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. In Ely Place, in 1399, died John of Gaunt, "time-honoured Lancaster." "From Ely Place in Holborn " Henry Radclyff, Earl of Sussex, writes to his countess, announcing the 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. Sir Christopher Hatton (Queen Elizabeth's handsome Lord Chancellor) obtained a lease of 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. The rent was a red rose, ten loads of hay, and ten pounds per annum ; 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, 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. 3 2 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. 3 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, passim. 4 Ibid., 1623-1625, p. 20. 5 Ibid., p 212. The bickering went on. Lady Hatton complained so much about the terms of the bargain for Hatton House that at length, we are told, "the Duchess took her at her word, and left it on her hands, whereby she loses £1500 a year and £6000 for life;" and a fortnight later (March 12, 1625) we hear that "the Duchess of Richmond has retired from Hatton House to the other [her own] part of Ely House, where she has the Lent Sermons as orderly as those at Whitehall." 1 In the reign of Charles I. Ely House was again the bishops' dwelling. The parish Register of St. Andrew's Holborn records : February 25, 1637-1638.—John (Francis) White, D.D., and sometime Bp. of Ely, died at his house, called Ely House, in Holborn, but buried in St. Paull's Church. October 11, 1644.-Wm. Tyndall, a Minister, sometime of Alton in Hampshire, died in Ely House, Holborn, being then a prisoner there, the 10th. September 27, 1645.-John Chadwicke, a minister, a Lancashire man, died a prisoner in Ely House, 26th.-Notes and Queries, 2d S., vol. xii. pp. 228-431. Lady Hatton "dyed in London, on the 3rd January, 1646, at her house in Holbourne," having effectually held her castle against husband, ambassador, duchess, and bishop. When Charles II. was restored to his throne the bishop returned to Ely House. Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely (the uncle of Sir Christopher) died here in 1607, and his successor, Benjamin Laney, in 1675. June 27, 1675.-At Ely House I went to the consecration of my worthy friend, the learned Dr. Barlow, Warden of Queen's Coll., Oxon, now made Bishop of Lincoln. After it succeeded a magnificent feast, where were the Duke of Ormond, Earl of Lauderdaile, the Lord Treasurer, Lord Keeper, etc.-Evelyn. In Bishop Patrick's time (1691-1707) a piece of ground was made over to the see for the erection of a new chapel; and the Hatton property saddled with a rent-charge of £100 per annum payable to the see. Ely House continued to be "the residence of the Bishop of Ely when in town," 2 but seems to have been suffered to fall gradually to ruin. Thus in 1761 we find "the city mansion of the Bishop of Ely" described as standing "on a large piece of ground. Before it is a spacious court, and behind it a garden of considerable extent; but it is so ill kept that it scarcely deserves the name. The buildings are very old; and consist of a large hall, several spacious rooms, and a good chapel."3 On the death, in 1762, of the last Lord Hatton, the Hatton property in Holborn reverted to the Crown. An amicable arrangement was effected; the see, in 1772, transferring to the Crown all its right to Ely Place, on an Act (12 Geo. III., c. 43) for building, and making over to the Bishop of Ely a spacious house, 37 Dover Street, Piccadilly, still the property of the see, with an annuity of £200 payable for ever. The buildings, with the exception of the chapel, were afterwards taken down and the land let for building on in 1775. "This Chapel stands on the Western side of the ancient quadrangle of Ely Palace on Holborn Hill, adjoining to the garden and field in which the writer of these articles saw rabbits running wild, previous to the whole being sold to Messrs. Gorham and Cole, who raised the 1 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, pp. 485, 497. 2 Hatton (1721), p. 626. 3 Dodsley, vol. ii. p. 273. present buildings called Ely Place; and the stones now forming the pavement next to the kerb of the footway were those of the original front of the antient Palace and Offices. The entrance to Holborn was by a double arch for carriages and foot, constructed of red brick, of very antient date."1 The Chapel of St. Ethelreda still remains, and is the only part of the ancient Ely Place left standing. It is of the Decorated period (i.e. 1307-1377), but only the walls of the original chapel are left. When the chapel ceased to be used for Episcopal service, it was long kept closed, or used as a storehouse; it was then let for some years as a National School. After again lying for some time unoccupied it was, in 1843, taken by the Welsh Episcopalians, and used for their service till about 1871. On January 28, 1874, it was sold by auction for £5250, the purchasers being the Lazarist Fathers of the Order of Charity, by whom it was restored at a great cost, many of the leading English and some foreign Catholics subscribing liberally, and opened with great pomp as a Roman Catholic Chapel by Cardinal Manning on St. Ethelreda's Day, June 23, 1879. The windows contain good original tracery. The great east window is especially fine; it has been restored and filled with painted glass by the Duke of Norfolk. Beneath the chapel is a vaulted undercroft, formed no doubt on account of the fall of the ground; it has been restored so as to serve as a second chapel. The chapel is on the west side. The modern Ely Place when first erected was a double row of genteel residences, shut off from the main street by iron gates and a lodge, and having no thoroughfare. Curran had a house here. There was a small space of dead wall at that time directly facing Curran's house in Ely Place, against which the attorney [Curran's brother] procured a written permission to build a little wooden box. He accordingly got a carpenter to erect a cobbler's stall there for him; and having assumed the dress of a Jobson, he wrote over his stall, "Curran, Cobler,-Shoes soled or heeled. When the stall is shut enquire over the way."-Sir Jonas Barrington, Personal Sketches, vol. i. p. 213. Sir Charles Barry commenced his professional career in 1820 in "a small house [No. 39] in Ely Place, Holborn, a position of no great pretension, but one recommended by its quietness, centrality, and cheapness." He remained here till his removal to Foley Place in 1827. The houses are now all let for business purposes. Emanuel Hospital or Dacre's Almshouses, JAMES STREET, WESTMINSTER. Established pursuant to the will (December 20, 1594) of Anne Lady Dacre, widow of Gregory, the last Lord Dacre of the South, and sister of Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst and Earl of Dorset, the poet, "towards the relief of aged people and bringing up of children in virtue and good and laudable acts in the same Hospital." The Charter of Incorporation is dated December 17, 1600. Gregory Lord Dacre died September 25, 1594, and Anne his widow May 14, 1595. They are buried in old Chelsea Church, where there is a stately 1 Gentleman's Magazine for May 1816, p. 395. 2 Life, by his Son, p. 64. |