The purpose of this thesis is to ask to what extent and in what ways the economy of London was affected by the English Civil War. This will be placed in the context of the evolution of London's economy and society in the 16th and 17th centuries. Comparisons with the impact of the Civil War on the economy of other parts of England will be made. The focus will be on the short term effects of the Civil War. In the first part of the thesis the impact on the economy of London of Parliamentary taxation, loans and contracts for Parliament's war effort will be assessed, as well as the policies of economic blockade pursued by the belligerents. Subsequently the impact of disruption brought about by the English Civil War on the major props of the London economy will be examined, namely London's role in the internal and external trades of England, and manufacturing in London. It will be argued that the Civil War caused a major economic crisis in London partly because the economy of the metropolis rested on its interrelationship with the rest of England, and also because of its function as the capital as the centre for the social and economic networks of the kingdom. The Civil War disrupted those networks. However, the impact of the war was limited because the disruption of the national economic networks was partial, and because different aspects were disrupted at different times.

Why was an ideal of elite women's virtue promoted in London c. 1580-1630, and why was it based on their reformed piety and charity? To what extent can elite women's piety and charity reveal their religious identity, among an elite characterised as 'puritan' by contemporaries and historians? How did women practise piety and charity in a worldly City, and did they share a civic ethos? This thesis engages with historiographies of urban history, the history of charity and hospitality, and gender history. It concerns over 400 wives and widows of the 331 aldermen elected 1540-1630, and uses 78 widows' wills. Women's wills are analysed qualitatively save to consider widows' public charitable bequests. From preambles to exceptionally diffuse bequests, wills are an intimate source for studying women's religious identity through their piety and charity. They reveal women's understanding of their gender in a patriarchal society that fostered an attitude of sorority that is particularly evident in women's charity and hospitality. To study the piety and charity of aldermen's wives extra-testamentary personal evidence complements the wills. Sources written by women themselves include a household book used to reconstruct a woman's charity and hospitality, portraits, devotional works and letters. Sources of praise and abuse authored by men including Stow's Survay, funeral sermons, verse libel and verbal abuse are used to reconstruct ideals and antitypes of elite female virtue and hypocrisy, and are read critically in comparison with other sources to furnish evidence of female piety and social conduct. Chapter II-VII focus on the conforming female elite, comparing contemporary discussion of female piety, charity and religious identity to women's lives and practice in the household and the community, and Chapter VIII considers three Catholic women to ask to what extent the civic ethos shared by reformed City women could accommodate even their recusant kinswomen.