The History and Antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and Parts Adjacent, vol. 4
Allen, Thomas
1827
The Albany,
Originally inhabited by lord Melbourne, and afterwards by the late duke of York, in compliment to whose title it has its | |
303 | present name. After his royal highness quitted possession of it, this place was purchased by the present proprietors, who built on the gardens, and converted the whole into chambers for the casual residence of the nobility and gentry, who had no settled town residence. |
It is a thoroughfare, (though not a public ,) under a large covered way, from into Vigo lane, opposite . | |
Near this place stood the town residence of Robert Spencer, earl of Sunderland, whom Mr. Pennant, and others, have described as acting in the most treacherous manner toward his sovereign, James II.; and who at the very time he sold him to the prince of Orange, prompted and encouraged the king to those measures which involved him and his family in ruin. | |
M. Rapin, however, seems disposed to do more justice to the character of Sunderland on this subject. Speaking of those who are persuaded,--that had the king followed other measures than those which the prime minister, Sunderland, treacherously advised, he would have been able to have maintained his crown, this historian says, that to accuse him of an intention to betray the king, it must be supposed that he could have foreseen what the king himself did not: in a word, that he was secretly engaged with the prince of Orange, of which, however, there is no positive proof. | |
The most prominent and interesting object is the | |
Footnotes: [] Hist. Eng. ii. 771. |
