ADAM STREET, ADELPHI.
In an action for trespass, tried in the Court of King's Bench, on November 15, 1700, William Sherwin being the plaintiff and Sir William Clarges, Bart., being the chief defendant, it was proved that Anne Clarges, or Ratford, was, in 1652, married in the Church of St George, Southwark, to General George Monk, and further, that in the course of the following year she was delivered of a son (afterwards the second Duke of Ablemarle), who was suckled by one Honour Mills, a vendor of apples, herbs, and oysters. The point of issue was the right and title to the manor of Sutton in Yorkshire, and other lands—the plaintiff claiming them as heir-at-law and representative to Thomas Monk, elder brother to the first duke of Albemarle, and the defendant as devisee under the will of Christopher, the second duke. The only material point to be decided was, whether Ratford was actually deceased at the period of the marriage of his supposed widow with Monk. On the side of the plaintiff it was sworn by one witness that he had seen Ratford alive about the month of July, 1660, as many as eight years after the second marriage. Another witness affirmed that he had seen him as late as the year 1665, and a second time after the Duke and Duchess of Albemarle were both dead; and thirdly, a woman swore that she had seen him on the very day that his wife (then called Duchess of Albemarle) was placed in her coffin. On the part of the defendant, and in opposition to this evidence, were alleged the material facts that during the lives of the Duke of Albemarle and his son the matter had never been questioned, and, moreover, that the defendant had already thrice obtained verdicts in his favour in the Court of King's Bench. Some other presumptive evidence was adduced, but of less weight. In summing up, the Lord Chief-Justice told the Jury: "If you are certain that Duke Christopher was born while Thomas Ratford was living, you must find for the plaintiff. If you believe he was born after Ratford was dead, or that nothing appears what became of him after Duke George married his wife, you must find for the defendant." The verdict was in favour of the latter.[22]
According to contemporary evidence, the Duchess of Albemarle was a low, foul-mouthed creature, of exceedingly coarse habits. "Monk," says Lord Clarendon in his History, "was cursed, after a long familiarity, to marry a woman of the lowest extraction, the least wit, and less beauty. She was a woman nihil muliebris præter corpus gerens," one who had nothing feminine but her form. In the opinion of Bishop Burnet, she was a "ravenous, mean, and contemptible creature, who thought of nothing but getting and spending." Pepys could not endure her. On March 8, 1661, he met her in "high company," and put her down as "even a plain, homely dowdy." On December 9, 1665, Pepys and "my Lord Brouncker" dined with the Duke of Albemarle. "At table the duchess, a very ill-looked woman, complaining of her lord's going to sea the next year, said these cursed words: 'If my Lord had been a coward he had gone to sea no more: it may be then he might have been excused, and made an embassador' (meaning my Lord Sandwich). This made me mad, and I believed she perceived my countenance change, and blushed herself very much. I was in hopes others had not minded it, but my Lord Brouncker, after we were come away, took notice of the words to me with displeasure." In the following year, on November 4, he alludes to the duke as "a drunken sot," who "drinks with nobody but Troutbecke, whom nobody else will keep company with. Of whom he told me this story; that once the Duke of Albemarle in his drink, taking notice as of a wonder that Nan Hide should ever come to be Duchess of York: 'Nay,' says Troutbecke, 'ne'er wonder at that; for if you will give me another bottle of wine, I will tell you as great, if not greater, a miracle.' And what was that, but that our dirty Besse (meaning his duchesse) should come to be Duchesse of Albemarle?" Monk, it was said, was more in fear of his wife than of an army, and it was reported that she did not hesitate to thrash him at times, but the latter statement is probably an exaggeration. There is no doubt about her loyalty to the Royalist cause; she exerted great influence over Monk, and urged him immensely in his efforts in bringing about the Restoration. In his Curiosities of Literature, D'Israeli cites a passage from a manuscript of Sir Thomas Browne which throws a strange light on Monk's conduct in regard to the Restoration and the part played in it by the blacksmith's daughter: "Monk gave fair promises to the Rump; but at last agreed with the French ambassador to take the government on himself; by whom he had promise from Mazarin of assistance from France. This bargain was struck late at night; but not so secretly but that Monk's wife, who had posted herself conveniently behind the hangings, finding what was resolved upon, sent her brother Clarges away immediately with notice of it to Sir A. She had promised to watch her husband, and inform Sir A. how matters stood. Sir A. caused the Council of State, whereof he was a member, to be summoned, and charged Monk that he was playing false. The General insisted that he was true to his principles, and firm to what he had promised, and that he was ready to give them all satisfaction. Sir A. told him if he were sincere he would remove all scruples, and would instantly take away their commissions from such and such men in the army, and appoint others, and that before he left the room. Monk consented: a great part of the commissions of his officers were changed; and Sir Edward Harley, a member of the Council, and then present, was made Governor of Dunkirk, in the room of Sir William Lockhart: the army ceased to be at Monk's devotion: the ambassador was recalled, and broke his heart."
Another authority, Dr Price, one of Monk's chaplains, speaking on the same subject, says: "His wife had in some degree prepared him to appear, when the first opportunity should be offered. For her custom was (when the General's and her own work and the day were ended) to come into the dining-room in her treason-gown, as I called it, I telling him that when she had that gown on he should allow her to say anything. And, indeed, her tongue was her own then, and she would not spare it; insomuch that I, who still chose to give my attendance at those hours, have often shut the dining-room doors, and charged the servants to stand without till they were called in." The same writer also relates a remarkable dream, in which the Duchess of Albemarle foresaw the return of royalty to England. "She saw," says Dr Price, "a great crown of gold on the top of a dunghill, which a numerous company of brave men encompassed, but for a great while none would break the ring. At last there came a tall black man up to the dunghill, took up the crown, and put it upon his head. Upon the relating of this, she asked what manner of man the King was. I told her, that when I was an Eton scholar, I saw at Windsor, sometimes, the Prince of Wales, at the head of a company of boys; that himself was a very lovely black boy, and that I heard that, since, he was grown very tall." Fantastic as this dream story may appear, it is "not impossible," says Jesse, "that England owes the restoration of royalty to this and other similarly trifling circumstances connected with the influence which Anne Clarges exercised over the mind of her uxorious lord. Nothing, indeed, appears more natural, than that an ignorant and uneducated woman should have attached an undue degree of importance to an idle dream. The duchess, moreover, is known to have been a zealous adherent of the House of Stuart; and lastly, it is certain that she exerted all her influence to induce him to restore Charles the Second to the throne."
The Duke of Albemarle died on January 3, 1670, in his sixty-second year. His body, after it had lain in state at Somerset House for several weeks, was interred, with great pomp and ceremony, in Westminster Abbey, on the north side of Henry the Seventh's chapel. His wife survived him only a few days, and was buried by his side. Their only surviving son—Christopher, who was born in 1653—succeeded to his father's titles and enormous wealth. He died in Jamaica, where he was Governor, in 1688, without issue.
But to return to the New Exchange. In Gay's Trivia; or the Art of Walking the Streets of London (1716), there is an allusion to it:—
"The sempstress speeds to 'Change with red-tipt nose;
The Belgian stove beneath her footstool glows;
In half-whipt muslin needles useless lie,
And shuttle-cocks across the counter fly."[23]
The place was on its downward path at this time. Quack doctors and other charlatans flourished, and the most degraded of women frequented its walks. If one may judge from contemporary advertisements, "Sir William Read, Her Majesty's oculist in Durham Yard in the Strand," did a large trade in the years 1709 and 1710. Thanks to his "long practice and great experience, he has lately found out a medicine that clarifies the eyes from suffusions and cures cataracts." He also professed to "cure hair lips and wry necks, tho' never so deformed." Lady Read took in hand the female customers. Their establishment was in "New Exchange Row, near Durham Yard." This William Read was originally a tailor. He became an itinerant quack, and, in 1705, was knighted for "curing" blind sailors and soldiers without charge. Thanks to his appointment as oculist to Queen Anne, he acquired a fortune. This empiric died in 1715. By 1737, the New Exchange had become so disreputable that it was taken down, and a number of dwelling-houses and shops—the site of which is indicated by the existing buildings between George Court and Durham House Street—facing the Strand, were erected.