Montagu House
Montagu House was built by the first Duke of Montagu, who 'made money like a rogue and spent it like a gentleman' on his patronage of the arts, the finest examples of which were to be found in this London house which was to become the first home of the British Museum.
In 1617 Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, best-known as Shakespeare's patron, obtained possession of the manor of Bloomsbury for £600, This largely rural area to the north of the city of Westminster had belonged to the London Charterhouse until the Reformation, and the Earl wanted to take advantage of the westward development of London by building upon it, but he did not receive royal permission to do this. Nothing was done until forty years later when his grandson, Thomas, began to build himself a mansion, Southampton House, there; but he died in 1667, a few years after its completion. He left three daughters and willed his property to be divided equally among them. The division was decided by lot, and the manor of Bloomsbury went to his second daughter, Lady Rachel Vaughan, the widow of Francis, Lord Vaughan, heir to the second Earl of Carberry. Two years after her father's death, she took a second husband, William Russell, the eldest son of the Earl of Bedford, and by agreement with her mother, the Dowager Countess of Southampton, they took over Southampton House (which was renamed Bedford House).
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