When Wolsey made his first progress to the Court of Chancery in Westminster Hall, a progress already alluded to in these pages, he started from the archiepiscopal palace, York House or Place--an official residence sold by the cardinal to Henry VIII. some years later; and when the same superb ecclesiastic, towards the close of his career, went on the memorable embassy to France, he set out from his palace at Westminster, "passing through all London over London Bridge, having before him of gentlemen a great number, three in rank in black velvet livery coats, and the most of them with great chains of gold about their necks."
At later dates Gardyner, whilst he held the seals, kept his numerous household at Winchester House in Southwark; and Williams, the last clerical Lord Keeper, lived at the Deanery, Westminster.
The lay Chancellors also maintained costly and pompous establishments, apart from the Inns of Court. Sir Thomas More's house stood in the country, flanked by a garden and farm, in the cultivation of which ground the Chancellor found one of his chief sources of amusement. In Aldgate, Lord Chancellor Audley built his town mansion, on the site of the Priory of the Canons of the Holy Trinity of Christ Church. Wriothesley dwelt in Holborn at the height of his unsteady fortunes, and at the time of his 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.