Essex House

Essex House. Amongst other Buildings, memorable for greatness, the first was Excester House, so called, for that the same belonged to the Bishops of Excester, and was their Inn or London Lodging. Who was the first Builder thereof, I have not read; but that Walter Stapleton, was a great Builder there, in the Reign of Edward the Second is manifest: for the Citizens of London, when they had beheaded him in Cheap, near unto the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, they buried him in a heap of Sand or Rubbish, in his own House without Temple Bar, where he had made great Building. Edmond Lacy, Bishop of Excester, builded the great Hall in the Reign of Henry the Sixth, &c. The same hath since been called Paget House, because the Lord William Paget enlarged and possessed it: [obtained from John Bishop of Exeter (who made a great Spoil of his Churches Revenue) and was confirmed to Sir William Paget, and also a certain Parcel of Land within the Garden of the Middle Temple, London.]

Then is Leicester House so named, because Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, of late new builded there: and now Essex House, of the late Earl of Essex there inhabiting. And is thought the Bishop of Excester had no Recompence for the same, of any other House in or near London: as Sir Henry Spelman writes.]

Paget Place, in the Strand, formerly Exeter Place, or House, afterwards Leicester House, and finally Essex House, was so called after William Paget, first Lord Paget, who bequeathed it by will, bearing date November 4, 1560, to his son and heir Sir Henry Paget, second Lord Paget. [See Essex House.]

Essex House, Strand, stood on the site of the Outer Temple, and of the present Essex Street and Devereux Courts and derived its name from Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's favourite. Originally the town house or inn of the see of Exeter (by lease from the Knights of St John of Jerusalem), it passed at the Reformation into the hands of William Lord Paget.

The same hath since been called Paget House, because William Lord Paget enlarged and possessed it. Then Leycester House, because Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, of late new built there, and now Essex House, of the Earl of Essex lodging there.—Stow, p. 165.

In Leicester House died Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, February 12, 1571, not, it is said, without suspicion of poison. Spenser refers to Essex House and its unfortunate owner in his Prothalamion:—

Next whereunto there stands a stately place,
Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace
Of that great lord, which therein wont to dwell.
Whose want too well now feels my friendless case.
    .     .     .     .     .     .     .
Yet therein now doth lodge a noble peer.
Great England's glory, and the world's wide wonder
Whose dreadful name late through all Spaine did thunder.

At Essex House, smarting under the Queen's displeasure, and alarmed by a summons to appear before the council, the Earl of Essex summoned his friends and adherents to gather in all haste around him, and by the morning of Sunday, February 8, 1601, they had arrived to the number of "three hundred gentlemen of prime note." The news was at once carried to court, and the Lord Keeper Egerton, Chief-Justice Popham, and some other dignitaries were sent by the Queen to Essex House to call upon the Earl to explain his proceedings. They were at first refused admittance, but after a time were let in through a wicket, and conducted to the library. The Earl by this time had become frantic with excitement, and after ordering the Chancellor and his companions to be locked up, he himself, with the Earl of Southampton and a large body of friends and servants, sallied out from Essex House and marched madly through the Strand, Fleet Street, Cheapside, shouting, "For the Queen, a Plot, a Plot." Then followed the retreat, a scuffle on Ludgate Hill, and the return by the river to Essex House, only to find that the royal messengers, whom he had doubtless intended to hold as hostages, had, during his absence, been released by his secretary;¹ and that a force was gathering around his house against which it was hopeless to contend. At ten at night, when cannon were brought up and the ladies in the house became frightened, the Earl and his associates surrendered, and he and Lord Southampton were carried off prisoners to Lambeth Palace. When the Count Palatine of the Rhine came to this country in 1613 to marry the Lady Elizabeth, "The place appointed for his most usual abode was Essex House, near Temple Bar." He was treated with great honour. The King gave him a ring worth £1800, and he was handsomely entertained at Essex House; but, writes a courtier, "he cares not for ring nor tennis, but is always with his mistress." Here is a note of the economies of Essex House on this occasion:—

Memorial of what will be required for the tables of the Elector Palatine. Viz. ten covers for his own table; eighteen for the table of persons of rank; the third table for the 14 pages is to be served with what is removed from the first; and the fourth for the 24 valets, coachmen, etc., with what goes away from the second.—Cal. State Papers, 1611–1618, p. 153.

Charles Hay, "sonne to the Lord Hay, Viscount Doncaster, was baptized in Essex House, November 27, 1618," and in the same house in 1627–1628, Anne Sydney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester, was baptized.² Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the parliamentary general, was born in this house in 1592, and died in it in 1646. In the Cavalier songs of the period it is often nicknamed "Cuckold's Hall," in allusion to the conduct of his Wives. Here, after the battle of Newbury, the Earl received a congratulatory visit from the House of Commons, headed by their Speaker, and by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London in their scarlet gowns.³ By a lease dated March 11, 1639, and in consideration of the sum of £1100, Lord Essex let to the Earl of Hertford and Lady Frances, his wife, for the period of ninety-nine years, a moiety or one-half of Essex House.⁴ This Earl of Hertford was the William Seymour connected with Lady Arabella Stuart. The Lord Treasurer Southampton was living in Essex House in 1660, and Sir Orlando Bridgman, the Lord Keeper, in 1669, when Pepys describes it as "a large, but ugly house."⁵ "At length," says Strype, "it was purchased by Dr. Barbon, the great builder, and by him and other undertakers converted into buildings as now it is."⁶ In a portion of the old fabric, which still retained the name of Essex House, the Cottonian library was kept from 1712 to 1730. This part of the house was subsequently inhabited by Paterson, the auctioneer, and ultimately taken down in July 1777.

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¹ According to another account they were released by Sir Ferdinando Gorges by the Earl's authority. Spedding's Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vol. ii. 210; Life and Times of Bacon, vol. i. p. 314.
² Register of St. Clement's Danes. Finetti Philoxenis, 1656, p. 2.
³ Whitelocke, p. 74.
⁴ Collectanea Top. et. Gen., vol viiii. p. 309.
⁵ Pepys, January 24, 1668–1669.
⁶ Strype, B. iv. p. 117.