overed nearly the whole
site of Adelphi Terrace, and the streets between this and the Strand. In
the reign of Edward VI the Crown seized it, and granted it successively
to the Princess Elizabeth and to Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. There,
the year after Ralegh's birth, Lady Jane Grey had been wedded to
Dudley's son. Mary restored it to Bishop Tunstall. Elizabeth resumed it.
In 1583 or 1584 she gave the use of a principal part of the spacious
mansion to Ralegh. The remainder she permitted Sir Edward Darcy to
inhabit. At Durham House the famous Dr. Dee, mathematician, astrologer,
and spiritualist, who, in his diary for 1583, mentions him gratefully,
records that he dined with him in October, 1593. There he held on
various occasions his Court as Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and heard
important suits. Aubrey speaks of Ralegh as living there 'when he came
to his greatness.' He knew well his study, in a little turret looking
over the Thames, with a prospect now, as in Aubrey's day, 'as pleasant
perhaps as anything in the world.' Ralegh is reported to have owned
other dwellings also in and about London. Probably he already possessed,
though, till he left Durham House, he is not likely to have occupied, a
house in Broad Street. It may be presumed to have been part of his
wife's share in the Throckmorton property. Several residences have been
put down to him, without sufficient evidence. Ralegh House, at Brixton
Rise, has been assigned to him, in mistake perhaps for his nephew,
Captain George Ralegh, who lived in Lambeth parish. Because he visited
his wife's relatives at Beddington Park, he is alleged to have occupied
the mansion. He is rumoured to have lived at West Horsley, which his
son, Carew Ralegh, first acquired in 1643 from the Carews of Beddington.
On testimony so far more substantial that Lady Ralegh had inherited a
small estate in the parish from her father, he is said to have lived at
Mitcham. The house his wife owned seems to have been Ralegh House, at
the corner of Wykford Lane, though two other houses at Mitcham have
pretended to the honour. More certainly he lived in a villa at Mile End
in 1596. That is known through the entry of the burial at Stepney of a
manservant who died at Mile End in 1596, and from the addresses of two
letters of his dated within two and four months of the same time. Dr.
Brushfield thinks the house may have been hired for a season for the
sake of country air. Mile End is described in 159