Hot-beds of fake news and misogyny? The rise of the Coffee Shop in 17th century London

By Kate Braithwaite

Coffee was not new to England when Pasqua Rosee opened the first London coffee shop in 1652. Coffee houses had gradually spread from the Muslim world in medieval times, finding their first European home in Venice in 1645 and from there to Oxford. But Rosee’s business in St Michael’s Alley in Cornhill, at the heart of the City of London, although probably little more than a stall initially, advertised by a sign portraying a Turk’s head, marked the beginning of an explosion of popular coffee shops across the capital.

Initially coffee shops were hailed as a positive new force in London life. Rosee claimed his brew would cure hangovers, dropsy, gout and even scurvy. Coffee shops predominantly did not sell alcohol and had at least those grounds on which to claim to be healthier than the already well-established taverns and ale houses. A penny entry fee was charged – to keep the poorer Londoners at bay – and a list of rules was displayed in many coffee houses, calling on patrons not to shout, quarrel or gamble. Smoking, on the other hand, was almost compulsory and almost all early descriptions of London coffee shops, describe a fog of pipe smoke hanging in the air. Coffee shops were the province of men only, the sole female presence, likely a woman employed as the “dame de comptoir” with the work of grinding, brewing and serving the coffee being the responsibility of coffee boys wearing long aprons. Patrons sat at long tables to talk and debate with strangers and friends, sharing news, gossip, business deals and more.

Interior of a London Coffee-house, 17th century - Attribution

The diarist Samuel Pepys makes frequent mention of Will’s Coffee House in Covent Garden, where the celebrated poet and playwright John Dryden held court. Often named after their proprietors, coffee shops quickly gathered clique-ish clientele. While literary types chose Will’s, stockbrokers were drawn to establishments near the Royal Exchange such as Jonathon’s and Garraway’s on Exchange Alley in Cornhill. Sir Isaac Newton preferred the Grecian Coffee House in Devereaux Court by the Strand, with its reputation of drawing an intellectual crowd. During the Restoration years after 1660, a time of fomenting political thought and debate, coffee shops were the perfect place for thinking men to collect their letters, read newspapers and pamphlets and share opinions and news. But they were far from popular with everyone.

In 1675, worried that coffee shops were hotbeds of plot and sedition against his rule, Charles II issued A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses which, although it had little legal impact or effect, clearly demonstrates the concerns felt in government about the impact of Coffee Shops on London society. They were centres, the authorities believed, for the deliberate spreading of false news and anti-government sentiment. But they were also places where government spies could be placed and whispers of conspiracies and plots could be heard and acted upon. Despite Charles’ frustration, coffee shops continued to thrive but they had already attracted criticism from another part of the population – women.

The Women’s Petition against Coffee, featured here in more detail, claimed coffee made men not only anti-social and unsupportive of their families, but also impotent: “as unfruitful as the sandy deserts, from where that unhappy berry is said to be brought.” The response was swift and The Men’s Answer to the Women’s Petition was direct to a fault. After claiming that coffee rather aided men’s ability to perform under the bedcovers, its author went so far as to claim that coffee increased the chance of fertility, adding “a spiritual escency to the Sperme, and renders it more firm and suitable to the Gusto of the Womb.”

Such criticisms had no effect on the growth of the coffee shop however. In 1681 when the Thames froze from December to February and a Frost Fair was established on the ice, a central feature was Duke’s Coffee Shop a temporary building erected mid-stream. By the turn of the century it is estimated that there were at least 1000 coffee shops in London, vital to the economic and cultural life of the city.

Image: http://helencann.co.uk/

In The London Spy, published in 1703, Ned Ward gives the following colourful picture of typical establishment:

“Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee-House here, as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling Muck-Worms were as busie as so many Rats in an old Cheese-Loft; some Going, some Coming, some Scribbling, some Talking, some Drinking, some Smoaking, others Jangling; and the whole Room stinking of Tobacco, like a Dutch-Scoot, or a Boatswains-Cabbin.”

Suggestions for further reading:

Life in a 17th Century Coffee Shop by David Brandon

1700, Scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller

Ned Ward, The London Spy, published 1703 text available online at  http://grubstreetproject.net/

[This is an archive Editor's Choice post originally published on EHFA 13 June 2018]

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Kate Braithwaite was born and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the author of two historical novels set in the 17th century.  The Road to Newgate, a story of lies, love and bigotry in the time of the Popish Plot, will be published by Crooked Cat Books on July 16th. Kate and her family live in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

www.kate-braithwaite.com

mybook.to/theroadtonewgate

The Seventeenth Century Library

by Deborah Swift

As soon as the printing press had opened up the world of print, people couldn't get enough books. What were once luxury items, individually copied for one particular patron, were now mass-produced for the first time, and in the 17th century, publishers and booksellers proliferated.

A seventeenth century print works

Many of these new publishers began as printing or bookseller apprentices. After their apprenticeship, they saw the profits made from books and opened their own businesses. Book piracy is nothing new, the reprinting of a popular book in its entirety without the permission of either author or publisher was a common practice, and booksellers openly sold these unauthorised editions. Some of these facsimiles even ended up in libraries.

Just like today, not all printing was accurate and seventeenth century typos were rife. Due to the vagaries of spelling in this period, which was not standardized, mistakes with the type-setting could easily be made. But one error was particularly disastrous - in 1631, the word ‘not’ was left out in a reprint of the King James Bible. King Charles I and the Archbishop of Canterbury were somewhat taken aback to read the commandment: Thou shalt commit adultery.

Barker and Lucas, the printers who produced it, immediately had their printing license revoked. All the bibles were ordered to be destroyed, but eleven escaped the cull, and still exist today. This version is now known as The Wicked Bible, the Adulterous Bible or the Sinner’s Bible.

In this period there were many ecclesiastical libraries, but not many had escaped Henry VIII's hatchet job on Catholicism. One example is the 17th century library at Winchester, named after Bishop Morley, whose books are part of the collection. Behind the beautifully carved bookcases, grooves can still be found where secret compartments were made to hide the communion vessels and other paraphernalia. In 1688, when the King had been restored, this library was constructed to hold rare medieval manuscripts such as the illuminated Winchester Bible.

Morley Library Winchester

With the burgeoning popularity of books in this period, it was unsurprising that someone would come up with the idea of a public library. One of the first ever libraries was founded in Birmingham between 1635 and 1642, by Puritan minister Francis Roberts. A building to house the library was finished in 1656, and the accounts of the High Bailiff of Birmingham for 1655 include 3 pounds, 2 shillings and 6 pence paid to Thomas Bridgens towards buildinge ye library. It was obviously meant to be of use to scholars because £126 2s 9d was paid out the next year for buildinge the library, repayreing the Schoole and schoole-masters' houses. This library was one of the first public libraries in England, but its Puritan roots led to the collection being broken up once the King was restored in 1660. It is so fascinating how such precious books have been either banned or preserved by the different religious factions of the day. The Birmingham library doesn't survive in its original seventeenth century building.

St John's Library Cambridge

Another notable library founded in this time is the Jacobean St John's College Library, Cambridge. There is a great artcle here about its history. Its shelves were categorised by lists in the 17th century and these hand-written labels still exist, with the following headings: philologi, philosophi, medici, theologi recentiores, theologi scholastici, historici ecclesiastici, SS Patres, liturgica, biblia sacra, concilia, iurisconsulti, lexicographi, historici, mathematici. So you can see that most libraries were heavily weighted towards scripture.

In Scotland, The Leighton Library, or Bibliotheca Leightoniana, in Dunblane is the oldest purpose built library in Scotland. Take a tour of it on the Youtube video above. It houses about four thousand books from the 16th to the 19th century. Robert Leighton, the then bishop of Dunblane and archbishop of Glasgow, had left the books to Dunblane Cathedral, and these were the bedrock of the collection. Built with £100 from the late Archbishop Leighton, this modest and unassuming building was completed in 1687. The structure is one long panelled room, with two stone vaults below, lit by windows to the south and west. During World War II, it was used as an air-raid shelter and had fallen into neglect, but more recently renovation, repair, and cataloging was carried out, and the library was officially re-opened in May 1990.

Pepys's custom-built bookcases

A more personal library of the time was Pepys's library, which is housed at Magdalene College, since the death of his nephew, John Jackson, His three thousand books, are the end product of a lifetime’s love for books, as evidenced in his diary. The books are housed in twelve matching and sumptuous late seventeenth-century oak bookcases. The collection's fine leather bindings, mostly commissioned by Pepys himself, are of the highest quality, showing how much he held his books in regard, and how much he wanted to show them off. Not everyone could afford to commission cases, and in the 17th century, books were often stored in coffers or trunks. There is a story of a young lad called Grotius escaping persecution and prison in a trunk used to carry books. The prison was Loevestein Castle, a state prison in the Spanish Netherlands, and he made his escape in 1621. Read the story here.

The book chest in which Grotius hid

Also popular in the seventeenth century were travelling libraries of miniature books - especially the Bible and books of Psalms or other religious tracts. Below is one that was brought up for auction recently and dates from 1627. Often these were put together in a series, like in the one below.

This 17th century Travelling Library is delightful, and contains forty volumes. While scholars don’t know exactly who made it, they believe it was commissioned by William Hakewill, an MP, a lawyer, a student of legal history, and an early member of the Society of Antiquaries. The miniature library was held in a wooden case, covered in brown turkey leather,effectively disguising it as one large volume, but it contains three shelves of books, each bound in vellum and tooled with gold-leaf.
The books include works by Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, Horace and Julius Caesar. Hakewill seems to have given four similar sets as gifts to friends in the years 1617 and 1618. You can read more about the collection in this Daily Mail article, which calls this set of books 'the Seventeenth Century Kindle'.

Pictures from wikipedia, unless linked.
Sources ;
Samuel Pepys - Tomalin
Every One a Witness - Wolfenden
Voices from The World of Samuel Pepys - Bastable

This article is an Editor's Choice and was originally published on September 26, 2016.

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Deborah Swift is the author of nine historical novels as well as the Highway Trilogy for teens (and anyone young at heart!). So far, her books have been set in the 17th Century or in WW2, but she is fascinated by all periods of the past and her new novel will be set in the Renaissance. Deborah lives on the edge of the beautiful and literary English Lake District – a place made famous by the poets Wordsworth and Coleridge.

For more information of Deborah's published work, visit her Author Page. 

Hero's Journey: Royal Brothers and the Great Fire of London

by Sally A. Moore

351 years ago on September 2, 1666, the Great Fire changed the face of London forever. Its advance ignited the spirits of its people for good and bad, and tested the mettle of the two brothers who governed England: Charles II and his brother, James, Duke of York.

By Anonymous [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

Sometime between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m, a flame sprung up in the baker’s oven of Thomas Farriner. 

By daylight, most of Pudding Lane and Fish Street Hill were destroyed and the fire showed no signs of stopping. Samuel Pepys, an administrator for the Royal Navy, arrived at Whitehall to report to the King. 

“So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of Yorke what I saw, and that unless his Majesty did command houses to be pulled down nothing could stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and the King commanded me to go to my Lord Mayor [Sir Thomas Bludworth] and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down before the fire every way.” (1)

Charles II and his brother James had returned to London in 1660 on the invitation of Parliament to end the Commonwealth and restore the throne of England. In those first six years of Charles’ reign, the Stuart brothers had garnered a reputation for a dissolute lifestyle with a people still in the throes of a Puritan hangover.

“The loose morals of Charles’s court were an unfailing source of public scandal, and as early as August 1661 Pepys was commenting on ‘the lewdness and beggary of the court, which I am feared will bring all to ruin again’.” (5)

King Charles II, by Unknown artist
National Portrait Gallery (NPG 1313)

Charles and James kept many mistresses and their profligate spending drew the criticism of his people. Contrary to Puritan doctrine, the Merry Monarch and his band of favourites spent long hours gambling and drinking, and the King’s courtiers publicly engaged in duels and verbal attacks one another. 

“These high-spirited gentlemen… diverted themselves at times with poetry, plays and literature in general, at times with sardonic comment on everything about them, couched, very often, in scabrous language.” (4)

Who was this self-indulgent Stuart king with a brother to mirror him, and why should the English people tolerate such pleasure-seekers as the governors of their nation? Wasn’t the plague two years before and the recent severe drought evidence enough of God’s displeasure?

The fire was to challenge the worth of these men at home and earn them notoriety abroad. Pepys, despite noting; the indulgence of Charles’ court; the mistresses of both men at hand; the King in his bed with dogs everywhere; and his nobles in the outer chamber at cards on a Sunday, also recorded the King’s immediate action upon hearing news of the fire.

“A clerk was summoned and the King dictated and signed a parchment. He handed it to Pepys, instructing him to find Sir Thomas Bludworth and give him the royal orders.” (3)

In addition to the instructions for the Mayor, the King promised the assistance of the King’s Royal Guard. The Duke of York informed Pepys that if soldiers were needed by the mayor, he would have them.

Duke of York, by Peter Lely
[Public domain], Wikimedia Commons

Pepys hastened to find Bludworth, but upon handing him the royal orders, the poor man, more suited to enjoying the royal favour of his appointment than in carrying out its duties, expressed himself overwhelmed.

“To the King’s message he cried, like a fainting woman, ‘Lord! what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.’ That he needed no more soldiers; and that, for himself, he must go and refresh himself, having been up all night.” (1)

Bludworth retired without carrying out the King’s orders to continue the effort of pulling down houses. The King and the Duke of York took a barge on the Thames to see the extent of the damage. What they found was a city in dire threat of destruction.

“In the eighteen hours or so since the fire had broken out at the Farriner’s, it had destroyed twenty-two alleys and wharves, nearly a thousand homes and ships, and six Livery Company Halls, including those of the Vintners, the Watermen and the powerful Fishmongers... Nine churches were in ruins along with the parishes they served.” (2)

It was evident to the royal brothers that the fire would not be contained without immediate and sustained effort. Watching the flames devour the city, street by street, Charles and James became convinced that their intervention was crucial to saving the city.

“In a risky move which showed how seriously he viewed the situation, Charles overrode the Lord Mayor’s authority as chief magistrate and told Browne [London Alderman, Sir Richard Browne] to [continue the effort to] pull down buildings, concentrating on the area below London Bridge towards the Tower, where the presence of large quantities of gunpowder was making everyone nervous. He also ignored Bludworth’s refusal to ask for troops.” (2)

In spite of these actions, the fire took on a demonic momentum, devouring homes, shops, warehouses, and even spilling onto the Thames on slicks of oil and tar. The people fled in panic, unable to comprehend the destruction that seemed without end. Black smoke hung over the city and the sky turned blood red in reflection of the flames.

“Beside the dreadful scenes of flames, ruins and desolation, there appeared the most killing sight under the sun, the distracted looks of so many citizens, the wailings of miserable women and the cries of poor children and decrepit old people with all the marks of confusion and despair.” (3)

Faced with the loss of life and every material thing they had, the people gathered in the street and made a pitiful appeal to their king.

“The glow of the fires and the spurts of flame soaring into the heavens had lit up the windows of the Palace of Whitehall during the night. Citizens gathering outside the walls of his palace, held back by the company of Guards stationed before the gates, had woken Charles with their pleas of ‘God and the King save us.’ ” (3)

The hapless Bludworth was nowhere to be found, and Pepys noted that he was not seen for three days. While the mayor fled, the “dissolute” Charles and his brother sprang into action, declaring themselves stewards of the city. Recognizing the dire nature of this threat, they left the comforts of Whitehall on Monday morning, September 3, and spent most of the day and night fighting the fire.

“The streets were a bedlam of noise: the rumble of iron wheels, the cracking of whips, the rattle of carts jolting over the cobbles, the stamp of hooves, the sound of running feet and a cacophony of shouts and yells, voices raised in curses or prayers, and ‘the fearful cries and howlings of undone people’.” (3)

By Unknown- Display in Museum of London,
copy from Pepys Library in Magdalene College,
Cambridge [Public domain]

Wading into the fray without regard for personal safety, the brothers toiled alongside the citizens, alternately encouraging the people and the troops and passing off buckets of water or pulling down houses and calming the residents, acting with the determination of men of who would not shrink from the responsibility of saving the city that had welcomed them home six years before.

“By the end of the day the King’s clothes were soaking, his face black, his whole person muddy and dirty. But there were many testimonials to his bravery and resolution as he stood up to his ankles in the water, joining in the work with a will, wielding a bucket and spade with the rest, and encouraging the courtiers to do likewise.” (4) 

Their efforts were frustrated by changing winds and empty water reservoirs as a result of a drought, as well as the panicked flight of people. Charles carried a bag of coins to entice men into joining the effort, adding his personal royal plea to stand and fight. There were few takers, and even the royal guards were balking at their duty in the face of the growing wall of fire.

“By mid-morning on Tuesday the pall of smoke hanging over the city had grown to biblical proportions. It was so great, claimed Thomas Vincent, ‘that travellers did ride at noon-day some miles together in the shadow thereof, though there were no other cloud beside to be seen in the sky’. On the rare occasion when the sun did manage to break through the gloom, it was as red as blood.” (2)

Pepys described the fire from his garden as “…extremely dreadful, for it looks just as if it was at us; and the whole heaven on fire.” (1)

By Wednesday night, September 5, the fire was quelled, leaving a smouldering heap of destruction that covered up to 80 percent of the city and an estimated 100,000 homeless. In all, 13,000 homes, 89 churches including St. Paul’s Cathedral and 52 Guild Halls were destroyed.

The fact that anything was still standing and the loss of life estimated to be low was a miracle of heroic proportion. Without the courage of the royals it is likely that the fire would have consumed the rest of the city. The veneer of Charles’ court had burned away and exposed the men beneath who claimed the ruling class. While so many minor officials ran away, the royal brothers led their courtiers and people to triumph over the engulfing flames.

The Paris Gazette, in spite of relief on the part of the French that the fire would prevent an impending attack by the English, published a glowing story about the role of the Stuart brothers.

“[The Gazette] had nothing but praise for Charles II, crediting him with personally organising the firefighting and, through his kindness and courage, earning the lasting tenderness and veneration of his people.” (2)

James, too, was cited for his bravery and his ability to stay calm in the crisis, organizing the destruction of buildings to create a break for the fire.

“ ‘Next, Princely York, with sweat and dirt besmear’d/ (More glorious thus than in his Robes appear’d. James was seen ‘handling Bucketts of water with as much diligence as the poorest man did assist’. John Rushworth, a witness who wrote these words, went on to point out that ‘if the Lord Maior had donn as much, his example might have gone far to saveing the Citty’.”

In London, superstitions, despair and anger caused riots, the people blaming alternately the Dutch, the French or the wrath of God toward the ways of the King and his court for the catastrophe.

“Charles was anxious to reassure his subjects. So he addressed the crowd, telling them that the Fire had been an accident, and not a plot. It had come from the Hand of God. Just why God should have chosen to punish London in such a dramatic fashion he declined to say, although in the coming weeks and months there would be plenty who thought it an obvious and well-deserved judgement on Charles’s dissolute ways.” (2)

The aftermath of the fire was a period of hard-earned growth for England, with the new building slowly revitalizing London and a renewed respect between king and his people that lasted, with a few notable bumps, throughout his reign.

“…pleasure-loving, easy-going as the Court of Charles II was, it was not a bad and certainly not an evil place.” (4)

Charles never lost his taste for the pleasure-loving life that his people both loved and criticized him for. He continued to collect mistresses as some collect coins. But he and his brother had proven what Charles had professed to the people during the Great Fire: that they had the will and the means to protect their kingdom, a promise that was to test Charles’ resolve again in the years to come.

References:
1. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1660 – 1669

2. Permission of Heaven, the Story of the Great Fire of London, by Adrian Tinniswood, Pimlico, Random House UK, 2004 

3. The Dreadful Judgement, the True Story of the Great Fire of London, by Neil Hanson, Doubleday, 2001

4. Charles II, His Life and Times, by Antonia Fraser, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993

5. The Life and Times of Charles II, by Christopher Falkus; Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992

This Editor's Choice was originally posted September 2, 2016

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Sally A. Moore is an award-winning writer from Kingston, Ontario in Canada. Represented by The Rights Factory Literary Agency in Toronto, she is currently writing a historical fiction/fantasy trilogy. Her writing credits include fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as poetry prizes from the Ontario Poetry Society and the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Sally is Past President of the Writers’ Community of Durham Region (WCDR), a member of the Historical Novel Society, and the recipient of the Len Cullen Writing Scholarship. Sally holds certificates of achievement from Humber School for Writers and a diploma with Distinction in Commercial Communications. 

Connect with her through Twitter (@SallyMoore11), LinkedIn, and her Website. For more information about her work, check out her portal, Legend of Three Crowns.

The Story of Pepys's Buried Treasure

by Deborah Swift

What did you do with your money in the 17th century if you thought looters might be after it? There were no banks of course, so the answer was - to bury it.

After the battle of the Medway in which the Dutch sailed boldly up the Thames and captured the English flagship, the 'Royall Charles', there was a widespread fear amongst Londoners that the Dutch would then take the city. Samuel Pepys, who was (to say the least) careful with his money, became panic-stricken that the Dutch would take his gold, but could not leave the city himself as he was in charge of the Navy treasury. He also feared that the Navy Office might be blamed for this disaster, and that angry Englishmen, let alone the Dutch, might besiege the offices and his house adjoining them.

By the time the news arrived that a second Dutch fleet were on their way, and worse, that English ships were being sunk to prevent the enemy coming further up the Thames, Pepys was desperate. He was determined to save his hard-earned wealth, so he dispatched his father and his wife Elizabeth to the family home in the country. Elizabeth and Mr Pepys senior left London by coach, the gold in bags under the seats, with the orders that they should bury it ringing in their ears.

Brampton House

They chose the vegetable garden at the family home in Brampton, probably in great haste because they feared servants might see them doing it, and they did not want to risk anyone else knowing where it was.

The gold stayed were it was, and in the end the invasion was just a scare, and the Dutch retreated. So a few months later Pepys went back for his treasure. Impatient to see if it was all there, he would not wait until morning but went out by lantern-light to look for it. If you've ever tried digging up something you've hidden, you will know that once the ground has been flattened by rain and weather, it is not easy to remember where the exact spot is. So of course they could not find it:

'But, Lord! what a tosse I was for some time in, that they could not justly tell where it was; that I begun heartily to sweat, and be angry, that they should not agree better upon the place' says Pepys.

Pepys of course blamed Elizabeth, first for not being able to find it, but then when he did, for not burying it deeply enough. Poor woman, she just could not win! 

'But, good God! to see how sillily they did it, not half a foot under ground, and in the sight of the world from a hundred places, if any body by accident were near hand, and within sight of a neighbour's window, and their hearing also, being close by: only my father says that he saw them all gone to church before he begun the work, when he laid the money, but that do not excuse it to me.'

The cloth bags had rotted so that they had to scrabble in the dirt for the individual coins. With the help of Will Hewer they managed to unearth most of it. At which point Pepys would not go to bed until they had sieved and washed every last coin and note.

11th October 

'And then rose and called W. Hewer, and he and I, with pails and a sieve, did lock ourselves into the garden, and there gather all the earth about the place into pails, and then sift those pails in one of the summer-houses, just as they do for dyamonds in other parts of the world; and there, to our great content, did with much trouble by nine o'clock (and by the time we emptied several pails and could not find one), we did make the last night's forty-five up seventy-nine:'

So Pepys did get his gold back after all.

An interesting footnote to the story is that in 1842, when an old wall was removed at Brampton, a hoard of silver coins was discovered, and taken to the Earl of Sandwich, the owner of the house. The iron pot was corroded and fell apart, but the coins were preserved. They were Elizabethan half-crowns and coins of James and Charles I, of the right date to be part of Pepys's treasure. Although Pepys only mentions gold in his diary, such a coincidence is unlikely, and it is probable Elizabeth buried some other silver coins too.

Seventeenth century tokens from Pepys's Small Change

If you have an interest in the sort of coins and tokens used by Pepys, or seventeenth century money and trade, then you will find the following website absolutely fascinating: Pepys's Small Change

Sources: Pepys's Diary Online
You might also enjoy this novel - The Journal of Mrs Pepys - Sara George

All three of my novels are set in the Seventeenth Century, and I rely on Pepys's Diary for his wealth of detail, and his fascinating insights into seventeenth century life.

'The past comes alive through impeccable research, layers of intriguing plotline, and the sheer power of descriptive prose.Add to all this Swift’s rich characterisation and subtle evocation of a period of religious upheaval and you have a classy, compelling adventure story and a true journey of discovery.' Lancashire Evening Post