Downing Street, a Rat and a Mouser

Although having passed it a number of times when in central London, I did not know much about Downing Street. I knew, of course, that the Prime Minister lived at Number 10, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer lived next door, but I knew nothing of its history. Then, a few weeks ago, I was in the National Gallery shop and bought, on impulse, "Killers of the King", by Charles Spencer and learned about the man whom Downing Street is named after - Sir George Downing. I shall return to Sir George later, but here are a few fun QI facts about the Prime Minister's official residence, which Pitt the Younger referred to as: "A vast awkward house":
- The first residential house on the site of Number 10 was built by Sir Thomas Knyvet in 1581. He was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I and arrested Guy Fawkes after the gunpowder plot.
-  No 10 was originally No 5 and did not acquire its present number until 1779.
- The last private resident of No 10 Downing Street was called Mr Chicken. Nobody knows anything about him other than his name. He moved out in 1732.
- In the early days of Downing Street the area was much livelier. There were lots of pubs nearby, such as the Cat and Bagpipes and the Rose and Crown.None of these pubs was a branch of Wetherspoons, but I bet the price of a pint was higher than anywhere else in Britain, even then.
- It is only since Arthur Balfour became prime minister in 1902 that the prime minister has been expected to live at No 10.
-  Only one former prime minister has ever died there: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who resigned on April 3 1908 but was too ill to move and died 19 days later. His last words were: “This is not the end of me.” Famous last words, if ever there were any.
- The front door cannot be opened from the outside because it has no handle, and no one can enter the building without passing through a scanner and a set of security gates manned by armed guards.
- In the first five years after Tony Blair became prime minister, 37 computers, four mobile phones, two cameras, a mini-disc player, a video recorder, four printers, two projectors and a bicycle were stolen from the building. No comment is necessary about that.
- The first cat designated as Chief Mouser, Larry, a Londoner, was sacked by David Cameron because he slept on the job. He was replaced by George Osborne's cat, Freya. Osborne certainly knows how to get rid of his opponents. Freya is responsible for keeping numbers 10, 11 and 12 Downing Street free of mice. Let's hope she lasts.
To return to Sir George Downing (1623 - 1684): we need to briefly set him in a historical context. Born in Dublin, his family emigrated to Salem, Massachusetts, and the young George was one of the first nine students to graduate from Harvard in 1642. He returned to England in 1646 and became an ardent supporter of the Parliamentary cause. Colonel John Okey, who had sponsored Downing's education at Harvard, took the impoverished graduate under his wing, making George his unit's regimental chaplain. In 1649, Oliver Cromwell made Downing his Scoutmaster-General (intelligence chief) in Scotland. In 1657 he was appointed resident at The Hague, in the Netherlands, to effect a union of the Protestant European powers.
At this point, we need to hark back to the historical context. There is still a romantic aura about the English Civil Wars that needs to be dispelled. As John O'Farrell has said:
"The death toll of the English Civil wars was catastrophic: when you add in related deaths and from Cromwell's massacres (in Ireland), a larger percentage of the British population was killed in this conflict than in even the First World War".
O'Farrell is right. From combat, starvation and disease, the Civil wars are thought to have claimed the lives of nearly 200,000 people in England, out of a population of just five million. In Ireland, the figure for dead, Catholic and Protestant, is thought to be 616,000.
After the execution of Charles 1 on 30 January, 1649, Cromwell instituted the first British experiment at a republic, which O'Farrell describes as: "...the Protestant version of the Taliban". Pubs and inns were closed down, Easter and Christmas were banned, swearing and gambling were punished and all theatres closed. It was the Commonwealth, without the games. After Cromwell's death in1658, his son Richard took his place but wasn't up to the job. Thanks to political confusion in London, and a military intervention led by General Monck, Charles the Second was restored as King in 1660, to what seems to have been widespread relief. I don't know if the pubs opened specially.
Known to history as "The Merry Monarch", Charles 2 had promised no hard feelings to former opponents who had supported the Parliamentary cause - with exceptions. The exceptions here are known to history as "The regicides", the men who had been involved in putting Charles 1 to death. Charles 2 was less than merry regarding these men, and sought to hunt them all down and put them to death. One of these men was George Downing's former patron and comrade - in - arms, John Okey. Like most of the regicides, Okey sought to escape Charles 2's vengeance by fleeing abroad - to the Netherlands in his case. He might have chosen to do this because the English ambassador was none other than his old friend, comrade and chaplain - Downing.
Downing, like many former Parliamentary soldiers, had decided to change sides and become a strong supporter of the Restoration. Okey, trusting in the power of past friendship, contacted Downing to see if he and his fellow refugee would be unmolested. Charles Spencer says here:
" (Okey)... received assurances of their wellbeing from Downing, who claimed that he had no orders to look out for them". Alas, Downing lied, and later seized Okey and two others in Delft, producing a blank Dutch arrest warrant to concerned Delft authorities. Okey and his two fellow regicides were shipped to London to be hung, drawn and quartered. The bitterness of Okey and his family towards Downing can well be understood, even after all the intervening centuries. Spencer quotes a friend of Okey as saying of Downing:
"...his New England chaplain whom he clothed, and fed at his table, and who dipped with him in his own dish should prove like the Devil among the twelve to his Lord and Master".
In 1682, Downing secured the lease on a piece of land close to Westminster and set about building the street that bears his name. He prospered after the Restoration, and died a very wealthy man. Samuel Pepys described him as a “perfidious rogue”; I think I would describe him as a despicable, ungrateful, treacherous rat. And this is the man after whom one of our most famous streets is named.
If I could, I would like to give a present to Freya, the Chief Mouser. It would be a large plump mouse of any colour - and I would name it George Downing.

Freya, the Chief Mouser.

Sir George Downing, the rat.