| The pen which I now take and | brandish, |
| Has long lain useless in my | standish. |
| Know, every maid, from her own | patten |
| To her who shines in glossy | satin, |
| That could they now prepare an | oglio |
| From best receipt of book in | folio, |
| Ever so fine, for all their | muffin; |
| A muffin, Jove himself might | feast on, |
| If eaten with Miller, at | Batheaston. |
To return to the house itself. There is no doubt that no mansion of such pretensions and containing such treasures has been so thoroughly kept from the vulgar eye. There is one exception, however, to this remark. The Duke (Algernon) who was alive at the period of the first Exhibition threw open the house in the Strand to the public without reserve. The public, without being ungrateful, thought it rather a gloomy residence. Shut in and darkened as it now is by surrounding buildings—canopied as it now is by clouds of London smoke—it is less cheerful and airy than the Tower, where the Wizard Earl studied in his prison room, or counted the turns he made when pacing his prison yard. The Duke last referred to was in his youth at Algiers under Exmouth, and in his later years a Lord of the Admiralty. As Lord Prudhoe, he was a traveller in far-away countries, and he had the faculty of seeing what he saw, for which many travellers, though they have eyes, are not qualified. At the pleasant Smithsonian house at Stanwick, when he was a bachelor, his household was rather remarkable for the plainness of the female servants. Satirical people used to say the youngest of them was a grandmother. Others, more charitable or scandalous, asserted that Lord Prudhoe was looked upon as a father by many in the country round, who would have been puzzled where else to look for one. It was his elder brother Hugh (whom Lord Prudhoe succeeded) who represented England as Ambassador Extraordinary at the coronation of Charles X. at Rheims. Paris was lost in admiration at the splendour of this embassy, and never since has the hôtel in the Rue de Bac possessed such a gathering of royal and noble personages as at the fêtes given there by the Duke of Northumberland. His sister, Lady Glenlyon, then resided in a portion of the fine house in the Rue de Bourbon, owned and in part occupied by the rough but cheery old warrior, the Comte de Lobau. When that lady was Lady Emily Percy, she was married to the eccentric Lord James Murray, afterwards Lord Glenlyon. The bridegroom was rather of an oblivious turn of mind, and it is said that when the wedding morn arrived, his servant had some difficulty in persuading him that it was the day on which he had to get up and be married.
There remains only to be remarked, that as the Percy line has been often represented only by an heiress, there have not been wanting individuals who boasted of male heirship.
Two years after the death of Joscelin Percy in 1670, who died the last male heir of the line, leaving an only child, a daughter, who married the Duke of Somerset, there appeared, supported by the Earl of Anglesea, a most impudent claimant (as next male heir) in the person of James Percy, an Irish trunkmaker. This individual professed to be a descendant of Sir Ingram Percy, who was in the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace,’ and was brother of the sixth earl. The claim was proved to be unfounded; but it may have rested on an illegitimate foundation. As the pretender continued to call himself Earl of Northumberland, Elizabeth, daughter of Joscelin, ‘took the law’ of him. Ultimately he was condemned to be taken into the four law courts in Westminster Hall, with a paper pinned to his breast, bearing these words: ‘The foolish and impudent pretender to the earldom of Northumberland.’
In the succeeding century, the well-known Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, believed himself to be the true male representative of the ancient line of Percy. He built no claims on such belief; but the belief was not only confirmed by genealogists, it was admitted by the second heiress Elizabeth, who married Hugh Smithson. Dr. Percy so far asserted his blood as to let it boil over in wrath against Pennant when the latter described Alnwick Castle in these disparaging words: ‘At Alnwick no remains of chivalry are perceptible; no respectable train of attendants; the furniture and gardens are inconsistent; and nothing, except the numbers of unindustrious poor at the castle gate, excited any one idea of its former circumstances.’
‘Duke and Duchess of Charing Cross,’ or ‘their majesties of Middlesex,’ were the mock titles which Horace Walpole flung at the ducal couple of his day who resided at Northumberland House, London, or at Sion House, Brentford. Walpole accepted and satirised the hospitality of the London house, and he almost hated the ducal host and hostess at Sion, because they seemed to overshadow his mimic feudal state at Strawberry! After all, neither early nor late circumstance connected with Northumberland House is confined to memories of the inmates. Ben Jonson comes out upon us from Hartshorn Lane with more majesty than any of the earls; and greatness has sprung from neighbouring shops, and has flourished as gloriously as any of which Percy can boast. Half a century ago, there was a long low house, a single storey high, the ground floor of which was a saddler’s shop. It was on the west side of the old Golden Cross, and nearly opposite Northumberland House. The worthy saddler founded a noble line. Of four sons, three were distinguished as Sir David, Sir Frederick, and Sir George. Two of the workmen became Lord Mayors of London; and an attorney’s clerk, who used to go in at night and chat with the men, married the granddaughter of a king and became Lord Chancellor.
LEICESTER FIELDS.
In the reign of James I. there was an open space of ground north of what is now called Leicester Square (which by some old persons is still called Leicester Fields), and which was to the London soldiers and civilians of that day very much what Wormwood Scrubs is to the military and their admirers of the present time. Prince Henry exercised his artillery there, and it continued to be a general military exercise-ground far into the reign of Charles I. People trooped joyfully over the lammas land paths to witness the favourite spectacle. The greatest delight was excited by charges of cavalry against lines or masses of dummies, through which the gallant warriors and steeds plunged and battled—thus teaching them not to stop short at an impediment, but to dash right through it.