Richard Brinsley Sheridan, son of Thomas Sheridan, actor and “orthoepist,” was born in Dublin in 1751. When he was nineteen years of age, his father settled at Bath. In the winter of 1773, soon after his marriage with Miss Linley, the couple came to live in London,[[300]] and Sheridan essayed to earn his living by writing. In January, 1775, The Rivals appeared, and by the end of the year Sheridan had become a favourite with playgoers. Next year he became manager and part-proprietor of Drury Lane Theatre. In 1791–4 the theatre was pulled down and rebuilt, and the expenditure greatly exceeding the estimate, Sheridan undertook to pay the liabilities thus incurred. The destruction of the new theatre by fire, however, in 1809, involved him in financial troubles which continued until his death. As a dramatic writer he far excelled all his contemporaries. His chief plays were: The Rivals, St. Patrick’s Day, The Duenna, A Trip to Scarborough, The School for Scandal, The Critic, Pizarro. From 1780 he was no less prominent in political than in literary life. In September of that year he entered the House of Commons as member for Stafford, and soon became noted as an orator. For two periods of short duration in 1782–3 he was respectively under-secretary for foreign affairs and secretary to the Treasury, and in 1806–7 was treasurer to the Navy. Among his most noteworthy oratorical achievements must be placed his speeches in connection with the trial of Warren Hastings. His last speech in Parliament was made in June, 1812. Soon after his entry into Parliament he had become personally acquainted with the Prince of Wales, and ever after acted as his confidential adviser. Sheridan died in Savile Row in July, 1816, and was awarded a public funeral in Westminster Abbey.

His occupation of the house in Great Queen Street is shown by the parish ratebooks to have lasted from 1777 to 1782.[[301]] The former date is confirmed by a letter from W. Windham, dated 5th January, 1778, directed to “Ric. Brinsley Sheridan, Esq.,” at “Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”[[302]] It is said that on the day of Garrick’s funeral (1779), after the ceremony was over, Sheridan “spent the remainder of the day in silence, with a few select friends, at his residence in Great Queen Street.”[[303]]

Rivers House.

The first occupant of the house immediately to the east of Bristol House, occupying the site of what were afterwards Nos. 59 and 60, Great Queen Street, was the Spanish Ambassador, who has been shown above[[304]] to have been in residence on 22nd January, 1637–8. A reference to his occupation of the house occurs in the following: “May 10, 1638. The Spanish Ambassador, the Conde de Oniate, accompanied with an Irish gentleman of the order of Calatrava, in the Holy Week, came to Denmark House to do his devotions in the Queen’s Chapel there. He went off thence about 10 o’clock, a dozen torches carried before him by his servants, and some behind him. He and the Irish gentleman were in the front with their beads in their hands, which hung at a cross, some English also were among them; so that with their own company and many who followed after, they appeared a great troop. They walk from Denmark House down the Strand in great formality, turn into the Covent Garden, thence to Seignior Con’s house in Long Acre, so to his own house in Queen’s Street.”[[305]] Writing to Sir John Pennington from the Earl of Northumberland’s residence [i.e., probably next door] on 21st November, 1638, Thomas Smith says: “The Spanish Ambassador was robbed here last night of all his church plate. The thieves are not heard of.”[[306]]

In July, 1641, the Countess Rivers purchased the house, being already in occupation of the premises.[[307]] This was Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co-heir of Thomas Darcy, Baron Darcy of Chich, afterwards created Viscount Colchester and (on 4th November, 1626) Earl Rivers. She married, in 1602, Sir Thos. Savage, Bt., of Rock Savage, Chester, who was created Viscount Savage on the same day that his father-in-law was raised to the earldom. He died in 1635, and in April, 1641, about fifteen months after her father’s death, his widow was created Countess Rivers for life. She died in March, 1651.

Elizabeth, Countess Rivers.

The Subsidy Roll for 1646 contains among the few items relating to the south side of Great Queen Street, one, “The Lady Savige her house,” which undoubtedly refers to the Countess Rivers. That she was resident at the house that year appears from the fact that in April, 1646, she petitioned[[308]] the House of Lords, stating that her houses in Suffolk and Essex, with all her personal estate, had been utterly wasted and destroyed, so that if she and her family were forced to leave their present residence they must be exposed to a misery not to be expressed. She pointed out that both she and her servants had taken the negative oath, and therefore she prayed for a licence for herself and family to remain in her house in Queen Street.

On the Countess’s death the house presumably came into the possession of her son, the second Earl Rivers. John Savage, born before 1610, succeeded his father as Viscount Savage in 1635, and his maternal grandfather as Earl Rivers in 1640. He died in 1654, and was succeeded by his son Thomas, third Earl Rivers, born before 1626.[[309]] The third Earl’s residence at the house in Great Queen Street was divided into two periods, the house having apparently been let for some time circ. 1670–80. That the Savage family were in occupation in 1658 is clear from the terms of a letter[[310]] dated 24th September in that year from Sir William Persall:

“Our Queen Street news is ill; my Lady Rivers[[311]] is in a very ill condition of health.” The Hearth Tax Rolls for 1665 and 1666[[312]] give the name of the Earl in connection with the house, and to this period is apparently to be assigned the further letter[[313]] dated 3rd October, in an unknown year, by Sir William Persall, in the following terms: “Give me leave to render you the history of our Queen Street family, and the reason of the bill on the door which found at my coming up. They had intelligence that the constables were to come and present the names of all church absentees popishly affected;[[314]] so they consulted in my absence and resolved to set the bill on the door, and give it out my Lady Rivers was in the country, Sir Francis Petre[[315]] in common garden[[316]] out of the parish, Sir Will. Persall gone to live at his house in the country, none but servants left; when everyday half-a-dozen coaches come to visit us, and the baskets of meat as full as ever, and two or three brewers still carrying in ale and beer; and all for Tom Browne, who, poor man, is already half damn’d with telling of lies to all that come to inquire of us, as well friends as others. But they have given us in, as Tom Brown reported that we were all gone except my Lady Mary,[[317]] who is but fifteen, and so incapable to take the oath, and yet I hear they have taken our names again.”