1666
September the 1st was a quiet night. Sir Julius lay peacefully in the big house behind St Mary-le-Bow. It had been a long, pleasant summer and the family had only returned from Bocton the week before. It was Sunday tomorrow. About midnight he awoke briefly and went to the window. The air was pleasantly cool, with a hint of breeze coming from the east. He took a few deep breaths, then went back to bed.
At about one o’clock in the morning he arose again. Had he heard something? He looked out of the window. Was there, perhaps, a faint sound coming from the direction of London Bridge? Outside, the courtyard was like a dark well. A faint sheen of starlight touched the steep rooftops all around. He listened, but after a minute or two decided he had heard nothing so he returned to bed and fell asleep.
It was nearly four in the morning when his wife woke him. This time there was no doubt. Over the rooftops on his left, he could see a faint glow. Flames and hot ashes must be rising into the sky somewhere near the bridge. Probably not close. “But I’ll go and see,” he said.
He pulled on some clothes and left the house.
It was a fire, but not a very big one. It had begun some time after midnight in a baker’s house down a narrow street off East Cheap, called Pudding Lane. A maidservant who had panicked and run up into the roof had been trapped and burned to death. The fire had spread to about a dozen of the huddled little houses now, but he had often seen worse blazes than this. The men were throwing buckets of water on it, without much conviction. As Julius turned to go home he met the mayor.
“They called me out,” the mayor said irritably.
“It seems no great affair,” Julius remarked.
“A woman could piss it out,” the mayor grumbled, and stomped off.
This crude and famous verdict would not have gone down in history, and the fire in Pudding Lane would be entirely forgotten if it had not been for one extra factor which neither man noticed at the time.
The wind was getting up. By the time Julius was safely back in his bed, the breeze was sprightly. At the moment when, with his arm round his wife, he fell asleep again, the wind had carried the sparks and embers across to the next street, which led straight on to London Bridge. At dawn, the church of St Magnus the Martyr went. Soon afterwards, the fire reached the bridge. By mid-morning it was threatening the warehouses along the river.
By the time Julius went out again and made his way over to a vantage point near the top of Cornhill, he could see a huge conflagration spreading all round the head of the bridge. Two, perhaps three hundred of the tightly packed houses, he guessed, might be in flames. The crackle and roar reverberated all around the city now. So fascinated was he that he stood up there for more than two hours before making his way down the hill, skirting the fire as close as he dared, and then walking back up Watling Street. It was there that he encountered young Richard Meredith talking to a gentleman he introduced as Mr Pepys. This gentleman, who seemed to have seen more than most, was scathing.
“I saw both the king and his brother at Whitehall,” he was saying. “They sent orders to pull down houses to make firebreaks, but because the city authorities are afraid the owners may demand compensation, they’re leaving the houses untouched!”
“Have you seen the mayor?” Julius asked.
“Five minutes past. First he almost weeps; then he says no one will obey him; then he says he’s tired and going to dinner. Contemptible.”
“So what will happen?”
“The fire,” Pepys said, “will rage.”
During the afternoon O Be Joyful told his family to be ready to move. The fire had been growing steadily. A stream of carts piled with people’s possessions had been labouring up Watling Street from the London Bridge area for some time.
O Be Joyful had been increasingly conscious of his responsibility in the last few months. The time on the river and the general disruption of the plague had left Martha somewhat weakened. That spring he had persuaded her to live with them and her daily proximity could not fail to remind him that he was expected to take Gideon’s place. With four children to think of now, as well, he knew it was his duty to give leadership. If only, he wished, these things came to him more naturally.
Nonetheless, he acted decisively now. A friend with lodgings at Shoreditch had agreed to take them in. If need be, they would be ready. And he was satisfied that his duty had been done when Martha had suddenly announced: “I want to go and see if my old friend Mrs Bundy is safe.”
He knew this godly woman slightly and offered to go himself. “But you’ve never been to her lodgings,” Martha had pointed out; so they set off together. As they descended Watling Street and crossed Walbrook the billowing smoke over the bridge area rose several hundred feet. As they passed the London Stone, Martha indicated a narrow street on the right and, with a resolute face, headed downhill, straight towards the fire.
If any explanation of the fire’s unstoppable growth were needed, the scene before them certainly provided it. The narrow street, the wooden and plaster houses (the orders to build in brick or stone were always ignored, every century), the upper storeys that jutted out, each one further than the one before until they practically touched the house opposite: this huddled mass of tenements, courtyards and wooden structures that leaned this way and that, sagging and stooping like a row of drunken old gossips, was in reality nothing more or less than a huge tinderbox. Worse yet: people trying to put out fires in a hurry had already broken open the wooden water-pipes in the street to fill buckets, then left them gushing; consequently, the water cisterns, even from Myddelton’s New Canal, had all run dry. As O Be Joyful looked down the street, he could see the fire steadily eating its way from house to house.
Yet strangest of all, he realized, was the behaviour of the people. For if the richer citizens were making off with their valuable goods, the poor, with nothing except the roof over their heads, were often remaining huddled in their houses in the hope that the fire might somehow stop before it reached them. He could see whole families coming out of tenements even after the roof of their house had started to burn.
The tenement Martha sought lay halfway down the street, some fifty yards from the edge of the fire. When they got there O Be Joyful offered to go in but she told him: “I know where she is. Keep watch outside.” And he saw her enter the hallway and disappear up the stairs.
The progress of the fire was frightening, yet also fascinating. The brown and grey smoke rose above him now like a great wall, shutting off the whole sky. The heat was soon so great that he had to put his hand over his face. The air was full of glowing sparks and embers. Several fell close by him. He could see others lodging on roofs where little fires were breaking out. Above all, he was struck by the terrifying sounds of the fire, the crackle, the bursting bangs, the growing roar as it ate its way from house to house. Soon it was only thirty yards away. But where was Martha? Surely, even if Mrs Bundy was in there, she could not be much longer?
The bang, and the roaring tongue of flame that shot through the house took him completely by surprise. The hot wave of air almost knocked him off his feet. As he scrambled up, he could see glowing flames at some of the windows. Smoke was starting to billow under the roof. How had that happened? And then he suddenly realized: he had forgotten about the rear of the houses. The fire had come roaring in from the back.
He ran to the hallway and the foot of the staircase, calling out Martha’s name. But the roar of the fire all around must have prevented her hearing him. Somewhere above he could hear a crackle of flame. Smoke was oozing out from under the floorboards. He started up the stairs, still calling.
Then another great crack and a rushing sound, above him. God knew what was happening up there. He hesitated. He was not sure what part of the house she was in. He turned, ran back down the few stairs he had climbed and went out into the street.
“Martha,” he cried. “Martha!” The fire had attacked houses right up the street. He glanced around to make sure he still had a line of
retreat. “Martha!”
Then he saw her. She was at a small window, up on the top floor under the roof. Frantically he waved at her to come down. She made a sign he did not understand. Was she trapped? He signalled he was coming, and rushed inside. Moments later he was running up the stairs.
Crash. Something, a beam he thought, had fallen up above. Bang. Another. A pall of smoke hung over the stairs ahead of him. From his left, at the rear of the house, a loud crackle. Some plaster fell, only ten feet from him. Flames came through. He must hurry. He pressed on. The stairway creaked as he went up. A burst of flame shot out from the top floor. He gasped, stood still. And then his heart failed him. He went no further, but turned and fled. Moments later he was looking up at Martha again. He made a sign to her, as though to indicate that the stairs were impassable. Her pale round face continued to gaze down at him.
“Jump,” he cried; but only to salve his conscience. Had she done so it would probably have killed her; anyway, the window was too small. “Martha!” Smoke was billowing out from under the eaves. Was she crying out? They just stood, looking at each other, for fully a minute until, with a roar, he saw the roof turn into a torch. Timbers started to fall; flames were pouring out of her window. And then he saw she was no longer there.
The fire was coming so close that he could not stand the heat. He backed away, wondering if by some miracle she might come running out.
The mayor was relieved of his responsibility for fire control on Monday morning. The wind was strong; but the fire was so large now that it seemed to create winds of its own. Not only was it being blown right along the riverbank westward towards Blackfriars, but it was marching north, almost as fast, up the slope of the eastern hill. Early in the morning, soon after Julius had supervised the third cartload of possessions to leave the house and told his family to make themselves ready for a return to Bocton, he heard the good news that the king’s brother James, the Duke of York, had arrived in the city with a body of troops. James was a solid fellow, a naval man. Perhaps he could restore order.
Sure enough, as soon as he went out, he saw the duke’s handsome figure directing his men at the bottom of Watling Street. They were about to blow up half a dozen houses with gunpowder. He went to pay his respects.
“If we enlarge this street,” James explained to him, “perhaps we can make a firebreak.” They retreated a short way and took cover. There was a huge boom. “And now, Sir Julius,” the duke asked smilingly, “are you helping us?”
A few moments later, to his great surprise, Julius found himself with a leather helmet on his head and a fire-axe in his hand, working alongside the duke and a dozen others similarly clad, pulling down walls and timbers to make the firebreak. It was hard work and he might have been glad to stop when, glancing at another man who had just started to work beside him, he realized that there was something familiar about the big, swarthy fellow; and a moment later, with a little rush of joy and excitement, he saw that it was the king.
“Should Your Majesty be doing this?” he asked.
“Preserving my kingdom, Sir Julius!” The monarch grinned. “You know how I try to hang on to it.”
The firebreak did not work, even so. The fire’s impetus was so strong that, an hour later, it leaped the gap.
It was on Tuesday morning that the most awesome event took place. O Be Joyful watched it from the bottom of Ludgate Hill.
His own house had gone on Monday afternoon. As arranged, he had taken his little family up to Shoreditch and then remained there. News had come all the time. In the evening he heard that the Royal Exchange was in flames; at dawn he knew that St Mary-le-Bow was no more. A little later he had decided to go and see for himself. Walking down to the city gates, however, he found his way blocked. The troops would not let anyone enter. “It’s a furnace,” they told him. The open ground at Moorfields had been turned into a huge encampment for dispossessed people. He had made his way round the old walls, past Smithfield where another little camp had formed by the gates of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and so had come to Ludgate. There was a crowd of people there. He saw good Doctor Meredith who had stayed behind in the plague amongst them. All had their eyes turned up the hill, awestruck.
For St Paul’s was burning down. The huge, grey barn whose long line had hung over the city for almost six centuries; the dark old house of God which had stood sentinel on its western hill since the days of the Normans, enduring storm, lightning and the ravages of time; ancient St Paul’s was slowly crumbling before their eyes. He watched it for over an hour.
He had turned and was walking out along Fleet Street. As he was approaching the Temple, he saw a group of youths. They had backed a young fellow against a wall. It looked as if they meant to harm him. He heard one of them cry: “String him up.”
For a moment he hesitated. They were only youths, but there were a dozen of them and they looked sturdy. He crossed the street to avoid them and proceeded towards the Temple. He heard the young fellow cry out. And then stopped, ashamed.
He still had not told his family exactly what had happened to Martha. From the moment when he had backed up the burning street, he had told himself that there was nothing he could have done. So powerful was his need for this to be true that he had even managed to sleep a whole night believing it. He had still comforted himself with the belief on his way down to the city and all the way to Ludgate. But there he had seen Meredith.
Doctor Meredith, son of the preacher; Meredith who had, unlike most of his profession, stayed in London through the plague, risking his life, no doubt, scores of times. Meredith who, with no claims to any religious calling, had shown himself, in his quiet way, to be stout-hearted.
And what was he? Like an arrow penetrating armour, the question had struck through O Be Joyful’s defences, causing him a spasm of pain. Faint-hearted. Even if Martha could not have been saved, had he really tried? Hadn’t he lost courage when he ran down those stairs? And now it suddenly occurred to him: if you walk by on the other side, you prove your guilt. He turned back, and a moment later was confronting the youths.
“What has he done?” he asked. The young man himself began to respond, but the youths cut him off.
“He started the Fire of London, sir,” they cried.
Even the day before, the rumours had begun. A fire like this could not be the work of chance. Some said it must be the Dutch. But most – perhaps half the good people of London – had a sounder suspicion by far. “It’s the Catholics,” they said. “Who else would do such a thing?”
“But,” the poor boy cried in his broken English, “I am not Catholic! Am Protestant. Huguenot.”
A Huguenot. Despite Englishmen’s fear of the popish leanings of the Stuarts, to any Protestant living in Catholic France the kingdom of England had seemed a safe haven indeed. Massacred by the thousand by a pious French king in 1572, they had been protected from actual violence for a generation by the Edict of Nantes. But these devout French Calvinists were still subject to constant restrictions, and a modest but steady stream of them had come into England where they had been allowed to worship discreetly. Huguenots, they had come to be called.
The young fellow before him, O Be Joyful guessed, was not more than seventeen. He was a slim, intelligent-looking boy, with fine brown hair, but his most noticeable feature was the pair of spectacles he wore, through which he was peering short-sightedly at his assailants.
“You are Protestant?” Carpenter demanded.
“Oui. I swear,” the boy replied.
“But he’s a foreigner. Listen to him,” one of the boys protested. “Let’s give him something to think about.”
O Be Joyful found his courage. Stepping in front of the boy he told them firmly: “I am O Be Joyful Carpenter. My father Gideon fought with Cromwell, and this boy is of our faith. Leave him alone or fight me first.”
He would never be sure what would have happened next if a small patrol of the Duke of York’s men had not ridden into sight from St Clement Danes. Reluctant
ly the youths went off, and he found himself left alone with the young Huguenot.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Down by the Savoy, sir,” the young man replied. There was a little French Protestant community and church there, Carpenter knew. He offered to escort him back.
“You are new here?” he enquired, as they walked.
“I arrived yesterday. To live with my uncle. I am a watchmaker,” the boy volunteered.
“I see. What’s your name?”
“Eugene, sir. Eugene de la Penissière.”
“De la what?” O Be Joyful shook his head. The French name was too much for him. “I’ll never remember that,” he confessed.
“How should I be called, in English, then?” Eugene asked.
“Well,” O Be Joyful considered. The only English word that seemed anything like it was ordinary enough. “I think,” he said, “you’d do better with Penny.”
“Eugene Penny?” The young fellow considered doubtfully. Then his face brightened. “You saved my life, sir. You are a very brave man. If you say I should be called Penny. Alors,” he shrugged and smiled. “Penny. And how may I find you, sir, to give you my proper thanks in future?”
“No need. My home’s gone anyway. But my name is O Be Joyful Carpenter. I’m a woodcarver.”
At the Savoy, the two men parted.
“We shall meet again,” Eugene promised him. But just before turning away he said: “Those boys who wanted to kill me. They were not completely foolish. Non. For this fire – it was surely the work of Catholics.”
And still the fire raged. St Paul’s was gone, a huge, blackened ruin; the Guildhall, Blackfriars, Ludgate. By late Tuesday and Wednesday it even spread outside the walls, along Holborn and Fleet Street. St Bride’s was gone. Only in the open greens around the Temple did the flames meet a firebreak they could not pass. In the east, a huge break created by the Duke of York saved the Tower of London. With this and a small number of other exceptions, the old medieval city within the walls was entirely lost.