astrologer frequented it in 1640. At the Mermaid Ben Jonson
had such companions as Shakespeare, Raleigh, Beaumont,
Fletcher, Carew, Donne, Cotton and Selden, but at the Devil
in Fleet Street, where he started the Apollo Club, he was omnipotent.
Herrick, in his well-known Ode to Ben, mentions
several of the inns of the day.
Under James I. the theatre, which established itself so firmly in the latter years of Elizabeth, had still further increased its influence, and to the entertainments given at the many playhouses may be added the masques so Theatres. expensively produced at court and by the lawyers at the inns of court. In 1613 The Masque of Flowers was presented by the members of Gray’s Inn in the Old Banqueting House in honour of the marriage of the infamous Carr, earl of Somerset, and the equally infamous Lady Frances, daughter of the earl of Suffolk. The entertainment was prepared by Sir Francis Bacon at a cost of about £2000.
It was during the reign of Charles I. that the first great exodus of the wealthy and fashionable was made to the West End. The great square or piazza of Covent Garden was formed from the designs of Inigo Jones about 1632. The The “West End.” neighbouring streets were built shortly afterwards, and the names of Henrietta, Charles, James, King and York Streets were given after members of the royal family. Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, was built about 1629, and named in honour of Henrietta Maria. Lincoln’s Inn Fields had been planned some years before. With the Restoration the separation of fashionable from city life became complete.
When the Civil War broke out London took the side of the parliament, and an extensive system of fortification was at once projected to protect the town against the threatened attack of the royal army. A strong earthen rampart, flanked with bastions and redoubts, surrounded the City, its liberties, Westminster and Southwark, making an immense enclosure.
London had been ravaged by plague on many former occasions,
but the pestilence that began in December 1664 lives in history
as “the Plague of London.” On the 7th of June 1665
Samuel Pepys for the first time saw two or three
The Plague.
houses marked with the red cross and the words
“Lord, have mercy upon us,” on the doors. The deaths daily
increased, and business was stopped. Grass grew in the area
of the Royal Exchange, at Whitehall, and in the principal streets
of the city. On the 4th of September 1665 Pepys writes an
interesting letter to Lady Carteret from Woolwich: “I have
stayed in the city till above 7400 died in one week, and of them
about 6000 of the plague, and little noise heard day or night but
tolling of bells.” The plague was scarcely stayed before the
whole city was in flames, a calamity of the first magnitude,
but one which in the end caused much good, as the seeds of
disease were destroyed, and London has never since been visited
by such an epidemic. On the 2nd of September 1666 the
fire broke out at one o’clock in the morning at a house in
The Great Fire.
Pudding Lane. A violent east wind fomented the
flames, which raged during the whole of Monday and
great part of Tuesday. On Tuesday night the wind
fell somewhat, and on Wednesday the fire slackened. On
Thursday it was extinguished, but on the evening of that day
the flames again burst forth at the Temple. Some houses were
at once blown up by gunpowder, and thus the fire was finally
mastered. Many interesting details of the fire are given in Pepys’s
Diary. The river swarmed with vessels filled with persons
carrying away such of their goods as they were able to save.
Some fled to the hills of Hampstead and Highgate, but Moorfields
was the chief resort of the houseless Londoner. Soon paved
streets and two-storey houses were seen in that swampy place.
The people bore their troubles heroically, and Henry Oldenburg,
writing to the Hon. Robert Boyle on September 10, says: “The
citizens, instead of complaining, discoursed almost of nothing but
of a survey for rebuilding the city with bricks and large streets.”
Within a few days of the fire three several plans were presented
to the king for the rebuilding of the city, by Christopher Wren,
John Evelyn and Robert Hooke. Wren proposed to build
main thoroughfares north and south, and east and west, to
insulate all the churches in conspicuous positions, to form the
most public places into large piazzas, to unite the halls of the
twelve chief companies into one regular square annexed to
Guildhall and to make a fine quay on the bank of the river
Rebuilding:
Wren’s scheme.
from Blackfriars to the Tower. His streets were to be
of three magnitudes—90 ft., 60 ft. and 30 ft. wide
respectively. Evelyn’s plan differed from Wren’s
chiefly in proposing a street from the church of St
Dunstan’s in the East to the cathedral, and in having no quay or
terrace along the river. In spite of the best advice, however,
the jealousies of the citizens prevented any systematic design
from being carried out, and in consequence the old lines were in
almost every case retained. But though the plans of Wren and
Hooke were not adopted, it was to these two fellows of the Royal
Society that the labour of rebuilding London was committed.
Wren’s great work was the erection of the cathedral of St Paul’s,
and the many churches ranged round it as satellites. Hooke’s
task was the humbler one of arranging as city surveyor for
the building of the houses. He laid out the ground of the several
proprietors in the rebuilding of the city, and had no rest early or
late from persons soliciting him to set out their ground for them
at once. The first great impetus of change in the configuration
of London was given by the great fire, and Evelyn records and
regrets that the town in his time had grown almost as large again
as it was within his own memory. Although for several centuries
attempts had been made in favour of building houses with
brick or stone, yet the carpenters continued to be the chief house-builders.
As late as the year 1650 the Carpenters’ Company
drew up a memorial in which they “gave their reasons that
tymber buildings were more commodious for this citie than
brick buildings were.” The Act of Parliament “for rebuilding
the city of London” passed after the great fire, gave the coup de
grâce to the carpenters as house-builders. After setting forth
that “building with brick was not only more comely and durable,
but also more safe against future perils of fire,” it was enacted
“that all the outsides of all buildings in and about the city
should be made of brick or stone, except doorcases and window-frames,
and other parts of the first story to the front between the
piers,” for which substantial oaken timber might be used “for
conveniency of shops.” In the winter of 1683–1684 a fair was
held for some time upon the Thames. The frost, which began
about seven weeks before Christmas and continued for six weeks
after, was the greatest on record; the ice was 11 in. thick.
The revocation of the edict of Nantes in October 1685, and the consequent migration of a large number of industrious French Protestants, caused a considerable growth in the east end of London. The silk manufactories at Spitalfields were then established.
During the short reign of James II. the fortunes of the city were at their lowest, and nowhere was the arrival of the prince of Orange more welcomed.
William III. cared little for London, the smoke of which gave him asthma, and when a great part of Whitehall was burnt in 1691 he purchased Nottingham House and made it into Kensington Palace. Kensington was then an insignificant village, but the arrival of the court soon caused it to grow in importance.
Although the spiritual wants of the city were amply provided for by the churches built by Wren, the large districts outside the city and its liberties had been greatly neglected. The act passed in the reign of Queen Anne for building fifty new churches (1710) for a time supplied the wants of large districts.
7. Eighteenth Century.—London had hitherto grown up by the side of the Thames. In the 18th century other parts of the town were more largely built upon. The inhabitants used coaches and chairs more than boats, and the banks of the river were neglected. London could no longer be seen as a whole, and became a mere collection of houses. In spite of this the 18th century produced some of the most devoted of Londoners—men who considered a day lived out of London as one lost out of their lives. Of this class Dr Johnson and Hogarth are striking examples. The exhibitions of vice and cruelty that were
