Moll King's Coffee House
On Tom's death the coffee house became known as Moll King's Coffee House, but business continued much as before. Moll, however, took to drinking and became more quarrelsome, and the reputation of the shacks for bad behaviour and violence worsened. Moll would also occasionally fleece inebriated patrons by littering their tables with broken crockery and then presenting them a bill for the damages, confident that they were too drunk to realise that they were being taken advantage of. The patronage of fashionable society continued though: on one occasion even George II paid a visit, accompanied by his equerry Viscount Gage, but having been challenged to a fight for admiring the companion of one of his neighbours (who had not recognised him) he left immediately. Eventually, in June 1739, a riot erupted in the Long Room and spilled out in the piazza. Moll was charged, found guilty, and fined £200, sentenced to three months in prison and required to find sureties for her good behaviour for three years after her release. Moll refused to pay the fine on the grounds that it was both excessive and unwarranted and managed to get it reduced to £50. She suffered little from her stay in prison: her nephew William King took over the running of the coffee house and by bribing the guards Moll managed to get many of the comforts of home. She continued to run the coffee house until around 1745, when she retired to live in her villa at Haverstock Hill. She died on 17 September 1747, leaving a large fortune.
Read more about this topic: Tom King's Coffee House
Famous quotes containing the words moll, king, coffee and/or house:
“Duns at his lordship’s gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had screamed through half the street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees:
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“I’ll stake all my soul
on that beauty,
till God shall awake
again in men’s hearts,
who have said he is dead
our King and our Lover.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Mrs. Small went to the kitchen for her pocketbook
And came back to the living room with a peculiar look
And the coffee pot.
Pocketbook. Pot.
Pot. Pocketbook.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Between the house and barn the gale
Got him by something he had on
And blew him out on the icy crust
That cased the world, and he was gone!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)