In brief – Tudor London
The coronation of Anne Boleyn as Queen of England at Westminster Abbey on Whit Sunday, June 1533. It was the last time a Queen Consort was to have a separate coronation.
We can gain some insight into the everyday Tudor life through two contemporary accounts written by men living in London during that period. The earliest of these is from John Machyn who kept a diary between 1550 and 1563, the turbulent period of Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Queen Mary and the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. He talks of the changes of monarchs, insurrections, state visits, festivities, executions, punishments and – his specialist subject – funerals. One of the best descriptions of Tudor London was left by the contemporary historian John Stow. He published A Survey of London in 1598 when he was over seventy years old in which he describes the many topographical changes that had taken place during his life.
In the 16th century the number living within the city walls doubled to around one hundred thousand. Due to the great pressure on space the River Walbrook that ran through the middle of the city was covered over and new suburbs began to appear outside the walls where previously there had been meadows.
The 16th century was a time of innovation in house building that resulted in the English ‘Tudor’ style, known then as ‘frames’, which became popular because they were quick and relatively easy to assemble and, if necessary, disassemble and move elsewhere.
The growth in London’s population was largely due to ‘strangers’ arriving from around the country. As immigrants to the city, and therefore without the safety-net of support from a parish, those who came without work, or fell upon hard times, often ended up on the streets where, during the reign of Henry VIII, they joined many who had been ejected from the care of the monasteries. A result was that crime, unchecked by an effective police force, began to rise.
Edward VI asked the City to solve the problem of so many children living rough on the streets, resulting in the opening of Christ’s Hospital school to care for them. From 1572 until the early 19th century a series of Acts of Parliament formed the ‘poor laws’ dealing with the relief of the poor and the punishment of vagabonds. From 1576 Overseers of the Poor were appointed. Together with Justices of the Peace they were required to register the needy and aged parishioners and those unable to work in their district and to find some kind of housing for them.
Christ’s Hospital became a major source of basic education and welfare for children in London. A number of other schools were either founded or re-founded in and around London during the late-Tudor period, some of which continue as grammar schools today. Those at St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey rose to become the most prestigious such institutions in the London area. Almost all middle- and working-class young men continued their education in the form of an apprenticeship. After the death of Thomas Gresham income from the Royal Exchange was used to fund a college at his former home, from where professors lectured on scientific subjects.
The new forms of Christianity caused continuous conflict around Europe from the mid-16th century onwards and once it was clear that England was on the side of the new religion it became a safe haven for persecuted Protestants from the Continent. In August 1572 around 8,000 Huguenots were massacred in France causing the first of several waves of emigration to neighbouring Protestant countries, with many arriving in London.
By the end of the 15th century London was the leading city in England for the manufacture of clothing, with much of it for export. By the middle of the 16th century over 20 percent of the workforce was employed in the creation of clothes of one sort or another. The Elizabethan period was a time of high fashion for those with the means to pay for fine garments. There were many shops catering to the requirements of the wealthy, selling silks, gold thread and stockings. Their customers were not only from within the city but from around the country and no self-respecting provincial gentleman or lady would be content without their fashionable London clothes.
While theatrical performance became increasing popular, the attitudes of the authorities within the City of London were ever more puritanical. James Burbage established the Theatre playhouse in 1576 outside the city walls at Shoreditch where he performed plays by playwrights including Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. The Rose playhouse was built at Southwark in 1587, joined several years later by the Swan. After Burbage died his sons moved the Theatre to Southwark and renamed it the Globe.
The most popular male sport during the 16th century was bowls, with tennis (or what today we call ‘real tennis’) popular with both men and women. Football had long been played by young men in the fields surrounding the city but lacked the formal rules of modern-day soccer or rugby and was a violent game with frequent injuries occurring. Other popular spectator events during the Tudor period were bull and bear baiting and cock-fighting. There were a number of baiting pits around London including Islington and Clerkenwell although the most famous were at Bankside, close to the theatres, where there were two separate pits for bull and bear-baiting (at the modern-day Bear Gardens).
