
The Swinging 1660s - Hooke
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/the-swinging-1660s/
======
mymythisisthis
From Restoration in 1660 (end of the war), to the fire of London in 1666,
there was an incredible vibe in the air in England. Cromwell and the extreme
Protestant Taliban were gone; chess, music, plays, dancing were all legal once
again. People partied, drank, a sense of freedom, newness, and progress was in
the air. It was a heck of a party of 6 years, couldn't last, and the fire was
the symbolic end to it.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
It really is a fascinating period of history, with so much horror packed in
that decade without a monarchy. The rule of the major-generals after the
failed adventure to capture Hispaniola was an incredible dystopia that beggars
belief. England was not "godly enough", and it must have been hideous to live
in through those years.

What better way than to encourage a virtuous, godly population than to employ
the military as an extremist Purity Squad waging a nationwide war on fun,
closing down the theatres, pubs and probably every hint of a flirt or smile?
No team sports, horse racing, no fairs, no fucking, no drinking, no rowdiness,
then deal with all those instances of not enough manners, or lack of morals
and virtue. Oh and kill off dissenters and royalists, especially in Ireland.

Course the military junta kept enjoying dances and other banned fun. Cromwell
had God directing his every action, so that must be OK for good puritan
leaders.

His exhumation and posthumous public beheading seems totally unsurprising
after that lot.

~~~
shadowprofile77
I assume you learned the above from some sort of literature. Thus, are there
any particularly good books you could recommend on this subject, on the era of
Cromwell and his demise too if possible?

~~~
mymythisisthis
Read an abridged version of Pepys Diary. Most accounts of 1660s London lift
directly from his diary.

March 1st 1662

... thence to the Opera and there saw Romeo and Julett, the first time it was
ever acted [after the Restoration] But it is the play of itself the worst that
ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do;
....

February 9 1668 Up, and at my chamber all the morning and the office doing
business, and also reading a little of “L’escholle des filles,” which is a
mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to
inform himself in the villainy of the world.

~~~
dTal
> ... a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over
> to inform himself in the villainy of the world.

Ha! The original "reading it for research"!

------
mirimir
_Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World_ by David T.
Courtwright (2002) provides another interesting perspective.

[https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674010031&c...](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674010031&content=reviews)

------
ilamont
If you're interested in sampling the life of the 1660s, I recommend following
the Twitter account based on Samuel Pepys' diary from that period:
[https://twitter.com/samuelpepys](https://twitter.com/samuelpepys)

Pepys was a senior British official responsible for naval affairs, but also
talks about daily life and his own hopes, fears, desires, and frustrations. He
was a philanderer, and his encounters feature in the entries (often switching
to French) as do major events of the day -- the Great Fire of 1666, worries
about a Dutch invasion, etc.

------
ahazred8ta
[https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/the-renaissance-
math...](https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/the-renaissance-mathematicus-
christmas-trilogies-explained-for-newcomers/)

Newton, Babbage and Kepler were born on the 25th, 26th and 27th; this fellow
blogs about them every December.

