Duke Street first appears in the ratebooks of the parish of St. Martin in the Fields in 1673. Like York Street (now Duke of York Street) it was probably named in honour of James, Duke of York, later James II.

All of the ground on the west side of Duke Street formed part of the land leased in 1661 by Henrietta Maria's trustees to the Earl of St. Albans's trustees for thirty years; subsequent grants extended this term to 1740. The freehold of the whole of this side of the street still belongs to the Crown. The ground on the east side of the street from King Street to a point four hundred feet north (i.e. to the north side of Mason's Yard) formed part of the land granted freehold by Charles II to the Earl's trustees in 1665.

In 1720 John Strype described Duke Street as containing 'several well built Houses, which seem to be better inhabited than Berry-street, or Riderstreet. On the West Side are two small Courts; the one called Feather Court, and the other Gray's Court. Opposite to this Court is a very large Yard [now Mason's Yard] for Coaches and Stabling, with some Houses; of which one is very good, with a handsome Garden to it, in which lately dwelt the Duke of Shrewsbury. This Yard is called St. Alban's Mews, and hath two Passages into Duke-street; of which one is for Coaches and Carts, and hath another Passage into Blackmorestreet [now Ormond Yard], . . . More towards King's-street is a pretty neat Court, called Prince's Court, with a Freestone Pavement neatly kept, and not meanly inhabited: it hath a Door with open Iron Bars half way, to shut up a-Nights for the Security of the Inhabitants.'

The reason for this superior character of Duke Street was probably that, as already mentioned, much of the ground on the east side of the street formed part of the freehold granted by the Crown to the Earl of St. Albans's trustees in 1665, and a more substantial class of house could therefore be erected than on the relatively short leasehold terms prevailing in Bury Street and Ryder Street. The ratebooks show several houses with high assessments on the east side of the street and backing on to the houses on the west side of St. James's Square; until the beginning of the nineteenth century their inhabitants were often people of title. Charles Talbot, twelfth Earl and only Duke of Shrewsbury, and one of the leaders of the Revolution of 1688, whom Strype mentions as having a house in St. Albans Mews (now Mason's Yard), is listed in the ratebooks as the occupant of a house on the east side of Duke Street to the south of the mews, from 1686 to 1693, but the garden of the house may have extended as far north as the mews.