They stood together, watching the flames which, in some places, seemed to creep stealthily at first, as tongues of fire licked the buildings and then suddenly, with a mighty roar, would appear to capture yet another; the sound of falling roofs and walls was everywhere; the flames ran swiftly and lightly along the thatches; now many streets were avenues of flame. People screamed as the fire drops caught them; flames spread like an arch from one side of London Bridge to the other; the air was filled with the crackling sound of burning and the crash of collapsing houses. It was almost impossible to breathe the dense smoke-filled air.
On Tuesday morning the fire was still raging, and the King decided that he dared no longer leave the defense of his capital to the Lord Mayor and the City Fathers.
Fleet Street, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paul’s Chain and Watling Street were all ablaze. The heat was so fierce that none could approach near the fire, and when a roof fell in, great showers of sparks would fly out from the burning mass to alight on other dwellings and so start many minor fires.
The King with his brother, the Duke of York, were in the center of activity. It was they who directed the blowing up of houses in Tower Street. The citizens of London saw their King then, not as the careless philanderer, but the man of action. It was he, his face blackened by smoke, who directed the operations which were to save the City. There he stood passing the buckets with his own hands, shouting to all that their help was needed and they would be rewarded for the work they did this day. There he stood, with the dirty water over his ankles, encouraging and, being the man he was, not forgetting to joke. It was while he stood in their midst that the people ceased to believe those stories which the Puritans had murmured about God’s vengeance. This fire was nothing but the result of an accident which had taken place in a baker’s kitchen and, on account of the high wind, the dry wood and thatch of the houses all huddled so closely together, had turned the fire in Pudding Lane into the Fire of London.
By Thursday the fire showed signs of being conquered. The heat from smoldering buildings was still intense; fires raged in some parts of the City, but that great ravaging monster had been checked.
It was said that day that all that was left of London owed its existence to the King and his brother James.
Now it was possible to look back and see the extent of the disaster.
The fire, following so soon on the plague, had robbed the country of the greater part of its wealth. London was the center of the kingdoms riches, for more than a tenth of the population had lived in the Capital. Now the greater part of the City lay in ruins, and for months afterwards ashes, charred beams and broken pieces of furniture were found in the fields of the villages of Knightsbridge and Kensington; and the people marveled that the effects of the great fire could still be seen at such great distance.
But there were more terrible effects to be felt. In the fields the homeless huddled together, having nowhere to go. The King rode out to them, bags of money at his belt; he distributed alms and ordered that food and shelter should be found for these sufferers.
His heart was heavy. He knew that never before in her history had England been in such a wretched plight. There was murmuring all over the country and in particular throughout the stricken City. England was no longer merry, and people were beginning to think of the period of Puritan rule as the “good old days.” The wildest rumors were in the air. New terrors stalked the smoldering streets. The fire was the work of Papists, said some. Those who were suspected of following the Catholic religion were seized and ill-treated and some were done to death by the mob. Feeling ran high against the Queen. She was a Papist, and trouble had started during the last King’s reign, declared the people, on account of his Papist wife. Others said the profligate life led by the King and his associates was responsible for the fire.
“This is but the beginning,” cried some. “The destruction of England is at hand. First the plague; then the war; and now the great fire. This is Sodom and Gomorrah again. What next? What next?”
The King realized that there was nothing to be done but lay up the Fleet, for where in his suffering country could he get means to maintain it? And to lay up the Fleet meant suing for peace.
Sailors were rioting in the stricken City’s streets because they had not been paid. There was revolution in the air. Charles himself rode out to do what he could to disperse the groups of angry seamen. In vain did his Chancellor and those about him seek to restrain him. His subjects were in an ugly mood; insults had been hurled at the King on account of his way of life. But Charles insisted on going among them. He was bankrupt in all save that one thing which had stood him in good stead all his life; his charm was inviolate as was his courage.
So he rode out into the midst of the brawling crowds of angry sailors who stood about in the heart of the City amid the blackened buildings and heaps of ashes and rubble. He knew their mood; yet he was smiling, with that charming rueful smile. His manner was dignified, yet all those men were aware of the easy affability which had always been shown to any who came near him whatever their rank, and which had done much to make all submit to his charm.
They fell back before him; they would have expected him to come with soldiers behind him; but he came alone, and he came unarmed. So they fell back before him and they were silent as he spoke to them.
It was true they had not been paid. The King would remedy that as soon as it were possible to do so. They had fought gallantly. Would they tell themselves that they had fought for their country, and would that suffice for a temporary reward? He promised them that they should be paid—in time. They would be wise men to wait for that payment rather than to persist in acts which would lead themselves and others into misfortune likely to end in the traitor’s fate on the gallows.
They had all suffered terribly. The plague last year; the fire this. Never in the country’s history had such calamities befallen it. Yet had they not given good account of insolent Dutchmen? Let them all stand together; and if they would do this, their King doubted not that ere long they would have little cause for complaint.
Then suddenly someone in the crowd cried: “Long live the King!” and then others joined in and helped to disperse the mob.
On that occasion trouble had been avoided, but revolt continued to hang in the air.
The people looked about them for a scapegoat and, as usual at such times, their thoughts turned to the Chancellor. Crowds gathered outside the fine house he had built for himself in Piccadilly; they murmured to one another that he had built the palace with the bribes he had been paid by the French King to advise the selling of Dunkirk. It was remembered that he, the commoner, was linked with the royal family through the marriage of his daughter Anne Hyde with the King’s brother. It was said that he had procured Catherine of Braganza for the King because he knew she would never bear children and thus leave the succession clear for the offspring of his own daughter. Everything that was wrong in the country was blamed on Clarendon; and this attitude towards the poor Chancellor was aggravated by such men as Buckingham—urged on by Lady Castlemaine—Arlington, and almost all the King’s ministers.
A gibbet was set up on a tree outside the Chancellor’s house, and on it was an inscription:
“Three sights to be seen—Dunkirk, Tangier and a barren Queen.”
For the sale of Dunkirk, the possession of an unprofitable seaport and the Queen’s inability to bear children successfully were all laid at Clarendon’s door.
The King sought to throw off his melancholy and was already instructing his architect, Christopher Wren, to make plans for the rebuilding of the City; he was urging the Parliament to find money somehow for the refitting of his ships that they might, with the coming of spring, be ready to face their Dutch enemies. He sought to find consolation among the many ladies who charmed him, but he found that his desire for the still unconquered Frances Stuart made contentment impossible.