the course which he took towards Mary of
Scotland, that the memory of old York House gains nothing of interest
from him. Indeed it has been questioned whether he was one of its
tenants. Puckering, Egerton, and Francis Bacon certainly inhabited it in
succession. On Bacon's fall it was granted to Buckingham, whose desire
to possess the picturesque palace was one of the motives which impelled
him to blacken the great lawyer's reputation. Seized by the Long
Parliament, it was granted to Lord Fairfax. In the following generation
it passed into the hands of the second Duke of Buckingham, who sold
house and precinct for building-ground. The bad memory of the man who
thus for gold surrendered a spot of earth sacred to every scholarly
Englishman is preserved in the names of _George_ Street, _Duke_ Street,
_Villiers_ Street, _Buckingham_ Street.

The engravings commonly sold as pictures of the York House, in which
Lord Bacon kept the seals, are likenesses of the building after it was
pulled about, diminished, and modernized, and in no way whatever
represent the architecture of the original edifice. Amongst the
art-treasures of the University of Oxford, Mr. Hepworth Dixon
fortunately found a rough sketch of the real house, from which sketch
Mr. E.M. Ward drew the vignette that embellishes the title-page of 'The
Story of Lord Bacon's Life.'

After the expulsion of the Great Seal from old York House, it wandered
from house to house, manifesting, however, in its selections of London
quarters, a preference for the grand line of thoroughfare between
Charing Cross and the foot of Ludgate Hill. Escaping from the
Westminster Deanery, where Williams kept it in a box, the _Clavis Regni_
inhabited Durham House, Strand, whilst under Lord Keeper Coventry's
care. Lord Keeper Littleton, until he made his famous ride from London
to York, lived in Exeter House. Clarendon resided in Dorset House,
Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and subsequently in Worcester House,
Strand, before he removed to the magnificent palace which aroused the
indignation of the public in St. James's Street. The greater and happier
part of his official life was passed in Worcester House. There he held
councils in his bedroom when he was laid up with gout; there King
Charles visited him familiarly, even condescending to be present to the
bedside councils; and there he was established when the Great Fire of
London caused him, in a panic, to send his most valuable furniture to