September 03, 2009
London Burning II: Take Me To The River (1666)
By the time dawn rose, more than 24 hours after a careless baker had set fire to his house, central London was an inferno. Buildings that symbolized centralized authority and communications — the central post office, the printer for the newspaper London Gazette, and the Royal Exchange (the 1660s version of the Mall of America) — were, literally, burning down. Lord Mayor Bloodworth, whose observation that a woman's piss could put out the baker's fire rivals "Dewey Defeats Truman" in the annals of mistaken predictions, had fled town, presumably to work on his memoirs proving that it was not his fault (as he, in fact, said for the rest of his life; needless to day, he became ex-Lord Mayor after the fire was put out).King Charles II had had enough. London may not want the king interfering in its affairs, but at this rate, there wasn't going to be a London much longer if he didn't do something. His brother, James, the Duke of York, was put in charge. With the help of courtiers, citizens were press-ganged to fight the fire. Firebreaks were formed by pulling down houses.
Meanwhile, the flames spread. To the north, where the bankers hastily evacuated the kingdom's gold before the heat could devalue them into melted pools. To the west, where gale-force winds (created by the vacuum formed by the inferno) pushed the fire across the river Fleet and toward the Palace of Whitehall.
Out of sight of the king's representative, chaos reigned. People were moving their goods out of the way of the flames. Those close to the river hired boats (at outrageous fees, of course) to ferry them across the Thames. The poor found work as porters (at outrageous fees), while the more bold simply made off with the goods they were hired to carry. The flames chased them down to London Bridge, down to the medieval-era houses built on the bridge itself. If the fire crossed to the opposite shore, that would have been it for the borough of Southwark. Only a pre-existing firebreak on the bridge itself kept the south bank of the Thames from suffering the same fate as the north.
Meanwhile, what of Master Pepys? The diarist had spent the previous day observing the course of the fire, and the evening taking down all his goods. In the pre-dawn hours, still in his nightgown, he drove a wagon full of goods to a co-worker's house, far from the flames. Then, hiring a lighter, he moved more of his things to Tower Hill, where he saw the Duke of York with his guard.
That night his house empty of all valuables and in the potential path of the flames, he went to his office:
At night lay down a little upon a quilt of W. Hewer's in the office, all my owne things being packed up or gone; and after me my poor wife did the like, we having fed upon the remains of yesterday's dinner, having no fire nor dishes, nor any opportunity of dressing any thing.To be continued . . .
Born today: Sarah Orne Jewett, novelist, short-story writer, South Berwick, Maine, 1849; Loren Eiseley, anthropologist, author, Lincoln, Neb., 1907; Alison Lurie, novelist, Chicago, 1926; Caryl Churchill, playwright, London, 1938.
Died: Ivan Turgenev, novelist, poet, short-story writer, playwright, Bougival, France, 1883; E(dward) E(stlin) Cummings, poet, North Conway, N.H., 1962; Alec Waugh, novelist, London, 1981; Frederic Dannay (writing as Ellery Queen; ps. Daniel Nathan), mystery author, White Plains, N.Y., 1982; Pauline Kael, movie critic, Great Barrington, Mass., 2001; Alan Dugan, poet, Hyannis, Mass., 2003.
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