death. The infamous but singularly lucky Rich lived
in Great St. Bartholomew's, and from his mansion there wrote to the Duke
of Northumberland, imploring that messengers might be sent to him to
relieve him of the perilous trust of the Great Seal. Christopher Hatton
wrested from the see of Ely the site of Holborn, whereon he built his
magnificent palace. The reluctance with which the Bishop of Ely
surrendered the ground, and the imperious letter by which Elizabeth
compelled the prelate to comply with the wish of her favorite courtier,
form one of the humorous episodes of that queen's reign. Hatton House
rose over the soil which had yielded strawberries to Morton; and of that
house--where the dancing Chancellor received Elizabeth as a visitor, and
in which he died of "diabetes _and_ grief of mind"--the memory is
preserved by Hatton Garden, the name of the street where some of our
wealthiest jewelers and gold assayers have places of business.

Public convenience had long suggested the expediency of establishing a
permanent residence for the Chancellors of England, when either by
successive expressions of the royal will, or by the individual choice of
several successive holders of the _Clavis Regni_, a noble palace on the
northern bank of the Thames came to be regarded as the proper domicile
for the Great Seal. York House, memorable as the birthplace of Francis
Bacon, and the scene of his brightest social splendor, demands a brief
notice. Wolsey's 'York House' or Whitehall having passed from the
province of York to the crown, Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York,
established himself in another York House on a site lying between the
Strand and the river. In this palace (formerly leased to the see of
Norwich as a bishop's Inn, and subsequently conferred on Charles Brandon
by Henry VIII.) Heath resided during his Chancellorship; and when, in
consequence of his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, Elizabeth
deprived him of his archbishopric, York House passed into the hands of
her new Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon. On succeeding to the honors of
the Marble Chair, Hatton did not move from Holborn to the Strand; but
otherwise all the holders of the Great Seal, from Heath to Francis Bacon
inclusive, seem to have occupied York House; Heath, of course, using it
by right as Archbishop of York, and the others holding it under leases
granted by successive archbishops of the northern province. So little is
known of Bromley, apart from