The site of Northumberland House was that which had been previously occupied by the "hospital" or chapel of St Mary Rounceval. "Then," says Stow, "there was an hospital of St Marie Rouncivall by Charing Cross (a cell to the priory and convent of Roncesvalles in Navarre, in Pamplona diocese), where a fraternity was founded in the 15th year of Edward IV., but now the same is suppressed and turned into tenements." On the other hand, Pennant gives it a still greater antiquity, for he states that the chapel was founded, by William, Earl of Pembroke, in the reign of Henry III., repressed by Henry V. among the alien priories, and rebuilt by Edward IV., "who fixed a fraternity in it." Dissolved by Henry VIII., the property was granted by Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Cawarden, a private individual who did not attain to fame. From him it passed to Sir Robert Brett, and thence, by purchase, to Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, who, in the reign of James I., built the immediate predecessor of Northumberland House. This Henry Howard, the first Earl of Northampton (1540-1614) was the second son of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the poet. He was the most learned nobleman of his day. He may have had some religious sentiment in purchasing the original site of the chapel of St Mary, for he lived and died a Roman Catholic. In the building of his "sumptuous palace," which he called Northampton House, he had for his architects Bernard Jansen, who was more a stonemason than an architect, and another maker of funeral monuments, Gerrard Christmas (Garret Christmas). The latter carved for himself the initials C. Æ. (Christmas Ædificavit), in large capitals over the old stone gateway, which was replaced by a new front towards the Strand in the reign of George II. At that time the house consisted of three sides of a quadrangle, the centre facing the Strand, and, of course, with gardens down to the river. The Earl of Northampton died here in 1614, and by his will bequeathed the house and garden to his nephew, Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk, the second son of Thomas Howard the third, fourth Duke of Norfolk. As Lord Thomas Howard he distinguished himself against the Armada in 1588. He completed the quadrangle of Northampton House by building the front towards the Thames, and he changed the name to Suffolk House. The Earl of Suffolk died here in 1626, and his son, Theophilus, inherited the property. On his death, in 1640, James, the third Earl of Suffolk (1619-1688), inherited it. His sister, the Lady Elizabeth Howard, was married, in 1642, to Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland. By an indenture dated a few days before the marriage, the property was conveyed by the Earl of Suffolk to the Earl of Northumberland, a change which led also to the nomenclature of the house, which has had such a long career, and the destruction of which many Londoners still lament.