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and me). It is during my life at your service, for I am but a tenant in tail; but were my interest longer, it should be as readily at your Lordship's command.— Marquis of Worcester to Lord Clarendon (Lister, vol. iii. p. 108).

The Chancellor leased the house of the marquis, as he tells us in his Life, at a yearly rent of £500; and here, in Worcester House, on September 3, 1660, between eleven and two at night, Anne Hyde, the Chancellor's daughter, was married to the Duke of York, according to the rites of the English Church.

December 22, 1660.-The marriage of the Chancellor's daughter being now newly owned, I went to see her. . . . She was now at her father's at Worcester House in the Strand. We all kiss'd her hand, as did also my Lord Chamberlain (Manchester) and Countess of Northumberland. This was a strange change-can it

succeed well?—Evelyn.

The Chancellor was surrounded by all sorts of seekers "the creatures of Worcester House," as they are called by Mrs. Hutchinson in her Memoirs of her husband. After Clarendon's removal to his new house in Piccadilly, near the top of St. James's Street, Worcester House would appear to have been left unoccupied, or let for installations and state receptions. On August 26, 1669, the Duke of Ormond was installed Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and on September 3, 1674, the Duke of Monmouth Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in this house. The great hall is mentioned by Pepys (August 20, 1660), and the "Conference at Worcester House betwixt the Episcopal and the Nonconformist Divines, by His Majesty's Commission," of the reign of Charles II., by Andrew Marvell in his Rehearsal Transprosed.1

Worcester Place, the residence of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, Lord High Treasurer of England, stood near Vintner's Hall, Upper Thames Street (1485).

Worship Street, SHOREDITCH, to FINSBURY SQUARE and CITY ROAD; formerly Hog Lane. It appears as Worship Street in Dodsley, 1761, but in a map dated 1767 it is still figured as Hog Lane. The name was perhaps changed out of compliment to Wesley's place of Worship in the Old Foundry, which occupied the site of the present Providence Row. The name is now solely suggestive of the Police Court.

And sure enough at Worship Strect

That Friday week they stood;

She said bad language he had used—

And thus she made it good.-THOMAS HOOD.

Wyan's Court-in Maitland, 1739, and Dodsley, 1761, called WYNAM'S COURT-GREAT RUSSELL STREET, BLOOMSBURY. In this court (it no longer exists) lived Lewis Theobald, the editor of Shakespeare, and the hero of the early editions of The Dunciad. There is a long letter written by him in defence of his notes on Shakespeare, dated, "Wyan's Court, in Great Russell Street, April 16, 1729." In this court also lived Elizabeth Thomas, "Curll's Corinna," the go

1 Ed. 1674, part ii. p. 344.

between in the publication of Pope's letters to Cromwell, and in consequence condemned to everlasting infamy in the Dunciad.

Wych Street, DRURY LANE. The old name for Drury Lane was Via de Aldewych; hence Wych Street, a street in continuation of Drury Lane.1 Among the St. Paul's MSS., calendared by H. C. Maxwell Lyte (Appendix to Ninth Report Hist. MSS. Comm., p. 7), is an "acquittance of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's for rent issuing from a new garden lately belonging to John Bosham, adjoining his great inn in Aldewych extra la Temple Barre on which three houses formerly stood. 6 Henry IV." From the Angel Inn, at the bottom of this street, Bishop Hooper was taken to his martyrdom at Gloucester in 1554. Zachary Macaulay gives Wilberforce (November 21, 1795) an amusing narrative of the proceedings at a "Debating Society in Wych Street, Drury Lane." 2 Mark Lemon, the dramatic writer, and for many years editor of Punch, was previously for some years landlord of the Shakespeare's Head, No. 31 Wych Street, and under his genial rule it became a very favourite resort of actors, dramatic critics and journalists. Douglas Jerrold and Charles Dickens shining the bright particular stars of the Drury empyrean. Most of the old houses have been pulled down and rebuilt.

York Buildings, STRAND, a general name for the streets and houses erected on the site of old York House, but now restricted to one street, which was originally named George Street. Here was established by patent, 27 Charles II., p. 11, n. 11, the "York Waterworks," designed to supply the west end of London with water from the Thames. In 1690 the works were burnt down and re-erected, and in 1691 an Act of 2 and 3 William and Mary was obtained, by which the proprietors of the waterworks were incorporated under the name of "the Governor and Company of Undertakers for raising the Thames water in York Buildings." Savery's fire-engine was set up here, but proved a failure, and was reconstructed by Smeaton on the Newcomen model. The works resulted in a heavy loss. There are several engraved views of the waterworks. About 1719 the Company's charter was used for a different purpose from that for which it was granted, and the forfeited estates of the Jacobites were purchased at a very small sum by the Company. In consequence of these proceedings the 10 shares rose in value to £305.

You that are blest with wealth, by your Creator,

And want to drown your money in Thames Water,
Buy but York Buildings, and the cistern there,
Will sink more pence than any fool can spare.

South Sea Playing Cards (Five of Spades), Notes and Queries, vol, v. (1852), p. 217. In 1829 the Corporation was dissolved by Act of Parliament. A full account of the curious proceedings here alluded to is given in a pamphlet by David Murray (The York Buildings Company, a Chapter

1 Parton, Hist. of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, p. 113.

2 Wilberforce Corr., vol. i. p. 118. 3 Smiles, Boulton and Watt, pp. 56, 57, 206, 216, 217.

L

in Scotch History, Glasgow, 1883). Eminent Inhabitants.-Peter the Great, in 1698, "in a large house at the bottom of York Buildings," now occupied by the Charity Organisation Society, and numbered 15 Buckingham Street. There are some fine painted ceilings in the house. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, in 1708, "in York Buildings, near the water-side"; Samuel Pepys. [See Buckingham Street, Strand.] Plate 22 of Boydell's Views affords a peep of Mr. Pepys's house; and in his printed Diary an engraving of the interior of his library. These houses are now chiefly occupied as chambers.

York Column, CARLTON GARDENS, a column of Scotch granite, erected (1830-1833) by public subscription, and surmounted with a bronze statue of the Duke of York, the second son of George III. The column, 124 feet high, was designed by Mr. B. Wyatt, and the statue, 14 feet high, executed by Sir Richard Westmacott. There is a staircase to a gallery affording a fine view of the west end of London and the Surrey Hills, but during the last few years no one has been allowed to ascend.

York House, BATTERSEA. In the reign of Edward IV. Lawrence Booth, afterwards Archbishop of York, bought one moiety, nearly 400 acres, of the estate belonging to the Stanley family, in this parish. This he annexed to the see of York, and built a house by the Thames as a residence for the archbishops in their visits to the south. It continued to be occasionally used by them down to the end of the 17th century, after which it was let to tenants. Under the Parliament it was seized and sold to Sir Allen Apsley and Colonel Hutchinson for £1806, but was reclaimed by the see after the Restoration. All signs of the old house have disappeared, but its memory is preserved in York Road.

York House, CITY. Baynard's Castle was known for a period by this name, no doubt from having been, after the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, granted by Henry VI. to Richard, Duke of York, who, writes Stow, "in the year 1457, lodged there as in his own house." [See Baynard's Castle.]

York House, STABLE YARD, ST. JAMES'S. Built by Frederick, Duke of York, second son of George III., on a piece of ground leased from the Crown for 999 years, from October 10, 1825, at the yearly rent of £758: 15s., and sold in 1841 to the Marquis of Stafford (afterwards Duke of Sutherland) for £72,000. [See Stafford House.]

York House, in the STRAND, or YORK PLACE, CHARING CROSS, an old London lodging of the Archbishops of York, obtained by Heath, Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor in Queen Mary's reign, in exchange for Suffolk House, in Southwark, presented to the see of York by Queen Mary, "in recompense of Yorke House [Whitehall],

near to Westminster, which King Henry, her father, had taken from Cardinal Wolsey, and from the see of York."1

The said Archbishop, August 6, 1557, obtained a license for the alienation of this capital messuage of Suffolk Place; and to apply the price thereof for the buying of other houses called also Suffolk Place, lying near Charing Cross; as appears from a register belonging to the Dean and Chapter of York.-Strype, B. iv. p. 17. This York House does not appear to have been inhabited by any Archbishop of York except Heath, and by him only for a very short time. Young, Grindall, Sandys, Piers, and Hutton, successively Archbishops of York (1561 and 1606), appear to have let it to the Lord Keepers of the Great Seal. Lord Chancellor Bacon, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, was born at York House, in the Strand, in 1560-1561, and here his father, the Lord Keeper, died in 1579. Lord Keeper Puckering died here in 1596; Lord Chancellor Egerton in 1616-1617. The Commissioners to inquire into the cause of the death of Sir Thomas Overbury sat at York House; and from here are dated the Orders, October 17, 1615, to Somerset "to keep his chamber near the Cockpit," and to his countess "to keep her chamber at the Blackfriars, or at Lord Knollys's house near the Tiltyard."

An attempt was made, in 1588, to obtain the House from Queen Elizabeth, probably by the Earl of Essex, to whom the custody of the House was subsequently committed, as Norden mentions in his Survey of Middlesex. Strype has printed part of a secret letter from Archbishop Sandys to Lord Burghley, entreating his lordship "to be a means to the Queen that he might refuse his yielding therein."2 The Earl of Essex, when committed to the charge of Lord Keeper Egerton, was for six months-October 6, 1599 to March 20, 1600-under surveillance or ward in York House. When the Duke of Lennox wished to bargain for his life interest in York House, Lord Bacon replied: "For this you will pardon me: York House is the house wherein my father died, and wherein I first breathed, and there will I yield my last breath, if so please God and the King will give me leave."

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Bacon's Latin letter to the University of Cambridge, on sending them his Novum Organon, is dated Ex Ædibus Eborac. 3m0 October 1620. Aubrey says that Bacon built an aviary at York House which cost him £300; but the story of his jesting with the fishermen, which Aubrey says occurred in the garden here, Bacon himself places at Chelsea.* It was from York House that, May 1, 1621, the Great Seal was "fetched from" Lord Bacon. A few months later the disgraced Chancellor had "leave to repair to York House for a fortnight, but remained so long that he had warning to return to Gorhambury."5 The next summer (July 1, 1622) we find that "Viscount St. Albans has filed a bill in Chancery against Buckingham, on account of the nonperformance of his contract for taking York House."6 Somehow York

Stow, p. 153.

2 Strype, B. vi. p. 3.

3 Letter in Lamb MSS., vol. viii. No. 936.

4 Aubrey, Lives, vol. ii. pp. 223, 224; Bacon, Apoph., p. 95.

5 Cal. State Papers, 1619-1623, p. 301.

6 Ibid, p. 418.

House passed to Buckingham, the first Duke of the Villiers family. He obtained it not apparently from Bacon, having, as was said, "borrowed" it of Archbishop Matthew, till such time as he could persuade him "to accept as good a seat as that was in lieu of the same, which could not be so soon compassed, as the Duke of Buckingham had occasion to make use of rooms for the entertainment of foreign princes."1 An exchange, however, was subsequently effected.

May 15, 1624.—Whitson-Eve. The Bill passed in Parliament for the King to have York House in exchange for other lands. This was for the Lord Duke of Buckingham.-Archbishop Laud's Diary.2

The duke pulled down the house and erected a large and temporary structure to supply its place, the walls of which were "covered with huge panes of glasse," as mirrors were then rather commonly called.3 The Water Gate, on the margin of the Thames, at the bottom of Buckingham Street, which, though nearly entombed by the Thames Embankment, still remains to show the stately scale on which the whole house was designed to have been erected, is attributed to Inigo Jones.

I am confident there are some that live, who will not deny that they have heard the King of blessed memory, graciously pleased to avouch he had seen in Anno 1628, close to the Gate of York House, in a roome not above 35 foot square, as much as could be represented as to Sceans, in the great Banqueting Room of Whitehall.—Sir Balthazar Gerbier, Discourse on Building, 1662.

Thursday, October 8, 1626.-Towards night I went to see the Duke of Boukingham at his residence called Jorschaux [York House], which is extremely fine, and was the most richly fitted up than any other I saw.-Bassompierre's Embassy to England in 1626.

For the more magnificent adornment of York House, Buckingham purchased of Rubens for a hundred thousand florins the splendid collection of paintings, antiques, gems, etc., "more like that of a prince than a private gentleman," with which the great painter of Antwerp had enriched his own dwelling. Among the pictures were no fewer than 19 by Titian; 21 by Bassano; 13 by Paul Veronese; 17 by Tintoretto; 3 by Raphael; 3 by Leonardo da Vinci; and 13 by Rubens himself.

The duke did not live in York House, but used it only for state occasions. He was assassinated August 23, 1628. His son, the second Duke of Buckingham, was born in Wallingford House in 1627.

At York House, also, the galleries and rooms are ennobled with the possession of those Roman Heads and statues which lately belonged to Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Knight, that exquisite painter of Antwerp: and the garden will be renowned so long as John de Bologna's Cain and Abel stand there, a piece of wondrous art and workmanship. The King of Spain gave it to his Majesty at his being there, who bestowed it on the late Duke of Buckingham.-Peacham, Compleat Gentleman, ed. 1661, p. 108.

The "superstitious pictures in York House" were ordered to be sold, August 20, 1645; but not before, as Brian Fairfax tells us, his

1 Sir B. Gerbier.

2 See also Rushworth's Histor. Collect., fol. 1659, p. 149; and Strype, B. vi. p. 4.

3 MS. Contemporary Poem "Uppon severall

pieces of Worke in the Duke's gallery at Yorke House," formerly in the possession of the late Mr. W. J. Thoms.

4 Whitelocke, p. 167.

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