Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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More on Chancery Lane here: http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/132.php
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The Popes Head in Chancery Lane is known to have existed at least from 1636 to the 1720s.
How surprised are you that such a name was still found in a Protestant city - you should be. There were several of them in London before the Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII, at which point many were hastily changed either to The Bishops Head or The Kings Head. Unfortunately, Bishops were abolished by the clergy in the 1640s, and the King was beheaded in the same decade, so the switch was unfortunate.
However, this particular tavern seems to have survived without a name change (or perhaps with only a very temporary one).
Perhaps as Samuel Pepys drank here he mused on the lines of doggerel written by John Taylor in 1636 about Popes Head taverns:
“These Popes heads are no authors of Debate,
Nor Schismatics or Troublers of the State:
Yet there’s good Claret, and Sack catholic,
Will make a Madman tame, a Tame man strike.”Confusingly, a few later pubs were also named The Popes Head in honour of the famous poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
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there be another Tavern in Chancery Lane by the Name “Kings Head run by the Barker’s:[part of the Bishop’s of Ely estate]
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=26454