Leicester House

“ But there were as remarkable inhabitants of other houses as of Leicester House. In 1733 there came into the square a man about whom the world more concerns itself than it does [Pg 262] about William Henry, and that man is William Hogarth.
There is no one whom we more readily or more completely identify with Leicester Square than Hogarth. He was born in the Old Bailey in 1697, close to old Leicester House, which, in Pennant’s days, was turned into a coach factory. His father was a schoolmaster, who is, perhaps, to be recognised in the following curious advertisement of the reign of Queen Anne ”

“ Many of these exiles settled in and around Leicester Fields, and for their use several chapels were built. The neighbourhood has ever since been a resort of French immigrants.
In one of these streets opening into Leicester Square, St. Martin's Street, Sir Isaac Newton lived for the last sixteen years of his life. The house in which he lived looks dingy enough now; but in those days it was considered a very good residence indeed, and Like Leicester House was frequented by the best company in the fashionable world. The genius and reputation of its master attracted scientific and learned visitors ”

“ The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my Lady’s picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more, in truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so obdurate, will have opened and received him. ”

“ Bucket made Sir Leicester’s bow again as a response to this liberality.
“My mind,” Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, “has not, as may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent.”
Sir Leicester’s voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head. Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused. ”

“ Thence the party repaired to Kew, and the engraver, after examining the pictures, dined at the palace, ‘though,’ he says, ‘being entertained there at dinner was not customary to any person that came from London.’
During the tenancy of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Leicester House was the scene of political intrigues and of ordinary private life occurrences: Carlton House was more for state and entertainment. Leicester House and Savile House, which had been added to the former, had their joyous scenes also. The story of the private theatricals carried on in either mansion has been often told. ”

“ There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester’s burning wish to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man. ”

“ The city of Leicester, which is now chiefly noted for the manufacture of hosiery, was founded by the Britons, and was subsequently the Roman city of Ratæ. Many Roman remains still exist here, notably the ancient Jewry wall, which is seventy-five feet long and five feet high, and which formed part of the town-wall. Many old houses are found in Leicester, and just north of the city are the ruins of Leicester Abbey, This noted religious house was founded in the [Pg 112] twelfth century, and stood on a meadow watered by the river Soar. ”

“ The Ragged Staff figures also in single blessedness. A carriers [138] ’ inn in West Smithfield possessed this sign in 1682. [181] In the wall of a house at the corner of Little St Andrew Street and West Street, St Giles, there is still a stone bas-relief sign of two ragged staves placed salterwise, with the initials S. F. G., and the date 1691. It was doubtless put there as a compliment to Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, who in the reign of Charles II. built Leicester House, which gave a name to Leicester Fields, now the site of Leicester Square. ”

“ The site of the old mansion-house and grounds at the present day comprises the Grey Friars Street, with the Leicester Savings Bank and two blocks of offices, extending from St. Martin's to Friar Lane, on the West side of the street, and the London County Westminster and Parr's Bank and blocks of offices, extending from St. Martin's to Friar Lane, on the East side. If then the Grey Friars' Church and the burial place of Richard III were in Robert Herrick's garden, Richard's remains must now lie, if undisturbed, somewhere beneath the Grey Friars Street or the buildings that face it. ”

“ In the latter half of the 18th century this bedstead was still regarded as one of the wonders of Leicester. When Samuel Ireland, the father of the Shakesperian forger, visited the town, in the course of an artistic and literary tour, about 1790, he proceeded at once to make enquiries about the "two curious remains" which the town of Leicester boasted, and "which must be admitted to have reference to his (Shakespeare's) works: the house and bed in which Richard the Third slept the night before the battle of Bosworth, or rather Sutton, Field." ”

“ But Ministries which pass between two declared enemies have not from the beginning any chance of life. This one was stillborn.
Pitt himself lay ill with the gout at Hayes; so he had to leave his affairs to be managed by a little clique in London,484 of which Temple of course was the chief, and which was in close communion with Leicester House. For every day Leicester House waxed and Kensington Palace waned in importance, as the King advanced in years. ”

“ The old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester, with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling sleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity of straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises there, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his hearing wheels.
He is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper son. ”

“ Volumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase—the second turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black tea—is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not last nor least among them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in the event, as she expresses it, “of anything happening” to Sir Leicester. ”

“ That the Queen was extremely fond of the chase, and hunted at an advanced age, is a well-established fact. That she hunted in Epping Forest is nearly ascertained; for the Earl of Leicester once owned Nakedhall Hawke, or old Wansted House, in the neighbourhood: it is mentioned in a document of Richard II., and seems to have been the manorial residence. Here, in May 1578, Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth four or five days, and one of the rooms in the mansion was called the Queen's. Again, in this mansion was solemnized Leicester's marriage with the Countess of Essex, Sept. ”

“ The present ruins are fragments of a house built afterwards. The foundations that can still be traced show that it was a grand old building. The gardens and park now raise vegetables for the Leicester market.
Leicester Castle still exists only in a portion of the great hall, but it has been enlarged and modernized, and is now used for the county offices. The castle was built after the Norman Conquest to keep the townspeople in check. It was afterwards a stronghold of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and it then became part of the Duchy of Lancaster. ”

“ She felt it with a mother’s anguish to be a move in the Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a tall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering) , showing no sign of grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model of a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his backslidings to the baronet. “Mrs. Rouncewell,” said Sir Leicester, “I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any subject. ”

“ It has the distinction of heading the long roll of Leicester Aldermen, for in the year 1209 William, the son of Leveric, was called Alderman of the Guild. More than a hundred years later, the family was still flourishing, and produced at least three members who rose to some prominence about the middle of the 14th century, John, William and Richard. John Leverich, who entered the Guild Merchant in 1314, had a house in the old High Street, and led an active life in the service of the town. ”

“ It would be impossible to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of.”
There is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no remonstrance.
“When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and the family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir Leicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his patrimony”—Mr. Tulkinghorn very dry here—“are, I need not say to you, Lady Dedlock, inseparable.” ”

“ Beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world (for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole to pole) , her influence in Sir Leicester’s house, however haughty and indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir Leicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob Stables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and lunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed woman in the whole stud. ”

“ Daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf, away to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and hunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for the boroughs) , and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. Daily Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state of the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to conclude that Volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her. ”

“ Tulkinghorn,” says Sir Leicester, “is always welcome here and always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and deservedly respected.”
The debilitated cousin supposes he is “‘normously rich fler.”
“He has a stake in the country,” says Sir Leicester, “I have no doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on a footing of equality with the highest society.”
Everybody starts. For a gun is fired close by.
“Good gracious, what’s that?” cries Volumnia with her little withered scream.
“A rat,” says my Lady. “And they have shot him.” ”

“ Round thinks, may have suggested to the enquiring Jurats themselves, or to a former generation of guessers, the gable of a house, and hence came the story, familiar in all our histories of Leicester, about the tax of three pennies paid for every gabled house standing in the High Street. He concludes that the tax did not originate in a bargain about the Portmanmote, as the burgesses of the 13th century tried to make out, nor was it remitted by a charter that had been destroyed, nor was it afterwards illegally enforced by Simon Maudit. ”

“ The stranger must now be requested to pass thro’ the uninviting doorway of the adjoining public house; and he will be led by an easy ascent up to the mount, or perhaps the scite of the keep of the castle, which tho’ lately lowered considerably for the p. 103purpose of converting it into a Bowling-green, yet affords a pleasant station for a view of the environs of Leicester, and is the spot from which the best idea can be formed of the antient form and boundaries of the fortifications. ”

“ Tulkinghorn," Sir Leicester interrupts him, "to give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned, levelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably have been tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and severely punished—if not," adds Sir Leicester, after a moment's pause, " if not hanged, drawn, and quartered." ”

“ In the Chantry Certificate of the Chantry of Corpus Christi Leicester returned under the Act of 37 Henry VIII c. iv, the house and garden of the chantry priests are said to be situated at the west end of the church, [5] and to be of the annual value of 10s.
For some years after the purchase of the new Guild Hall, the accounts of the Town Chamberlains refer to various repairs that were carried out there, especially in connection with the benching, and mending the hangings of the parlour, and the stairs going up into the high chamber. ”

“ The Bishop, as he came back by express, could not help feeling that, after all, life considered as an institution had its points. Things had mended steadily during the last weeks of the term. He had kept up his end as head of the House perfectly. The internal affairs of Leicester's were going as smoothly as oil. And there was the cricket cup to live up to. Nothing pulls a House together more than beating all comers in the field, especially against odds, as Leicester's had done. ”