London in the Time of the Stuarts

by Walter Besant

Was the Temple within the City and its Liberties or not? The question was answered in a practical manner by the Lord Mayor in March 1669, when, with the Aldermen, he went to dine with the Reader of the Inner Temple. He claimed that it was within his jurisdiction, and ordered his sword-bearer to precede him carrying the sword up. The students, as sticklers for the honour of the Temple, came out and ordered him to lower the sword; they tried to snatch the sword away; they hustled the marshal’s men and compelled the Mayor and Aldermen to take refuge in the chambers of the Auditor Phillips while the Recorder and Sheriffs hastened to Whitehall in order to lay the matter before the King. It is not stated what message was sent by the King, but when the Sheriffs came back and the Mayor attempted to get away there was another fight, and the Aldermen were treated with the greatest disrespect. They again retreated to the Chambers and again sent to the King. When the Sheriffs returned, however, the students had gone to dinner and the unfortunate civic procession was enabled to get out in an extremely undignified manner.

In 1670 an Act of Parliament was passed suppressing conventicles. The Act was carried out with great rigour; but the meeting-houses were handed over to the Church of England to be used as churches until the parish churches themselves should be rebuilt.

The attempted robbery of the Tower by Blood in 1671 may be mentioned on account of the extraordinary interest excited everywhere by the audacity of the crime. Otherwise it belongs to the history of the country rather than to that of the City. There was whispering on Change, murmurs and rumblings of discontent when it became known that the man had not only received the King’s pardon, but also the King’s favour and a grant of land. But, in fact, during the whole of this reign, in which the King was encroaching as much as he dared, having learned nothing from his father’s fate, and the City was defending her liberties now feebly, now strongly, the air was filled with murmurs of discontent and with whispers of approaching rebellion. It was as if an impending earthquake announced its coming by subterranean rumblings. How much the King heard and understood, how far he was prepared, if necessary, for a new appeal to the sword, it is for the historian of the country to investigate.

As a means of compensating those loyal and necessitous officers who had suffered for their adherence to the Royalist cause, Charles granted them one or more plate lotteries. Thus he presented the officers with certain plate as a gift from the Crown; they were authorised to put it up in lottery by tickets which were sold for the purpose. Thus, if the plate was worth, say £1000, tickets to the value of £3000 were issued, ensuring a large profit to the proprietor if all the tickets were sold.

We have now to consider the treatment of London by the King during the latter part of his reign. One may ask with amazement how the City, which had deposed Richard the Second for acts not nearly so arbitrary as those of Charles the Second, which had driven Charles the First from the throne for attempts far less despotic, could sit down in submission, nay, almost without a protest, under tyrannies and encroachments which indicated the determination to recognise neither liberty nor privilege.

The bankers of the Middle Ages were the great merchants, the merchant adventurers. Whittington held money for the landowners, advanced money on the security of land, and in nearly all respects carried on the business of a private bank. The merchant adventurers, who were mostly mercers, were succeeded by the goldsmiths, who were private bankers, kept the money of their customers—“running cash”—gave them cheques under the name of “goldsmiths’ notes,” received money on deposit account and gave interest for it; they made their own profits by lending it out at higher interest. The customers were allowed 6 per cent at twenty days’ sale and 3-1/2 per cent for money on demand. The bankers took assignments of the public revenue for payment of principal and interest as it came in.

Of these bankers the most important was Edward Blackwell. He was the King’s intermediary in many important transactions. The pay of the troops in Dunkirk passed through his hands; he went to France on business for the King; he advanced money to the King, who owed him in 1672 more than a quarter of a million. There were nearly forty goldsmiths and bankers in Lombard Street. The money these bankers had lent to the Exchequer on security of the public revenue amounted to £1,300,000. In the year 1671 Charles wanted money. He was about to enter upon the war with Holland. Parliament was prorogued; he would always get money, if he could, without going to the House for it. In this case he listened to the advice of Clifford and took a step, the nature of which, one would hope, he did not comprehend. He resolved upon closing the Exchequer. The meaning of this step is perhaps not at once intelligible. It means that the repayments due to those who had lent money to the Exchequer were withheld, and it means that the interest due on these loans was refused payment. Imagine, if you can, the consternation and the despair which would be spread around if the interest on Bank of England Stock, or the London County Council Debt, or any other large security were to be suddenly stopped at the present day! Charles laid his hands on the whole amount. He took it. He promised to resume payment within a year, with interest. He took this money. And yet the City did not rise! Blackwell, with all the goldsmiths in Lombard Street, was ruined. Those rich bankers who had placed all their money in the King’s hands were utterly ruined; so were the lesser folk, the hundreds of people who had entrusted their money to the bankers of Lombard Street.

Not even Henry the Third, not even Richard the Second, ever inflicted such a blow as this upon the City. In money of our day, and considering the poverty of the City, it represents at least £6,000,000—nay, more, because the interest was then more than double that of the present day, say £8,000,000. Imagine the rage and consternation were such a blow to be delivered at the Bank of England! Imagine the consternation if there were to be no interest on a great part of the National Debt for a whole year! Nay, the blow was far greater, because London two hundred years ago was far, far less wealthy than at present, not only actually, but in proportion to its population. Looking on London only as a trading community it is quite certain that such a blow could never be forgiven. When the opportunity should arise it would be remembered. It was not his religion only that drove James from Whitehall, it was the memory of this act of confiscation and the other acts of oppression which followed.

The absence of resistance is at first sight most remarkable. I can only account for this fact on the theory that the poverty of the City and its weakness were much greater than is generally supposed. The Plague, which swept away many thousands of bread-winners, left behind it many thousands of penniless orphans. The Fire, which spared the lives of the people, destroyed all they owned in the world: house, furniture, stock in trade, tools, everything. The long civil wars had helped to impoverish the City; the Dutch War was calamitous; in other words, the City for many years had been living on its capital, and now this was coming to an end. Again, the religious dissensions of the City contributed to its weakness. It was the influence of the Church of England which brought back the King; it was therefore with an ill grace that they complained of the Royal exactions. The Church of England had joined in persecuting the Nonconformists just as, in the fifties, the Independents and the Presbyterians had joined in persecuting the Anglicans. Moreover, from many a pulpit in the City, day after day, the doctrine—the monstrous suicidal doctrine—of passive obedience was preached. The “Judgment and Decree” of Oxford, issued a few years later, was already on the lips of the High Church preachers. It declared to be “false, seditious, and impious, even heretical and blasphemous,” to hold that “authority is derived from the people; that if lawful governors become tyrants, they forfeit their right of governing; that the King hath but a co-ordinate right with the other two estates, the Lords and the Commons, etc.,” and that passive obedience is “the badge and character of the Church of England.”

The secret of the submission of the City under so many blows was therefore (1) its poverty, (2) its internal dissensions, (3) the doctrine of passive obedience inculcated by so many of the clergy. Perhaps there was still some memory among middle-aged men of the sour austerities enforced during the Commonwealth.