Stuart London By Margaret Johnson

Stuart London
By Margaret Johnson

The accession of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne, as James I in 1603, led to a major influx of Scots into London, which was to continue in succeeding centuries. In James' time and later in that of Charles I, Inigo Jones introduced town planning to the capital. He built the Queen's House at Greenwich Palace and the Banqeting House at Whitehall. However, the experimental developments at Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields were still in their infancy when Civil War broke out. Perhaps the most significant civic achievement of James I's reign was the provision of a clean water supply for the capital under the New River Scheme, overseen originally by the City Corporation and later by Hugh Myddelton with help from the King. James was not always a popular monarch however and his harsh anti-catholic laws led to an attempt to assassinate him at the opening of Parliament at the Royal Palace of Westminster in 1605. Fortunately, this 'Gunpowder Plot' was uncovered and the perpetrators rounded up.

Charles I's reign is largely marked by financial and constitutional struggles with the King, whose demands and trade restrictions alienated the City. On January 4th 1642, when the King tried to arrest five members of the House Commons for treason, they all fled to the City. He looked around Parliament in Westminster and commented, "The birds have flown". The following day, he personally demanded their surrender, at Guildhall, but to no avail; and he heard cries of 'Privileges of Parliament!" as he left. London naturally became an anti-royalist stronghold. The greatest threat to its dominant position came in November 1642 when the King's men, following the Battle of Edgehill, moved south to Brentford, nine miles from London. They were quickly put to flight by Lord Essex's men, supported by a large group of Londoners, and were forced to fall back to Reading and Oxford. The next time Charles came to the capital would be in January 1649 for his trial in Westminster Hall and execution outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace.

Restoration of the Monarchy
The restoration of Charles II to the throne was to be followed by two great disasters: the first was the Great Plague of 1665, followed a year later by the Great Fire. Plague had been a constant threat in London since Medieval times. The outbreak of 1665 spread to devastate the over-crowded, impoverished city.

In June, the King and his courtiers left London, not to return until February of the following year. A parliamentary session of only a few days was held at Oxford. The Lord Mayor, Sir John Lawrence, was responsible for the City. A fascinating insight into these appalling times can be gained from reading Daniel Defoe's 'Journal of the Plague Year,' as a description, though not strictly a history. Of nearly 100,000 deaths recorded in London in 1665, over 68,000 were the result of plague.

The Great Fire
At the time of the great fire, plague was still present in London. Early in the morning of Sunday 2nd September 1666, a baker's shop in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge caught fire. The houses nearby were overcrowded and made of wood, and the fire quickly spread to the riverside where large quantities of highly combustible materials were kept. The early destruction of the water wheel at the bridge meant that the areas round about had no water supply with which to fight the fire. The fire spread rapidly into the heart of the City and was soon threatening the Royal Exchange, Lombard Street and Cornhill, a very wealthy area.

The fire was driven deeper and deeper into the capital by a wind which blew constantly for the first three days. By the end of the second day, the riverside had been devastated and the fire had engulfed Cornhill, the Poultry and was threatening Cheapside. As the means of directing water onto the flames were hugely inadequate, the only real way to fight the fire was to pull down the burning houses, before it could spread further. People used poles, axes, ladders - anything to try to prevent its spread.

The army and dockworkers were drafted in to help. By Tuesday morning, nearly half the City within the walls was alight - including Guildhall. The Custom House and the Royal Exchange were burnt to the ground and the magnificent Cathedral of old St Paul's was virtually destroyed. On the fourth day, the wind dropped and the fire slowly came to a halt.

The results were devastating: only a fifth of the walled city remained, with 273 acres of it burnt. Outside the walls, 63 acres were ruined and in total 87 parish churches and 13,200 homes were lost. Such widespread devastation would not be seen again until the Second World War and the bombings of the 'Blitz'.

Rebuilding the City
The fire was to change the character of London forever. Sir Chistopher Wren and John Evelyn drew up plans to redesign the city but ultimately the existing street plan had to be followed, due to a lack of government funding. Four kinds of houses were specified by the Rebuilding Act of 1667, to be built only of brick and stone. The new city gradually grew up with wider streets and regular brick houses. Many Livery Companies' Halls had to be replaced, along with the Custom House and the Royal Exchange. Among the great treasures of this time are the churches rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. He started work on ten of them, four years after the fire. The remainder, in total fifty-one, were still unfinished well into the next century. Even St. Paul's itself was not completed until 1712.

Following the fire, the City became a more marked commercial centre under the Lord Mayor. The gentry chose to make their homes to the West, in Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields and further out as time progressed. At the end of Charles II's reign, there were practically no fashionable addresses left within the City.

The fire also highlighted the need for public services. Until then, each householder had held responsibility for lighting, repairing and cleaning the street in front of his house and policing his area as part of 'the watch'. The Sewers Act of 1671 created the Commissioners of Sewers, a body responsible for the upkeep, drainage and cleanliness of London's streets. To finance this they were given the right to charge rates.

Development, culture and trade

In the winter of 1683–4 a frost fair was held on the Thames. The frost, which began about seven weeks before Christmas and continued for six weeks after, was the greatest on record. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, led to a large migration on Huguenots to London. They established a silk industry at Spitalfields.

The general meeting-place of Londoners in the day-time was the nave of Old St. Paul's Cathedral. Merchants conducted business in the aisles, and used the font as a counter upon which to make their payments; lawyers received clients at their particular pillars; and the unemployed looked for work. St Paul's Churchyard was the centre of the book trade and Fleet Street was a centre of public entertainment. Under James I the theatre, which established itself so firmly in the latter years of Elizabeth, grew further in popularity. The performances at the public theatres were complemented by elaborate masques at the royal court and at the inns of court.

At this time the City of London was becoming the world's leading financial centre, superseding Amsterdam in primacy. The Bank of England was founded in 1694, and the British East India Company was expanding its influence. In 1700 London handled 80% of England's imports, 69% of its exports and 86% of its re-exports. Many of the goods were luxuries from the Americas and Asia such as silk, sugar, tea and tobacco. The last figure emphasises London's role as an entrepot: while it had many craftsmen in the 17th century, and would later acquire some large factories, its economic prominence was never based primarily on industry. Instead it was a great trading and redistribution centre. Goods were brought to London by England's increasingly dominant merchant navy, not only to satisfy domestic demand, but also for re-export throughout Europe and beyond.

William III cared little for London, the smoke of which gave him asthma, and after the first fire at Whitehall Palace (1691) he purchased Nottingham House and transformed it into Kensington Palace. Kensington was then an insignificant village, but the arrival of the court soon caused it to grow in importance. The palace was rarely favoured by future monarchs, but its construction was another step in the expansion of the bounds of London. During the same reign Greenwich Hospital, then well outside the boundary of London, but now comfortably inside it, was begun; it was the naval complement to the Chelsea Hospital for former soldiers, which has been founded in 1681. During the reign of Queen Anne an act was passed authorising the building of 50 new churches to serve the greatly increased population living outside the boundaries of the City of London.

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