their sovereign. Finding that his star at court was sensibly waning after the death of Lord Burleigh, and the estrangement of his sovereign, he listened to the advice of those who would have had Raleigh, Cecil, and Cobham banished from the Queen's councils. To strengthen his interest in antagonism to the Queen and the Court, he threw open the gates of [extra_illustrations.3.68.1] to all discontented persons, and especially to those of the Puritan party. In , he took part in an overt act of rebellion, assembling his friends, to whom he stated that his life was threatened by Raleigh and Cobham. His son, the next Earl, the celebrated Parliamentary general, was born here; and in the Cavalier songs of the day the house is often alluded to as It was here, according to Whitelocke, that the Earl, after the battle of Newbury, received a deputation from the and the citizens of London with the Speaker and the Lord Mayor at their head. |
Spenser thus speaks of Essex House in his
| |
It is said that Sir N. Throgmorton was poisoned here; and within its walls was lodged, in , the Count Palatine of the Rhine, when he came to London as the accepted suitor of daughter of James I. | |
It appears that in or about the great mansion of Essex House was divided, the half being let by Lord Essex on a long lease to William Seymour, Earl of Hertford, whose name is so well known to history in connection with that of Lady Arabella Stuart. years later we find Lord Southampton, the Lord Treasurer of Charles II., living here; and the house was tenanted by Sir Orlando Bridgman, the Lord Keeper in , when it is described by Pepys as Strype tells us that after this it was purchased by a builder, who appears to have converted the site into a good speculation, the houses which he erected in its place being soon occupied by Old Essex House was partly demolished about the year , and the street rose on the site of its ruins about years later. | |
The other half of the original edifice long retained its name of Essex House, and it is worthy of note that it served as a receptacle for the Cottonian Library in the reigns of Anne and George I. It appears that this part of the house was afterwards inhabited by an auctioneer. It was at Essex House, according to Horace Walpole, that this auctioneer, named Paterson, in , offered for public sale subjects in painted glass--the art of producing which appears to have been lost-imported by him from Flanders. | |
It must be owned that the architecture of , with its unsightly square-headed archway at the lower end, leading by a flight of stone steps to , is by no means attractive or tasteful; but in this respect it resembles its precursor, Essex House, which is described by Pepys as a large but ugly mansion. The property was divided and let after the Restoration, and ultimately the house was pulled down and the materials sold, towards the middle of the reign of George III., from which the present houses date. [extra_illustrations.3.69.1] are said by John Timbs to have formed the water-gate of old Essex House; if so, we can only say that it presented a sorry contrast to the work of Inigo Jones half a mile further west. In a view of the on the Thames in the reign of Charles II., where the royal party are walking on to the ice at | |
p.69 | the , to witness the sport, this heavy archway is seen in the background, and through it can be descried the gardens and terraces and the eaves of Essex House. |
At the in this street (now No. ), the year before he died (), Dr. Johnson established a club called. for the benefit of the landlord, Samuel Greaves, who had been an old servant of his friends, the Thrales. It was not so select as the Literary Club, but cheaper. Johnson, in writing to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and asking him to join it, says, The rules of this club, as drawn up by Dr. Johnson himself, will be found at length in Boswell's and our readers may be amused to learn that the for non-attendance being found too low, was raised to ! | |
It was in that Dr. King, as we learn from his was privately presented by Lady Primrose, to Prince Charles Edward Stuart, during his short, secret, and stolen visit to London, between the and the . The house of this same lady, in this street, some years before, curiously enough, had afforded a temporary home to Flora Macdonald, after her release from the mild imprisonment to which she had been subjected by the Government. | |
In the year the Robin Hood Society was established at the house of Sir Hugh Middleton in this street. It was removed to the Tavern in , when it was presided over by a baker. Mr. Diprose tells us, Poor Oliver Goldsmith was a member of this club. The meetings were held on Monday nights, when questions were proposed on which any present might speak if he did not exceed minutes. When these were finished, the who presided with a hammer in his hand, summed up the arguments. | |
In [extra_illustrations.3.69.2] , being made a start on his own account by turning some rooms in this street into a theatre of his own, from which, however, he soon afterwards moved to a more fashionable neighbourhood further west. | |
On the west side of is a once noted chapel of the Unitarian body, in which in the course of the last years have ministered in suc cession Theophilus Lindsey, Dr. Disney, Thomas Belsham, and Thomas Madge. | |
Of the founder of this Unitarian chapel it may be well here to add a few particulars. His name was Theophilus Lindsey, and he was a godson of the Earl of Huntingdon, in whose family his mother had resided. He took his degree at College, Cambridge, and was presented by a connection of the Huntingdon family, whilst quite a young man, with the chapel in . He afterwards became chaplain to Algernon, Duke of Somerset, and after the duke's death was continued in the same post by the Duchess, who sent him abroad with her grandson, the Duke of Northumberland, as tutor. Having held for a few years a living in Dorsetshire, he exchanged it, by the interest of his old friend Lord Huntingdon, for that of Catterick in Yorkshire, where he was promised a bishopric in Ireland on the appointment of Viscount Townshend as Lord Lieutenant. In , on account of scruples which he had long cherished, he resigned his Yorkshire living and removed to London, openly professing himself a convert to Unitarianism. His wife was a stepdaughter of Archdeacon Blackburne, a lady whose principles and views were congenial to his own. He preached his sermon in this new capacity at Essex House in , and the new chapel was opened shortly after, Benjamin Franklin, with many other eminent men of the time, being present. He acted as pastor of it for nearly years, during the latter part being assisted by Dr. Disney, who had also seceded from the Church of England. He died in , at the age of eightyfive, and was buried at Bunhill Fields. Whatever we may think of the creed which he adopted, we can have but opinion of his honesty and courage, and must admire the man who in a selfish and thoughtless age could sacrifice his worldly prospects to his conscience. The chapel was built on part of the site of the property of Essex House. | |
Among the earliest inhabitants of were Dr. Hugh Chamberlain (the author of several works on banks of credit, on land, security &c.) and Arthur Maynwaring. Here also lived Dr. George Fordyce, a noted epicurean of the eighteenth | |
p.70 | century. In Jeaffreson's we are told that
|
The late Lord Cholmondeley, who died in , and who was not unknown as an antiquary, used to say that day, when visiting a house in this street, he found, scratched to all appearance with a diamond, on a weather-stained piece of glass in a top room, the following letters, which he interpreted, If he was right in his interpretation, it would seem probable that some inquisitive occupant of this room, overlooking Essex House, had seen the Queen when visiting the Earl, and, like Captain Cuttle, had on the spot of it. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.67.1] Earl of Essex [extra_illustrations.3.68.1] Essex House [extra_illustrations.3.69.1] The arch and the steps at the end of the street [extra_illustrations.3.69.2] Charles Dibdin |
