Leicester House was a large aristocratic townhouse in Westminster, London, to the north of where Leicester Square now is. Built by the Earl of Leicester and completed in 1635, it was later occupied by Elizabeth Stuart, a British princess and former Queen of Bohemia, and in the 1700s by the two successive Hanoverian princes of Wales.
From 1775 to 1788, the Leverian collection was on display in Leicester House. The house was sold and demolished in 1791.
Leicester House was named for Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, who bought four acres of land in this part of Westminster, St Martin's Field, intending to build a new town house there. The area was not then built up, and the only nearby buildings were the armoury of the Military Company in Westminster to the north and the new town house of Sir William Howard, called Newport House, to the east. [1] [2] In August 1631, King Charles I ordered his Attorney General, Sir Robert Heath, to prepare a licence for Leicester to build a house "with necessary outhouses buildinges and gardens", but this stipulated that the outer walls must be wholly of brick or stone and added also "the forefronts to bee made in that uniforme sort and order as may best bewtifie the place". [1]
The house was completed about 1635, according to Lord Leicester at a total cost of £8,000, equivalent to £1,678,238in 2023. A map of 1658 by Richard Newcourt and William Faithorne shows it as an asymmetrical group of buildings around a courtyard, with a huge gatehouse taking up most of the southern range. This is very different from the house pictured in 1727 by Sutton Nicholls, and nothing is known which records a rebuilding. However, what is shown on the map of 1658 may simply be intended as a cartographic symbol for a great house. [1] To build the house and its outbuildings, Lord Leicester had had to enclose some of his four acres, all of which was common land in the parish of St Martin in the Fields. The commoners appealed to the king, and he appointed three members of the Privy Council to arbitrate. They ordered that the part of the land still unenclosed be kept open, and this became known as Leicester Fields. [1]
From April to August 1640, the new house was occupied by Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, soon after his return from meetings in Dublin as Lord Deputy of Ireland. [1] Development in and around London and Westminster continued during the 17th century, [1] and the size and importance of Lord Leicester's house encouraged the building of other smart town houses nearby. [3]
For a short time in 1662, Leicester House was occupied by Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, the eldest daughter of James VI and I and the mother of Prince Rupert of the Rhine and Electress Sophia of Hanover; Elizabeth Stuart died in the house on 13 February 1662, Thomas Allen later noting that she "ended her unfortunate life" there. [4] In 1672, Lady Sunderland, the wife of Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, Lord Leicester's grandson, gave a dinner at the house attended by John Evelyn, who recalled that afterwards a fire-eater called Richardson entertained the company and "before us devour'd Brimston on glowing coales, chewing and swallowing them downe." [1]
In 1674, Ralph, Lord Montagu, Master of the Great Wardrobe and later first Duke of Montagu, took a lease on Leicester House, after marrying Lady Northumberland, the widow of Josceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland, a nephew of Lady Leicester. In 1676 Montagu was sent as English ambassador to Paris and ended his occupation. [1] In 1677 the elderly Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester died and was succeeded by his son Philip, 3rd Earl, who sold a large area of the garden for building Leicester Street, Lisle Street, and part of what is now Leicester Square. He also built a tavern in front of the courtyard and died in the house in 1698. [1]
About November 1742, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of George II, moved into the house, after agreeing to lease it. In July 1743 Jocelyn Sidney, 7th Earl of Leicester, died without a successor, and the house was inherited by two sisters, Lady Sherard and Elizabeth Perry. On 16 August 1743, they granted a fourteen-year lease to the prince, running from Michaelmas of 1742, and in 1744 Elizabeth Perry paid her sister £4,000 for her half-share. [1] The successive Princes of Wales were natural alternative centres of political opposition, and the term "Leicester House faction" was used to describe the public men who were swayed by the Princes of Wales holding court there. On Frederick's death in 1751, the lease was inherited by his son the future George III, who was a minor, and for some twenty years Frederick's widow Augusta, Princess of Wales, continued the tradition of an alternative court at Leicester House. [5]
In 1774, Sir Ashton Lever took a lease on the house, converting the rooms on the first floor into a single large gallery running the length of the house, and in February 1775 opened a museum to display his Leverian collection. It had around 25,000 exhibits, said to be a small fraction of Lever's collections, and remained at Leicester House until 1788. [6] Thanks to his mounting debts, George, Prince of Wales, the future George IV, sold the freehold of the house. After it was demolished in 1791, the house and its gardens were redeveloped as numbers 7–15, Leicester Square (on its north side), and some new houses on Leicester Place, Leicester Street, Lisle Street, and Sidney Street (now Sidney Place). [1]
After the redevelopment, the area lost prestige and became an entertainment and shopping district. [3]
When the main house was pulled down, some of its stables became part of a new property on Lisle Street built between 1792 and 1795, later known as the White Bear Yard livery stables. These survived until demolished in 1906. [1]
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under King George III. He became the first Tory to hold the position and was arguably the last important royal favourite in British politics. He was the first prime minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707. He was also elected as the first president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland when it was founded in 1780.
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester. The square was originally a gentrified residential area, with tenants including Frederick, Prince of Wales and the artists William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. It became more down-market in the late 18th century as Leicester House was demolished and retail developments took place, becoming a centre for entertainment. Major theatres were built in the 19th century, which were converted to cinemas towards the middle of the next. Leicester Square is the location of nationally significant cinemas such as the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square and Empire, Leicester Square, which are often used for film premieres. The nearby Prince Charles Cinema is known for its screenings of cult films and marathon film runs. The square remains a tourist attraction which hosts events, including for the Chinese New Year.
Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, was an English courtier, soldier, and landowner. He was chamberlain to Anne of Denmark.
Chinatown is an ethnic enclave in the City of Westminster, London, bordering Soho to its north and west, Theatreland to the south and east. The enclave currently occupies the area in and around Gerrard Street. It contains a number of Chinese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and other Chinese-run businesses. The first Chinatown was located in Limehouse in the East End.
Viscount De L'Isle, of Penshurst in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1956 for William Sidney, 6th Baron de L'Isle and Dudley, VC, KG, GCMG, GCVO (1909–1991).
Pall Mall is a street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, Central London. It connects St James's Street to Trafalgar Square and is a section of the regional A4 road. The street's name is derived from pall-mall, a ball game played there during the 17th century, which in turn is derived from the Italian pallamaglio, literally "ball-mallet".
Henry Hastings, 1st Baron Loughborough, 28 September 1610 to 10 January 1667, was the younger son of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon, one of the most powerful landowners in Leicestershire. He fought with the Royalist army in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and narrowly escaped execution after being captured at Colchester in 1648. He spent the next twelve years with the Stuart court in exile, and became a leading member of the Sealed Knot, a body set up to co-ordinate Royalist plots against The Protectorate. Hastings returned home after the 1660 Stuart Restoration, and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire in 1661, a position he retained until his death in January 1667.
William Henry Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 6th Duke of Buccleuch and 8th Duke of Queensberry, was a Scottish Member of Parliament and peer. He was the paternal grandfather of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, as well as a maternal great-grandfather of Prince William of Gloucester and Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and a great-great-grandfather of Sarah, Duchess of York.
Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester was an English diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1614 and 1625 and then succeeded to the peerage as Earl of Leicester.
Daly's Theatre was a theatre in the City of Westminster. It was located at 2 Cranbourn Street, just off Leicester Square. It opened on 27 June 1893, and was demolished in 1937.
The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was displayed in London, being broken up by auction in 1806. The first public location of the collection was the Holophusikon, also known as the Leverian Museum, at Leicester House, on Leicester Square, from 1775 to 1786. After it passed from Lever's ownership, it was displayed for nearly twenty years more at the purpose-built Blackfriars Rotunda just across the Thames, sometimes called Parkinson's Museum for its subsequent owner, James Parkinson.
The Sans Souci Theatre was a 500-seat theatre located on Leicester Place, just off Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was built in 1796 by Charles Dibdin, and replaced eponymous former music rooms he had leased for performances, off the Strand.
Frances Radclyffe, Countess of Sussex was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I and the founder of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. She was the daughter of Sir William Sidney, of Penshurst Place in Kent, a prominent courtier during the reign of King Henry VIII, and his wife, the former Anne Packenham. She was the sister of Sir Henry Sidney, and aunt to both the poet Sir Philip Sidney and the first Sidney Earl of Leicester.
John Charles Montagu Douglas Scott, 7th Duke of Buccleuch and 9th Duke of Queensberry,, styled The Honourable John Montagu Douglas Scott until 1884, Lord John Montagu Douglas Scott between 1884 and 1886 and Earl of Dalkeith until 1914 was a British Member of Parliament and peer. He was the father of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and the maternal grandfather of Prince William of Gloucester, and Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
Honouring individuals buried in Westminster Abbey has a long tradition. Over 3,300 people are buried or commemorated in the abbey. For much of the abbey's history, most of the people buried there besides monarchs were people with a connection to the church – either ordinary locals or the monks of the abbey itself, who were generally buried without surviving markers. Since the 18th century, it has become a prestigious honour for any British person to be buried or commemorated in the abbey, a practice much boosted by the lavish funeral and monument of Sir Isaac Newton, who died in 1727. By 1900, so many prominent figures were buried in the abbey that the writer William Morris called it a "National Valhalla".
The Blackfriars Rotunda was a building in Southwark, near the southern end of Blackfriars Bridge across the River Thames in London, that existed from 1787 to 1958 in various forms. It initially housed the collection of the Leverian Museum after it had been disposed of by lottery. For a period it was home to the Surrey Institution. In the early 1830s it notoriously was the centre for the activities of the Rotunda radicals. Its subsequent existence was long but less remarkable.
Charles Montagu, of Papplewick, Nottinghamshire. was a British landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1722 and 1759.
Theodosia Harington, Lady Dudley was an English aristocrat who was abandoned by her husband, but maintained connections at court through her extensive family networks.
Sarah Harington (1565–1629) was an English courtier.
Sir Edward Wingfield of Kimbolton (c.1562-1603), member of Parliament and author of a masque.