The Flower of All Cities: The History of London from Earliest Times to the Great Fire

The history of London up to 1666 is a story of Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Plantagenets, Tudors and Stuarts. Of a city that grew from ancient origins to become 'the flower of all cities', until the centuries of building and the lives within it were obliterated by the Great Fire. It features many of the famous figures in British history: Queen Boudicca, King Alfred, Thomas Becket, Wat Tyler, Dick Whittington, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Guy Fawkes. And Geoffrey Chaucer, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Donne, Inigo Jones, Thomas Middleton, John Milton, Christopher Wren, Aphra Behn and Samuel Pepys. It is a tale of 'great matter' and 'great reckoning', where the nation was shaped, fortunes made and squandered, lives transformed, advanced and lost. Through the story of early London we can trace a busy, beautiful, dangerous city lost forever, but brought back to life here through skilful analysis of the archaeological, pictorial and written records.

Author: Robert Wynn Jones
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 12/15/2022
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 7.40h x 5.30w x 1.20d
ISBN13: 9781398112414
ISBN10: 1398112410
BISAC Categories:
- History | Europe | Great Britain | Middle Ages (449-1066)
- History | Europe | Great Britain | Norman Conquest to Late Medieval (1
- History | Europe | Great Britain | Tudor & Elizabethan Era (1485-1603)

About the Author
Dr Robert Wynn Jones is a retired professional palaeontologist, interested amateur archaeologist and historian. His ancestor, John West, lived in a house near the Stocks Market, which was burnt down during the Great Fire. John West was married in the church of St Gregory by St Paul's in February 1666 to the widow Frances Mickell, whose first husband, Robert, had died of the plague the year before. John numbered among his acquaintances the famous diarist Samuel Pepys. Robert Wynn Jones maintains a website on the history of London up to the time of the Great Fire (www.lostcityoflondon.co.uk) and leads occasional guided walks on related themes. He lives in London.