Tudor and Restoration London

In the 16th and 17th centuries London was transformed from a medieval city, with economic and political power focused heavily on the guild organizations and the church, to a worldwide trading and national government centre where power lay with the merchant classes and the crown or, during the English Civil War, Parliament. Its very fabric changed with the redistribution of church land under the Reformation, the rebuilding of the City after the Fire of London (1666), and expansion into areas outside the City boundaries. The City of London became the preserve of the merchants, while the aristocracy moved out to its western suburbs, which by the end of the 17th century had became the focus for London's social life.

Tudor London During the Tudor period the power of the monarchy increased at the expense of the church and the guilds, but industrial progress was maintained from the medieval period, and the merchant classes flourished with the opening of shipping routes to English colonies and trading posts in America, Africa, and Asia. About 90% of England's overseas trade passed through the port of London. The economy also expanded with the continuing growth of London as a centre of national government and royal administration.

In 1512 the palace of Westminster was largely destroyed by fire, leaving Henry VIII without a London residence until 1530 when he took possession of Whitehall Palace (previously Thomas Wolsey's York Place). He began the building of St James's Palace in 1532, on the site of a former leper hospital. During Elizabeth I's reign (1558–1603) the aristocracy shifted residence from the City to mansions in the Strand or Westminster and its neighbourhood, leaving the City a still greater stronghold of the merchants who dominated trade and political power there. By the end of Elizabeth's reign London and its suburbs had a population of about 200,000, but only about a third lived within the original City boundaries. Both Tudor and later Stuart monarchs passed laws to control the physical spread of London, but these were not observed as the economic growth of London demanded ever more space for housing.

The English Reformation was fully embraced by London. Events such as Hunne's Case in 1514, when a London merchant died in the bishop of London's prison, had already promoted anticlerical feeling. From 1536 the confiscation of ecclesiastical property was supported wholeheartedly by the citizens, although it affected the entire fabric of the city. The Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, was the first of London's monasteries to be dissolved. Charterhouse, Smithfield, was the only centre of resistance in the city, the prior and many of his monks being executed before Henry VIII succeeded in forcing his policies. Land freed by the dissolution of the monasteries was generally sold for development, but some houses became government offices or storehouses. In the face of political and religious opposition from Catholic France and Spain, some of the monasteries' wealth went towards the creation of a full-time professional navy, leading to the foundation of royal dockyards at Woolwich and Deptford. Under Edward VI the religious guilds were suppressed, and the revenues of the craft and merchant guilds devoted to religious purposes became the property of the crown. The limitations imposed on the religious aspect of the guilds began a general decline in their function. The duties of many livery companies are now ceremonial, social, and charitable rather than industrial, although some, such as the Vintners, maintain an active interest in their trade. During the Catholic revival of Mary I's reign (1553–58), many of London's Protestants were burned at Smithfield. The Elizabethan age witnessed a great advance in the development of English drama in London, and the advent of the open-air Elizabethan playhouse. The first playhouse in England was the Theatre, Shoreditch (1576). The Globe Theatre (1599), the Rose Theatre, and the Hope soon followed in Southwark, where the City's strict regulations on entertainment were waived.

Civil War London During the English Civil War, the City of London was a centre of nonconformity and gave its backing to Parliament, its support being a large factor in the defeat of the Stuart king Charles I; the City's civil militia also played an active part. Earthworks were erected in case of siege, and in 1642 some 24,000 Londoners gathered at Turnham Green to defend their city against the threat of a royalist attack. In 1649 the king's execution took place in front of the Banqueting House in Whitehall. However, London quickly turned royalist when the Rump Parliament acted against City interests, closed the theatres and other entertainments of Southwark, and enforced the observance of the Sabbath; the City was further swayed by Charles II's promises to renew and extend the privileges of its charter.

Restoration London The newly restored king entered London on 29 May 1660. Soon after the Restoration, two major disasters occurred: in 1665 the Great Plague killed over 80,000, about one-sixth of London's inhabitants; and in 1666 the Fire of London burned for three days, destroying four-fifths of the City. Extensive reconstruction in the aftermath of the fire included the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, 51 churches, and other buildings by Christopher Wren, although schemes for replanning London, created by Wren and others, were rejected as they would have interfered with legal land boundaries. Contemporary critics of St Paul's complained of its lack of a steeple. New buildings were mainly brick and mortar, timber being banned. City planning earlier in the century had included the laying out of several London squares, the first being Covent Garden by Inigo Jones in 1631.

London's economic prosperity soon recovered, being marked in 1670 by the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company, which established a worldwide fur trade centring on London; and in 1694 by the foundation of the Bank of England. In the late 17th century a great wave of French Protestant Huguenots arrived, provoked by Louis XIV's religious persecution. Settling in Spitalfields and Soho, they established a centre of silk production, which was operating an estimated 12,000 looms by the end of the 18th century. Their descendants included the actor David Garrick and the textile manufacturer Samuel Courtauld. As well as the French Huguenots, other immigrants came from the Low Countries. Their trades included tapestry making, brewing, and the production of glass, pottery, scientific instruments, and maps.

Over the course of the century the centre of London's social life shifted from the City to the newly developed West End, particularly after the Fire of London. Theatres were reopened in the late 17th century, but the tradition of Elizabethan open-air theatre was superseded by Restoration comedy and other European-style drama performed at indoor playhouses, and women were finally admitted to the stage. In 1652 the first coffee house was opened in Cornhill, beginning a fashionable trend that led to the establishment of hundreds of venues in London by the early 18th century. An alternative to alehouses as social meeting places, coffee houses were mainly patronized by the professional classes and many of those in the City became associated with a particular sphere of interest. The Lloyd's of London insurance market derived its name from Edwin Lloyd's coffee house, from about 1688 a regular haunt of London underwriters specializing in marine insurance. Coffee houses maintained their popularity throughout the 18th century, but decline set in with the growing preference for tea.

By 1700 London was the largest city in Western Europe with a population of around 575,000, of which only 200,000 lived in the City of London.