30 • Beginningsfashion-conscious shoppers found women’s apparel, fine fabrics, apothecary
powders, and dozens of incidental items. Bargain hunters went straight to
the many pawnshops. Here the needy left linen (pawnis from the Latin
pannus,meaning linen) as credit if they couldn’t pay for their purchases. The
exchange was also the hub for London’s financial market. Merchants and
shipowners conversed here. Samuel Pepys visited frequently to transact navy
business, pick up the latest political news, and buy whatever caught his fancy.
The big attraction from the south was London Bridge—the only crossing
over the Thames River for the entire metropolitan area.^40 Navigating the
long, narrow span was a feat in itself; nineteen stone arches supported a pas-Fig. 1 .The Royal Exchange of London. This major center of London commerce, fi-
nance, and gossip, crowded with well-dressed men and women in Wenceslaus Hol-
lar’s mid-seventeenth-century print, would become virtually deserted as the plague
spread through the city in 1665. The caption boasts of the array of luxury items in its
many shops, from Arabian perfumes and Chinese silks to precious jewels and cloth of
gold. Notice the statues of the rulers of England above the arcades.Guildhall Library,
Corporation of London