Exeter House

Exeter House, in the Strand, stood on the north side of the Strand, on the site of Burleigh Street and Exeter Street, and was so called after Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, son of the great Lord Burleigh (d. 1622). In Burleigh's time the house was known as Cecil House and Burleigh House, and afterwards oscillated between Cecil House and Exeter House. [See Cecil House.] Lady Hatton was its occupant in 1617, in December of which year Sir Horace Vere writes to Carleton, "Lady Hatton feasted the King and Queen at Exeter House. Sir Edward Coke (the great lawyer, her husband) could not be admitted a guest, though the King desired it." In 1623, when the Infanta was expected to arrive in London as the bride of Prince Charles, with a brilliant train, King James borrowed Exeter House for the reception of a part of the suite. On this occasion the Earl (Cecil's grandson) wrote that he consented, though reluctantly, to give it up for two or three months, but that "he could not find it in his heart to bid those in it begone, especially Lord Denney," so he left it to the Lord Treasurer to "do as he pleased therein."¹

June 17, 1623.—The Spanish Ambassador Extraordinary was brought from Gravesend to Greenwich, to an audience, in eight barges, and thence conveyed with many coaches to Exeter House, which is richly furnished for him.—Cal., State Pap., 1619–1623, p. 611.

Here you must observe that Queen Mary [Henrietta Maria] going to her own Chapel every Sunday, the English ladies must have some rendezvous where to meet to show their beauties, and braveries; and the fittest place was thought to be Exeter House, where the Duchess of Richmond then lay. And observing state, both in going to the closet, and coming thence after sermon, she had a cup of wine, and some small banquet to entertain the ladies, which gave them much content, and there was a great resort.—Bishop Godwin's Court of King James, vol. i. p. 392.

September 24, 1651.—The funeral of General Popham was accompanied from Exeter House, by the Speaker and Members of Parliament, the Lord General and Council of State, with great solemnity, to Westminster.—Whitelocke.

Evelyn went to London with his wife, he tells us, in 1657, to celebrate Christmas Day in Exeter Chapel, in the Strand, the chapel attached to Exeter House. When the sermon was ended, and the sacrament about to be administered, the chapel was surrounded with soldiers, and all the communicants and assembly surprised and kept prisoners; "but yet," he says, "suffering us to finish the office of communion, as perhaps not having instructions what to do in case they found us in that action." Evelyn was confined in a room in Exeter House, and in the afternoon Colonel Whaley, Goff, and others came from Whitehall and severally examined them. "When I came before them," says Evelyn, "they took my name and abode, examined me, why, contrary to an ordinance made, that none should any longer observe the superstitious time of the Nativity, I durst offend. Finding no colour to detain me," he adds, "they dismissed me with much pity of my ignorance." In Exeter House lived Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury; and here, February 26, 1670–1671, his grandson, the author of The Characteristics, was born.

Dandulo, a converted Mahometan, was baptized at this chapel by Mr. Gunning, November 8, 1657, and an account of the proceeding, by Thomas Warmstry, D.D., was published in 1658 under the title of The Baptized Turk.

From 1667 till 1676, when the first Earl of Shaftesbury removed into the City, and the house was pulled down, Exeter House was the home of John Locke, who resided with Lord Ashley at this time as "family physician, tutor, and private friend," and for a while as secretary. Many of Locke's extant letters are dated from Exeter House, and it was whilst here that he was occupied with the Essay on the Human Understanding.² The Court of Arches, the Admiralty Court, and the Will Office of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury were held in Exeter House after the Great Fire, till new offices were built³ In 1855 the Marquis of Exeter (a lineal descendant of the great Lord Burleigh) sold by public auction the freehold property on the site of Exeter House, producing nearly £3000 a year, for £51,800. [See Cecil House.] "In the Strand, near Exeter House," lived the beautiful Countess of Carlisle, of Charles I., Van Dyck, Suckling, and Carew. The house belonged to Mr. Thomas Cary, of the Monmouth family, and was leased by the countess at a rent of £150 a year,—at least £600 of our present money.⁴

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¹ Cal. State Pap., 1619–1623, p. 561.
² Lord King, Life and Letters of John Locke; p. 33, etc.; Fox-Bourne, Life of Locke, vol. i. p. 199.
³ Harl. MS., 3788, foL 100; and Anth. à Wood's Life.
⁴ Strafford Papers, vol. i. pp. 177, 218; Rate-books of St. Clement's Danes.

Cecil House, the town residence of Sir William Cecil, the great Lord Burleigh, stood on the north side of the Strand, on the site of Burleigh Street, and the old Exeter 'Change.

The howse of the ryght honorable Lord Burleigh, Lord High Tresorer of England and by him erected. Standinge on the north side of the Stronde, a verie fayre howse raysed with brickes, proportionablie adorned with four turrets placed at the four quarters of the howse; within it is curiouslye bewtified with rare devises, and especially the oratory, placed in an angle of the great chamber. Unto this is annexed on the east a proper howse of the honorable Sir Robert Cecill knight, and of Her Ma^ts most honorable Prevye Counsayle.—Norden's Middlesex, Harl. MS., 570 (printed in Norden's Essex, ed. Ellis, p. xvi.)

Cicile House sometime belonged to the parson of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and by composition came to Sir Thomas Palmer, Knight, in the reign of Edward VI., who began to build the same of brick and timber, very large and spacious; but of later time it hath been far more beautifully increased by the late Sir William Cicile, Baron of Burghley.—Stow, p. 167.

At this house Cecil had "fourscore persons in family, exclusive of those who attended him at court." His expenses were £30 a week in his absence, and between £40 and £50 when he was present. His stables cost him 1000 marks a year.

July 14, 1561.—The Queen supped at my House in Strand before it was fully finished; and she came by the fields from Christ Church.—Lord Burleigh's Diary, in Murdin's State Papers.

July 1, 1564.—My daughter Elizabeth born at Cecile House at night.—Ibid. p. 755

Tarlton [the Clown] called Burley House gate in the Strand, towards the Savoy, the L. Treasurer's almes gate, because it was seldom or never opened.—Manningham's Diary, p. 16.

Sir William Cecil enlarged his grounds at the back of his house, by a lease from the Earl of Bedford, dated September 7, 1750.¹ He died here, August 4, 1598.

March 13, 1609.—Anne Lady Glenham sends documents to prove her right to Cecil House, intended by her father, Thomas Earl of Dorset, for herself and children, which on the death of her brother, Robert Earl of Dorset, she now claims.—Cal. State Pap., 1603–1610, p. 499.

After the Great Fire of London Cecil House was hired for holding the Arches, Admiralty and Prerogative Courts in, until Doctors' Commons should be rebuilt. Later it was converted into the Exeter Change. The memory of the house and its owners is preserved in the names of Cecil Street, Burleigh Street, Exeter Street, Salisbury Street. [See Exeter House; Covent Garden.]

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¹ Archæologia, vol. xxx. p. 494.

Exeter House. On the site of Exeter House, and of its successor, the "Exeter 'Change" of the age of our grandfathers, antiquaries tell us that there once stood the rectory-house belonging to St. Clement Danes' parish, "with a garden and a close for the parson's horse." Such, at all events, was the case until a certain Sir Thomas Palmer, during the reign of Edward VI., came into possession of the living, which he lost by forfeiture for treason. Sir Thomas pulled down the house, and "rebuilt the same of brick and timber very large and spacious." Sir. T. Palmer is called "a creature of the Duke of Somerset," his mansion "a magnificent house of brick and timber." In the first year of Mary it reverted to the Crown, in which it remained vested until it was granted by Elizabeth to Sir William Cecil, her Lord Treasurer, who enlarged and partly rebuilt it, and called it Burleigh or Cecil House. According to Pennant, Burleigh House was "a noble pile, built with brick, and adorned with four square turrets." As appears from ancient plans, it faced the Strand, its gardens extending "from the west side of the garden walk of Wimbledon House (nearly where now runs Wellington Street) to the green lane westwards, which now is Southampton Street."

Cecil, when he became Lord Burleigh, was honoured in this house by a visit from Queen Elizabeth, who, knowing him to be a martyr to the gout, would allow him to sit in her presence. This was, of course, a great concession from such an imperious queen, even to such a favourite; and when he would apologise for the weak state of his legs, her Majesty would playfully remark, "My lord, we make use of you not for the badness of your legs, but for the goodness of your head." Allen remarks, in his "History of London," that "in all probability when she came to Burleigh House, the queen wore that pyramidical head-dress, built of wire, lace, ribbons, and jewels, which shot up to so great a height, and made part of the fashion of the day; for, when the principal esquire in attendance ushered her into the house, he suggested to her Majesty to stoop. 'For your master's sake, I will stoop,' she replied haughtily, 'but not for the King of Spain.'" Lord Burleigh spent most of his days between this house and his country residence at Theobalds, in Hertfordshire. "At his house in London," we learn from the "Desiderata Curiosa," "he kept ordinarily in household fourscore persons besides . . . . such as attended him at court. The charge of his housekeeping in London amounted to thirty pounds a week," a very large sum indeed in those days, "and the whole sum yearly £1,560, and this in his absence; and in term time, or when his lordship lay at London, his charges increased ten or twelve pounds more. Besides keeping these houses he bought great quantities of corn in times of dearth, to furnish markets about his house at under prices, to pull down the price so as to relieve the poor. He also gave, for the releasing of prisoners in many of his latter years, thirty and even forty pounds in a term. And for twenty years together he gave yearly in beef, bread, and money at Christmas to the poor of Westminster, St. Martin's, St. Clement's, and Theobalds, thirty-five, and sometimes forty pounds per annum. He also gave yearly to twenty poor men lodging at the Savoy, twenty suits of apparel: so as his certain alms, besides extraordinaries, was cast up to be £500 yearly, one year with another."

Lord Burleigh died here in 1598. The house afterwards passed into the hands of his son Thomas, who, being created Earl of Exeter, gave it that name, which it retained almost to our own days. After the Fire of London it was occupied for some few years by the members of Doctors' Commons, and the various courts of the Arches, the Admiralty, &c., were carried on here. At last, being deserted by the family, it was divided, the lower part being turned into shops of various descriptions, while the upper part, containing a menagerie of wild beasts and reptiles, became known as "Exeter 'Change."

Burleigh House (afterwards Exeter House) was built on the site of the rectory of St. Clement Danes, a house of the master of the Savoy, and the Hartshorn and other tenements which had formerly been the property of Westminster Abbey. The house was begun by Sir Thomas Palmer (executed in 1553) and completed by Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley.³³⁶ The latter also built Cecil House adjoining it on the east which formed the residence of Sir Robert Cecil until the erection of Salisbury House on the south side of the Strand.³³⁷ At Burghley's death his house passed to his elder son, Sir Thomas Cecil, who in 1605 was created Earl of Exeter. Cecil House was burnt down in 1627, when it was in use as the Dutch Embassy.³³⁸ After the Restoration, Exeter House was occupied by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, who had married Frances, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Exeter.³³⁹ Views of it are given on Norden's plan of Westminster (Plate 1b) and on the plan of the west central part of London by Hollar, which shows the corner turrets to the main building, the garden behind, and an avenue of trees with an outlet towards Drury Lane. In 1676 the house was sold for building,⁹³ and Burleigh Street, Exeter Street, Exeter Court, Exchange Court, etc., were erected on the site, with Exeter Change jutting out on the street frontage as Exeter House had previously. Exeter Change, famous for its menagerie, remained in existence until 1830, when it was taken down to widen the Strand. Nash originally proposed to erected a similar bazaar father back,¹²⁹ but instead the Lowther Arcade was built between Adelaide Street and the Strand through the new triangular block of buildings there where Coutts' Bank now stands.

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³³⁶ P.R.O., C. 54/513/27; Cal. of Pat. Rolls; P.R.O., C. 54/571/27.
³³⁷ Hatfield MSS., 196/1.
³³⁸ Court and Times of Charles I.
³³⁹ Christie, Life of Shaftesbury.
⁹³ Cal. of S.P.Dom.
¹²⁹ Gent. Mag.