Tudor London
| Tudor London | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1485–1603 | |||
| |||
 Map of London prior to 1561 by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg in "Civitates Orbis Terrarum" | |||
| Location | London | ||
| Monarch(s) | Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, Elizabeth I | ||
| Key events | English Reformation, English Renaissance theatre | ||
| History of London |
|---|
| See also |
 London portal |
The Tudor period in London started with the beginning of the reign of Henry VII in 1485 and ended in 1603 with the death of Elizabeth I. During this period, the population of the city grew enormously, from about 50,000 at the end of the 15th century[1] to an estimated 200,000 by 1603, over 13 times that of the next-largest city in England, Norwich.[2] The city also spread over more land, further passing the bounds of its old medieval walls to reach as far west as St. Giles by the end of the period.[3] In 1598, the historian John Stow called it "the fairest, largest, richest and best inhabited city in the world".[4]
Topography
[edit]The area within the medieval walls, known as the City of London, featured timber-framed houses, often with upper storeys jutting out over the pavement. Two such surviving London houses from this period include the King's House inside the Tower of London, and Staple Inn.[5] During this period, London grew outside the old City boundaries. In futile attempts to check urban sprawl, repeated ordnances forbade the building of new houses on less than 4 acres (16,000 m2) of ground in 1580, 1583, and 1593, applying to land as far as Chiswick or Tottenham.[6] These laws had the unintended consequence that landlords within the medieval walls began subdividing their buildings as much as possible, and landowners outside the walls were encouraged not to build well, but to build quickly and surreptitiously.[6] In 1605, just after the end of the period, it has been estimated that 75,000 people lived in the City of London while 115,000 in the surrounding "liberties", such as St. Martin's-le-Grand, Blackfriars, Whitefriars, etc.[6]
The East End of London developed during this period, due to enclosures driving farmers off their land and into cities, and the lack of oversight from London's guilds, allowing businesses to continue without regulation.[6] The topographer and London historian John Stow recalled that Petticoat Lane in his youth had run among fields, flanked with hedgerows, but had become "a continual building of garden houses and small cottages" and Wapping "a continual street or filthy straight passage with alleys of small tenements".[6] By the end of the period, Whitechapel had transformed from a rural area to a hive of industry, with tanneries, slaughterhouses, breweries and foundries.[7]
The first maps of London were made in this period. One is by George Hoefnagel and Frans Hogenberg. It was published in 1572, but shows the city as it was around 1550.[8] The Agas map, attributed to the surveyor Ralph Agas, was made around 1561.[9] John Norden made maps of the City and Westminster in his Speculum Britanniae in 1593.[10] In 1598, John Stow published his Survey of London, a thorough topographical and historical description of the city.[11]
Palaces and mansions
[edit]The number of royal palaces in London expanded dramatically in this period, mostly due to building efforts under Henry VIII. Several palaces that existed prior to the period were also enlarged.[12] The Palace of Westminster was severely damaged by fire in 1512, and ceased to be a home for the royal family, being instead used as offices or chambers for the monarch to summon Parliament.[13] The Tower of London was used as a place from which Tudor monarchs processed to Westminster Abbey for their coronations, and as a place of imprisonment and execution, notably of high-ranking prisoners such as Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey.[14] 48 known cases of torture took place here between 1540 and 1640.[15] Eltham Palace was the childhood home of Henry VIII, where he was taught music and languages by his tutor, John Skelton.[16] He had it enlarged between 1519 and 1522.[17] Shene Palace burned down in 1497[18] and was rebuilt under Henry VII as Richmond Palace, featuring gilded domes and pinnacles. Both Henry VII and Elizabeth I died there.[19] Greenwich Palace was also rebuilt under Henry VII; and Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I were born there.[20][21][22]
Hampton Court Palace was built by Henry VIII's advisor, Thomas Wolsey, and acquired in 1529 by Henry, who set about turning it into a sprawling pleasure palace, with tennis courts, bowling alleys, a tiltyard, Great Kitchens and a Great Hall. It is where his third wife, Jane Seymour, died; where his son, Edward VI, was born; and where he married his sixth wife, Catherine Parr.[23] Henry also acquired York Place from Wolsey, which he massively enlarged into Whitehall Palace,[24] with a tiltyard and tennis court,[12] and a royal mews for horses, carriages and hunting falcons close to Charing Cross.[25] It was where he died in 1547.[26] In 1531, Henry seized the St. James monastic leper hospital to rebuild as St. James's Palace,[27][28] and he had Nonsuch Palace built in 1538.[29] In 1543, Henry gave Chelsea Manor House to his sixth wife Catherine Parr, where she would continue to reside after his death in 1547.[30] In the same year, he had the Great Standing built in his hunting grounds at Epping Forest.[30]
From 1515, Henry VIII had Bridewell Palace built outside the city walls;[21] in 1553, Edward VI gave it to the City of London to be converted into a workhouse, the first such institution in Europe.[31] Its officers were given the authority to roam alehouses, cock-fighting pits, gambling dens and skittle-alleys, seizing homeless, unemployed or disorderly people and detaining them in Bridewell.[32]
Westminster Abbey owned a large estate in Hampstead where the mansion Belsize House was built some time before 1550.[18] The Archbishop of Canterbury had the gatehouse to his Lambeth Palace completed in 1501,[33] and the Bishop of London rebuilt his main manor house, Fulham Palace, from 1510.[13] In 1514, the manor of Tottenham was bought by William Compton, who rebuilt Bruce Castle.[21] Along the Strand was a series of mansions, including Somerset House,[34] Hungerford House, the Savoy Palace, Arundel Place, Cecil House,[25] and Durham Place, where Lady Jane Grey married Guildford Dudley in 1553.[35] Many of these were the houses of bishops or abbots at the beginning of the period, but transferred into the hands of secular aristocrats in the 1530s and 1540s.[24] The chancellor Thomas More had a mansion built in Chelsea, in which he lived in the 1520s.[28] Eastbury Manor House near Barking was constructed 1556–1578 for Clement Sysley.[9] Thomas Gresham had Osterley Park built around 1576, and Christopher Hatton had Hatton House built in Holborn in 1577.[36] The London merchant Richard Awsiter had a manor house built in Southall in Ealing in 1587.[37]
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Other building work
[edit]Lincoln's Inn Hall was built 1489–1492, and was frequented by the politician and lawyer Thomas More.[38] Henry VII had the Henry VII Chapel added to Westminster Abbey between 1503 and 1510, and is buried inside with his wife, Elizabeth of York.[39] His grandchildren, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, were also later buried inside.[40] The gatehouse to St. John Clerkenwell priory was completed in 1504, and still stands today.[18] The Prospect of Whitby pub, then known as the Devil's Tavern, was supposedly built in 1520 on Wapping Wall.[41] In 1561, lightning struck Old St Paul's Cathedral. The roof was repaired, but the 500 ft (150 m) spire was never replaced. Middle Temple Hall was built around 1570 and was frequented by Elizabeth I.[42]
Disasters often necessitated rebuilding work: great fires are recorded in 1485, 1504, 1506, and 1538.[43] In 1506, a great storm blew off tiles on houses and the weathervane on top of St. Paul's Cathedral.[44] In 1544, 1552, 1560 and 1583, stores of gunpowder exploded in London, often killing several people as well as damaging buildings.[45] In April 1580 there was some damage to chimneys and walls in the Dover Straits earthquake of 1580.[46]
Demography
[edit]At the end of the 15th century, London's population has been estimated at 50,000.[1] By 1603, that number ballooned to an estimated 200,000, over 13 times that of the next-largest city in England, Norwich.[2] Between 1523 and 1527, a national tax was levied which yielded £16,675 from the inhabitants of London, more than the total amount yielded from the next 29 cities in England.[47]
Most Londoners married in their early or mid-twenties. Families who lived around Cheapside had four children on average, but in the poorer area of Clerkenwell, the average was only two and a half.[48] It is estimated that half of all children did not reach the age of 15.[48] The average height for male Londoners was 5 ft 7+1⁄2 in (171.5 cm) and the average height for female Londoners was 5 ft 2+1⁄4 in (158.1 cm).[49]
Plague hit so badly in 1563 in London that the local authorities began to compile death statistics for the first time in the Bills of Mortality. In that year, 20,372 were recorded dead in London across the whole year, 17,404 of whom died of the plague. Some years were much less dangerous: in 1582, only 6,930 deaths were recorded, of which 3,075 were from the plague, but in 1603 the total was 40,040, of which 32,257 died of the plague.[50]
Immigrants arrived in London not just from all over England and Wales, but from abroad as well. In 1563, the total of foreigners in London was estimated at 4,543, by 1568 it was 9,302 and by 1583 there was 5,141.[51][52] Nearly 25% of foreigners lived in villages outside London, inside the city. French hatters stayed in Southwark, silk-weavers in Shoreditch and Spitalfields; whereas Dutch printers based themselves in Clerkenwell.[52] Protestants came to London fleeing persecution in Catholic countries such as Spain, France, and Holland. In 1550, the chapel at St. Anthony's Hospital was converted into a French church, and the chapel at Austin Friars into a Dutch church, given special licence to operate outside of the conventions of the Church in England.[53] This period also saw the first-known large-scale migration to London from Ireland. Irish migrants often settled in Wapping and St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Since they were mostly Catholic, they were not welcomed by the Protestant Elizabeth I, who in 1593 banned Irish migrants unless they were homeowners, domestic servants, lawyers, or university students.[10] Although Jews had been banned from England in the 13th century, there was a small community of 80-90 Portuguese Jews living in London during the reign of Elizabeth I.[54]
The period sees London's first portrait of a named black person, the royal trumpeter John Blanke, who performed at the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII.[55] Aside from Blanke, a few black people appear in written records, such as the "blakemor" who arrived with Philip II of Spain when he came to London to marry Mary I, and an African needlemaker who worked on Cheapside.[56]
In 1600, an ambassador arrived in London from modern-day Morocco called Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, seeking an alliance between the King of Barbary and Elizabeth I. He brought a retinue of 17 other Muslim men with him, and had a portrait painted during his visit.[57]
In 1602, one judge declared that there were 30,000 "idle persons and masterless men" (i.e., vagrants) living in London.[58]
The Thames
[edit]
The Thames is the main river in London, and its main trade route to Europe and the wider world. It was both wider and shallower than it is today, and in 1564 it froze over so completely that Elizabeth I and her courtiers held an archery practice on the ice.[59] In this period, there was only one bridge- London Bridge- which was frequently congested,[25] so using wherries (small ferry-boats) to cross the river and go upstream or downstream was an important means of transportation within London, with an estimated 2,000 on the river.[60] Due to its importance for trade, the Thames was lined with small wharfs within London, particularly on the north bank between London Bridge and the Tower of London.[25] Most of these small wharfs were dedicated to one particular kind of trade- for example, Beare Quay for the ships coming from Portugal, Gibson's Quay for lead and tin, and Somers Quay for merchants from Flanders.[61] In 1559, a decree outlined the legal quays along the riverside, and mandated that all imports should be declared at Custom House.[9]
Around 1513, royal dockyards are established at Woolwich and Deptford to construct a national fleet. The first commission at Woolwich was the Henry Grace à Dieu, then the largest ship in the world.[13]
London Bridge
[edit]In this period, London Bridge was very different to today, lined on both sides with houses and shops up to four storeys tall. At the south end was a drawbridge which allowed tall ships to pass the bridge and acted as a defensive mechanism for the city.[59] In 1579, the tower holding the drawbridge mechanism was replaced with Nonsuch House, a pre-fabricated mansion built in the Netherlands.[59] South of Nonsuch House was the Great Stone Gate, where the heads of traitors such as Thomas More were displayed.[62]
Governance
[edit]The monarch had much more direct power to pass bills and change laws than today. Most Tudor monarchs summoned Parliament once a year, often to the Palace of Westminster, although Elizabeth I only summoned them ten times over her 45-year reign.[63]
The City of London was governed by the Court of Aldermen, a group of officials, each representing a division of the City called a ward.[64] Before 1550, there were 25 wards, with Southwark being added to make 26 in that year.[65] Each year, the aldermen chose one of their number to act as Lord Mayor. The legislative branch of the City leadership was the Common Council, which had over 200 members.[64][66] The administration of the City was based in the Guildhall, where it still stands.
Religion
[edit]At the beginning of the period, London contained 46 monasteries, nunneries, priories, abbeys, and friaries.[67] London's monastic communities included Greyfriars, Blackfriars, Austin Friars, the Charterhouse, St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Holy Trinity Priory, St. Mary Overy, Westminster Abbey, St. Helen's Bishopsgate, St. Saviour Bermondsey, Crossed Friars,[68] White Friars,[69] and St. Mary Graces.[69] In the surrounding area was Merton Priory, Barking Abbey, Bermondsey Abbey, Syon Abbey,[70] St. John Clerkenwell,[71] Lesnes Abbey,[72] Kilburn Priory,[73] Holywell Priory, St. Giles' Hospital, and St. Mary's Nunnery.[69] A Franciscan monastery was attached to Greenwich Palace in 1480.[21] Many wealthy Londoners left bequests to these institutions in their wills, and so they came to own large amounts of land in London. By 1530, about a third of all land within the city walls was owned by the Church.[74] London was also home to individuals with their own vows of monasticism, such as a hermit who lived on Highgate Hill, and another on St. John Street.[13]
In order to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, in the 1530s Henry VIII passed a series of Acts which broke away the Church in England from the Catholic Church in Rome, making him the Supreme Head of the Church in England.[75] In April 1534, every male Londoner was required to swear the Oath of Succession, in which they agreed to recognise the king's annulment.[75] In the monastery of London Charterhouse, the Carthusian monks refused to acknowledge Henry as head of the church, and four of them including their prior, John Houghton, were hanged, drawn and quartered.[76] The monastery was seized by the Crown, dissolved, and acquired by Edward North and later Thomas Howard, who was also executed for treason in 1572.[77]
Other monastic houses were dissolved in a less bloody fashion, but their considerable lands and buildings were still given or sold off to aristocrats and politicians- for example, Lord Cobham acquired Blackfriars Priory; the Marquess of Winchester built Winchester House on the site of Holy Trinity Aldgate, and Lord Dudley acquired St. Giles' Hospital.