Stuart London
The Stuart period in London began with the reign of James VI and I in 1603 and ended with the death of Queen Anne in 1714. London grew massively in population during this period, from about 200,000 in 1600 to over 575,000 by 1700, and in physical size, sprawling outside its city walls to encompass previously outlying districts such as Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, and Westminster. The city suffered several large periods of devastation, including the English Civil War and the Great Fire of London, but new areas were built from scratch in what had previously been countryside, such as Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, and St. James's, and the City was rebuilt after the Fire by architects such as Christopher Wren.
London was also struck by waves of disease during this time, most notably the Great Plague in 1665.The period saw several attempts to enforce uniformity of worship from Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans. Both Catholics and Nonconformist Protestants were persecuted during this period. This resulted in some of the most famous conflicts and uprisings of the period, such as the Catholic-led Gunpowder Plot, the anti-Catholic Popish Plot, and the ousting of the Catholic king, James II, in favour of the Protestant William III in the Glorious Revolution. Capital and corporal punishment was often used as a penalty for crimes, with Tyburn being a popular location for hangings.
London's trade began to develop into a modern economy, with the founding of the Bank of England in 1694, and the early development of the stock market and insurance markets such as Lloyd's of London. London's merchants often met in the newly introduced coffeehouses, and the city became the hub of an emerging global empire, with the headquarters of colonial institutions such as the East India Company.
London saw a flourishing of literature, philosophy, theatre and art during this time, as the home of writers and artists such as William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Dryden, John Bunyan, Aphra Behn, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Lely, Peter Paul Rubens, and Grinling Gibbons. The first English opera, The Siege of Rhodes, was produced in London in 1656. The city was home to important scientists such as William Harvey, Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, John Flamsteed, and Edmond Halley.
Demography
London experienced massive population growth during this period. In 1600, London's population was about 200,000. By 1650 it was about 375,000, and by 1700 it was 575,000, making it by far the largest city in England throughout the period. Between 1670 and 1700, its population was 420% greater than the next ten largest places in England put together. The average height for male Londoners was and the average height for female Londoners was.In 1639, the number of foreigners living in Westminster and the City of London was estimated at 1,688- mostly French and Dutch, with some Belgians, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, and Poles. A number of Greek Christian refugees arrived in London in the 1670s fleeing persecution from the Ottoman Empire, and were permitted to build their own church. London had some inhabitants from Turkey, who brought new businesses such as London's first coffeeshop and its first Turkish bath. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, thousands of French Protestants called Huguenots fled to Britain, many coming to London, and in particular, Spitalfields. In 1697, there were 22 French Protestant churches in London. Dutch, Italian, and Danish communities were also permitted to establish their own churches. Thanks in part to immigrant communities, the population of the East End increased over 400% in this period, from 21,000 in 1600 to 91,000 in 1700. Short-term visitors arrived in London from further afield. In 1616, the Native American woman Pocahontas and her son Thomas Rolfe arrived from Virginia; in 1682, two ambassadors arrived from Banten in Indonesia called Kyayi Ngabehi Naya Wipraja and Kyayi Ngabehi Jaya Seidana; and in 1698, the Russian tsar Peter the Great stayed in Sayes Court in Deptford for four months.
Although Jewish people were officially forbidden from living in England at the beginning of the period, there was a small group of Jewish families from Portugal and Spain living in London, outwardly professing to have converted to Catholicism. This group included the merchant Antonio Fernandez Carvajal. In 1656, the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell made it known that he would no longer enforce the ban, and invited Jews to return. The first synagogue of this period was built in 1657 on Creechurch Lane, the first Jewish burial ground opened in the same year on Mile End Road, and Bevis Marks synagogue was built 1700–1701. In 1660, there were about 35 Jewish families, mostly Polish and German, living in the East End.File:Peter Lely - Elizabeth Murray with a Page Boy NTIV HAMH 172330-001.jpg|thumb|An anonymous black pageboy and Elizabeth Maitland of Ham House in Richmond, painted c.1651 by Peter Lely.
There were small numbers of black people living in London during this period, mostly enslaved people working in the houses of people who owned plantations in the Caribbean, and freed domestic servants. Charles II bought a black pageboy, and in 1662, Lord Sandwich bought "a little Turk and a negro" for his daughters. The diarist Samuel Pepys had a black kitchen maid, and the naval officer William Batten had a black manservant called Mingo. In 1684, the Barbados planter Robert Rich brought an enslaved woman called Katherine Auker to his house in London. She was mistreated and thrown out onto the streets, where she was imprisoned for vagrancy. Rich and his wife then returned to Barbados, leaving Auker imprisoned. She petitioned to be discharged from his service, but the court only released her "until such time as the said Rich shall return from Barbados".
Topography
In the Stuart period, the City of London was still surrounded by its Roman city wall on three sides, with the river Thames making the fourth side to the south. However, the inhabited region expanded well beyond the bounds of the walls to Wapping in the east. Settlements that had previously been separate from London, like Shoreditch and Clerkenwell, began to be subsumed by London's sprawl.Ordinary houses were often built of wood, with each storey projecting out from the stories below, such that in some places, they almost touched over the road. After 1662, main roads were required to have lanterns burning over the doors of houses until 9 p.m., an early form of street lighting. Many of the landmarks in Stuart London dated from before the period, such as the Tower of London, London Stone, the Royal Exchange, Baynard's Castle, the Guildhall, and London Bridge.
File:Aankomst van Maria de' Medici in Londen Entree royalle de la reyne mere du roy tres-chrestien dans la ville de Londres Histoire de l'entree de la reine mere du roy tres chrestien, dans la grande Breta, BI-1953-680-9.jpg|center|thumb|891x891px|Cheapside as it looked in 1638 before the Great Fire, with wooden houses overhanging the street. A parade is being thrown to welcome the arrival of Marie de' Medici.
Building destruction
Several of London's buildings suffered serious damage during the English Civil War and in the Interregnum period, as they were put to use by Parliament's army or destroyed for ideological reasons. Charing Cross was demolished in 1647. St. Paul's Cathedral was in a state of disrepair throughout the first half of the period, having been struck by lightning in 1561. In 1648, soldiers from the New Model Army used it as a stable, smashing the stained glass, ripping up pews for firewood, and even baptising a foal in the font. The removal of scaffolding caused sections of the roof to collapse, and slum houses were built against the outer walls. Parliamentary soldiers rioted through the streets of London, and destroyed the Salisbury Court Theatre.On Sunday, 2 September 1666 the Great Fire of London broke out at one o'clock in the morning at a house on Pudding Lane in the southern part of London. Fanned by a southeasterly wind the fire spread quickly among the timber and thatched-roof buildings, which were primed to ignite after an unusually hot and dry summer. Burning for several days, the Fire destroyed about 60% of the City, including Old St Paul's Cathedral, 87 parish churches, 44 livery company halls and the Royal Exchange. An estimated 13,200 houses were destroyed across 400 different streets and courts, leaving 100,000 people homeless. Huge camps of displaced Londoners formed around the City at Moorfields, St. George's Fields in Southwark, and to the north extending as far as Highgate. Despite the destruction, the official death toll was only 4 people, likely an inaccurately low number. Because of London's centrality as a port and financial center, the destruction of the fire affected the entire national economy. Losses were estimated at between £7 and £10 million according to contemporary estimates.
Although the Great Fire is by far the most well-known, it was by no means the only fire to destroy large parts of London in this period. Fires destroyed Hungerford House in 1669; the Theatre Royal in 1672; 30 houses in Seething Lane, and about 100 in Shadwell in 1673; Goring House in 1674; 624 properties in Southwark in 1676; Montagu House in 1686; Bridgewater House in 1687; and the Palace of Whitehall in 1698.
There were large storms which caused building damage in this period, including in 1662, 1678, and 1690. In 1703, there was a hurricane which pulled the roofs off houses, toppled chimneys and church spires, pushed ships in the Thames from London Bridge down to Limehouse, and killed several people.
New building work
London's first new church since 1550 was the Queen's Chapel opposite St. James' Palace, built in the 1620s and designed by Inigo Jones. Jones became the Surveyor to the King's Works in 1615, and so constructed several important new buildings in the first part of this period, such as the Queen's House in Greenwich and Banqueting House in Whitehall Palace. Jones brought a new style of architecture to London, based on Italian Renaissance styles by Sebastiano Serlio and Andrea Palladio. London's architects began to abandon the Gothic architecture style in favour of a classical one in this period. However, some Gothic churches were still built, such as St. Mary Aldemary and St. Alban Wood Street. Towards the end of the period, Queen Anne's Bounty saw new churches built to cope with London's growth in population, including St. Anne's Limehouse, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor; and St. Paul's Deptford, designed by Thomas Archer. The last church built in this period was St. John's Smith Square, also designed by Thomas Archer.During the English Civil War, Parliament's forces built forts around London to reinforce it against sieges. Earthworks were constructed in a ring around the city from Tothill Fields to the Tower in the north and from Vauxhall to Tooley Street in the south.
This period saw the first major development of what is now known as London's West End. Aristocrats and land developers bought chunks of farmland and countryside around Westminster and built houses on it, hoping to turn a profit renting or leasing those houses. Unlike previous London townhouses, these new building efforts were generally in brick or stone rather than wood. In particular, the Earl of Bedford, Francis Russell, commissioned Inigo Jones to turn fields and orchards west of the City into Covent Garden, a square of aristocratic townhouses surrounding a marketplace. Jones based the project on the piazza in Livorno in Italy and the Place des Vosges in Paris, making the houses identical in order to give the impression that they were a single large mansion. This was to become the model for future efforts: In 1690, the Reverend R. Kirk wrote, "Since the burning, all London is built uniformly, the streets broader, the houses all of one form and height". Pall Mall and The Mall are built in 1661. St. James' Square is built in 1665 under Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans. Three large mansions were built along Piccadilly- Burlington House, Clarendon House, and Berkeley House. Leicester Square, Soho Square and Golden Square are built in the 1670s, and Downing Street was built in 1682. Queen Anne's Gate was built c.1704. From the 1670s, sash windows were increasingly used on upmarket houses such as Montagu House and palaces like Hampton Court.
Further west, in 1677, Thomas Grosvenor married Mary Davies, and thus gained her inheritance of 500 acres of marshland to the west of London. The family would go on to turn this land into the districts of Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico, much of which is still owned by the family today. The builder Thomas Young laid out Kensington Square in 1685, and the royal court moved to the new Kensington Palace a few years later, increasing demand for houses in the area.
The area known as Bloomsbury began to be built on in this period; Southampton Square was built in 1660. Red Lion Square was built in the 1680s under the speculator Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barbon. Barbon also had George Street, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Of Alley, and Buckingham Street built around the area of the Strand between 1674 and 1676. Lord Hatton had a row of townhouses built called Hatton Garden, and Lincoln's Inn Fields and Great Queen Street were built under the landowner William Newton.
The East End was similarly developed, although with working-class houses rather than aristocratic ones. Hoxton Square and the nearby Charles Square were both built in the 1680s. The fields around St. Mary Spital church were filled in with houses, becoming Spitalfields, particularly after the influx of French Huguenot migrants in the 1680s and the establishment of a market in Spital Square in 1682.
A great deal of rebuilding took place in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London in 1666. St. Paul's Cathedral was rebuilt under the architect Christopher Wren between 1670 and 1711. He also rebuilt another 51 City churches, plus three outside the bounds of the Fire, for which he worked unpaid, although he did receive generous bribes from the parish authorities. King Street and Queen Street were both created in the aftermath of the Fire, and many churches, livery halls and the Royal Exchange were rebuilt. After the Fire, laws were passed ensuring that new houses are built in stone or brick rather than wood. The Monument to the Fire was completed in 1676.
In 1661, the King Charles Block of Greenwich Palace was built, designed by John Webb. The old, disused Greenwich Palace was converted into the Royal Hospital for Seamen in 1694, designed by Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor. This was not a hospital in the modern sense of the word, but a place where retired or disabled sailors could have somewhere affordable to live. A similar project was the Royal Hospital Chelsea, begun in 1682, but for soldiers rather than sailors.
Other major new works in this period include Ham House, Charlton House, Forty Hall, Eltham Lodge, Lindsey House, Gray's Inn, Valentines Mansion, Fenton House, Schomberg House, Burgh House, and Marlborough House.