After the expulsion of the Great Seal from old York House, it wandered
from house to house, manifesting, however, in its selections of London
quarters, a preference for the grand line of thoroughfare between
Charing Cross and the foot of Ludgate Hill. Escaping from the
Westminster Deanery, where Williams kept it in a box, the _Clavis Regni_
inhabited Durham House, Strand, whilst under Lord Keeper Coventry's
care. Lord Keeper Littleton, until he made his famous ride from London
to York, lived in Exeter House. Clarendon resided in Dorset House,
Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and subsequently in Worcester House,
Strand, before he removed to the magnificent palace which aroused the
indignation of the public in St. James's Street. The greater and happier
part of his official life was passed in Worcester House. There he held
councils in his bedroom when he was laid up with gout; there King
Charles visited him familiarly, even condescending to be present to the
bedside councils; and there he was established when the Great Fire of
London caused him, in a panic, to send his most valuable furniture to
his Villa at Twickenham. Thanet House, Aldersgate Street, is the
residence with which Shaftesbury, the politician, is most generally
associated; but whilst he was Lord Chancellor he occupied Exeter House,
Strand, formerly the abode of Keeper Littleton. Lord Nottingham slept
with the seals under his pillow in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn
Fields, the same street in which his successor, Lord Guildford, had the
establishment so racily described by his brother, Roger North. And Lord
Jeffreys moving westward, gave noisy dinners in Duke Street,
Westminster, where he opened a court-house that was afterwards
consecrated as a place of worship, and is still known as the Duke Street
Chapel. Says Pennant, describing the Chancellor's residence, "It is
easily known by a large flight of stone steps, which his royal master
permitted to be made into the park adjacent for the accommodation of his
lordship. These steps terminate above in a small court, on three sides
of which stands the house." The steps still remain, but their history is
unknown to many of the habitual frequenters of the chapel. After
Jefferys' fall the spacious and imposing mansion, where the
_bon-vivants_ of the bar used to drink inordinately with the wits and
buffoons of the London theatres, was occupied by Government; and there
the Lords of the Admiralty had their offices until they moved to their
quarters opposite Scotland Yard. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary contains the
following entry:--"April 23, 1690. The late Lord Chancellor's house at
Westminster is taken for the Lords of the Admiralty to keep the
Admiralty Office at."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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