My visit home to London last year coincided with the 350
th
anniversary of the
Great Fire of London, probably the most famous event in
English history that isn’t a battle. The anniversary was marked by a special
exhibit at the
Museum of London and a thrilling
reenactment of the blaze in a
replica of the 1666 city constructed on floating barges in the Thames.
As all English schoolchildren learn, the Great Fire broke
out on September 2, 1666 at a bakery in Pudding Lane and soon spread,
raging for three days and destroying most of the medieval city. Eighty-nine
churches,
St. Paul’s Cathedral, numerous public buildings and businesses, and
about 13,000 houses went up in flames. By the time it had burned itself out, only a fifth of the old city was left. The most famous contemporary description
of the fire is by
Samuel Pepys in his
diary. A master of the small human
detail, Pepys gives a vivid account of panicked Londoners, even the birds:
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| Samuel Pepys |
“I rode
down to the waterside, and there saw a lamentable fire. 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 waterside to another. And among other things, the poor
pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the
windows and balconies, till they some of them burned their wings and fell down.”
The
writer
John Evelyn gave a rather more apocalyptic description:
Proving
that scapegoating and conspiracy theories are nothing new, rumors spread that
the Dutch and French were responsible and that foreigners were seen “with balls of wild fire in their
hands.” Preachers blamed the wrath of heaven and warned that worse was to come if Londoners did not repent of their sins.
Of
course, an event as dramatic as the Great Fire has inspired many novelists:
When a
body is found in the smoldering rubble of St. Paul’s Cathedral it turns out the
man died not by fire but from a stab wound. Government spy James Marwood
investigates in an atmosphere of crisis and dissent.
Romance, politics, and intrigue at the Restoration court of Charles II, the Merry Monarch who
surprised his subjects by his bravery in joining the fire fighters.
Called
the Gone With the Wind of English
history, this is the story of a penniless orphan who becomes a mistress to
Charles II and lives through the dramas of his reign including the plague and
the Great Fire of London.
In the
aftermath of the Great Fire, lady’s maid Lucy Campion joins other stunned
Londoners in the clean up effort, but becomes involved in investigating the
death of a man whose body is found in the ruins, mysteriously untouched by
fire.
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| Monument to the Great Fire |
From the ashes of London there arose a more beautiful city, much of it designed by the great architect Sir Christopher Wren. St. Paul’s Cathedral is his crowning achievement, but visitors to London should not miss the many surviving little Wren parish churches scattered throughout the City. A walking tour of these churches is one of the most memorable field trips of my schooldays. On my recent visit to London we made a pilgrimage to the Monument to the Great Fire, also designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which stands at the corner of Pudding Lane. From the top you have a panoramic view of 21st century London, worlds away from the cramped wooden city that burned in 1666.
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| Monument inscription |
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| London skyline seen from the Monument |
Rita T.
Labels: Books, History, Travel
