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.
Before coming to the history of Northumberland House as it appeared from the middle of the seventeenth century—when great changes were made in its structure—until its demolition in 1874, it is interesting to note that one of the quaintest, and, in some respects, most charming of the old English poems had its origin in the marriage of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, the first Earl of Orrery, to Lady Margaret Howard, daughter of the first Earl of Suffolk, the builder of Northampton House. This is the event which called forth, in 1637, Sir John Suckling's Ballade upon a Wedding, in which one of the prettiest conceits in the English language occurs. The verses are too long to quote in extenso, but some extracts may be given, as they are germane to the matter of this particular history. The wedding is supposed to be described by a rustic, writing to his friend in the country:—
"I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen.
At Charing-Crosse, hard by the way
Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And there did I see comming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Vorty, at least, in pairs.
Her finger was so small, the ring
Would not stay on which they did bring,
It was too wide a peck.
And to say truth, for out it must,
It looked like the great collar, just,
About our young colt's neck.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light.
But oh! she dances such a way,
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fine a sight.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison,
Who sees them is undone;
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Katherine pear,
The side that's next the sun.
Her lips were red, and one was thin;
Compared to that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly;
But Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze,
Than on the sun in July.
Her mouth so small when she does speak,
Thoud'st swear her teeth her words did break,
That they might passage get;
But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours or better,
And are not spent a whit."