12 s. vi. MAY i, i92o.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
171
PORTUGUESE EMBASSY CHAPEL.
(12 S. vi. 110.)
- SoME light on the movements of the
Portuguese ambassadors in London is supplied by the L.C.C. ' Survey of London ' ('St. Giles-in-the-Fields,' pts. i. and ii.). In 1641 the ambassador was residing in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Sir Lawrence Gomme thought it probable that the house was on the south side, which gave it the name of Portugal Bow (not Street). Sir Basil Brooke, Papist and Cavalier, had two houses on that side of the Square, nos. 41 .and 42 (now covered by the buildings of the Royal College of Surgeons), and in December, 1645, the Commonwealth ordered the search of the ambassador's house " or other adjoining houses belonging to Sir Basil Brooke, a convicted Papist and delinquent,"
and the seizure of plate, money, and goods supposed to be there belonging to Sir Basil.
In 1659 the ambassador was residing in Weld House, a large mansion owned by the Catholic family to which Cardinal Weld belonged. Weld House (afterwards called Wild House) stood on the east side of Drury Lane, adjacent to Great Wild Street. It was pulled down in 1694 and its site and gardens
covered with mean streets. The Portuguese ambassador was still residing at Weld House in 1665, but had left by 1666, perhaps on account of the Plague.
There is a gap here, but in 1689 the .ambassador was living at the house on the west side of Lincoln's Inn Fields which, until it was pulled down in the L.C.C. Clare Market Improvement Scheme eleven years ago, had an archway under it leading into Sardinia Street. This house, with a chapel in the rear, in 1687 was leased for ten years by a community of Franciscans. After the flight of James II. the London mob, on the night of Dec. 11, 1688, gutted this chapel, .and burned the contents in the square opposite, the Franciscan monks having escaped a few days before. It was after this destruction that the house and chapel were taken by the Portuguese ambassador, who in virtue of his privileges as an envoy had the right to maintain a private Roman Catholic chapel. He remained there until 1708, and was succeeded by the Sardinian minister, whose long residence there caused the chapel to be known as the Sardinian Ohapel. It was burned down (accidentally)
in 1759 and attacked by the Gordon rioters
in 1780. Both the mansion and the chapel
were demolished in 1909.
In 1718 the Portuguese ambassador was occupying a mansion which had previously formed the eastern half of Bristol House, Great Queen Street (now covered by the Freemasons Tavern). Sir Godfrey Kneller, the painter, was the owner, and the am- bassador appears on the rate-books of Westminster at that address until 1723. It should be added that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this part of London was full of mansions of the nobility and gentry. ROBT. S. PENGELLY.
CORNISH AND DEVONIAN PRIESTS EXE-
CUTED : GEORGE STOCKER (12 S. vi. 56).
MR. STOCKER writes :
" In 1851 his name occurs more than once among the ' Pilgrims from England to liome ' (' Collectanea Typographica et Genealogica,' vol. ii. p. 79.)"
In ' Collectanea Topographica et Genea- logica,' vol. v., p. 70, I find that he was received as a guest at the English College at Rome on Feb. 24, 1582, and is described as of the diocese of York. So we may take it that he was neither of Cornwall nor of Devon, and it is certain that he was not a priest and was not executed. MR. STOCKER gives no reference to the letter from Creighton to Agazzari (not Aggazia) to which he alludes, nor even the date of it. Perhaps he could supply these details. It is true that Agazzari was informally appointed to be head of the new English College at Rome in March, 1579 ; but the College itself was not canonically founded till April 23, 1579, and, owing to some practical difficulties and the attitude of the members of the old corpora- tion, the bull was not published until Dec. 23 of the year following, 1580. (See Cardinal Gasquet's 'English College in Rome,' pp. 75, sqq.)
I do not know on what grounds MR. STOCKER asserts that George Stocker, Robert Bellamy, and Thomas Heath were arrested on suspicion of complicity in the Babington plot. They were not among those indicted. Both Elizabeth and Katharine Bellamy had indictments brought against them, but were not brought to trial.
On Feb. 7, 1587/8. "at the Starre Chamber," the Privy Councillors present sent a letter to Sir Owen Hopton and others :
" That whereas George Stoker, presentlie re- mayning in the Towre, being latelie apprehended
