DURHAM HOUSE

a public dinner, at the beginning of the last century, a worthy alderman whose knowledge of Greek was very vague, was much struck by the toast, in reference to two royal brothers-George IV. and the Duke of York-of "the Adelphi." When it came to the alderman's turn to speak, he said that, as they were on the subject of streets, he would "beg leave to propose Finsbury Square."" In somewhat similar manner, before we get to the Adelphi, we must go back to its origin, and this takes us to the thirteenth century.

Durham House, which, with its grounds, formerly occupied the entire site of the Adelphi, was the town residence of Anthony Bek (otherwise Anthony de Beck or Bec), Bishop of Durham in the reign of Edward I. So it is affirmed by

reason to doubt the

Pennant, and there is no assertion. Some mistakes have arisen on this point, in consequence, as it appears to me, of there having been two men of the same name, both of whom were bishops. Their ancestor, Walter Bek, came to England with William the Conqueror, and from his three sons sprang three great Lincolnshire families: Bek of Eresby, Bek of Luceby, and Bek of Botheby. Now, Bishop Antony Bek the second (1279-1343), son of

1 From the builders of the Adelphi, the brothers Adam, who adopted the meaning of the Greek word, ádeλpoí, for their great work. Prior to this, however, Robert and James Adam had signed their architectural drawings “ Adelphi.”

Walter Bek of Luceby, constable of Lincoln Castle, was at one time Bishop of Lincoln, and, in 1337, Bishop of Norwich. But Antony Bek, son of Walter Bek, baron of Eresby, was appointed to the see of Durham in 1283. He was intimately associated with Edward I., being one of his chief advisers during the negotiations regarding Baliol, and of great assistance to him in his Scottish expeditions of 1296 and 1298. Owing to a dispute with the prior of the convent of Durham, he was deprived of certain of his rights by the king (but regained them on application to the Pope). As this, however, occurred in the year 1300, it may safely be assumed that Antony Bek had occupied Durham House before that event.

But there was a Durham House even earlier than this of Antony Bek's, if we are to credit an account given by Thomas Fuller. Here, in 1238, the papal legate, Otho, was staying, and hither he summoned the English bishops in order to debate as to what "further steps should be taken respecting the churches and schools of Oxford, which he had laid under interdict on account of the scholars having, when the legate was staying at Oseney, killed his brother and clerk of the kitchen in an affray," the legate himself being obliged to fly from the city. At the intercession of the bishops, the legate assented to pardon the university on con1 London Past and Present, vol. i., p. 540.

HENRY III.

dition of the clergy and scholars making their "solemn submission" to him. As a result, the offenders "went from St Paul's in London to Durham House in the Strand, no short Italian, but an English long, mile, all on foot; the bishops of England, for the more state of the business, accompanying them, as partly accessory to their fault, for pleading on their behalf. When they came to the Bishop of Carlisle's house, the scholars went the rest of the way barefoot, sine capis et mantulis, which some understand, without capes or cloaks.' And thus the great legate at last was really reconciled to them."1

Some of these old chronicles are not always to be relied upon in the matter of dates: "This howse called Durham, or Dunelme Howse, was buylded in the time of Henry 3, by one Antonye Becke, B. of Durham. It is a howse of 300 years antiquitie; the hall whereof is statelie and high, supported with lofty marble pillars. It standeth on the Thamise veriye pleasantlie." So wrote one historian in 1593. But Henry III. died in 1272, eleven years before Bek was made Bishop of Durham. That there was a Durham House of sorts before Bek's time is pretty certain, although it was not the one that is attributed to that bishop. The story has often been told of Henry III., in 1258, being caught in a thunderstorm on his way

1 Thomas Fuller, Church History, B. III., cent. xiii., p. 20.

down the Thames on his barge. At that time, the Earl of Leicester was the head of the barons who were opposed to the king, and it is said that he was then in occupation of Durham House (we have already seen that the papal legate was installed there twenty years earlier). Be this as it may, the king sought shelter from the storm, and, as the royal barge approached the shore, the Earl of Leicester went forth and endeavoured to allay any fears that the king might have felt, saying, "Your Majesty need not be afraid, for the tempest is nearly over." But the king, being moved to wrath, fiercely exclaimed, "Above measure, I dread thunder and lightning, but, by the head of God, I am more in terror of thee than of all the thunder and lightning in the world." Though this story may be doubted, one early royal memory of Durham House is that of Prince Henry (Henry V.), who, in 1411, "lay at the bysshoppes inne of Darham for the seid day of his comming to towne unto the Moneday nest after the feste of Septem fratum.” 1

That most correct of London historians, John Stow, sets down the fourteenth century as the date of Durham House. "On the south side of which street" (meaning the Strand, which had no name in Stow's time), he says, "in the liberties of Westminster (beginning at Ivy Bridge), first is

1 Nicolas, Chronicle of London, p. 94.

THE PAPAL LEGATE

Durham House, built by Thomas Hatfield, Bishop of Durham, who was made bishop of that see in 1345, and sat bishop there thirty-six years." But we have already seen from Fuller, whose Church History of Britain-from which the quotation in regard to the papal legate, Otho, is taken -was written in 1655, fifty years after Stow's death, that there was a Durham House in 1238.

And this brings me to a curious point. Thomas Pennant, whose Account of London affords much entertaining reading, has an amusing disquisition on the word "palace." He writes: "That the word is only applicable to the habitations of princes, or princely persons, and that it is with all the impropriety of vanity bestowed on the houses of those who have luckily acquired money enough to pile on one another a greater quantity of stones and bricks than their neighbours. How many imaginary Parks have been formed within precincts where deer were never seen! and how many houses misnamed Halls which never had attached to them the privilege of a manor!" Leigh Hunt took the "lively Pennant," as he dubs him, to task on this point: "Unless the words palazzo and piazza are traceable to the same root, palatium (as perhaps they are), place does not of necessity mean palace ; and palace certainly does not mean exclusively the habitation of princes and princely persons (that is to say, supposing princeliness to exclude