On his death without male heirs the earldom became extinct, but it was re-created on 3 Aug. 1670 in behalf of Charles Fitzroy, natural son of Charles II by the Duchess of Cleveland. The re-created earldom of Southampton was elevated into a dukedom on 10 Sept. 1675.
Southampton left his mark on London topography. In early life he abandoned the family mansion, Southampton House in Holborn. In 1636 he petitioned the House of Lords for permission to demolish it, and to build small tenements on its site. Permission was refused at the time, but about 1652 the earl carried out his design, and the old Holborn house was converted into Southampton Buildings. At the same time he built for himself a new and magnificent residence on the north side of what is now Bloomsbury Square. The new edifice, Southampton House, occupied the whole of the north side of the present Bloomsbury Square. It is supposed to have been designed by John Webb, Inigo Jones's pupil. The gardens included the south side of what is now Russell Square. Pepys walked out to see the earl's new residence on Sunday, 12 Oct. 1662, and deemed it ‘a very great and a noble work’ (Pepys, Diary, iv. 256). Evelyn, who records a dinner on 9 Feb. 1665 at ‘my lord treasurer's’ in Bloomsbury, says that the earl built ‘a noble square or piazza, a little tower, some noble rooms, a pretty cedar chapel, a native garden to the north with good air.’ The house, Evelyn added, stood ‘too low.’
Much of the earl's landed property in both London and Hampshire passed, on Southampton's death, to his eldest daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Edward Noel, first earl of Gainsborough. On their only son dying without issue the Titchfield estate ultimately passed to their two granddaughters, co-heiresses—Elizabeth, wife of William Henry Bentinck, first duke of Portland, and Rachel, wife of the first duke of Beaufort. Titchfield House eventually became the property of the Duchess of Portland, whose husband assumed the secondary title of Marquis of Titchfield. The Titchfield property was sold by the third duke of Portland at the end of the eighteenth century.
Southampton's second daughter, Rachel, wife of William, lord Russell, and mother of Wriothesley Russell, second duke of Bedford, finally inherited the greater part of Southampton's property in London, the Bloomsbury estate falling to her on the death of her elder sister, the Countess of Gainsborough, in 1680. Southampton House in Bloomsbury descended to her son, the second duke of Bedford, and was renamed Bedford House; it was pulled down in 1800. The Bloomsbury property of the dukes of Bedford thus reached them through William lord Russell's marriage with Southampton's daughter Rachel. The memory of its original connection with the Earl of Southampton survives in the name of Southampton Row.
The Holborn property and the estate of Beaulieu in Hampshire fell to Elizabeth, duchess of Montagu, Southampton's daughter by his second wife.
A portrait of Southampton by Sir Peter Lely is the property of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey; it is reproduced in Lodge's ‘Portraits’ (v. 179). Another portrait belongs to the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. A third portrait, formerly in the Earl of Clarendon's gallery, has long since disappeared.
[Clarendon in the Continuation of his Life gives an admirable sketch of his friend's career and character, 1759, vol. iii. pp. 780–90. See also Whitelocke's Memorials; Ludlow's Memoirs, 1625–72, ed. C. H. Firth, 1894; Burnet's Hist. of his own Time; Cal. State Papers, Dom.; Pepys's Diary, ed. Wheatley; Ranke's Hist. of England, vi. 84; Lodge's Portraits, v.; Wheatley and Cunningham's London Past and Present; Gardiner's Hist. of England, viii. 86, ix. 109, and Hist. of the Great Civil War.]
WRITER, CLEMENT (fl. 1627–1658), ‘anti-scripturist,’ was a clothier in Worcester, and is chiefly memorable for his attacks on the infallibility of the bible. In 1627 ‘Clement Write, tailor,’ attached Captain Edward Spring's horses for a debt of 8l. (Cal. State Papers, 1627–9, p. 83). In 1631 he had a lawsuit with John Racster, who wrote on 19 Nov. to Sir Dudley Carleton, viscount Dorchester [q. v.], requesting him to use his influence in his behalf with Sir Nathaniel Brent [q. v.], judge of the prerogative court (ib. 1631–3, p. 185). He had another lawsuit at a later date against his uncle, George Worfield, in the court of chancery, in which he complained that the lord keeper, Coventry, did him injustice to the extent of some 1,500l. on the representations of some puritan antagonist (ib. 1635–6, p. 55). On 4 Dec. 1640 he petitioned for redress to ‘the grand committee of the courts of justice,’ but before his case could be heard the committee was dissolved. In February 1645–6 he renewed his complaint to the committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider petitions. They on 10 Feb. nominated a sub-committee to examine his case, but before their report was made
