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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.
The Cromwellian period is
notable for the return of a Jewish community to
the City. Following their banishment by Edward I
in 1292, there is little evidence of their having
any presence at all in London. A small settlement
of Jews from Spain and Portugal, fleeing the
Inquisition, had reached London via Amsterdam
during Charles I's reign. Cromwell was to employ
them in his secret service and, eventually, he
made Abraham Israel Carvajal, their official
leader, the first English Jew. However, it was
not until 1655, at a conference led by Rabbi
Menasseh Bell Israel that it was finally agreed
that English Law did not forbid the settlement of
Jews. In 1657 a synagogue was openly built at
Creechurch Lane in the City and a cemetery was
allocated at Mile End.
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 began in St.
Giles-in-the-Fields and spread to devastate the
over-crowded, impoverished areas of Stepney,
Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, St. Giles's
and Westminster. Within the City itself, it was
relatively controlled.
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 Duke of Albermarle was the only one of the
King's ministers to remain in London. He was
aided by magistrates, whom the King had ordered
to stay, and he personally took responsibility
for the areas beyond the city walls. 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. We
have a very vivid account from the diarist,
Samuel Pepys, who described the fire at night as
a vast "bow of flame". 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.
Overall authority was passed to Prince James, Duke of York, replacing Sir Thomas Bludworth, the indecisive Lord Mayor. 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. The fire was
to continue burning through Cheapside and the
London walls at Cripplegate, Newgate and Ludgate.
From there it moved along Fleet Street, nearly as
far as the Temple Bar. 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.
Guildhall was restored but its completion was
delayed until 1675. 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.
Charles II was the last monarch
to dare to limit the long-established liberties
of the City of London, removing several aldermen
and officers in 1683, under the writ Quo
Warranto. He was to replace these men and
their mayor with his own people for some years.
However, these actions were always legally
suspect and it later appeared that the King had
even had to remove two King's Bench Judges in
order to gain approval. On Charles II's death on
6th February 1685, King James II came to the
throne and during his short, turbulent reign the
City regained its full autonomy.
On James II's flight in December 1688, Guildhall
was chosen as a stronghold from where the men of
power could prepare the Declaration of Allegiance
to the Prince of Orange. Prince William was welcomed by the City and, indeed,
the Lord Mayor, aldermen and 50 representatives
of the common council were all invited to the
authoritative assembly which was called upon his
arrival. With his wife, Queen Mary, he favoured Hampton Court as his chief
Royal Residence. It was much rebuilt by Sir
Christopher Wren but, luckily, lack of money
meant that much of his grandiose scheme was
abandoned and the older Tudor buildings survived.
The couple also bought Nottingham House from
their Secretary of State and turned it into
Kensington Palace. Thes palaces were also
favourites of Queen
Anne.
Next: Georgian
London
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