The House was erected early in the seventeenth century--the date, 1610, still stands on the door of the principal entrance. It is said to have been built for the good Prince Henry, eldest son of James the First; and a tradition exists that the illness of which he died was the result of bathing too freely in the adjacent river. It is, however, unlikely that the Prince ever resided here; and it is certain that the builder was Sir Thomas Vavasor, Knight Marshal, appointed, in 1611, together with Sir Francis Bacon, Judge of the Marshal’s court, and to have been “surrendered by him, together with certain customary lands, to John (Ramsay), Earl of Holderness, who died in 1624 or 1625.” We follow the authority of Manning, the County Historian, who states that by this Earl, or, more probably, his heirs, the House and Lands were “sold to William Murray--groom of the bed-chamber to James the First, and afterwards created, in 1643, by that monarch Earl of Dysart[43]--“whose widow, Katherine, on the 22nd May, 1651, surrendered them to the use of Sir Lionel Tollemache and Elizabeth his wife, her daughter, who in the year following surrendered them to the use of Sir Lionel’s will.” This daughter, to whom the honour of the Earl--“such it was,” writes Burnet--descended, having outlived Sir Lionel, married a second time (being then Countess of Dysart) the Earl, afterwards Duke, of Lauderdale.[44] The House and Estates of Ham were inherited by “her heirs by her first husband;” in whose possession they have since continued, being now the property of Lionel William John Tollemache, the sixth Earl of Dysart, and the residence of his Lordship’s brother. The Duchess of Lauderdale--famous during the reigns of four monarchs; the First and Second James, and the First and Second Charles; and through the Protectorship of Cromwell--refurnished the House at Ham; where she continued to reside, until her death at a very advanced age. The Interior, with its gorgeous, yet remarkably tasteful “furnishing,” has been scarcely altered since the aged dame occupied the Mansion. Time has dimmed the splendour of the “hangings,” and tarnished the costly draperies of the rich looms of France; but they remain--in some places tattered and torn--to supply indubitable evidence that the “woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts,” had at all events a refined taste, and that at least a portion of the money she was “wanting in [Illustration] no means to obtain,” was judiciously expended in the adornment of her House. Among other untouched relics of gone-by days, is a small Antechamber, where, it is said, she not only condescended to receive the Second Charles, but, if tradition is to be credited, where she “cajoled” Oliver Cromwell. There still remain the chair in which she used to sit, her small walking-cane, and a variety of objects she was wont to value and cherish as memorials of her active life and the successful issues of a hundred political intrigues.[45]