He was not only a munificent patron of literature, Dryden and Pope particularly being under obligations to him, but also himself an author. Chief among his writings were: Essay on Poetry, Essay on Satire, Account of the Revolution. Mention should also be made of his extraordinary revision of Julius Cæsar, which he broke up into two plays and rewrote, and into which he introduced love scenes.

The period of his residence at the house in Great Queen Street cannot be exactly determined. He was not there in 1683, but a letter from him (as Lord Mulgrave) to Dykevelt, headed “Queen Street,” dated, “March 8th,” and assigned to the year 1691,^[352] affords some evidence towards limiting the date of the beginning of his occupation. His removal from the house seems to lie between 1698 and 1700, the ratebook for the latter year having no entry in respect of the house.

In 1702 the house was purchased of William Withers by Robert Lane and Jonathan Blackwell,^[353] apparently on behalf of their brother, Ralph Lane, an eminent Turkey merchant. Lane divided the house, letting off the portion fronting the street, and reserving for his own use that in the rear. This he used as his own house^[354] until his death in 1732. By his will,^[355] dated 15th June, 1726, he left his “two messuages or tenements” in Great Queen Street to his wife Elizabeth for her widowhood, and the reversion to his brothers in trust for his daughters, the Lady Parker^[356] and Byzantia.^[357] A codicil of 6th July, 1728, however, revoked this and settled the property on his wife absolutely.

The widow is shown in the ratebooks as occupying the house from 1733 to 1753 inclusive. She died in March, 1754, leaving^[358] her “two freehold messuages scituate in Great Queen Street ... one of them being in [her] own occupation, and the other adjoyning thereto, in the occupation of Mr. Hudson,” to her grandson, George Lane Parker, the younger son of her daughter and the Earl of Macclesfield.

In 1764 Parker sold^[359] both of the houses to Philip Carteret Webb, who was already in occupation of the house in the rear, having, in fact, succeeded Mrs. Lane in the year in which she died.

Philip Carteret Webb was born about 1700. In 1724 he was admitted attorney-at-law, and soon acquired a great reputation for knowledge of records and of precedents of constitutional law. He was employed in connection with the prosecution of the prisoners taken in the rebellion of 1745, and in that of John Wilkes. For his share in the latter he incurred great obloquy, culminating in 1764 in a trial for perjury, in which, however, the jury returned a verdict of “Not guilty.” When in January, 1769, he was charged in the House of Commons with having used the public money to bribe witnesses against Wilkes, counsel pleaded on his behalf that he was now blind and of impaired intellect, and the motion against him was defeated. He died in the following year, leaving^[360] all his property to his wife Rhoda.

Webb was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society. He had acquired large collections of MSS., coins and medals, marble busts and bronzes.

His widow married, in 1771, Edward Beavor, whose name is found in the ratebooks in connection with the house from that date until 1774. On 16th November, in the latter year, the two houses were sold^[361] to Trustees for the Freemasons, who have ever since held the property.

It is now time to return and trace the history of the other of the two portions into which Lane had divided the house, viz., that part which fronted Great Queen Street.

The ratebook for 1709 gives “the Bishop of Salisbury” as the name of the occupant at that time. This must refer to the famous Gilbert Burnet, who held the see of Salisbury from 1689 until his death in 1715. He was born in Edinburgh on 18th September, 1643, and having, as a precocious boy, entered the Marischal College of Aberdeen at the age of ten, he became master of arts by the time he was fourteen. The next few years were devoted to the study of divinity and history and to travel. In 1665 he was appointed minister of Saltoun, but resigned in 1669, when he became professor of divinity at Glasgow University. He made several visits to London, and in 1674, having incurred the jealousy of Lauderdale, he resigned his professorship and settled in London. In 1675 he was made chaplain to the Rolls Chapel, the lectureship to St. Clement’s being added shortly afterwards. In 1676 he took a house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, next door to Sir Thomas Littleton, and stayed there apparently for six years.^[362] Littleton at some time between 1675 and 1683 occupied No. 52, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,^[363] and though, in the absence of more definite information, it cannot be proved that this was the house he was occupying in 1676, it is extremely probable that this was the case. If so, Burnet’s house was No. 51, as it is known that Nos. 53–4, the house on the other side, was at the same time in the occupation of the Countess of Bath. After the Rye House plot in 1683 and the execution of his friend William, Lord Russell, Burnet withdrew to France, and on his return in 1684 was deprived of his positions. Upon the accession of James he again withdrew to the Continent, finally accepting an invitation from William and Mary to settle at the Hague, where he was instrumental in reconciling them.^[364] He accompanied William to England, was responsible for the form in which William’s Declaration appeared in English,^[365] and was rewarded for his services with the Bishopric of Salisbury. Notwithstanding a subsequent decrease in favour with William, he was offered in 1698 the position of governor to the young Duke of Gloucester, and accepted it on conditions which allowed him to attend to the affairs of his diocese.^[366] The most lasting achievement of his later years was the provision for the augmentation of poor livings, generally known as Queen Anne’s Bounty, which became law in 1704. He died on 17th March, 1714–15, and was buried in St. James’, Clerkenwell, having resided at St. John’s Court in that parish for some years.^[367] His chief characteristic was tolerance, which he continually urged, whether towards Scotch Presbyterians in his early days, to Roman Catholics at the time of the “popish plot” in 1678, or to non-jurors and Presbyterians in his own diocese. His chief literary works were:—History of the Reformation, published between 1679 and 1714; Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, published in 1699; and a History of My Own Time, which was published posthumously in 1723 and 1734.

The ratebooks for 1715 and 1720 show “Lady Anne Dashwood” at the house. Apparently this was Anne, daughter of John Smith, of Tudworth, Hants, widow of Sir Samuel Dashwood, Lord Mayor in 1702–3, who was knighted in July, 1684, and died in 1705.^[368] She died on 16th June, 1721.^[369]

In 1723 “Lord Bellomonte” was resident at the house. This was Richard Coote, fourth Earl Bellamont. He was born in 1683, and succeeded to the earldom in 1708. He was married twice, his second marriage (to Lady Oxenden) taking place in 1721 at St. Giles-in-the-Fields. On his death in 1766 the earldom became extinct.^[370] Lord Bellamont seems to have removed to Nos. 55–56, Great Queen Street and to have left there in 1729 or 1730.^[371]

From 1730 onwards, until the date of acquisition by the Freemasons, the occupants of the house were as follows:—

George Parker, second Earl of Macclesfield, was born in 1697. He married in 1722 Mary Lane,^[372] and succeeded to the earldom in 1732, at which time he was resident in Soho Square.^[373] He had a great taste for mathematics, in which he had been instructed by Abraham de Moivre and William Jones, and, aided by James Bradley, who afterwards, by his influence, became astronomer-royal, erected about 1739 an astronomical observatory at his residence at Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire. From 1740 until near his death, he carried out a series of personal astronomical observations. Macclesfield was the principal author of the measure which brought about the change of style in 1752, and in consequence incurred great unpopularity among the ignorant, who imagined that they had been robbed of eleven days. In 1762 he was elected President of the Royal Society, a position which he held until his death in 1764.

Thomas Hudson was born in Devonshire in 1701. He became a pupil of Jonathan Richardson, the elder, portrait painter (with whose daughter he made a runaway match), and on setting up for himself in the same profession, soon attained to great eminence, though his prosperity faded with the rise of one of his pupils, Joshua Reynolds.^[374] His residence in Great Queen Street began about 1746,^[375] and continued until about 1764,^[376] when he retired to Twickenham^[377] where he died in January, 1779.

He was succeeded in his occupation of the house in Great Queen Street by Thomas Worlidge,^[378] painter and etcher. Worlidge was born at Peterborough in 1700. He came to London about 1740, and settled in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, where he remained for the rest of his life, residing at various times in The Piazza, Bedford Street, King Street, and, finally, Great Queen Street. He first made a name by his miniature portraits, but eventually concentrated his energies on etching in the style of Rembrandt. He died at Hammersmith in September, 1766. His name appears in the ratebook also for 1767, and this is explained by the fact that his widow “carried on the sale of his etchings at his house in Great Queen Street.”^[379] Shortly afterwards Mrs. Worlidge married a wine and spirit merchant named Ashley,^[379] who had been one of Worlidge’s intimate friends, and in accordance with this is the fact that in the ratebook for the following year (1768) “James Ashley” is shown at the house.

In 1774, the premises were occupied for a short time by Mary Robinson (née Darby), afterwards known as “Perdita,” who had just got married. Perdita’s own account of the matter is as follows: “On our return to London after ten days’ absence, a house was hired in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It was a large, old-fashioned mansion, and stood on the spot where the Freemasons’ Tavern has since been erected. This house was the property of a lady, an acquaintance of my mother; the widow of Mr. Worlidge, an artist of considerable celebrity. It was handsomely furnished, and contained many valuable pictures by various masters. I resided with my mother; Mr. Robinson continued at the house of Mr. Vernon and Elderton in Southampton Buildings.”^[380]

Mary, who was born at Bristol in 1758, had spent an unhappy childhood, and had now, when only sixteen, contracted a loveless marriage. At her husband’s request the nuptials were kept secret, but after four months her mother insisted on their being made public. After a visit to the west of England and stay of “many days” at Bristol, she removed from Great Queen Street to No. 13, Hatton Garden, a house which had been recently built.^[381] Her remarkable beauty caused her to receive many attentions, and she was neglected by her husband. On his imprisonment for debt, however, after less than two years’ married life, she shared his confinement, and was for nearly ten months in the King’s Bench Prison. She then secured an engagement at Drury Lane, where she made her first appearance in December, 1776, as Juliet. Her stage career lasted until May, 1780. When taking the part of “Perdita” in a performance of the Winter’s Tale in December, 1778, she captivated the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), and after a correspondence in which the writers signed themselves “Florizel” and “Perdita” she became his mistress for about two years. He then deserted her, dishonouring his bond for £20,000, payable on his coming of age. In 1783 she managed to obtain a pension of £500 a year. She never returned to the stage, but devoted herself to literature. In her own day she was called the English Sappho, but her reputation in this respect has not endured. She died, crippled and impoverished, at Englefield Cottage, Surrey, in 1800.

Conway House.

The first occupant of the fourth house on the site of the Freemasons’ buildings seems to have been Lord Conway. A deed, dated 20th December, 1641,^[382] mentions Edward, Lord Viscount Conway, as then in occupation, and no doubt the house is identical with that referred to as Lord Conway’s residence in Queen Street in a letter dated 31st March, 1639.^[383]

Edward, second Viscount Conway and Killultagh, was born in 1594, and succeeded to the title in February, 1631.^[384] Shortly afterwards he was living in Drury Lane.^[385]

His residence in Great Queen Street dates from 1638 or the commencement of 1639, but he did not purchase the house until 17th July, 1645.^[386]

Conway died at Lyons in 1655^[387], and was succeeded by his son Edward, the third Viscount and first Earl of Conway, born about 1623. He held several important military appointments, and was for two years, 1681–3, secretary of state for the north department. He was the author of a work entitled Opuscula Philosophica. He was married three times, his first wife being Anne, the daughter of Sir Henry Finch. Lady Conway was a most accomplished woman, her chief study being metaphysical science, which she carried on with the utmost assiduity in spite of tormenting headaches which never left her. In later life she adopted the tenets of the Society of Friends. She died on 23rd February, 1679, while her husband was absent in Ireland, but in order that he might be enabled to see her features again, Van Helmont, her physician, preserved the body in spirits of wine and placed it in a coffin with a glass over the face. The burial finally took place on 17th April, 1679. She was the author of numerous works, but only one, a philosophical treatise, was printed, and that in a Latin translation published at Amsterdam in 1690. Conway was created an Earl in 1679 and died in August, 1683, leaving his estates to his cousin, Popham Seymour, who assumed the name of Conway.

Up to 1670 the Earl seems to have resided frequently in Great Queen Street. The Hearth Tax Rolls for 1665 and 1666 show him as occupier, though the former contains a note: “Note, Lord Wharton to pay,”^[388] and several references to his residence there occur in the correspondence of the time. Thus on 18th March, 1664–5, he writes to Sir Edward Harley, “Direct to me at my house in Queen Street”;^[389] in June [?], 1665, he informs Sir John Finch: “I am settled in my house in Queen Street”;^[390] a letter to him describes how on the occasion of the Great Fire in 1666, “your servant in Queen Street put some of your best chairs and fine goods into your rich coach and sent for my horses to draw them to Kensington, where they now are”;^[391] on 19th October, 1667, his mother writes to him at “Great Queen Street, London”;^[392] in February, 1667–8, he tells Sir J. Finch that he hopes “you will ere long be merry in my house in Queen Street, which you are to look upon as your own”;^[393] and on 4th March, 1668–9, Robert Bransby asks for payment of his bill of £200 “for goods delivered at your house in Queen Street.”^[394] On 25th September, 1669, we learn that a new (or perhaps rather an additional) resident is expected, Edward Wayte mentioning in a letter that “the room your lordship wished to have new floored is going to be occupied by Lord Orrery’s^[395] daughter, who is coming with her mother to England.”^[396] The visit evidently took place, for on 4th November, 1669, Conway’s importunate creditor, Bransby, writes, in connection with the non-payment of his account, “I beg the delivery of divers goods in the house in Queen Street, which are being used by some of Lord Orrery’s family, and also of some green serge chairs lent, which are in your study”;^[397] and again on 15th March, 1669–70: “there are some goods belonging to me in the house in Queen Street, which are in Lord Orrery’s wearing.”^[398] Later in the same year the house seems to have been given up, as Bransby on 27th September in the course of another pitiful complaint says: “I hear that you have disposed of your house in Queen Street and sent the furniture to Ragley.”

The Hearth Tax Roll for 1673 shows the house in occupation of “Slingsby, Esq.,” who was probably the immediate successor of Conway.

In the absence of more definite information Slingsby cannot be identified. It is just possible that he was Henry Slingsby, the Master of the Mint, and friend of Evelyn.

In the Hearth Tax Roll for 1675 the house is shown as empty, and in the ratebook for 1683 the name of the occupier is given as: “Sir Fr. North, Knt., Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.” It is known (see below) that the offices of the Great Seal were situated in this street in 1677, and there can be no doubt that this was the house.

It would appear, therefore, that the premises were taken for the purpose of the offices of the Great Seal some time in the period 1675–77, and consequently during the time that the seal was in the custody of Finch.

Heneage Finch, first Earl of Nottingham, was born in 1621, the eldest son of Sir Heneage Finch, recorder of London and speaker in Charles I.’s first parliament. On leaving Christ Church he joined the Inner Temple, where he acquired a great reputation and an extensive practice. On the Restoration he became solicitor-general and was created a baronet. As the official representative of the court in the House of Commons, he seems to have given every satisfaction to the king, despite the fact that on at least one important point (the toleration of dissent) he opposed the royal desire. He was indeed in such favour that the king, with all the great officers of state, attended a banquet in his house at the Inner Temple in 1661. In 1670, he became attorney-general and counsellor to the queen. On the dismissal of Shaftesbury in 1673, he was made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Finch of Daventry, and a year afterwards was appointed Lord Chancellor. During his term of office the well-known burglary took place at the house in Great Queen Street. Under date of 7th February, 1676–7, Anthony Wood writes: “About one or two in the morning the Lord Chancellor his mace was stolen out of his house in Queen Street. The seal lay under his pillow, so the thief missed it. The famous thief that did it was Thomas Sadler, soon after taken and hanged for it at Tyburn.”^[399]

As Lord Chancellor, Finch had the unpleasant task of explaining to the House of Commons how the royal pardon given to Danby in bar of the impeachment bore the great seal. He was created Earl of Nottingham in 1681 and died in December, 1682. “The fact that throughout an unceasing official career of more than twenty years, in a time of passion and intrigue, Finch was never once the subject of parliamentary attack, nor ever lost the royal confidence, is a remarkable testimony both to his probity and discretion.”^[400] He was the Amri of Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel.

Francis North, first Baron Guilford, was the third son of Dudley, fourth Baron North, and was born in 1637. He entered the Middle Temple in 1655, and at once gave himself up to hard study. He was called to the Bar in 1661, and seems very early to have acquired practice. His first great case occurred in 1668, when he was called upon, in the attorney-general’s absence, to argue in the House of Lords for the King v. Holles and others. He at once sprang into favour and became king’s counsel. In 1671 he was made solicitor-general and received the honour of knighthood. In 1673, he succeeded Finch as attorney-general, and in 1675 was appointed chief justice of the common pleas. On the death of the Earl of Nottingham in 1682 he succeeded him as Lord Keeper, and from that day, his brother Roger says, “he never (as poor folks say), joyed after it, and he hath often vowed to me that he had not known a peaceful minute since he touched that cursed seal.”^[401] In 1683 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Guilford. From this time his health began more and more to fail, and though he continued diligently to perform his duties, he was compelled in the summer of 1685 to retire to his seat at Wroxton, Oxfordshire, taking the seal with him and attended by the officers of the court. Here he died on 5th September, 1685, and the next day his brothers, accompanied by the officials, took the seal to Windsor, and delivered it up to the king, who at once entrusted it to Jeffreys.

George Jeffreys, first Baron Jeffreys of Wem, was born in 1648 at Acton in Denbighshire. He was ambitious to be a great lawyer, and after overcoming with difficulty his father’s objections, he was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1663. He was called to the Bar in 1668, and by his wit and convivial habits making friends of the attorneys practising at the Old Bailey and Hicks’s Hall, he soon gained a good practice. He was appointed common serjeant of the City of London in 1671. He now began to plead in Westminster Hall, and by somewhat doubtful means he obtained an introduction to the court. In 1677 he was made solicitor-general to the Duke of York, and was knighted, and in 1678 became Recorder of the City. Both as counsel and recorder he took a prominent part in the prosecutions arising from the Popish Plot, and as a reward for his services in this direction, and for initiating the movement of the “abhorrers” against the “petitioners,” who were voicing the popular demand for the summoning of parliament, he was appointed chief justice of Chester.

The City having complained to the House of Commons of the action of its recorder in obstructing the citizens in their attempts to have a parliament summoned, the House passed a resolution requesting the king to remove him from all public offices. The king took no such action, but Jeffreys submitted to a reprimand on his knees at the bar of the House, and resigned the recordership, eliciting the remark from Charles that he was “not parliament proof.”

In 1683, Jeffreys was promoted to be Lord Chief Justice, and was soon a member of the privy council. Shortly afterwards he tried Algernon Sidney for high treason, conducting the proceedings with manifest unfairness and convicting the prisoner on quite illegal grounds. On the accession of James II. in 1685, he was raised to the peerage, an honour never before conferred upon a chief justice during his tenure of office.

In July, after the battle of Sedgmoor, he was appointed president of the commission for the western circuit, and on 25th August he opened the commission at Winchester. This, the “bloody assizes,” was conducted with merciless severity, but the king was so satisfied that, on Jeffreys calling at Windsor on his return to London, he was given the custody of the great seal with the title of Lord Chancellor. During the next three years he vigorously supported the king in his claims to prerogative. He presided over the ecclesiastical commission, and over the proceedings against the Universities. Jeffreys thus became identified with the most tyrannical measures of James II., and therefore, when the king in December, 1688, fled from the country, he also endeavoured to escape. He disguised himself as a common sailor, but was recognised, and was only saved from lynching by a company of the train-bands. He was confined at his own request in the Tower, and here, his health having been seriously undermined by long continued disease and dissipation, he died in April, 1689. His name has become a by-word of infamy, although there can be little doubt that he was not entirely as black as he has been painted, and no impartial account can fail to insist on the traditional picture of him being modified in many respects. Nevertheless, when every allowance is made, the character of Jeffreys is one of the most hateful in English history.

On his accepting the Great Seal he also took over the house in Great Queen Street,^[402] but about 1687 he removed to the new mansion, which he had had built in Westminster overlooking the park.^[403]

For the next few years the history of Conway House is a blank. In 1696 a private Act^[404] was obtained, which, after reciting that there was a mansion house, with stables and outhouses, in Queen Street, St. Giles, forming portion of the estate belonging to the Marchioness of Normanby^[405] (life tenant) and of the estate belonging to Popham Seymour alias Conway, and that the house was liable to fall down from want of repair, gave authority to arrange with a builder to effect the repairs and to let the house for 51 years at a proper rent.

The work was evidently carried out without delay, for the Jury Presentment Roll for 1698 has the entry “Dr. Chamberlain for the Land Credit Office,” but little luck seems to have attended the house during most of its remaining half-century of existence.

The sewer ratebooks for 1700 and 1703 make no mention of the house. Those for 1715, 1720 and 1723, and the parish ratebooks from their commencement in 1730 until 1734 mention it as “The Land Bank.” The first entry refers to it as “Empty many years,” and it was still empty in 1720. Certain deeds of later date^[406] allude to the premises as a “large old house or building commonly called or known by the name of the Land Bank.”^[407]

The Land Bank, as known to history, was an institution founded in 1696, for the purpose of raising a public loan of two millions on the basis of the estimated value of real property. Its promoter was Dr. Chamberlain, an accoucheur.^[408] It is unnecessary to give here a full account of the scheme, but it may be regarded as certain that it would never have been supported in Parliament but for the satisfaction felt by many influential members in dealing a blow at the recently formed Bank of England.

The evidence given above is decisive as to some connection between the house and this scheme, but no reference to the former has been found amongst the literature on the Land Bank.^[409] The fact that Dr. Chamberlain was in occupation of the premises in 1698, two years after the ignominious collapse of the scheme, shows that the Land Bank still pursued some kind of existence, and, indeed, there is other evidence that it was surviving in some form in January, 1698.^[410]

The above evidence shows that for many years after Dr. Chamberlain’s tenancy the house lay empty, and not until 1735 is the name of an occupier given. This was Thomas Galloway, who stayed until 1739. After this, the house again remained empty, until in 1743 it was pulled down, and its frontage to Great Queen Street was occupied by four smaller houses. The residents in the two westernmost of these (the other two occupied the site of Markmasons’ Hall) were as follows:—

John Opie, portrait and historic painter, was born in Cornwall in 1761. Instead of following his father’s trade as a carpenter, he took up painting and attracted the notice of Dr. Wolcot (Peter Pindar), who brought him after a while to Exeter, and in 1780 to London. Here Opie became known as the “Cornish wonder,” and, indeed, the fact that he, a carpenter’s son in a remote Cornish village, without any regular instruction or opportunity of studying the work of great painters, should at the age of nineteen have produced pictures which the most distinguished artists in the country admired and envied, justified the name. Wolcot’s introductions were the means of Opie securing many valuable commissions, and his popularity became enormous. During the spring of 1782, his lodgings in Orange Court, Castle Street, Leicester Square, were thronged with rank and fashion, and after he had moved to Great Queen Street in the following year, the street was at times blocked with the carriages of his sitters. His popularity, however, waned as suddenly as it had risen. This he had expected, and had striven, and continued to strive, to perfect himself in his art, and to supply the deficiencies in his education. In 1791, he moved from Great Queen Street to No. 8, Berners Street. In 1805 he was elected professor of painting to the Royal Academy, and the lectures which were delivered only a few weeks before his death form a contribution of permanent value to the literature of art criticism. He died in April, 1807, and was buried in St. Paul’s.

The Council’s collection contains:—

^[411]Plan of premises before 1779 (photograph).

^[411]Elevation of premises in 1779 (photograph).

^[411]Exterior of the tavern in 1811 as designed by William Tyler in 1785 (photograph).

^[411]The façade, designed by F. P. Cockerell (1866) (photograph).

^[411]Elevation of the north end of the Temple, as designed by Thomas Sandby in 1775 (photograph).

^[411]The disastrous fire at Freemasons’ Hall. The scene of the conflagration of 1883, from a woodcut (photograph).

^[411]The Temple, looking south (photograph).

The Temple, looking north (photograph).

The chair of the Grand Master (photograph).

^[411]View of the New Masonic Hall, looking south, pen sketch design by Sir J. Soane, (1828) (photograph).

Plan of the ground floor before the alterations of 1899 (measured drawing).

^[411]Plan of the principal floor before the alterations of 1899 (drawing).

^[411]Grand staircase (photograph).

First floor corridor (photograph).

^[411]Vestibule to Temple, showing mosaic paving (photograph).

Interior of Banqueting Hall—Connaught Rooms looking north (photograph).

Three swords in museum (photograph).