The Kensington DistrictMitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
History
The Kensington District
Mitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
Kensington (London, England) -- Description and travel
The house was seized by the Commonwealth, and the Parliamentary
Generals, Fairfax and Lambert, lived there. Timbs quotes from the
_Perfect Diurnal_, July 9 to 16, 1649: "The Lord-General Fairfax is
removed from Queen Street to the late Earl of Holland's house at
Kensington, where he intends to reside." The house was restored to its
rightful owners at the Restoration. The widowed Countess seems later to
have let it, for there were several notable tenants, among whom was Sir
Charles Chardin, the traveller, who went to Persia with the avowed
intention of seeking a fortune, which he certainly gained, in addition
to unexpected celebrity. He died in 1735, and is buried at Chiswick.
Afterwards, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a tenant of
Holland House; the name of Van Dyck has also been mentioned in this
connection, but there is not sufficient evidence to make it more than a
tradition.
Joseph Addison married the widow of the sixth Earl of Holland and
Warwick in 1716. He was an old family friend and had known her long, yet
the experiment did not turn out satisfactorily. The Countess was
something of a termagant, and it is said that to escape from her he
often went to the White Horse inn at the corner of Lord Holland's Lane
and there enjoyed "his favourite dish--a fillet of veal--his bottle, and
perhaps a friend." His married life was of very short duration, only
three years, but his brief residence at Holland House has added to its
associations more richly than all the names of preceding times. Addison
had attempted from the first to influence the young Earl, whose
stepfather he became, and some of his letters to the youth are
singularly charming, but his care seems to have been ill-requited, and
the famous death-bed scene, in which the man of letters sent for the
dissolute young Earl to "see how a Christian can die," was as much in
the nature of a rebuke as a warning. Addison left only one daughter, who
died unmarried. The last earl died in 1759, leaving no male heir, and
the title became extinct.
Through an Elizabeth Rich, who had married Francis Edwardes, the estates
passed into the Edwardes family, by whom they were sold to Henry Fox,
second son of Sir Stephen Fox, Paymaster-General of the Forces in the
reign of Charles II., through whose exertions it was in great part that
Chelsea Hospital was built. Henry Fox followed in his father's steps,
becoming Paymaster-General under George II., and was created Baron
Holland in 1763. His second son was the famous statesman Charles James
Fox. Thus, after the lapse of about four years only, the old title was
revived in an entirely different family. Henry Fox's elder brother was
created first Baron, and then Earl, of Ilchester, which is the title of
the present owner of Holland House.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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