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for German Reed's performances, and those of others. Here in June 1820 Jerricault exhibited his large picture of the crew of the French frigate on a raft. In 1821 a model of the tomb discovered at Thebes by Belzoni, with the alabaster sarcophagus, afterwards bought by Sir John Soane, and now in his museum. In 1822 a family of Laplanders was exhibited by Mr. Bullock, who, after travelling in Central America and Mexico, brought over a large collection of antiquities, and exhibited them in 1824; at the end of 1825 he exhibited a superb set of tapestry from the cartoons of Raphael. Soon afterwards he sold his interest in the building. The Burmese State Carriage (1825); the Siamese Twins (1829); the Model of the Battle of Waterloo (1838); Catlin's American collections, and various American and Nile panoramas were among the most popular of the shows. In 1846 "General Tom Thumb" in one part drew hundreds in a day (his daily receipts are said to have averaged £125), while Haydon exhibited his pictures, "Alfred" and "Trial by Jury" and the "Burning of Rome," in another room to half a dozen comers in a week. In 1848 the first of the moving panoramas-Banvard's Mississippi— was brought here. From 1852 to his death Albert Smith, the most amusing of "entertainers," gave his "Ascent of Mont Blanc," "China," etc.; as later Artemus Ward gave his entertainment here. For some years past Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke have occupied the principal room. In 1850 Lord Dudley placed his fine collection of pictures for public inspection in what has since been known as the Dudley Gallery, in which are now held the well-established annual exhibitions of "Cabinet Paintings" and "Drawings in Black and White." The figures of Isis and Osiris on the front were carved by Gahagan, who made the statue of the Duke of Kent at the top of Portland Place.

Elbow Lane contained the hall of the Innholders Company, erected soon after the Fire, which was the joint work of Sir C. Wren and Edward Jerman, the city architect. A new hall was erected in 1886 (J. Douglas Matthews, architect). The name has been changed to Little College Street.

Eldedenes Lane, the old name for Warwick Lane. In some Deeds of the reign of Henry III., quoted by Mr. Maxwell Lyte in his Report on the Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's (Appendix to Ninth Report, Hist. MSS. Comm.), certain lands and tenements are described as bounded by "Venella Veteris Decani," called also Eldedenes Lane.

Demise by the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to Mr. John Harpefield, Archdeacon of London, of their great messuage in the lane of old tyme cauled Alden's Lane but now cauled Warwicke Lane, in the occupation of Dr. Nicholas Wotton, Dean of Canterbury and York, May 10, 1555.-Maxwell Lyte's Report, p. 9.

[See Warwick Lane.]

Elephant and Castle (The), a celebrated tavern at Walworth, about one mile and a half from Westminster, Waterloo, and Blackfriars Bridges, and situated where the Kennington, Walworth, and New Kent Roads meet, leading from these bridges to important places in Kent and Surrey. The ground, upon which the tavern stands was in 1658 a piece of waste land granted for building purposes.1 Before the railways removed stage-coaches from the roads, the Elephant and Castle was a well-known locality to every traveller going south from London. It has now changed character, and is chiefly known as a halting station for omnibuses and tramcars.

Elm Court, MIDDLE TEMPLE LANE, TEMPLE, erected 1630-1631, 6th of Charles I. "Up one pair of stairs," in this court, Lord Keeper Guildford commenced practice. "The ground chamber is not so well esteemed as one pair of stairs," writes Roger North; "but yet better than two, and the price is accordingly." This and other legal localities are neatly brought together in Anstey's Pleader's Guide.

And still sometimes upon St. Martin's morn,
Through Inner and through Middle Temple borne
(While yet detained in that obscure resort)
Cease I to roam through Elm or Garden Court,

Fig Tree, or Fountain side, or learned shade

Of King's Bench Walks by pleadings vocal made,

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Thrice hallowed shades where slipshop Benchers muse,
Attorneys haunt, and Special Pleaders cruise !

To make way for projected improvements in the Temple the "building materials of Elm Court" were sold in lots by auction, October 1879

Elm Tree Road, ST. JOHN'S WOOD. At No. 17 in this road were spent the last years of Thomas Hood, the author of the "Comic Annual," Eugene Aram," and the "Song of the Shirt," and here he died, May 3, 1845.

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Elms (The), in SMITHFIELD.

In the 6th of Henry V., a new building was made in this west part of Smithfield, betwixt the horse-pool and the river of the Wels, or Turnmill-brook, in a place then called the Elmes, for that there grew many elm-trees; and this had been the place of execution for offenders; since the which time the building there hath been so increased, that now remaineth not one tree growing.-Stow, p. 142.

A place anciently called The Elmes, of elmes that grew there, where Mortimer was executed, and let hang two days and two nights, to be seene of the people, which place hath now left his name, and is not knowne to one man of a million where that place was.-Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1048.

This place was in use for executions, in the year 1219, and, as it seems, long before, by a Clause Roll, 4 Hen. III., wherein mention is made of "Furcæ factæ apud Ulmellos Com. Middlesex, ubi prius factæ fuerunt."-Strype, B. iii. p. 238.

Sir William Wallace was executed at the Elms, in Smithfield, on St. Bartholomew's Eve, 1305. On February 4, 1554-1555, John

1 Rendle and Norman's Inns of Old Southwark, 1888, p. 379.

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Rogers, Vicar of St. Sepulchre's, hard by, was burned in Smithfield for heresy, the first on the long roll of Protestant martyrs who suffered in the "fires of Smithfield." A tablet to the memory of John Rogers, John Philpot, and other martyrs in the years 1555, 1556, and 1557, is let into the wall of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, close to the out-patients' entrance.

Elsing Spital, GRAYSPUR LANE, CRIPPLEGATE, a hospital "for the sustentation of one hundred blind men," founded by William de Elsing, mercer, in 1329. There was a nunnery on the site which had fallen into decay, when Elsing obtained permission to convert it into a hospital, with letters of mortmain, by which he was enabled to endow it with his two houses in St. Alphage and Aldermanbury. Three years afterwards it was called the "priory hospital of St. Mary the Virgin," 1 and Elsing became the first prior; it continued, however, to be known. as Elsing's Hospital till its surrender, May 11, 1530. On the site of the hospital Syon College was afterwards erected. The poet Gower bequeathed, 1408, "to the Prior and Convent of Elsing Spital a certain large book composed at my expense, which is called Martirologium, so that I ought to have a special memorial written in the same according to their promise."

Ely Place, two rows of tenements in Holborn so called, occupying the site of the town house or "hostell" of the Bishops of Ely. John de Kirkeby, Bishop of Ely, dying in 1290, bequeathed a messuage in Holborn, and nine tenements adjoining, to his successors in the see. William de Luda, who succeeded him, added a further grant, "with condition, that his next successor should pay one thousand marks for the finding of three chaplains in the chapel there." John de Hotham, another bishop, added a vineyard, kitchen-garden, and orchard. Thomas de Arundel, before he was translated to the see of York, in 1388, built "a gatehouse or front" towards Holborn, and in Stow's time "his arms were yet to be discovered on the stone work thereof." The chapel, dedicated to St. Ethelreda, is all that exists of the building. This house (or the larger part of it) was occasionally let by the see to distinguished noblemen. of Gaunt, "time-honoured Lancaster." In Ely Place, in 1399, died John Henry Radclyff, Earl of Sussex, writes to his countess, announcing the "From Ely Place in Holborn " death of Henry VIII.; and in Ely Place, then the residence of the Earl of Warwick (afterwards Duke of Northumberland), the council met, Sunday, October 6, 1549, and formed that remarkable conspiracy which destroyed the Protector Somerset. (Queen Elizabeth's handsome Lord Chancellor) obtained a lease of Sir Christopher Hatton the gate-house, part of the buildings in the first courtyard, and the garden and orchard in 1576 for the term of twenty-one years. rent was a red rose, ten loads of hay, and ten pounds per annum ; The Bishop Cox, on whom this hard bargain was forced by the Queen,

1 Stow, p. 110; Strype, B. iii. p. 71.

reserving to himself and his successors the right of walking in the gardens, and gathering twenty bushels of roses yearly.

"My Lord [said the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III.], you have very good strawberries at your garden in Holborn; I require you let us have a mess of them." "Gladly, my Lord," quoth he [the Bishop of Ely], "would God I had some better thing as ready to your pleasure as that," and therewithal, in haste, he sent his servant for a mess of strawberries.-Holinshed.

D. of Glou. My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there :
I do beseech you send for some of them.

B. of Ely. Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.

Shakespeare, Richard III.

Hatton's object was to build himself a house on the garden, and the bishop, it is affirmed, only consented to this alienation of the property on the peremptory interference of the Queen, who, it is said, on the bishop remonstrating, wrote him an extraordinary letter, in which, addressing him as "Proud Prelate," she says, "If you do not immediately comply with my request, by God! I will unfrock you!" But the letter is a palpable forgery. It was first printed as "from the Register of Ely" in the Annual Register for 1761 (p. 15), and there appears to be no other authority for it. What is certain is that the see of Ely was vacant from Bishop Cox's death, July 22, 1581, till Dr. Martin Heton's election, December 20, 1598; meantime Sir Christopher Hatton had erected a mansion for himself in the grounds; and when a Bishop of Ely was appointed he appears to have lived at Ely Place pretty much as a matter of course. In the Calendar of State Papers (James I.) there are numerous instances of letters from the Bishops of Ely dated from Ely Place, and of communications to the bishops there, but their tenure was uncertain or frequently interrupted. Thus when Gondomar, in September 1619, was coming over from Spain as Ambassador Extraordinary, "Ely House is prepared for the great Spaniard, who is daily expected," and some indignation is anticipated at the prospect of "having masses publicly said in a Bishop's Chapel."1 In Hatton House, Ely Place, Sir Christopher Hatton died, November 20, 1591, indebted to the Crown in the sum of £40,000. He was succeeded in his estates by his nephew Newport, who took the name of Hatton, and whose widow, "The Lady Hatton" of history, was dwelling in Hatton House when Ely Place was assigned to Gondomar. Lady Hatton was married to Sir Edward Coke, the famous lawyer. The marriage was an unhappy one, and the lady refused her husband admission to her house :

Gondomar hath waded already very deep, and ingratiated himself with divers persons of quality, ladies especially; yet he could do no good upon the Lady Hatton, whom he desired, lately, that in regard he was her next neighbour [at Ely House], he might have the benefit of her back-gate to go abroad into the fields, but she put him off with a compliment; whereupon, in a private audience lately with the king, among other passages of merriment, he told him, that my Lady Hatton was a strange lady, for she would not suffer her husband, Sir Ed. Coke, to come in at her

1 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, pp. 79, 88.

fore-door, nor him to go out at her back-door, and so related the whole business.— Howell's Letters, ed. 1737, p. 119.

1

Gondomar began to quarrel with the "strange lady" his neighbour within a few days of his arrival. A letter preserved in the Record Office states that "Gondomar is more made of and more hated than ever; he has opened a back-door in his house to let Catholics in privately to worship; but his neighbour, Lady Hatton, hinders him." Gondomar, as we have seen, contrived to make a good story out of the lady's opposition. While priests and Jesuits were going to and fro behind the house, the people took great delight in beating drums. for recruits for the King of Bohemia in the front of it. Gondomar, though caressed by James and the courtiers, looked with some dread on the Londoners. In April 1621 three apprentices were whipped at the cart's tail for a slight offered to him, and the crowd murmured and hooted when the sentence was carried out. Gondomar in his turn, says one of Carleton's correspondents, "had become very choleric; he beat a Scotsman the other day openly with his fists for saying he had been ill-treated in Spain." A strong guard was, at his own desire, ordered to Ely Place for his protection. Pyrnne relates that the mistery play of "Christ's Passion" was "acted at Elie House in Holborne, when Gondomar lay there, on Good Friday at night, at which there were thousands present;" and this Malone believed was "the last mystery ever represented in England." The slight tenure by which the see of Ely held their ancient place was shown in 1622-1623, when James made a grant of it to the Duke of Lenox (created shortly after Duke of Richmond), whom he was anxious to conciliate on elevating the upstart Buckingham to a similar rank. The King's interest in the affair is evident from the earnestness with which he thanks the Bishop of Ely for his readiness in coming to terms with the Duke, and which "shall be considered as a personal favour, and prove no prejudice to the see." 4 The Duke of Richmond did not long enjoy his new honours or his new house. On April 10, 1624, he is "laid in state for six weeks at Hatton House, and all things are performed with much solemnity for him."5 A few months later we hear that the Duchess of Richmond is anxious to possess Hatton House as well as Ely House, and at first Lady Hatton seems disposed to part with it, and terms are named. But the two ladies of course soon quarrel. Lady Hatton is one of the proudest women in England, and in that respect the Duchess of Richmond is fully her equal.

January 8, 1625.-[The Duchess of Richmond's] magnificence is much talked of. She went to her Chapel at Ely House with her four principal officers marching before her in velvet gowns, with white staves, three gentlemen ushers, and two ladies to bear her train, the Countesses of Bedford and Montgomery, and other ladies following in couples etc.; but all this does not bring down the pride of Lady Hatton, who contests much with her about their bargains and the house.-Cal. State Pap., 1623-1625, p. 441.

1 Cal. State Pap., 1619-23, P. 378.

2 Prynne, Histrio - Mastix, 1633, p. 117; Malone, History of the Stage, vol. iii. p. 33.

8 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, passim.

4 Ibid., 1623-1625, p. 20.

5 Ibid., p 212.

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