Tudor London - The Reformation

The Reformation

The Reformation produced little bloodshed in London, with most of the higher classes co-operating to bring about a gradual shift to Protestantism. Before the Reformation, more than half of the area of London was occupied by monasteries, nunneries and other religious houses, and about a third of the inhabitants were monks, nuns and friars. Thus Henry VIII's "Dissolution of the Monasteries" had a profound effect on the city as nearly all of this property changed hands. The process started in the mid 1530s, and by 1538 most of the larger houses had been abolished. Holy Trinity Aldgate went to Lord Audley, and the Marquess of Winchester built himself a house in part of its precincts. The Charterhouse went to Lord North, Blackfriars to Lord Cobham, the leper hospital of St Giles to Lord Dudley, while the king took for himself the leper hospital of St James, which was rebuilt as St James's Palace. Henry took Cardinal Wolsey's house at Westminster, York Place, and converted and expanded it in stages until it filled the area of Whitehall with a disorganized ramble. Henry enclosed former lands of Westminster Abbey as a deer park, the present Hyde Park and St. James's Park. To the west lay the village of Kensington.

Shortly before his death, Henry refounded St Bartholomew's Hospital, but most of the large buildings were left unoccupied when he died in 1547. In the reign of Edward VI many passed to the City Livery Companies in lieu of payment of crown debts, and in some cases the rents arising from them were applied to charitable purposes. Separately, in 1550 the City purchased the manor of Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames and refounded the monastery of St. Thomas as St. Thomas' Hospital. Christ's Hospital was established in this period, and Bridewell Palace was converted into a children's home and house of correction for women. The Dissolution was also highly profitable for favoured courtiers who were able to obtain property on generous terms. Much of this was intensively rebuilt, cramming the extra housing required by London's burgeoning population into every corner.

On the death of Edward VI in 1553, Lady Jane Grey was received at the Tower of London as queen, but the lord mayor, aldermen and recorder soon changed course and proclaimed Mary I of England queen instead. The following year the new monarch's decision to marry Philip II of Spain provoked an uprising led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who took possession of Southwark, and later reached Charing Cross, on the road from Westminster to the City, which is now regarded as the fulcrum of London, before moving on to Ludgate. But there was no uprising in the City, and Wyatt surrendered. This demonstrates the crucial political importance of the City at that time, and the small importance of the districts outside the walls.