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Did Charles II Really Close England’s Coffeehouses in 1675?
Follow Charles II’s 1675 coffeehouse order, the January concession before the shutdown deadline, and the conditions attached to continued trade.
Quick Answer
Charles II ordered public coffeehouses to close, then changed the policy before its January 10, 1676 deadline. The January 8 concession allowed existing retailers to continue under conditions. The interval between the proclamations is not evidence of an eleven-day closure of every coffeehouse.
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Coffeehouses sold drinks and gave customers places to exchange news. The Crown wanted to control the talk and papers circulating there; shopkeepers had paid duties on stock and faced losses if they suddenly had to stop selling it. Those competing interests shaped the concession.
Four Dates Explain the Coffeehouse Order
The key sequence is an order, a concession before the deadline, and a time limit on continued trade. The Gazette's account identifies December 29 as the first proclamation's publication date and January 8 as the change of policy.
| Date | What it meant |
|---|---|
| December 29, 1675 | The suppression proclamation was published. |
| January 8, 1676 | A second proclamation allowed existing retailers to continue under conditions. |
| January 10, 1676 | The original shutdown deadline, already altered by the concession. |
| June 24, 1676 | The limit set for the temporary licensing permission. |
The January notice prints the year as 1675. Its catalogue record gives 1675/6: the same January is 1676 when the year begins on January 1, as in this timeline.
What Charles II Wanted to Suppress
The order targeted public coffeehouses and drinks sold for consumption on the premises. It named coffee, chocolate, sherbet and tea, and called for existing licences to be withdrawn. Its territory included England, Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed.
The Crown complained that coffeehouses distracted people from their work and spread reports damaging to the government. The concern was the trade and the gathering place, rather than a ban on keeping coffee at home or a campaign against caffeine.
Why Retailers Got a Conditional Reprieve
The additional proclamation in London Gazette issue 1059 records the retailers' practical problem: they held stock on which duties had been paid, and some shipments could not be recalled without loss. The Crown presented the concession as relief from that commercial harm while retaining controls on the coffeehouses.
Existing retailers could continue under licences limited to June 24, 1676. They were to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and enter a £500 recognizance, a binding financial obligation carrying that penalty. It was a conditional bond, rather than a £500 admission fee paid by everyone to reopen.
Keepers were also required to try to prevent hostile political papers and reports from circulating in their houses. Permission to sell drinks came with responsibility for what customers exchanged around the tables.
Two Views of Coffeehouse Conversation
The Crown's complaints were part of a wider argument. Two contemporary texts reproduced by Fordham take opposing sides: a hostile account from 1673 mocks patrons as overconfident interpreters of the news, while Coffee-Houses Vindicated (1675) praises sociability, conversation and economy.
The same room could look like a useful place to exchange ideas or a threat to political authority. That disagreement helps explain why an order about selling drinks reached so far into what people read and said.
A Personal Note on the Coffeehouse Dispute
A personal note: What draws me to this episode is how much depended on the room around the drink. A cup of coffee seems ordinary; a room where news circulates can look very different to the people trying to govern it. The retreat is the detail I would keep in a retelling, because it brings shopkeepers and their stock into the story alongside the king. It makes the past feel less like a collection of dramatic royal decisions and more like competing interests meeting at the same table.
Sources
- The Gazette: The coffee house politicians: scandal and The London Gazette
- London Gazette issue 1059, page 1: An Additional Proclamation concerning Coffee-houses
- W. W. Norton coursepack: By the King: A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses. This teaching transcription's December 23 heading conflicts with the December 29 date identified by the suppression broadside catalogue and the follow-up proclamation; the timeline uses December 29.
- Grub Street Project: By the King. A proclamation for the suppression of coffee-houses, ESTC R226464
- Grub Street Project: By the King. An additional proclamation concerning coffee-houses, ESTC R11853
- Fordham Internet Modern History Sourcebook: The First English Coffee-Houses, c. 1670–1675