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trond, nere the Thamise, buylded y the late duke of Somerset, not illy finished, yet a most stately ouse, and of great receyte; havinge hiefe prospecte towardes the sowthe, nd the sweete river of the Thamise, ffereth manie pleasinge delightes. The right honorable lord Huusedon, ord chamberlayne to her majestie, ath, under her majestie, the use hereof."

Lord Hunsdon died here, in 1596. "In the reign of King James I. he house before us became, ipso faco, a royal residence on the part of he queen, and even changed its ame; and it appears that her maesty repaired it, at her own charge, or the reception of her brother, Christian IV. king of Denmark, who visited England A. D. 1666; from which time, it is said, that the queen affected to call it Denmark House. Here at least her majesty kept her court, which was celebrated for its gaiety, whereof the king occasionally partook. Her courtiers often appeared in masquerade, not a little favourable to the intriguing spirit of the time; and the queen herself does not seem to have escaped all censure†. The visit of the king of Denmark was very flattering to king James, who was glad of the company of a stranger, to whom he might display his wit and magnificence; which last was carried to so great an excess, that, on this occasion, added to another visit, which immediately followed from the prince de Vaudemont, son of the duke of Lorrain, his majesty consumed nearly the whole of a subsidy of four hundred fifty-three thou

"Harleian MS. No. 570.'

sand pounds, lately granted by the parliament for the necessary and urgent demands of his household. At this time the king maintained three distinct courts, at an incredible expence: his own, at Whitehall; the queen's, at Somerset House; and prince Henry's, at St. James's; all upon large establishments §. His Danish majesty liked his reception so well, in the year 1606, that, unsolicited and unexpectedly, he repeated his visit A. D. 1614, when king James lavished away about fifty thousand pounds in excessive feasting, &c. which he had obtained from his subjects under the specious title of a benevolence ||.

On both these occasions the two monarchs were guilty of great intemperance; the Dane being much addicted to drunkenness, to which James had not the least objection. To this, Christian added several indelicate traits of manners to the ladies about the court, and particularly in his indecent behaviour to the wife of the high admiral, the countess of Nottingham, who resented it in a very spirited manner to the Danish ambassador, in a letter which is preserved in Dr. Harris's Life of King James, p. 67. Such of these scenes as are on record, lay, for the most part at Theobald's, though the same writers who mention them leave sufficient insinuations to suspect that some of them were repeated at Somerset House. Dr. Fuller tells us, that, on the first visit of the king of Denmark, A. D. 1606, it was ordered, by king James himself, that Somerset House should be thenceforth called Denmark Honse, in honour of

"Whitelock's Memorials. Arthur Wilson, page 33." "Rapin."

$" Acta Regia, p. 511, folio.

"Rapin, who says the money granted was 52,9001,"

his

his brother-in-law; and goes so far as to add, that the name was confirmed by the king's proclamation *. On the other hand, Arthur Wilson, though he seldom, if ever, gives this house any other title than The Queen's Palace in the Strand, says, under the year 1610, that her majesty affected to call her palace Denmark House, in compliment to her brother; but that this appellation obtained chiefly by courtesy among the queen's domestics and dependents †. As to the point of time, however, when this house changed its name, I rather chuse to rely on the continuators of Stowe's Survey of London, as historians professedly topographical; who, having told us that the queen of king James made this house her usual residence, add, that, "On Shrove Tuesday, 1616, she feasted the king here, at which time the king changed the name of this house, appointing it to be thenceforth called Denmark House." This, then, seems to carry with it the most exact date of the confirmation of the new title given to Somerset House. It was a moment for the queen to second her wishes; and her majesty was sufficiently acquainted with the king's uxorious disposition to distinguish and improve the mollia tempora fandi. If this privilege was any great indulgence to the queen, she did not live long to enjoy it; for, on the next mention of it, we find that her majesty expired at Hampton Court, 1618, when her remains were conveyed to Denmark House, previously to their interment in Westminster Abbey."

"This house was much repaired,

beautified, and improved, by De buildings and enlargements, by this queen, who also brought hither water from Hyde Park in pipes §. To the same period we may therefore refer the erection of those apartments towards the river, which were bet over a colonnade, and those to the west of them, which are allowed to have been planned and executed from the designs, and under the eye of Inigo Jones. As to the chapel, which I conceive to have been the work of the same master, I take it to have been posterior to the former additions. On the accession of king James, it may well be supposed, from what we have said, that this house was to be considered (if not ipso facto settled) as a dotarial pa lace in case Anne of Denmark had survived the king; a circumstance which might induce the queen thus to enlarge and embellish it. Although her design was not seemingly com pleted, yet it is probable, had she outlived the king, she might have been induced to have made the east end of the front to the river to correspond with the west end, leaving the principal state apartments in the centre between them. From the end of this reign, however, it has always been reputed as peculiarly appropri ated even to queens consort, and, as soon as occasion rendered it necessary, became a jointure-house, either by marriage treaties or by act of parliament; and such it was intended contingently to have been when its fate was changed early in the present reign. King James died at Theobald's, 1625; whence the royal

"Church History, book VII. p. 410." +"History of King James, fol. p. 53." "Stowe's Survey, Mr. Strype's edition, 1720." "Ibid. book IV. p. 105."

"Walpole's Anecdotes, II. 170. 4to."

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orpse was removed to Denmark House, for so we must continue to all it, where it remained in state rom the 23d of April till its interment on the 17th of May."

We find, that writers in the time of Charles I. when speaking of this palace, use, indiscriminately, the appellations of Somerset House and of Deumark House.

"Dr. Fuller suggests, that the memory of the Duke of Somerset prevailed so much traditionally, at this time, as to have soon banished the new name, and to have recalled the old one; but, perhaps, if any reason is to be given, it might be imputed to the unpopular character of king James, who wanted every quality requisite to preserve any degree of respect longer than his personal authority existed. On the other hand, king Charles might entertain a predilection for the name of Denmark House, in honour of his mother; and it is observable, that archbishop Laud, no bad courtier, always styles it so when he mentions it in his diary, which it seems to have retained till the death of the king; when the parliament, from their hatred to the family of Stuart, might be unwilling to preserve any the smallest oblique trace of its existence.

"The marriage of king Charles with Henrietta-Maria, a daughter of France, took place as soon as decency would permit after the funeral of his father was solemnized, according to a treaty agreed upon in the life-time of king James. She was met at Dover by the king in

person, and the nuptials were per fected at Canterbury; after which, on the arrival of their majesties in London, the queen was put into possession of Denmark House, which was fitted up for the reception of herself and her household, and, by grant dated Feb. 15, 1626, was settled on the queen for her life *.

"By the articles of marriage it was stipulated that the queen should enjoy the free exercise of her religion to a great extent; and the establishment brought with it a little convent of Capuchin friars, who were lodged as near her chapel as might be. A list of her majesty's household, in both the civil and ecclesiastical branches, having been preserved by the abovementioned writer of her life, I have added it in an appendix, as not improperly making a collateral part of this memoir.

"I am very much inclined to impute the building of the chapel at Somerset house to the early part of the reign of queen Henrietta-Maria. It is acknowledged to have been erected by Inigo Jones; and therefore must have been done either by command of queen Anne of Denmark or of queen Henrietta; because this celebrated architect, after serving both king James and king Charles I. died during the commonwealth, 1652. Anne of Denmark, being a protestant, had no occasion for a separate chapel of a different communion, and most probably frequented the king's chapel at Whitehall, without the parade of a distinct place of worship, unless she had

"Rymer's Fodera, tom. XVIII. The queen also possessed the palace at Greenwich, rebuilt, as it now stands, by Inigo Jones, for her residence in the summer months, where she was found, with her court, on the king's return from Scotland, in July, 1653."

had an oratory at Somerset House, for her private devotions at those times when she kept her court there. It was not so with Henrietta, who was not only a bigot in herself, but had a deeper game to play.

"The principal circumstance, however, on which I ground my surmise that the chapel was built by Henrietta Maria, and not by Anne of Denmark, arises from a passage in an account of the visit which Mary de Medicis, the queen dowager of France, made to her daughter Henrietta, the queen consort of England, in the year 1638. The author was Mons, de la Serre, historiographer of France, who attend ed in the suite of the queen dow. ager, and wrote at the moment from personal knowledge. Speaking of Somerset House as a palace appropriated to the queen of Great Britain for her peculiar residence, he mentions her having built there a magnificent chapel, and founded an establishment of Capuchin friars, the expences of which she defrayed out of her privy purse.

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If Henrietta-Maria found any chapel within the walls of Somerset House, it was probably much too small for her ecclesiastical establishment, that tended, as far as possible, to the revival of her own religion, which had nearly expired in England *.

"This new arrangement, under the toleration which she so extensively enjoyed, and with the hopes of making converts, would therefore claim her early attention. The ef

fects of such open practice of the Romish faith became afterwards very alarming, and rendered both the queen and her mother extremely obnoxious to the community, as many persons of quality, rank, and consequence, had actually been niede proselytes at different times t.

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The growing interests, there fore, of those who dissented from both religions were not without their use in the hands of providence; insomuch that, had not the eruptions of puritanism appeared almost at the moment, the fever of Romanisin might have returned upon us.

"The queen's court seems to have been very different from that of the King; the former being kept at Denmark House, as we will call it, while the latter was kept at Whitehall. The royal apartments were open daily, at particular hours, to persons of certain rank and description; and, as far as we can at present judge, resembled our modern levees, and the late queen Caroline's drawing-rooms, which last were held in an evening. Henrietta, like her predecessor Anne of Denmark, sometimes, no doubt, entertained the king and his courtiers at this her palace; and we find that their majesties both resided here, for a short time, in the year 1641, on the arrival of the prince of Orange (the father of king William III.), who had his first interview with the princess Mary at this house, previously to their marriage. The queen-mother of France, Mary de Medicis, being then in England, and lodged

In the biographical dictionary it is said that Inigo Jones built queen Catharine's chapel at St. James's. Q. If this be the chapel in the friars?"

+"Instances of such conversions, during the queen's first residence in England, when queen-consort, may be seen in Dr. Harris's life of king Charles, p. 198, et seq. 1772. 2d edition."

lodged at St. James's, there was no royal house at liberty for the reception of the prince of Orange, who was therefore entertained by the earl of Lindsey at Arundel House. Soon after this marriage was completed, the prince returned to Holland; and was, not long afterwards, followed by the princess, accompanied by the queen, who took this opportunity prudently to withdraw from England, where it may be said she never resided again till after the restoration. At this period the gates of Denmark House seem to have been closed till the re'urn of king Charles II.; notwithstanding which, something occurred in the interregnum necessary to be observed."

In 1650, several tenements in the Strand, which had belonged to Charles I. and his queen, were sold for the payment of the army: on this subject we have the following citation from Mr. Walpole's anecdotes of painting, vol. ii.

"Somerset House had a narrow escape, during that history of destructions, of which an account is preserved in a very scarce tract, intituled, "an essay on the Wonders of God, in the times that preceded Christ, and how they met in him; written in France, by John D'Espague, minister of the gospel (who died in 1650), and now published in English, by his executor, Henry Browne. London, 1662," 8vo. In the preface the editor tells us that the author preached at the French church in Durham House, where his sermons were attended by many of the nobility and gentry. That demolished, he says, it pleased God VOL. XLIX.

to touch the hearts of the nobility to procure us an order of the house of peers, to exercise our devotions at Somerset House chapel; which was the cause, not only of the driving away the anabaptists, quakers, and other sects that had got in there, but also hindered the pulling-down of Somerset House; there having been an order, from the late usurped powers, for selling the said house; but we prevailed so far that we still got order to exempt the chapel from being sold, which broke the design of those who had bought the said house, who thought, for their improvement, to have made a street from the garden through the ground the chapel stands on, and so up the back yard to the greatest street of the Strand, by pulling down the said chapel."

Our ingenious antiquary now goes on as follows:

"Though the parliament, soon after the late king's execution, disposed by sale of many tenements which had been erected on such of the ground obtained by the duke of Somerset as was not comprehended within the scale of his own house; yet nothing was attempted tending to deface or lessen the principal edifice, which remained to our time in the state it was found at the restoration of king Charles II. when the palace reverted to the possession of his mother, the queen-dowager Henrietta-Maria, so long as she lived, and was resumed by her when she returned to England, in November 1660. On this occasion Cowley wrote a copy of verses in honour of this house. Amid the general joy,

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"This earl, 11 Charles I. was constituted lord high admiral of England; and killed at the battle of Edge-hill, 1642-"

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