Beginning History: The Great Fire Of London

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Sabur, Rozina (2 September 2016). "The Great Fire of London, 350th anniversary: How did it start and what happened?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022.

In those days when people wrote diaries, instead of using pens they dipped feather tips in ink and wrote with that instead. Radical rebuilding schemes poured in for the gutted City and were encouraged by Charles. [134] Apart from Wren and Evelyn, it is known that Robert Hooke, Valentine Knight, and Richard Newcourt proposed rebuilding plans. [135] All were based on a grid system, which became prevalent in the American urban landscape. If it had been rebuilt under some of these plans, London would have rivalled Paris in Baroque magnificence. According to archaeologist John Schofield, Wren's plan "would have probably encouraged the crystallisation of the social classes into separate areas", similar to Haussmann's renovation of Paris in the mid-1800s. [136] Wren's plan was particularly challenging to implement because of the need to redefine property titles. [137] Samuel Pepys ascended the Tower of London on Sunday morning to view the fire from the battlements. He recorded in his diary that the eastern gale had turned it into a conflagration. It had burned down an estimated 300 houses and reached the riverfront. The houses on London Bridge were burning. He took a boat to inspect the destruction around Pudding Lane at close range and describes 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 water-side to another." Pepys continued westward on the river to the court at Whitehall, "where people come about me, and did give them an account dismayed them all, and the word was carried into the King. So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of Yorke what I saw, and that unless His Majesty did command houses to be pulled down nothing could stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and the King commanded me to go to my Lord Mayor from him and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down before the fire every way." Charles' brother James, Duke of York, offered the use of the Royal Life Guards to help fight the fire. [50] [51] Jones, J.R (2013). The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century Modern Wars In Perspective. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-89948-8.

On 5 October, Marc Antonio Giustinian, Venetian Ambassador in France, reported to the Doge of Venice and the Senate, that Louis XIV announced that he would not "have any rejoicings about it, being such a deplorable accident involving injury to so many unhappy people". Louis had made an offer to his aunt, the British Queen Henrietta Maria, to send food and whatever goods might be of aid in alleviating the plight of Londoners, yet he made no secret that he regarded "the fire of London as a stroke of good fortune for him" as it reduced the risk of French ships crossing the English Channel being taken or sunk by the English fleet. [129] [130] Louis tried to take advantage but an attempt by a Franco-Dutch fleet to combine with a larger Dutch fleet ended in failure on 17 September at the Battle of Dungeness when they encountered a larger English fleet led by Thomas Allin. [131] Rebuilding John Evelyn's plan, never carried out, for rebuilding a radically different City of London Christopher Wren's rejected plan for the rebuilding of London a b c d e Hebbert, Michael (2020). "The long after-life of Christopher Wren's short-lived London plan of 1666". Planning Perspectives. 35 (2): 231–252. doi: 10.1080/02665433.2018.1552837.

Topic Guides – Explore our topic guides and discover teaching ideas, resources, facts, videos and books that will help you to teach your children about a wide range of topics and themes. Rege Sincera (pseudonym), Observations both Historical and Moral upon the Burning of London, September 1666, quoted by Hanson, 80 Despite this, residents were inclined to put the blame for the fire on foreigners, particularly Catholics, the French, and the Dutch. [120] Trained bands were put on guard and foreigners arrested in locations throughout England. [121] An example of the urge to identify scapegoats for the fire is the acceptance of the confession of a simple-minded French watchmaker named Robert Hubert, who claimed that he was a member of a gang that had started the Great Fire in Westminster. He later changed his story to say that he had started the fire at the bakery in Pudding Lane. Hubert was convicted, despite some misgivings about his fitness to plead, and hanged at Tyburn on 29 October 1666. After his death, it became apparent that he had been on board a ship in the North Sea, and had not arrived in London until two days after the fire started. [122] [123] Field, Jacob (2017). London, Londoners and the Great Fire of 1666: Disaster and Recovery. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-09932-3. Not everyone at the time thought that the fire was an accident. Some said foreigners caused it. Others felt that the fire was started by those not free to follow their own religion. Some even saw the fire as a punishment from God.Townspeople: Fire! Fire! We need to tell somebody about this… I wish someone would invent the telephone. And the fire brigade.Let’s get The Lord Mayor. A fire broke out at Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane [a] a little after midnight on Sunday 2 September. The family was trapped upstairs but managed to climb from an upstairs window to the house next door, except for a maidservant who was too frightened to try, thus becoming the first victim. [46] The neighbours tried to help douse the fire; after an hour, the parish constables arrived and judged that the adjoining houses had better be demolished to prevent further spread. The householders protested, and Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth was summoned to give his permission. [47]