London in the 1600s: Plague, Fire, Theater, and Empire Rising

17th-century London was a cauldron—population exploding, monarchy shaking, world expanding.

Demographics

• 1600: ~200,000. 1700: ~575,000. **Fastest-growing European city**.
• Migrants from countryside, Europe, Africa, Asia.
• Suburbs sprawl: Westminster, Stepney, Southwark.

Economy & Trade

• **Port of London** – world’s busiest. Legal quays, sufferance wharves.
• **East India Company** (1600), **Virginia Company** (1606), **Royal African Company** (1660) – chartered monopolies.
• Merchant capitalism, joint-stock, insurance (Lloyd’s coffeehouse 1688).
• Coin shortage → tokens, goldsmith bankers.

Politics & Crisis

• 1642–1651: Civil War – London Parliamentarian stronghold. New Model Army, Levellers, Diggers.
• 1649: Charles I executed (Whitehall). Commonwealth, Protectorate.
• 1660: Restoration (Charles II). Theatre licenses, Royal Society (1662).
• 1665: **Great Plague** – 100,000 dead (15–20%). Bills of mortality, searchers, pesthouses.
• 1666: **Great Fire** – 13,200 houses, 87 churches, St Paul’s. 4 days. Rebuilding: Wren, Hooke, brick mandate.
• 1688: Glorious Revolution – William III, Bill of Rights, Bank of England (1694).

Culture

• Theatre: Globe (Shakespeare, 1599), Blackfriars, Drury Lane (1663). Women on stage (1660).
• Literature: Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Milton, Dryden, Pepys (diary), Bunyan.
• Science: Royal Society – Hooke, Boyle, Newton, Wren, Halley.
• Coffeehouses – Penny universities: Lloyd’s, Garraway’s, Will’s. News, trade, debate.

Architecture

• Medieval survivor: Tower, Westminster Hall, Guildhall.
• Wren’s churches (51), St Paul’s (1675–1710).
• Inigo Jones: Banqueting House (1622), Queen’s House (1616–35) – Palladian revolution.
• Terraced housing: Bloomsbury, Covent Garden (first planned square).

Social Extremes

Aristocrats in St James’s; rookeries (St Giles) of gin, crime, filth. No police (watchmen). Poor Law, workhouses.

London 1600s: chaotic, creative, cruel, capital of a rising empire. The modern city is born here.