This work examines the city during the seventeenth century, tracing its close involvement in national politics from early Stuart rule through civil war, Commonwealth, Restoration, and subsequent reversals. It recounts recurring plague outbreaks and the Great Fire, and describes their effects on population, sanitation, urban rebuilding, and architectural change. Social life, religious conflict, municipal government, trade, and everyday manners are explored through contemporary documents and reports. The narrative shows how crises and reforms reshaped streets, public health, civic authority, and commercial life, yielding a markedly transformed urban landscape by the century’s end.