His residence in Great Queen Street seems to have terminated before 1671,[[242]] for under date of 26th May in that year, Evelyn records: “The Earl of Bristol’s house in Queen Street was taken for the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, and furnished with rich hangings of the King’s. It consisted of seven rooms on a floor, with a long gallery, gardens, etc.... We then took our places at the Board in the Council Chamber, a very large roome furnished with atlasses, maps, charts, globes, etc.”[[243]] Evelyn had only recently (see Diary for 28th February) been appointed on the Council of Foreign Plantations,[[244]] and the above entry refers to the first occasion on which he attended as a member, and gives no clue as to the date on which the house had been taken for the use of either of the Commissions.[[245]] On 12th February, 1671–2, Evelyn records the determination of the Council to meet in future at Whitehall.[[246]]
The Hearth Tax Rolls for 1673 and 1675 show the Earl of Devonshire as then in occupation of the house. He would, indeed, seem to have acquired most of the interests in the premises by or before July, 1667,[[247]] and it is quite possible that his residence extended on both sides of the short occupation by the Boards of Trade and Plantations.
Cavendish.
William Cavendish, third Earl of Devonshire, was born in 1617. He derived his education in part from his father’s old tutor, Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher, in whose company he travelled abroad from 1634 to 1637. At the beginning of the Civil War he embraced the royalist cause, and on being impeached by Parliament, refused to submit, and left the country. In 1645 he returned to England, and on payment of a large fine received a pardon for his former delinquency. During the remainder of the Commonwealth period he lived in retirement at Latimers, in Buckinghamshire, and even after the Restoration he resided mainly in the country. He was one of the original fellows of the Royal Society, and in 1669 was appointed a commissioner of trade.[[248]] He died in 1684 at Roehampton.
In June, 1674, the Earl of Devonshire had sold the remainder of the original 99 years’ lease of the house to the Earl of Sunderland,[[249]] who in the Jury Presentment Roll for 1683 is shown in occupation of the house. He parted with his interests in the property in April, 1684, and his occupation may therefore with reasonable certainty be assigned to the period 1674–84.[[250]]
Spencer.
Robert Spencer, second Earl of Sunderland, the only son of Henry Spencer, the first Earl, and “Sacharissa,” was born in 1640, and succeeded to the earldom only three years later. In 1665 he married Lady Anne Digby, younger daughter of the second Earl of Bristol. In preparation for his future political career, he now began paying court to the royal favourites, and in 1671 invited Mdlle. de Keroualle (afterwards Duchess of Portsmouth) “to his town house in Queen Street, and lost enormous sums to her at basset.”[[251]] This can hardly have been Bristol House, for the facts seem quite inconsistent with Sunderland’s residence there so early as 1671. More probably it was his mother’s house at the eastern end of Great Queen Street. From 1671 to 1678 he was employed on several diplomatic errands abroad. In 1679 he became secretary of state for the northern department, but in 1681 incurred the king’s displeasure, and consequently lost both his secretaryship and his seat on the Privy Council. Afterwards he regained his place by the influence of the Duchess of Portsmouth, and on the accession of James II. in 1685 he speedily ingratiated himself with the new king, who made him Lord President of the Council. While assiduously cultivating James’s favour, he was also receiving a substantial secret pension from Louis XIV. for the promotion of French interests, and through his wife’s lover, Henry Sidney, was furnishing William of Orange with particulars of the most secret transactions of the English Court. By degrees his position became more and more difficult and, although in 1687 he had embraced the Roman Catholic faith, not all his duplicity could prevent the growing dissatisfaction with which James regarded what he considered as his lukewarm service, and in 1688 he was dismissed and fled to Holland. Though excepted from the Act of Indemnity, he was in 1691 permitted to return to England. He declared himself again a Protestant, and his advice soon became indispensable to William. His influence gradually grew until in 1697 all the hatred and jealousy with which he was regarded came to a head, and he resigned in a panic. The rest of his life he passed in seclusion at Althorp, and he died in 1702. “With the possible exception of Northumberland in Edward VI.’s reign, it is doubtful whether English history has to show a more crafty and unprincipled intriguer.”[[252]]
In the course of 1684 all interests in the house in Great Queen Street were acquired[[253]] by John, Lord Belasyse,[[254]] and the premises were now divided into two, afterwards respectively Nos. 55–56, and Nos. 57–58. The later history of the latter will come naturally under the head of the Freemasons’ Hall, a part of which now occupies the site.