"Charles the second, son of Charles the martyr, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, a most gracious prince, commiserating the deplorable state of things, while the ruins were yet smoking, provided for the comfort of his citizens and the ornament of his city; remitted their taxes, and referred the petitions of the magistrates and inhabitants to the parliament, who immediately passed an act, that public buildings should be restored to greater beauty with public money, to be raised by an imposition on coals; that churches, and the cathedral of St. Paul's, should be rebuilt from their foundations with all magnificence; that bridges, gates, and prisons should be made new; the sewers cleansed; the streets made strait and regular; such as were steep, levelled, and those too narrow, made wider; markets and shambles removed to separate places. They also enacted, that every house should be built with party walls, and all in front raised of equal height, and those walls all of square stone or brick; and that no man should delay beyond the space of seven years. Moreover, care was taken by law to prevent all suits about their bounds. Also, anniversary prayers were enjoined ;* and to perpetuate the memory hereof to posterity, they caused this column to be erected. The work was carried on with diligence, and London is restored; but whether with greater speed or beauty may be made a question. Three years' time saw that finished which was supposed to be the business of an age."

By stat. 19 and 20 Car. II. it is enacted, That the citizens of London, and their successors for the time to come, may retain the memory of so sad a desolation, and reflect seriously on the manifold iniquities, which are the unhappy causes of such judgments: Be it therefore enacted, That the second day of September (unless the same happen to be Sunday, and if so, then the next day following) be yearly for ever hereafter observed as a day of fasting and humiliation within the said city and liberties thereof, to implore the mercy of Almighty God upon the said city; to make devout prayers and supplications unto Him, to divert the like calamity for the time to come.

The east side over the door, has an inscription thus Englished:

"This pillar was begun, Sir Richard Ford, knight, being lord mayor of London, in the year 1671: carried on in the mayoralties of Sir George Waterman, knight; Sir Robert Hanson, knight; Sir William Hooker, knight; Sir Robert Viner, knight; Sir Joseph Sheldon, knight ; and finished, Sir Thomas Davis, knight, being lord Mayor, in the year 1677."

The inscription on the plinth of the lower pedestal is in page 396.

On a stone in the front of the house built on the spot where the fire began, there was (very lately) the following inscription:

"Here, by the permission of Heaven, hell broke loose on this Protestant city from the malicious hearts of barbarous Papists, by the hand of their agent Hubert, who confessed, and on the ruins of this place declared this fact, for which he was hanged, viz., That he here began the dreadful fire, which is described and perpetuated on and by the neighbouring pillar. Erected 1680, in the mayoralty of Sir Patience Ward, knight."

404

THE EARL OF CLARENDON'S

ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT FIRE

It was upon the first day of that September, in the dismal year of 1666 (in which many prodigies were expected, and so many really fell out), that the memorable and terrible fire brake out in London, which began about midnight, or nearer the morning of Sunday, in a baker's house, at the end of Thames Street, next the Tower, there being many little narrow alleys, and very poor houses about the place where it first appeared; and then finding such store of combustible materials, as that street is always furnished with in timber houses, the fire prevailed so powerfully, that that whole street and the neighbourhood was in so short a time turned to ashes, that few persons had time to save and preserve any of their goods; but were a heap of people almost as dead with the sudden distraction, as the ruins were which they sustained. The magistrates of the city assembled quickly together, and with the usual remedies of buckets, which they were provided with: but the fire was too ravenous to be extinguished with such quantities of water as those instruments could apply to it, and fastened still upon new materials before it had destroyed the old. And though it raged furiously all that day, to that degree that all men stood amazed, as spectators only,

no man knowing what remedy to apply, nor the magistrates what orders to give: yet it kept within some compass, burned what was next, and laid hold only on both sides; and the greatest apprehension was of the Tower, and all considerations entered upon how to secure that place.

But in the night the wind changed, and carried the danger from thence, but with so great and irresistible violence, that it scattered the fire from pursuing the line it was in with all its force, and spread it over the city; so that they, who went late to bed at a great distance from any place where the fire prevailed were awakened before morning with their own houses being in a flame; and whilst endeavour was used to quench that, other houses were discovered to be burning, which were near no place from whence they could imagine the fire could come; all which kindled another fire in the breasts of men, almost as dangerous as that within their houses.

Monday morning produced first a jealousy, and then an universal conclusion, that this fire came not by chance, nor did they care where it began; but the breaking out in several places at so great a distance from each other, made it evident that it was by conspiracy and combination. And this determination could not hold long without the discovery of the wicked authors, who were concluded to be all the Dutch and all the French in the town, though they had inhabited the same places above twenty years. All of that kind, or, if they were strangers, of what nation soever, were laid hold of; and after all the ill usage that can consist in words, and some blows and kicks, they were thrown into prison. And shortly after, the same conclusion comprehended all the Roman Catholics, who were in the same predicament of guilt and danger, and

quickly found that their only safety consisted in keeping within doors; and yet some of them, and of quality, were taken by force out of their houses and carried to prison.

When this rage spread as far as the fire, and every hour brought reports of some bloody effects of it, worse than in truth there were, the king distributed many of the Privy Council into several quarters of the city, to prevent, by their authorities, those inhumanities which he heard were committed. In the meantime, even they, or any other person, thought it not safe to declare, "that they believed that the fire came by accident, or that it was not a plot of the Dutch and the French, and Papists, to burn the city;" which was so generally believed, and in the best company, that he who said the contrary was suspected for a conspirator, or at best a favourer of them. It could not be conceived how a house that was distant a mile from any part of the fire could suddenly be in a flame without some particular malice; and this case fell out every hour. When a man at the farthest end of Bread Street had made a shift to get out of his house his best and most portable goods, because the fire had approached near them, he no sooner had secured them, as he thought, in some friend's house in Holborn, which was believed a safe distance, but he saw that very house, and none else near it, in a sudden flame; nor did there want, in this woeful distemper, the testimony of witnesses who saw this villany committed, and apprehended men who they were ready to swear threw fire-balls into houses, which were presently burning.

The Lord Hollis and Lord Ashley, who had their quarters assigned about Newgate Market and the streets adjacent, had many brought to them in custody for crimes of this nature; and saw, within a very little distance from the place where they were, the people gathered