drowned herself; which did trouble me the more, when they tell me it
was she that did live at the White Horse tavern in Lumbard Street,
which was a most beautiful woman, as most I have seen."

Yet another fair woman, Frances Stuart, one of the greatest beauties
of the court of Charles II, is linked with the history of the Beare.
Sad as was the havoc she wrought in the heart of the susceptible
Pepys, who is ever torn between admiration of her loveliness and
mock-reprobation of her equivocal position at court, Frances Stuart
created still deeper passions in men more highly placed than he.
Apart from her royal lover, there were two nobles, the Dukes of York
and Richmond who contended for her hand, with the result of victory
finally resting with the latter. But the match had to be a runaway
one. The king was in no mood to part with his favourite, and so the
lovers arranged a meeting at the Bear, where a coach was in waiting
to spirit them away into Kent. No wonder Charles was offended,
especially when the lady sent him back his presents.

Nearly a century and a half has passed since the Bear finally closed
its doors. All through the lively years of the Restoration it
maintained its reputation as a house of good cheer and a wholly
desirable rendezvous, and it figures not inconspicuously in the
social life of London down to 1761. By that time the ever-increasing
traffic over the Thames bridge had made the enlargement of that
structure a necessity, and the Bear was among the buildings which
had to be demolished.

Further south in the High street, and opposite the house in which
John Harvard, the founder of America's oldest university, was born,
stood the Boar's Head, an inn which was once the property of Sir