York House--Francis Bacon--The Great Seal taken from Him--Lord Keeper
Egerton--The Duke of Buckingham, King James' "Steenie"--Magnificence
of his Entertainments--Contemporary Descriptions--Bishop Goodman's
Praise--The Second Duke--Dryden's Revenge--The "Superstitious
Pictures" of York House--Buckingham's Marriage--Spanish, Russian,
and French Ambassadors Here--Visits by Pepys and Evelyn--Duke of
Buckingham sells York House--His Curious Condition of Sale--The Duke's
_Litany_.
LEAVING the Adelphi proper, but still within its precincts, we come
to the history of York House, the site of which is indicated by
Villiers Street, Buckingham Street, and York Buildings, Adelphi. "Next
beyond this Durham House," wrote John Stow, in 1598, "is another
great house, sometime belonging to the Bishop of Norwich, and was
his London lodging, which now pertaineth to the Archbishop of York
by this occasion. In the year 1529, when Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop
of York, was indicted in the Premunire, whereby King Henry VIII.
was entitled to his goods and possessions, he also seized into his
hands the said archbishop's house, commonly called York Place, and
changed the name thereof into Whitehall; whereby the archbishops of
York, being dispossessed, and having no house of repair about London,
Queen Mary gave unto Nicholas Heath, then Archbishop of York, and to
his successors, Suffolk House in Southwark, lately built by Charles
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, as I have showed. This house the said
archbishop sold, and bought the aforesaid house of old time belonging
to the bishops of Norwich, which of this last purchase is now called
York House. The lord chancellors or lord keepers of the Great Seal of
England have been lately there lodged." Our other great chronicler,
Strype, records that Archbishop Heath, on 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." Archbishop Heath
did not occupy York House for long, and his successors appear to have
let it to the Lord Keepers of the Great Seal.
Lord Chancellor Bacon, the son of Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, was
born here in 1561, and here his father died in 1579. One of the most
interesting of literary associations is that of Francis Bacon with York
House. He built an aviary here at a cost of £300, and here Aubrey laid
the scene of his jesting with the fishermen, although Bacon himself
placed it at Chelsea: "His Lordship (Bacon) being in Yorke House garden
looking on Fishers, as they were throwing their nett, asked them
what they would take for their draught; they answered so much: his
Lop would offer them no more but so much. They drew up their nett,
and it were only 2 or 3 little fishes; his Lop then told them, it
had been better for them to have taken his offer. They replied, they
hoped to have had a better draught; but said his Lop, 'Hope is a good
breakfast, but an ill supper.'"[52] When the Duke of Lennox wished to
buy, or exchange, York House,[53] Bacon replied: "For this you will
pardon me: York House is the house where my father died, and where I
first breathed, and there will I yield my last breath, if so please
God and the King." In 1621, however, Bacon, charged before the House
of Commons with bribery, confessed that he was guilty of "corruption
and neglect," and, on May 21 of that year, the Great Seal was "fetched
from" the keeping of Lord Bacon of York House. A little later, Bacon
had "leave to repair to York House for a fortnight, but remained so
long that he had warning to repair to Gorhambury." Another keeper of
the Great Seal was Sir John Puckering, who died at York House in 1596.
Lord Chancellor Egerton also died here, in 1617. The commission of
enquiry into the death, in 1613, of Sir Thomas Overbury, was held at
York House, and resulted in the hanging of four of the agents of Lady
Essex. The Orders of 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 Tilt yard," are dated
from York House. An attempt made, in 1588, to obtain the property from
Queen Elizabeth, has been attributed to the Earl of Essex, to whom the
custody of the house was subsequently committed. Edwin Sandys, when
Archbishop of York, wrote a "secret letter" to Lord Burghley entreating
his lordship to use his influence with the Queen for the refusal of
the request of the Earl of Essex, who, curiously enough, was under
surveillance at York House during the time--October 6, 1599, to March
20, 1600--that he was in the charge of Lord Keeper Egerton.
In some manner, which is not very clear, York House passed to George,
the first Duke of Buckingham of the Villiers family. He "borrowed" it
from Archbishop Mathew 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." On
"Whitson-Eve," 1624, as recorded in Archbishop Laud's _Diary_, "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." The old
structure was destroyed, and a large, but temporary, building, erected
in its place, great mirrors covering many of the walls. Nothing remains
of this house; but the water-gate, at the foot of Buckingham Street,
still marks the stately approach to the York House of Buckingham's
time. "I am confident there are some that live," wrote Sir Balthazar
Gerbier, who was the keeper of York House and collector of pictures for
Buckingham, "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 feet square, as
much as could be represented as Sceans, in the great Banqueting Room of
Whitehall." The "sceans" were the pictures with which York House was
filled by Buckingham, who paid Rubens a hundred thousand florins for an
art collection "'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."[54] Buckingham did not live at York
House: he only used it on state occasions. He was assassinated, at
Portsmouth, by John Felton, on August 23, 1628.
The entertainments given by Buckingham at York House were unrivalled in
their magnificence. A contemporary account of one of them is furnished
by the great courtier, François de Bassompiere (1579-1646), Marshal
of France, in his _Embassy to England_,[55] an account of his sojourn
here in 1626. "The King," he says, "supped at one table with the Queen
and me, which was served by a complete ballet at each course with
sundry representations--changes of scenery, tables, and music: the
Duke waited on the King at table, the Earl of Carlisle on the Queen,
and the Earl of Holland on me. After supper the King and we were led
into another room, where the assembly was, and one entered it by a
kind of turnstile, as in convents, without any confusion, where there
was a magnificent ballet, in which the Duke danced, and afterwards we
set to, and danced country dances till four in the morning; thence we
were shown into vaulted apartments, where there were five different
collations." D'Israeli extracted an account of the same entertainment
from the Sloane MSS.: "Last Sunday at night, the Duke's grace
entertained their Majesties and the French Ambassador at York House
with great feasting and show, where all things came down in clouds;
amongst which, one rare device was a representation of the French King
and the two Queens, with their chiefest attendants, and so to the life
that the Queen's Majesty could name them. It was four o'clock in the
morning before they parted, and then the King and Queen, together with
the French Ambassador, lodged there. Some estimate this entertainment
at five or six thousand pounds."[56] Sir Balthazar Gerbier, writing
to Buckingham on February 8, 1625, says: "Sometimes, when I am
contemplating the treasure of rarities which your Excellency has in so
short a time amassed, I cannot but feel astonishment in the midst of
my joy. For out of all the amateurs, and princes, and kings, there
is not one who has collected in forty years as many pictures as your
Excellency has collected in five. Let enemies and people ignorant of
paintings say what they will, they cannot deny that pictures are noble
ornaments, a delightful amusement, and histories that one may read
without fatigue. Our pictures, if they were to be sold a century after
our death, would sell for good cash, and for three times more than they
have cost. I wish I could only live a century, if they were sold, to be
able to laugh at those facetious folk, who say it is money cast away
for baubles and shadows: I know _they_ will be pictures still, when
those ignorants will be less than shadows."
[Illustration:
_H. Maund._
THE BALL-ROOM, NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.]
Buckingham, as is well known, was the "Steenie" of King James, who
quoted the passage (Acts vi. 15), in which it is said of St Stephen:
"All that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face
as it had been the face of an angel." So the King called his favourite
Stephen, and the appellation became corrupted into Steenie. Buckingham,
undoubtedly, was a man of great personal attraction. Godfrey Goodman,
Bishop of Gloucester, who knew him well, says that, "Of all others
he was most active; he had a very lovely complexion; he was the
handsomest bodied man of England; his limbs so well compacted, and his
conversation so pleasing, and of so sweet a disposition. And truly
his intellectuals were very great; he had a sound judgment, and was
of a quick apprehension, insomuch that I have heard it from two men,
and very great men (neither of them had gotten so little as £3600 per
annum by the Court), whom of all men in the world Buckingham had most
wronged--yet I heard both those men say and give him this testimony,
that he was as inwardly beautiful as he was outwardly, and that the
world had not a more ingenious gentleman, or words to that effect."[57]
His son, George, the second Duke of Buckingham, was born in Wallingford
House, which stood on the site of the Admiralty buildings, Whitehall,
the house having been purchased by his father from Lord Wallingford,
in 1621-22. At Wallingford House, "and at York House in the Strand,"
says Leigh Hunt, "he turned night into day, and pursued his intrigues,
his concerts, his dabblings in chemistry and the philosopher's stone,
and his designs on the crown; for Charles's character, and the
devices of Buckingham's fellow quacks and astrologers, persuaded him
that he had a chance of being king. When a youth, he compounded with
Cromwell, and married Fairfax's daughter;--he was afterwards all for
the king, when he was not 'all for rhyming' or ousting him;--when
an old man, or near it (for these prodigious possessors of animal
spirits have a trick of lasting a long while), he was still a youth in
improvidence and dissipation, and his whole life was a dream of uneasy
pleasure".[58] Apart from his Court intrigues and his disordered life,
he is interesting to lovers of literature and the stage by reason of
his various satires and verses, and, particularly, for _The Rehearsal_,
brought out in 1671, in which he ridiculed contemporary dramatists,
including Dryden. But Dryden had his revenge, for, ten years later, he
made Buckingham the Zimri of his _Absalom and Achitophel_:--
"Some of the chiefs were princes in the land:
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,
A man so various, that he seemed to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitomê;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy.
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both to show his judgment, in extremes;
So very violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laugh'd himself from court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, or wise Achitophel;
Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left."
Buckingham, whose estates had been confiscated by Cromwell in 1648,
regained control of York House in a curious manner--by marriage with
the daughter of General Fairfax. Cromwell had bestowed this property
on Fairfax at the time of the Civil Wars. "Every chamber," says Brian
Fairfax in his _Memoirs_ of Buckingham, "was adorned with the arms
of Villiers and Manners, lions and peacocks. He (Lord Fairfax) was
descended from the same ancestors, Earls of Rutland." We have the same
authority for the statement that the "superstitious pictures in York
House" were ordered to be sold on August 20, 1645, but not before one
John Trayleman, an "old trusty servant," had smuggled some of the
treasures over to Holland, where they found a purchaser in the Archduke
Leopold. For one of these pictures, the Ecce Homo, by Titian, the first
Duke of Buckingham had been offered £7000, either in money or land,
by Lord Arundel. In this painting, likenesses of the Pope, Charles
V., and Solyman the Magnificent were introduced. The Duke returned to
England in 1657, and obtained an introduction to General Fairfax, who
gave a willing ear to the marriage proposition. The lady, we are told,
could not resist the fascination of "the most graceful and beautiful
person that any court in Europe saw," and the marriage took place
at Nun Appleton, near York--a seat of Lord Fairfax--on September 7,
1657. According to Jesse, Cromwell, "who was supposed to have intended
Buckingham for one of his own daughters, was greatly enraged when he
heard of the match, and immediately committed Buckingham to the Tower.
Fairfax demanded his release, which, being angrily and obstinately
refused by the Protector, a quarrel was the consequence." After the
death of Cromwell, Buckingham was permitted to remove to Windsor
Castle. At the Restoration he was restored to his property, and became
"the most reckless, unprincipled, and irregular character" at the Court
of Charles II.
York House fell from its high estate on coming into the possession
of General Fairfax. On November 27, 1655, Evelyn "went to see York
House and gardens, belonging to the former greate Buckingham, but now
much ruin'd thro' neglect." In 1661, Baron de Batteville, the Spanish
Ambassador, was lodged there, a fact which affords us, through the
pages of Samuel Pepys, a curious peep into the past. On May 19, 1661
(Lord's Day), this delightful chronicler walked in the morning towards
Westminster, and, seeing many people at York House, he went down from
the Strand "and found them at masse, it being the Spanish Ambassador's;
and so I got into one of the galleries, and there heard two masses
done, I think not in so much state as I have seen them heretofore.
After that, into the garden, and walked an hour or two, but found it
not so fine a place as I took it for by the outside." In September
of the same year, Pepys witnessed a strange encounter between the
retainers of the ambassadors of Spain and France, which terminated
at York House: "This morning, up by moonshine, at five o'clock, to
Whitehall, to meet Mr More at the Privy Seale, and ther I heard of a
fray between the two embassadors of Spaine and France, and that this
day being the day of the entrance of an embassador from Sweeden, they
intended to fight for the precedence. Our king, I heard, ordered that
no Englishman should meddle in the business, but let them do what they
would. And to that end, all the soldiers in town were in arms all
the day long, and some of the train bands in the city, and a great
bustle through the city all the day. Then we took coach (which was the
business I came for) to Chelsey, to my Lord Privy Seale, and there got
him to seal the business. Here I saw by daylight two very fine pictures
in the gallery, that a little while ago I saw by night; and did also
go all over the house, and found it to be the prettiest contrived
house that I ever saw in my life. So back again; and Whitehall light,
and saw the soldiers and people running up and down the streets. So I
went to the Spanish embassadors and the French, and there saw great
preparations on both sides; but the French made the most noise and
ranted most, but the other made no stir almost at all; so that I was
afraid the other would have too great a conquest over them. Then to
the wardrobe and dined there; and then abroad, and in Cheapside hear,
that the Spanish hath got the best of it, and killed three of the
French coachhorses and several men, and is gone through the city next
to our King's coach: at which it is strange to see how all the city
did rejoice. And, indeed, we do naturally all love the Spanish and
hate the French. But I, as I am in all things curious, presently got
to the water-side, and there took oars to Westminster Palace, and ran
after them through all the dirt, and the streets full of people; till
at last, in the Mews [Charing Cross], I saw the Spanish coach go with
fifty drawn swords at least to guard it, and our soldiers shouting
for joy. And so I followed the coach, and then met it at Yorke House,
where the embassador lies; and there it went in with great state. So
then I went to the French house, where I observe still, that there is
no men in the world of a more insolent spirit where they do well, nor
before they begin a matter, and more abject if they do miscarry, than
these people are; for they all look like dead men, and not a word among
them, but shake their heads. The truth is, the Spaniards were not only
observed to fight more desperately, but also they did outwitt them;
first in lining their own harnesse with chains of iron that they could
not be cut, then in setting their coach in the most advantageous place,
and to appoint men to guard every one of their horses, and others for
to guard the coach, and others the coachman. And, above all, in setting
upon the French horses and killing them, for by that means the French
were not able to stir. There were several men slaine of the French, and
one or two of the Spaniards, and one Englishman by a bullet. Which is
very observable, the French were at least four to one in number, and
had near one hundred cases of pistols among them, and the Spaniards had
not one gun among them, which is for their honour for ever, and the
others' disgrace. So having been very much daubed with dirt, I got a
coach and home; where I vexed my wife in telling her of this story, and
pleading for the Spaniards against the French."
But the whirligig of time brings in its own revenges, and, in 1672, the
French Ambassador was installed at York House. On April 4, Evelyn "went
to see the fopperies of the Papists at Somerset House and York House,
where now the French Ambassador had caus'd to be represented our
Blessed Saviour at the Paschal Supper with his disciples, in figures
and puppets made as big as the life, of wax-work, curiously clad and
sitting round a large table, the roome nobly hung, and shining with
innumerable lamps and candles; this was expos'd to all the world, all
the Citty came to see it: such liberty had the Roman Catholicks at this
time obtain'd." In 1663, the Russian Ambassador was in occupation.
On June 6, of that year, Pepys journeyed "To York House, where the
Russian Embassador do lie; and there I saw his people go up and down
losing themselves: they are all in a great hurry, being to be gone
the beginning of next week. But that that pleased me best, was the
remains of the noble soul of the late Duke of Buckingham appearing in
his house, in every place, in the door-cases and the windows. Sir John
Hebden, the Russian Resident, did tell me how he is vexed to see things
at Court ordered as they are by nobody that attends to business, but
every man himself or his pleasures. He cries up my Lord Ashley to be
almost the only man that he sees to look after business; and with the
ease and mastery, that he wonders at him. He cries out against the
King's dealing so much with goldsmiths, and suffering himself to have
his purse kept and commanded by them."
How the French Ambassador came to be in residence at York House in
April, 1672--as most certainly he was--is somewhat curious. For, by
a deed dated January 1, of that year, the Duke sold the house and
gardens in order to obtain money for his extravagances. The purchasers
were Roger Higgs, of St Margaret's, Westminster, Esq.; Emery Hill, of
Westminster, gentleman; Nicholas Eddyn, of Westminster, woodmonger;
and John Green, of Westminster, brewer; and the price of the property
was £30,000. In 1668, the rental of "York House and tenements, in the
Strand," had been fixed at £1359, 10s. The Duke made it a condition of
the sale that his name should be commemorated in the new buildings to
be erected on the site of York House; hence we have York Buildings,
Buckingham Street, Villiers Street, and Duke Street, at the present
day. There was even an "Of" Lane, but this has been converted into
George Court. It is said that, with part of the money thus obtained,
the Duke purchased land in Dowgate. Be this as it may, the nomenclature
of the York House estate caused much derision at the time, and brought
forth _The Litany of the Duke of Buckingham_, a merry satire containing
the following exhortation:--
"From damning whatever we don't understand,
From purchasing at Dowgate, and selling in the Strand,
Calling streets by our name when we have sold the land,
Libera nos Domine!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 52: Aubrey's _Lives_, vol. ii., p. 224.]
[Footnote 53: A brilliant entertainment given at York House in 1620 was
attended by Ben Jonson, who said that all things seemed to smile about
the old house--"the fire, the wine, the men"; he speaks of Bacon as:--
"England's high Chancellor, the destin'd heir,
In his soft cradle, to his father's chair,
Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,
Out of their choicest and whitest wool."
A few months later, the Committee of the House of Lords waited upon the
Chancellor at York House in order to enquire personally whether the
confession of guilt which he had sent them was really his. "My Lords,"
he replied, "it is my act, my hand, my heart; I beseech your Lordships
to be merciful to a broken reed."]
[Footnote 54: _London Past and Present_, vol. iii., p. 538.]
[Footnote 55: P. 95.]
[Footnote 56: _Curiosities of Literature_, vol. v., p. 223.]
[Footnote 57: Bishop Goodman's _Memoirs_, vol. ii., p. 371.]
[Footnote 58: _The Town_, ed. 1859, p. 362.]