London in the Time of the Stuarts

by Walter Besant

The King in the same year formally restored to the City their Irish estates, which the Parliament had long before restored.

On June 24, 1663, Charles granted the Inspeximus Charter.

Accounts of the Plague of 1665 and the Fire of 1666 will be found in other places (pp. 215, 240).

As soon as things were more settled after the Great Fire, the Corporation considered how best to avoid the recurrence of such a calamity. They divided the City into four divisions, each to be supplied with 800 buckets, 50 ladders, from 12 to 42 feet in length, 2 brazen hand-squirts to each parish, 24 pickaxe sledges, and 40 “shod” shovels. Each of the twelve great companies was to be provided with an engine, 30 buckets, 3 ladders, 6 pickaxe sledges, and 2 hand-squirts. The inferior companies were to have such a number of engines, etc., as should be fixed by the Court of Aldermen. The Aldermen who had passed the Shrievalty were to keep 24 buckets and 1 hand-squirt each in his house. Those who had not yet passed the Shrievalty, half that number of buckets. Fire-plugs were to be placed in the main water-pipes. The companies of carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, painters, masons, smiths, plumbers, and paviours were to appoint for each company 2 master workmen, 4 journeymen, 8 apprentices, and 16 labourers, to be ready on an alarm to turn out. And lastly, all the workmen belonging to the several water-works, the sea coal meters, Blackwall Hall, Leadenhall, ticket, package, and other porters, were to attend the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs in such services. In other words, a fire brigade was established of several hundreds, with means of putting out fires amounting to about 1500 buckets and 300 hand-squirts. The weak point in this machinery was the difficulty of getting at the men when they were wanted, and the feeble nature of the hand-squirt.

The Fire produced confusion in ecclesiastical property, for the tithes which had been levied from house to house could no longer be collected owing to the changes of site, the substitution of a small house for a great house, or vice versâ. It was therefore resolved that each parish should be assessed at so much per annum in lieu of tithe, and that each house should be assessed at its share of this amount. Trouble afterwards arose in the working of this Act in consequence of houses standing empty.

The rebuilding of London was a great time for the passing of ordinances and regulations for the better preservation of order and cleanliness in the City. Thus the foot-passage, or way along the streets, was at this time ordered to be of flat or broad stone. The Fellowship of Carmen was ordered to send round carts for the collection of all waste stuff, which was to be conveyed to the nearest laystall.

The traffic in the streets was regulated. Carts had to stand along, not across, the street; brewers and others were not to use more than one horse, nothing was to be thrown into the streets, every householder had to keep his own part of the street clean, and things offensive were not to be carried about the streets before eleven o’clock at night.

The heavy losses caused first by the Plague, which stopped trade of all kinds and destroyed many thousands of craftsmen and servants, and next by the Fire, had reduced the City to a very low condition. No one will ever be able to estimate the losses of or consider the number of respectable families reduced to poverty, and plunged down into the lowest depths. A Committee, appointed by the Common Council to investigate the financial position of the City, had to recommend the abolition of certain offices and resolute retrenchment in many departments. Among other measures of economy the Committee recommended the abolition of their chronologer (see [p. 178]).

On June 10, 1667, the City, which was as yet only half-built, presented a most melancholy appearance. It had been devastated by plague, its people lay by thousands in the burial-grounds, it had been destroyed by fire, and now it seemed as if the last and crowning misery was to be inflicted upon it. Men’s hearts sank within them. They asked if their afflictions were laid upon them for their persecution of the Quakers and the Baptists, for their imprisonment of the saints, for the idolatries of the Court, and the corruption of the times. For it was known on that day that the Dutch had sailed up the Medway and burned the English men-of-war which were lying there, either without a crew or with half their company discharged. For defence—an ignoble defence—ships were sunk in the bed of the Thames at Barking, Woolwich, and Blackwall. Every able-bodied man in the City was called out. Had the Dutch continued, they must have been able to take the City. Luckily they did not continue, and the Treaty of Breda put an end to hostilities.

The City at this time returned to the mediæval use of passing long and intricate regulations for the better management of the markets. The most noteworthy provisions were two: that the Market Bell should ring at six every morning, at which the market was to open for housekeepers only and such as bought for their own use; at ten the bell was to ring again, at which time retailers and those who bought to sell again should be allowed to enter.