The King's Head Tavern, described by North as "over against" (meaning opposite) the Inner Temple Gate, was at the corner of Fleet Street and Chancery Lane, on the east side of the latter thoroughfare.
Roger North tells us that they admitted all strangers that were confidingly introduced, for it was the main end of their institutions to make proselytes, especially of the raw estated youth newly come to town.
[1] From such sources it appears that the Duke of Monmouth himself, and statesmen like Halifax, Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Macclesfield, Cavendish, Bedford, Grey of Warke, were among those who fraternized at the King's Head Tavern with third-rate writers such as Scroop, Mulgrave and Shadwell; with remnants of the Cromwellian régime like Lord Falconbridge, John Claypole and Henry Ireton (two sons-in-law and a grandson of the old Protector);[3] with such profligates as Lord Howard of Escrick and Sir Henry Blount; and with scoundrels of the type of Dangerfield and Oates.
[4] Slander of the court or the Tories was invented in the club and sedulously spread over the town, and measures were concerted there for pushing on the Exclusion Bill, or for promoting the pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth.
North relates that every post conveyed the news and tales legitimated there, as also the malign constructions of all the good actions of the government, especially to places where elections were depending, to shape men's characters into fit qualifications to be chosen or rejected.
[4] The failure to carry the Exclusion Bill, one of the favourite projects of the faction, was a blow to its influence, which declined rapidly after the flight of Shaftesbury, the confiscation of the city of London's charter, and the discovery of the Rye House Plot, in which many of its members were implicated.