CHAPTER V

CONTEMPORARY EVIDENCE

I proceed to quote four accounts of the Fire from eye-witnesses. Between them one arrives at a very fair understanding of the magnitude of the disaster, the horrors of the Fire, especially at night, and the wretchedness of the poor people, crouched over the wreck and remnant of their property.

“Here”—Evelyn is the first of the four—“we saw the Thames covered with floating goods, all the barges and boates laden with what some had time and courage to save, as on the other, the carts carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with movables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! Such as happly the world had not seene the like since the foundation of it, nor be outdone till the universal conflagration of it. All the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seene above 40 miles round for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame: the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of Towers, Houses and Churches, was like a hideous storm, and the aire all about so hot and inflamed, that at the last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for neere two miles in length and one in bredth. The clowds also of smoke were dismall and reached upon computation neere 56 mile in length. Thus I left it this afternoone burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. It forcibly called to my mind that passage _non enim hic habemus stabilem civitatem_: the ruines resembling the picture of Troy. London was, but is no more.”

The next day he went to see the Fire again. All Fleet Street and the parts around it were in flames, the lead running down the streets in a stream, the stones of St. Paul’s “flying like granados.” The people, to the number of 200,000, had taken refuge in St. George’s Fields and Moorfields as far as Islington and Highgate; there Evelyn visited them; they were lying beside their heaps of salvage, of all ranks and degrees, deploring their loss, and though ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one penny for relief. It was not money they wanted, it was food and shelter. Can one conceive a picture more sorrowful than that of 200,000 people thus wholly ruined? Evelyn went home, and at once set to work on a plan for the reconstruction of the City.

Pepys has preserved fuller details:—

“So I down to the water-side, and there got a boat and through bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Michell’s house, as far as the Old Swan, already burned that way, and the fire running further, that in a very little time it got as far as the Steelyard while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off: poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till some of them burned their wings and fell down. Having staid, and in an hour’s time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but only to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the Steelyard, and the wind mighty high and driving it into the City, and everything after so long a drought, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs. —— lives, and whereof my old schoolfellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top and there burned till it fell down: I to White Hall (with a gentleman with me who desired to go off from the Tower to see the Fire, in my boat), and to White Hall, and there up to the King’s closett in the Chappell, where people come about me, and I did give them an account dismayed them all, and the word was carried in to the King. So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of York what I saw, and that unless His Majesty did command houses to be pulled down, nothing could stop the fire.”... “Walked along Watling Street, as well as I could, every creature coming away loaden with goods to save, and here and there sicke people carried away in beds. Extraordinary good goods carried in carts and on backs. At last met ye Lord Mayor in Canning Street, like a man spent, with a handkercher about his neck. To the King’s message he cried like a fainting woman, ‘Lord! what can I do? I am spent; people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses: but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.’ That he needed no more soldiers: and that, for himself, he must go and refresh himself, having been up all night. So he left me, and I him, and walked home, seeing people all almost distracted, and no manner of means used to quench the fire. The houses, too, so very thick thereabouts, and full of matter for burning, as pitch and tarr, in Thames Street: and warehouses of oyle, and wines, and brandy and other things.... And to see the churches all filling with goods by people who themselves should have been quietly there at this time.... Soon as dined, I and Moone away, and walked through the City, the streets full of nothing but people and horses and carts loaden with goods, ready to run over one another, and removing goods from one burned house to another. They now removing out of Canning Street (which received goods in the morning) into Lombard Street and further: and among others I now saw my little goldsmith Stokes, receiving some friend’s goods, whose house itself was burned the day after. We parted at Paul’s: he home, and I to Paul’s Wharf, where I had appointed a boat to attend me, and took in Mr. Carcasse and his brother, whom I met in the streets, and carried them below and above bridge to and again to see the fire, which was now got further, both below and above, and no likelihood of stopping it. Met with the King and Duke of York in their barge, and with them to Queenhithe, and there called Sir Richard Browne to them. Their order was only to pull down houses apace, and so below bridge at the water side: but little was or could be done, the fire coming upon them so fast. Good hopes there was of stopping it at the Three Cranes above, and at Buttolph’s Wharf below bridge, if care be used: but the wind carries it into the City, so as we know not by the water-side what it do there. River full of lighters, and boats taking in goods, and good goods swimming in the water, and only I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of Virginals in it.... So near the fire as we could for smoke: and all over the Thames, with one’s face in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops. This is very true: so as houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire, three or four, nay, five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little ale-house on the Bank-side over against the Three Cranes, and there staied till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow: and as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbara and her husband away before us. We staid till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long: it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire, and flaming at once: and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruine.... I up to the top of Barking steeple, and there saw the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw: everywhere great fires, oyle-cellars, and brimstone, and other things burning.... Walked into the town and find Fenchurch Streete, Gracious Streete, and Lumbard Streete all in dust. The Exchange a sad sight, nothing standing there, of all the statues or pillars, but Sir Thomas Gresham’s picture in the corner. Walked into Moorfields (our feet ready to burn walking through the towne among the hot coles), and find that full of people, and poor wretches carrying their goods there, and everybody keeping his goods together by themselves (and a great blessing it is to them that it is fair weather for them to keep abroad night and day).... To Bishop’s gate, where no fire had yet been near, and there is now one broken out: which did give great grounds to people, and to me too, to think that there is some kind of plot in this (on which many by this time have been taken, and it hath been dangerous for any stranger to walk in the streets), but I went with the men, and we did put it out in a little time: so that it was well again. It was pretty to see how hard the women did work in the cannells sweeping of water: but then they would scold for drink, and be as drunk as devils. I saw good butts of sugar broke open in the street, and people go and take handsfull out, and put into beer, and drink it. And now all being pretty well, I took boat, and over to Southwarke, and took boat to the other side the bridge, and so to Westminster, thinking to shift myself, being all in dirt from top to bottom: but could not find there any place to buy a shirt or pair of gloves, Westminster Hall being full of people’s goods, those in Westminster having removed all their goods, and the Exchequer money put into vessels to carry to Nonsuch: but to the Swan and there was trimmed: and then to White Hall, but saw nobody, and so home. A sad sight to see how the River looks: no houses nor church near it, to the Temple where it stopped.”

Here is a letter addressed to Lord Conway a few days after the Great Fire:—

“Alas, my lord, all London almost within the walls, and some part of it which was without the walls, lies now in ashes. A most lamentable devouring fire began upon Sunday morning last, at one of the clock, at a baker’s house in Pudding Lane beyond the bridge, immediately burned down all the new houses upon the bridge, and left the old ones standing, and so came on into Thames Street, and went backwards towards the Tower, meeting with nothing by the way but old paper buildings and the most combustible matter of tar, pitch, hemp, rosin, and flax, which was all laid up thereabouts: so that in six hours it became a large stream of fire, at least a mile long, and could not possibly be approached or quenched. And that which contributed to the devastation was the extreme dryness of the season, which laid all the springs so low, that no considerable quantity of water could be had, either in pipes or conduits: and above all, a most violent and tempestuous east wind, which had sometimes one point towards the north, then again a point towards the south, as if it have been sent on purpose to help the fire to execute upon the City the commission which it had from Heaven.

From Thames Street it went up Fish Street Hill into Canning Street, Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street, Cornhill, Bartholomew Lane, Lothbury, Austin Friars, and Broad Street northwards, and likewise into Fenchurch Street and Lime Street, burning down all the churches, the Royal Exchange, and all the little lanes and alleys as it went. From thence westward it swept away Friday Street, Watling Street, Cheapside, Newgate market, and the Prison, Paternoster Row, St. Sepulchre’s, and so up to Smithfield Bars, and down to Holborn bridge. Also all St. Paul’s Churchyard, the roof of Paul’s Church, Ludgate Hill, part of Fleet Street, Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and all the Inner Temple, till it came to the Hall, a corner of which had taken fire, and was there most happily quenched, as likewise in Fleet St. over against St. Dunstan’s Church: else, for aught appears, it might have swept away Whitehall and all the City of Westminster too, which is now left standing, together with all the suburbs: viz. the Strand, Covent Garden, Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn fields, Holborn as far as the Bridge, and all Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, and St. John Street.

Of the City itself, from the Tower unto Temple Bar, remains only all Smithfield and St. Bartholomew’s, being stopped there before it came to Sir Elias Harvey’s, wherefrom, together with Sir John Shaw’s and Gresham College and so forward, are preserved: all Bishopsgate Street, Leadenhall Street, Duke’s Place, and so to Aldgate.

But ’tis fit your lordship should know that all that is left, both of City and suburbs, is acknowledged, under God, to be wholly due to the King and Duke of York, who, when the citizens had abandoned all further care of the place, were intent chiefly upon the preservation of their goods, undertook the work themselves, and with incredible magnanimity rode up and down, giving orders for blowing up of houses with gunpowder, to make void spaces for the fire to die in, and standing still to see those orders executed, exposing their persons not only to the multitude, but to the very flames themselves, and the ruins of buildings ready to fall upon them, and sometimes labouring with their own hands to give example to others: for which the people do now pay them, as they ought to do, all possible reverence and admiration. The King proceeds daily to relieve all the poor people with infinite quantities of bread and cheese, and in this is truly God’s vicegerent, that he does not only save from fire but give life too.

I believe there was never any such desolation by fire since the destruction of Jerusalem, nor will be till the last and general conflagration. Had your lordship been at Kensington you would have thought—for five days together, for so long the fire lasted—it had been Doomsday, and that the heavens themselves had been on fire; and the fearful cries and howlings of undone people did much increase the resemblance. My walks and gardens were almost covered with the ashes of papers, linen, etc., and pieces of ceiling and plaister-work blown thither by the tempest.

The loss is inestimable, and the consequence to all public and private affairs not presently imaginable, but in appearance very dreadful: yet I doubt not but the king and his people will be able to weather it out, though our enemies grow insolent upon it.

The greatest part of the wealth is saved, the loss having chiefly fallen upon heavy goods, wine, tobacco, sugars, etc.; but all the money in specie, plate, jewels, etc., were sent into the Tower, where it now lies; and the Tower itself had been fired, but that it preserved itself by beating down the houses about it, playing continually with their cannon upon all that was fired, and so stopped the progress.

So great was the general despair, that when the fire was in the Temple, houses in the Strand, adjoining to Somerset House, were blown up on purpose to save that house, and all men, both in City and suburbs, carried away their goods all day and night by carts, which were not to be had but at most inhumane prices. Your lordship’s servant in Queen Street made a shift to put some of your best chairs and fine goods into your rich coach, and sent for my horses to draw them to Kensington, where they now are.

Without doubt there was nothing of plot or design in all this, though the people would fain think otherwise. Some lay it upon the French and Dutch, and are ready to knock them all on the head, wheresoever they meet them; others upon the fanatics, because it broke out so near the 3rd of September, their so celebrated day of triumph; others upon the Papists, because some of them are now said to be in arms; but ’tis no otherwise than as part of those militias which are, or ought to be, in a posture everywhere.

All the stories of making and casting of fire-balls are found to be mere fictions when they are traced home; for that which was said to be thrown upon Dorset House was a firebrand, seen by the Duke of York upon the Thames to be blown thither, and upon notice thereof given by his highness was for that time quenched. But there could be no plot without some time to form it in: and making so many parties to it, we must needs have had some kind of intelligence of it: besides, no rising follows it, nor any army appears anywhere to second such a design. Above all, there hath been no attempt upon the King or Duke’s person, which might easily have been executed had this been any effect of treason.

Men begin now everywhere to recover their spirits again and think of repairing the old and rebuilding a new City. I am told this day by Mr. Chichely the City have sent to the King to desire a new model. Vaults are daily opened wherein are found immense quantities of pepper, spices, and wines, oils and sugars, etc., safe and untouched, though the houses were fired: but all the cloth laid in St. Faith’s Church under St. Paul’s is burnt. Gresham College is set apart for an Exchange and Post Office. Leadenhall is to supply the uses of Guildhall; and without doubt, when the Parliament meets, as much will be done towards the restoring of the City, and in it of the kingdom, to its ancient lustre and esteem, as can be expected from the piety and policy of so dutiful an assembly.”

The fourth eye-witness whom I shall quote is a certain Edward Atkyns in a letter preserved in the _London and Middlesex Note-book_ (p. 171):—

“GOOD BROTHER—I received your letter and shall give you ye best account I can of our late sad fire, though it is scarcely possible for any man fully to describe it. It began at a Baker’s house in Pudding Lane, near Thames Street, on Sunday morning about 2 or 3 of ye clock: and burnt doone several houses, but could not be quencht in regard it was a narrow place where engines could not play, and ye Lord Maior did not think fit to pull doone eny houses to prevent ye further spreading of ye fire: about 10 of ye clock, whilst we were at church, there was a cry in the streets yt ye Dutch and French were in armes, and had fired the Citty, and therefore ye Ministers dismist their several congregations, but wee yt were soe remote thought little of it. In the afternoon I went into the temple garden, where I saw it had made an unhappy progresse, and had consumed towards the Thames side many houses and 2 or 3 churches, as Laurence Pointney Church, which I saw strongly fired, and other churches, and at last growing violent, and meeting with many wharfes, and the wind being high, it grew very formidable, and we began to thinke of its nearer approach. By Monday morning it had burnt doone all Thames Street, New Fish Street, and some part of Cannon Street, and thereupon ye Citizens began to neglect ye fire, and in fine, and to be short, by Wednesday evening it had burnt all the City: yesterday I went from St. Dunstan’s Church to Bpgates Street, and there is not one house standing betwixt those places, there one only within the wall, but a part of these 3 streets remaining, viz. part of Leadenhall Street, Basinghall and Bpgates Street, all the rest burnt to the ground, and not so much as a considerable piece of timber as I could see saved from the fire: it is impossible almost to conceive the total destruction, all the churches burnt, nay, some of ye churches, as Bow Church and ... have not so much as the walls standing: all the Halls, as Guild-hall, Merchant Taylors, Mercers Chapel, Old Exchange, burnt downe to the ground, soe yt you can hardly tell where such a Parish or place was: I can say but this, that there is nothing but stones and rubbish, and all exposed to the open aire, soe yt you may see from one end of ye Citty almost to the other. St. Paul’s Church, ye very stones, are crumbled and broken into shivers, and slatts, and you can compare London (were yt not for ye rubbish) to nothing more than an open field. The Citizens were forced to remove their goods into the open fields, and £2:10 a Cart was no deare value to carry away ye goods, the inner Temple almost all burnt, and pulled down except ye Temple Church, ye Hall much defaced, and ye Exchequer Office, Sergeants Inn in Fleet Street, and all to St. Dunstan’s Church, and soe on ye other side to Holborne Bridge: ye King and Duke of Yorke were exceedingly active, or otherwise I doubt the suburbs would have undergone ye same calamity. Some have conceived it was a plott, but most, and ye King himself, believed yt it was only ye Hand of God. Ye King comforts ye Citizens with ye rebuilding of ye Citty, but God knows when yt will be: ye Exchange is now kept at Gresham College, where I heard yesterday there was a full exchange of Merchants. My father’s house at St. Ellens stands well; the fire began to seize upon Chancery Lane, having burnt up Fetter Lane, and came as far as Brides Lane and Whites Alley, but, blessed be God, suppressed, and all things safe at your house and chambers: but Mr. Hainson of Cateaton Street Mr. Lowe has enquired for, and cannot hear of him, his house suffered the same calamity. Dr. Tillotson has lost many goods and £100 worth of books: he has taken a house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where his father-in-law purposes to remain. 40,000 quarters of Corne destroyed in Bridewell—being the City—store. Sir William Backhouse has lost £1600 per an. in houses and in the benefit of ye New River. Sir R. Lucy and ye Lady Allen and Lady Fairfax about 3 or 400 per an. Sir Richard Browne’s house burnt to the ground, where he has sustained great losses, and my brother Broone likewise, for my sister being then ill, all the care was to remove her. They and all now at ye Red Lyon, Holborne, my sister at her sister Howards house at Rockhampton. My father came up on Monday, and staid removing his goods till Wednesday morning, and I sat up all ye night, but through Mercy, Chancery Lane is yet standing, except St. John’s Head next Lincolns ... was pulled doone by way of prevention, and another house towards Holborne. The Parliament will certainly meet at ye day: ye Duke of Albemarle is now in London. There was a flying report of an engagement at sea, but not confirmed. Several persons, foreigners, are in prison upon suspicion, but little will be made of it, as I am informed the Attorney-General very ill. My father and his family are well at Albany, where my wife went on Thursday last. I had gone my circuit and my last two counties this week, but ye fire prevented my intentions. If we cannot find out your cousin Harrison I’le go to Totnam on Tuesday next and inquire after him, and how it stands in reference to your goods in his custody; but I believe he having notice sufficient, and being a prudent man, has secured both his owne and youre goods. Houses are now at an excessive value, and my Lord Treasurer’s new buildings are now in great request. I think it best yt you remove noe goods either in your house or chambers, for I doe believe ye danger is well over, only we have frequent alarms of fire, sometimes in one place and then in another: it only now burns in cellars and warehouses, where either coals, spirits, or other combustible matters were lodged. I thinke it convenient yt you be here agst the sitting of Parliament, for there will be need of you: great watch is kept, for though the judgements of God have been soe remarkable, yet you would wonder at ye profaneness of people, and how little some are concerned in this sad calamity. My hearty service to my sister and nephew, Sir Robert: my father writt a letter this week to you, but no post went, and I cannot come at ye letter. My mother has had a great loss in her house by Ludgate—for what service I can perform pray command me. My paper bids me end. Our navy is come into St. Helen’s Bay.—I am your ever loving brother, most ready to serve you,

EDW. ATKYNS.”

The following account is from Dean Milman’s _Annals of St. Paul’s_.

“A certain Doctor Taswell remembered well the awful event, for it happened between his election and admission as a king’s scholar at Westminster. It was likely to be graven deeply on the memory of a boy. ‘On Sunday between ten and eleven, just as I was standing upon the steps leading up to the pulpit in Westminster Abbey, I discovered some people below me, running to and fro in a seeming inquietude and consternation; immediately almost a report reached my ears that London was in a conflagration. Without any ceremony I took leave of the preacher, and having ascended the Parliament steps near the Thames, I soon perceived four boats crowded with objects of distress. These had escaped from the fire scarce under any covering but that of a blanket.’

The next day (Monday) Dolben, then Dean of Westminster, set gallantly forth at the head of the Westminster boys (the Dean, by Taswell’s account, had frequently in the civil wars mounted guard as sentinel) to do what they could to render assistance in staying the fire. They went a long way, for they aided in saving the Church of St. Dunstan in the East by fetching water from the back sides of the building, and so extinguishing the fire. Taswell acted as a sort of aide-de-camp page to the Dean. During this expedition Taswell may have heard or seen what he relates about St. Paul’s. ‘The people who lived contiguous to St. Paul’s Church raised their expectations greatly concerning the absolute security of that place upon account of the immense thickness of its walls and its situation, built on a large piece of ground on every side remote from houses.’ Upon that account they filled it with all sorts of goods; and besides, in the Church of St. Faith, under that of St. Paul, they deposited libraries of books, because it was entirely arched over; and with great caution and prudence even the least avenue, through which the smallest spark could penetrate, was stopped up. ‘But,’ Taswell proceeds, ‘this precaution availed them little. As I stood upon the bridge (a small one over a creek at the foot of what is now Westminster Bridge), among many others, I could not but observe the progress of the fire towards that venerable fabric. About eight o’clock it broke out on the top of St. Paul’s Church, almost scorched up by the violent heat of the air and lightning too, and before nine blazed so conspicuously as to enable me to read very clearly a 16mo. edition of Terence which I carried in my pocket.’ This was on Tuesday 4th; on Thursday, like a bold boy, Taswell, soon after sunrising, endeavoured to reach St. Paul’s. ‘The ground was so hot as almost to scorch my shoes, and the air so intensely warm, that unless I had stopped some time upon Fleet Bridge to rest myself, I must have fainted under the extreme languor of my spirits. After giving myself a little time to breathe, I made the best of my way to St. Paul’s.

And now let any person judge of the extreme emotion I was in when I perceived the metal belonging to the bells melting, the ruinous condition of the walls, with heaps of stones, of a large circumference, tumbling down with a great noise just upon my feet, ready to crush me to death. I prepared myself for retiring back again, having first loaded my pockets with several pieces of bell-metal.

I forgot to mention that near the east end of St. Paul’s’ (he must have got quite round the church) ‘a human body presented itself to me, parched up as it were with the flames, white as to skin, meagre as to flesh, yellow as to colour. This was an old decrepit woman who fled here for safety, imagining the flames would not have reached her there; her clothes were burned, and every limb reduced to a coal. In my way home I saw several engines which were bringing up to its assistance, all on fire, and those engaged with them escaping with all eagerness from the flames, which spread instantaneous almost like a wildfire, and at last, _accoutred with my sword and helmet_, which I picked up among many others in the ruins, I traversed this torrid zone back again.’

Taswell relates that the papers from the books in St. Faith’s were carried with the wind as far as Eton. The Oxonians observed the rays of the sun tinged with an unusual kind of redness, a black darkness seemed to cover the whole atmosphere. To impress this more deeply on Taswell’s memory, his father’s house was burned and plundered by officious persons offering to aid.”