BARON ELLESMERE

lande, that His Majestye would have geven six monenths tyme for the avoydance, and I doo not know but the poorest artificer in London hath a quarter's warninge geven him by his landlord. I have made provision for 40 persons in the springe and now to cast out my hay and oates into the streates att an hour's warninge, and to remove my famyly and staff in 14 dayes after, is such a seveare expulsion as hath not bynn offered to any man before this daye."

It is more than likely that Raleigh wrote several of his poems in Durham House. His Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores (1591), and his Discovery of the Empire of Guiana (1596), were published during his tenure of Durham House. Raleigh was Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and, as such, many cases were brought before him here, the most celebrated of them being that of Glanville v. Courtney, which was heard at divers stages in 1591 and subsequent years, Thomas Egerton (afterwards Baron Ellesmere), and Viscount Brackley, lord chancellor, being counsel on one occasion. In 1600, when Raleigh was away in Jersey, where he had been appointed governor, some of the out-buildings of Durham House were destroyed by fire, and this was the beginning of the end of the magnificence which had for so long attended this palace on Thames-side.

Oldys, in his Life of Raleigh, has described the

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stalwart, sour-faced" statesman during his residence at Durham House, as attired in a suit of clothes surmounted by jewels to the value of six thousand six hundred gold pieces. The well-known story of Raleigh's first pipe applies—if there is any truth in the legend-to the time when he resided here. In 1586, Drake brought tobacco to England from Virginia. It is said that one day Raleigh's servant, carrying a tankard of spiced ale to Raleigh in his study in the turret, found his master on fire, as he thought, and, dropping the vessel, rushed for assistance, shouting that his master "would be burnt to ashes if they did not run to his assistance." Another version is that the clown dashed the ale over his master's head. Be this as it may, the early use of tobacco is intimately associated with Durham House, for, as is well known, Raleigh smoked as he worked.

CHAPTER II

The New Exchange-The Earl of Salisbury proprietor-Opened by James I.—Popular Allusions-The First Edition of Othello published Here-Samuel Pepys a Frequent Visitor-Henry Herringman-Otway-Etherege-Wycherley-Dryden— Addison-Durham House in Decay-Acquired by the Earl of Pembroke-Various Public Offices in Durham YardCharles II. helps to extinguish a Fire Here-Archbishop Le Tellier-Godfrey Kneller-David Garrick, wine merchant— Dr Johnson-Voltaire-Murder in the New Exchange.

LEAVING for a moment Sir Walter Raleigh in his vain endeavour to uphold his claim to Durham House, let us glance at the Strand portion of the establishment. It teems with romance and literary interest. The stabling, which looked upon the Strand, had fallen into decay, and, early in the reign of James I., it was converted by Robert, Lord Salisbury, into the New Exchange. Its frontage extended from the present George Court to Durham House Street. The foundation stone was laid on June 10, 1608, and, in the following July, as we find from the State Papers, "The New Burse proceeds apace."

The allusion in the State Papers was due to a

letter which the Lord Mayor had written, on June 30, to the Lord Treasurer, enclosing a petition from the shopkeepers of the Royal Exchange "concerning a building in course of erection at Durham House in the Strand," which they considered was meant to be employed as "a Pawne or Exchange for the sale of things usually uttered in the Royal Exchange, and which, being situated near to Whitehall and in the highway, would be injurious not only to the shopkeepers and citizens at large," but would tend to the destruction of trade. Another authority says: "The new Bourse at Durham House goes up apace, where the Citizens, and especially the Exchange men, begin to grumble. . . . and thereupon have made a petition to the Lord Mayor to provide ne quid detrimenti republica capiet."1 Scant notice, if any, was taken of this petition from the City, and the building of Britain's Burse proceeded without hindrance. The Exchange consisted of four separate places: the Outward Walk below Stairs; the Inner Walk below Stairs; the Outward Walk above Stairs; and the Inner Walk above Stairs. Its opening, on April 11, 1609, was graced by the presence of James I. and his queen, "when," according to Anthony Munday, the poet and playwright and literary executor of Stow, whose Survey he produced in 1618, "it pleased his most excellent 1 Court and Times of James I., Birch, vol. i., p. 75.

EARL OF SALISBURY

Majesty, because the work wanted a name, to entitle it Britain's Burse."

Stow also says: "Now to speak somewhat of later time concerning this Durham House, it was well knowne and observed, for how many yeers I know not, that the outward part belonging thereto, and standing North from the houses, was but a low row of Stables, old, ruinous, ready to fall, and very unsightly, in so public a passage to the Court at Westminster. Upon which consideration, or some more especial respect in the mind of the right honourable Robert, Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Treasurer of England: it pleased him to take such order in the matter, that (at his owne cost and charges), that deformed row of Stabling was quite altered, by the erection of a very goodly and beautiful building instead thereof, and in the very same place. Some shape of the modelling, though not in all respects alike, was after the fashion of the Royall Exchange in London, with Sellers underneath, a walk fairly paved above it, and Rowes of Shops above, as also one beneath answerable in manner to the other and intended for the like trades and mysteries.

"The work was not long in the taking down, nor in the erection againe: for the first stone was laid on the 10. day of June, 1608, and also was fully finished in the next ensuing November after. Also, on Tuesday, being the 10. day of April