Fleece (Covent Garden)
Map
The overlays that highlight 17th century London features are approximate and derived from:
- Built-up London – Hollar's 1666 map before the Fire
- City of London wall and Great Fire damage – Hollar's 1666 map after the Fire
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Glyn Link to this
Following the Restoration of the Monarchy, the taverns of Covent Garden gained a bad reputation for
Nix Link to this
"Far less fashionable [than hatelaine's] was the Fleece tavern, where Pepys found pleasant entertainment on several occasions. His earliest reference to the house is in his account of meeting two gentlemen who told him how a Scottish knight was 'killed basely the other day at the Fleece,' but that tale did not prevent him from visiting the tavern himself. Along with a 'Captain Cuttle' and two others he went thither to drink, and 'there we spent till four o'clock, telling stories of Algiers, and the manner of life of slaves there.' And then he tells how one night he dropped in at the Opera for the last act 'and there found Mr. Sanchy and Mrs. Mary Archer, sister to the fair Betty, whom I did admire at Cambridge, and thence took them to the Fleece in Covent Garden; but Mr. Sanchy could not by any argument get his lady to trust herself with him into the taverne, which he was much troubled at.'"
-- From Henry Shelley's "Inns and Taverns of Old London"
vincent Link to this
Definition: \Fleeced\, a.
1. Furnished with a fleece; as, a sheep is well fleeced. --Spenser.
2. Stripped of a fleece; plundered; robbed.
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/fleeced
Me flees OE fleos
Aaron Allen Link to this
General Patrick Ruthven lived near the Fleece Tavern in Covent Garden in 1641. See Rev. Wm. Macray, The Ruthven Correspondence (London, 1868).
David Fletcher Link to this
Known as an infamous rough spot in Covent Garden. The "Scottish knight" referred to by Pepys on 1 December 1660 conflates two facts regarding the occurrence. The knight in question was in actuality Sir John Godschalke of St. Martin in the Field, and the murderer reputed to be one Scotsman named "Balenden." Rugge and other diarists rendered Sir John as "Gooscall," close but not quite. His will was probated in the P.C.C. in November 1660. He left a widow, Anne Filmer Godschalke (or Godscall as she rendered it, daughter of Sir Robert Filmer--author of "Patriarcha"--of East Sutton, Kent, as well as a son John and daughter Anne. The latter were not referenced in his will, written in 1659, and it may be that Lady Anne Godschalke was with child at the time of the murder.