John Digby, first Earl of Bristol, who followed Clanricarde in the occupation of the house in Great Queen Street, was the son of Sir George Digby, of Coleshill, Warwickshire, and was born in 1580. He gained the favour of James I. and was knighted in 1607. Four years later he was sent as ambassador to Madrid, and from that time until 1624 was frequently employed on diplomatic missions of first-rate importance. In 1618 he was raised to the peerage, and in 1622 was created Earl of Bristol. In the following year, while engaged at Madrid in connection with a project for the marriage of the Infanta Maria and Prince Charles, he managed to offend bitterly both the latter and Buckingham, who had come to Spain on a surprise visit. In 1624 he came home and found himself in disgrace. For the first few years of Charles’s reign, he continued to be an object of the king’s resentment and spent several months in the Tower. After 1628 he took no part in politics until the war against the Scots in 1639. He was the leader of the Great Council held at York in 1640. Though he came forward in the Long Parliament as a reformer of the government, yet when it became necessary to take up a definite side in the civil strife he threw in his lot with the king. He was with him at Oxford for some time after the battle of Edgehill, removing thence to Sherborne, and subsequently, in 1644, to Exeter. On the capitulation of that city to Fairfax in 1646, he was given a pass to go beyond the seas. He died in Paris in 1653, and by his will[[231]] bequeathed to his second son, John, his house in Queen Street. This house had formed his residence at the most from September, 1641, to some time before the battle of Edgehill in October, 1642. By the parliament he was regarded with peculiar abhorrence, due partly, no doubt, to the acts of his uncontrollable son, and in August, 1644, an ordinance was passed providing inter alia that “the house of John, Earl of Bristol ... in Queen Street ... with the gardens, stables, edifices and buildings thereunto belonging, with their appurtenances, heretofore the mansion house of the said Earl of Bristoll,” should be granted to Lady Brooke for her life, and after her decease to her youngest son, Fulke Greville.
Digby.
There is, however, no evidence that Lady Brooke[[232]] ever lived there, and the next record that has been found as to the occupation of Bristol House is contained in a deed[[233]] of 1654, by which Antony Wither purchased from the “Trustees for the Sale of Estates forfeited for Treason, all that messuage or tenement ... situate in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields ... in a streete there called Queene Streete ... late in the tenure or occupation of Thomas, Lord Fayrfax, and now or late in the tenure ... of Sir William Paston, Knt., ... which said premises ... are mentioned to have bin late parcell of the possessions of John, Earle of Bristoll ... whose estate hath bin and is thereby declared and adjudged to be justly forfeited by him for his treason against the Parliament and people of England.”
Thomas Fairfax, third Baron Fairfax, was the son of Ferdinando, second Lord Fairfax, and was born at Denton, in Yorkshire, on 17th January, 1612. He served in the Low Countries under Sir Horace Vere, whose daughter he afterwards married. He held a command during the first Scotch war, and was knighted by the king in January, 1640. On the outbreak of the Civil War he took up arms on behalf of the Parliament and gained great distinction. In 1645, consequent upon the compulsory retirement of officers who were members of either house (his father among others), he was appointed to the chief command of the parliamentary forces. He arrived in London on 18th February, accompanied by his uncle, Sir William Constable,[[234]] and two or three officers, and took up his quarters at “the house in Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn, which had been hired for the new general during his stay in London.”[[235]] During his absence in the field his house in Queen Street was occupied by his father, with whom he kept up a constant correspondence.[[236]] In June, 1645, Fairfax amply vindicated the Parliament’s choice by his annihilation of the royal army at Naseby, and on 12th November, 1646, having brought the first portion of the Civil War to a successful close, he returned to London to receive the thanks of Parliament and of the City. Accompanied by dense crowds, “he was conducted to his house in Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn, amidst deafening cheers and the ringing of bells; and was received at the door by his wife and his father, the old lord, with his new bride.”[[237]] Two days later both houses of Parliament paid a congratulatory visit to Fairfax in his house in Queen Street. His father died in March, 1648. In the second portion of the Civil War, which began later on in the same year, Fairfax was at first principally occupied with the siege of Colchester, and his execution of Lucas and Lisle on the surrender of that town in July, 1648, though bitterly denounced, seems not to have been without justification. In the events which led up to the death of Charles in 1649 he seems to have been an unwilling instrument of the army. In 1650 he resigned the commandership-in-chief, to which he had again been elected, rather than take part in the attack on Scotland, and during the whole of the remaining period, until the death of Cromwell, he lived in retirement at Nun Appleton, in Yorkshire. He took a leading part in bringing about the Restoration, but after that was successfully accomplished he again retired to Nun Appleton, where he spent the rest of his days in religious exercises. He died on 16th October, 1665.
Fairfax.
As the house in Great Queen Street had been provided by Parliament for use as his official residence, his occupation of it probably ceased on his resignation in June, 1650.
Of Sir William Paston’s residence we have but little record. There is, however, a letter from him, headed “Queen Street,” and presumably written from this house, dated 30th January, 1650–51.[[238]] The deed mentioned above leaves it uncertain whether he was, in June, 1654, still in occupation of the house.[[239]] He had been high sheriff of Norfolk in 1636, was created a baronet in June, 1642, and died in February, 1663. He was the father of the first Earl of Yarmouth.
At the Restoration the house again came into the hands of the Digby family. In a deed of 6th January, 1663–4,[[240]] it is referred to as “now in the tenure of George, Earl of Bristol, or his assignes,” and in the Hearth Tax Rolls for 1665 and 1666, the Earl of Bristol is shown as in occupation of the house. This was George, the second Earl, who was born at Madrid, in October, 1612. When only twelve years old he appeared at the bar of the House of Commons on behalf of his father, who had been committed to the Tower, and his graceful person, gallant bearing, and eloquent speech made a great impression. He enjoyed a distinguished career at Oxford, and afterwards displayed some literary ability in the Letters between the Lord George Digby and Sir Kenelm Digby, Knt., concerning Religion, written in 1638–9. He entered Parliament in 1640, where, although at first hostile to the Court, he afterwards became one of its strongest adherents. He was responsible for the proposal for the prosecution of the five members, and even suggested that they should be followed into the City and taken by force. In February, 1642, he was impeached of high treason and fled to Holland, but soon returned. In September, 1643, he was appointed one of the secretaries of state, and as one of the king’s chief advisers did incalculable harm to the royal cause. In October, 1645, he was made lieutenant-general of the royal forces north of the Trent, and was defeated at Sherburn. The next few years he spent chiefly in Ireland, whence, on its surrender to the Parliament, he escaped to the Continent, gaining and losing favour in France, joining Prince Charles at Bruges and accompanying him to Spain. In 1657 he became a Roman Catholic. On the Restoration he returned to England. Being debarred from office on account of his religion, his energy found vent in an unreasoning hostility to Clarendon, in which he went so far that he provoked the keenest resentment on the part of the king, and had to remain in concealment for nearly two years. He died at Beaufort House, Chelsea,[[241]] in March, 1677, leaving behind him a reputation for brilliant but misdirected ability.