Craven House

Craven House, in Drury Lane, now in the Occupation of his Lordship.

Drury House, now the Seat of the Earl of Craven, which with the Additions built by his Lordship, called Craven House, makes together a very large House, or which may be termed several Houses; The Entrance into this House is thro' a pair of Gates which leadeth into a large Yard for the reception of Coaches, and on the Back side is a handsome Garden.

Drury House, Drury Lane, was built by Sir William Drury, the grandfather of Elizabeth Drury, whose "untimely and religious death" occasioned Dr. Donne's "Anniversarie." Sir Robert Drury appropriated "an useful apartment in his own large house in Drury Lane" to Dr. Donne and his family. He afterwards persuaded Donne to accompany him to Paris, where he had his celebrated vision of his wife with a dead child in her arms. A messenger was immediately despatched to Drury House, when it was ascertained that on "the same day, and about the very hour" that Donne saw the vision, "his wife had been delivered of a dead child."¹ Another great poet and divine, Bishop Hall, visited Sir Robert Drury in this house, where the host gave himself all the airs of a patron, and Donne was "full of cold and distemper."² From the Drurys it passed into the possession of the Craven family; and was then distinguished as Craven House [which see.] The Olympic Theatre now occupies the site.

Craven House, Drury Lane, in the parish of St. Clement's Danes, the town house of William, first Earl of Craven, who died here in 1697. He is said to have been married to the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., and mother of Prince Rupert. In 1661, when she came to England after her nephew's restoration, she was lodged at Craven House for about six months. It was a five-storey house, with eleven small windows on each storey, intersected by Doric and Ionic pilasters.

The entrance is through a pair of gates, which leadeth into a large yard for the reception of coaches, and on the backside is a handsome garden.—Strype, B. iv. p. 118.

On the wall at the bottom of Craven Buildings there was formerly a fresco painting of the Earl of Craven, who was represented in armour, mounted on a charger, and with a truncheon in his hand. This portrait was twice or thrice repainted in oil, but is now entirely obliterated.—Brayley's Londiniana, vol. iv. p. 301¹

Craven House was taken down in 1809.² The cellars still remain, though blocked up. [See Craven Buildings; Drury House; and the Olympic Theatre.]

Drury House, from which the lane originally took its name, stood at the west end of Wych Street. It was built by Sir William Drury, who is reported to have been not only the head of a great family, but Knight of the Garter. He held a command in the Irish wars in the reign of Elizabeth, and showed great ability as an officer. He unfortunately fell in a duel with a Sir John Burroughes, about a foolish quarrel for precedency. The house deserves to be remembered as the place where the rash friends of the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex, devised those wild schemes which led to the ruin of himself and his adherents. The "Account of St. Clement's in 1734," to which we have so often referred, speaks of it as "a very large house, or which may rather be termed several houses. The entrance," adds the writer, "is through a pair of gates, which leadeth into a large yard for the reception of coaches." At the back of the house was a handsome garden. "In the following century," says Allen, in his "History of London," "it was possessed by the heroic Lord Craven, who rebuilt it. It was lately a large brick pile, concealed by other buildings, and turned into a public-house bearing the sign of the 'Queen of Bohemia,' the earl's admired mistress, whose battles he fought, animated at once by love and duty. When on the death of her husband he could aspire to her hand, he is supposed to have succeeded; at all events history says that they were privately married, and that he built for her the fine seat at Hampstead Marshal, in Berkshire, afterwards destroyed by fire." The services rendered by Lord Craven to London, his native city, are worthy of being recorded here. He was so indefatigable in preventing the ravages of fire, that it is said "his horse would smell the outbreak of a fire, and neigh to give the alarm." He and Monk, Duke of Albemarle, stayed in London throughout the visitation of the Great Plague in 1665, and at the hazard of their own lives preserved order in the midst of the horrors of the time. Allen adds that there used to be in Craven Buildings a very good fresco portrait of this hero in armour, mounted on a white horse, and with his truncheon in hand, and on each side an earl's and a baron's coronet, with the letters "W.C." (William Craven). This painting, though several times recoloured in oils, has long since perished; but an engraving of it is preserved in Smith's "Antiquities of London."

It deserves to be recorded of Sir Robert Drury that he for some time entertained, as a welcome and honoured guest at his mansion in Drury Lane, the amiable and learned Dr. John Donne, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, when he was young and poor, having contracted marriage with a young lady of high connections, against the will, or at all events without the consent, of her relatives. It is added that he not only gave him and his wife the free use of apartments, but also was "a cherisher of his studies, and such a friend as sympathised with him and his in all their joys and sorrows." Such friends, no doubt, were rare then; as rare, perhaps, as now-a-days; but it is a pleasure to record such an act of genuine friendship.

The exact date of the removal of Lord Craven's family from Drury Lane to their real town residence at Bayswater, where now is Craven Hill, is not known; but it must have been just before the close of the seventeenth century. Craven House itself was taken down early in the present century, and the site is now occupied by the Olympic Theatre, as stated in the last chapter.