London

London lost a third or more of its people to the Black Death in the mid-14th century, but trade and government drew newcomers fast enough for it to recover. The City ran its own affairs through the guilds that elected the Lord Mayor, and in 1381 it was a Lord Mayor, William Walworth, who struck down Wat Tyler at Smithfield, after the rebels had stormed the Tower and killed the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop Simon Sudbury. Under the Tudors London spilled beyond its old walls, and Henry VIII turned York Place into the palace of Whitehall.

Most Londoners backed Parliament in the Civil War, and in 1642 the King's advance on the city was halted at Turnham Green. A generation later disaster struck twice: the Great Plague of 1665–1666 killed some 100,000 people, a fifth of the population, and in September 1666 the Great Fire destroyed much of the wooden medieval City. Rebuilding took more than ten years and kept much the same street plan, and over the new City rose Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral, completed in 1710.