He then relates a romantic incident which had just occurred, and a note of which he also inserted in his “Diary:” “Greenwich begins apace to be sickly; but we are, by the command of the king, taking all the care we can to prevent its growth; and meeting to that purpose yesterday, after sermon with the town officers, many doleful informations were brought us, and, among others, this, which I shall trouble your ladyship with the telling. Complaint was brought us against one in the town for receiving into his house a child brought from an infected house in London. Upon inquiry, we found that it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, who, having lost already all the rest of his children, and himself and wife being shut up, and in despair of escaping, implored only the liberty of using the means for the saving of this only babe, which, with difficulty, was allowed, and they suffered to deliver it, stripped naked, out at a window, into the arms of a friend, who, shifting into fresh cloathes, conveyed it thus to Greenwich, where, upon this information from Alderman Hooker, we suffer it to remain.”
On the 20th of this same month of September we read in the “Diary:” “But, Lord! what a sad time it is to see no boats upon the River, and grass grows all up and down White Hall court, and nobody but poor wretches in the streets.” And on October 16th, Pepys is told that, in Westminster, “there is never a physician, and but one apothecary left,—all being dead.”
In the following January, the question of attending to the overcrowded churchyards had begun to agitate the public mind; and those who lived in their immediate neighbourhood were anxious that they should be covered with lime.[153] Not many months after this the greater portion of the city had become a void.
On the 2nd of September, 1666, Pepys was called up at three o’clock to see a fire; but not thinking much of it, he went to bed again. When, however, he got up, he found that about 300 houses had been burnt in the night. All were now busy in moving their property from place to place; and the women worked as hard as the men in doing what was needed. Some almost incredible instances of meanness are recorded in the “Diary,” respecting those rich men who gave shillings grudgingly to those who saved their all. Alderman Starling, whose house was saved by the Navy Office men, while the next house was burning, gave 2s. 6d. to be divided among thirty of them, and then quarrelled with some that would remove the rubbish out of the way of the fire, on the score that they came to steal. Sir William Coventry told Pepys of another case which occurred in Holborn. An offer was made to one whose house was in great danger, to stop the fire for a sum that came to about 2s. 6d. a man, but he would only give 1s. 6d.[154]
Clothworkers’ Hall burnt for three days and nights, on account of the oil in the cellars; and so intense was the heat caused by extension of the fire over a large space, that the ground of the City continued to smoke even in December.[155]
Moorfields was the chief resort of the houseless Londoners, and soon paved streets and two-storey houses were seen in that swampy place, the City having let the land on leases of seven years.
It was said that this national disaster had been foretold, and the prophecies of Nostrodamus and Mother Shipton were referred to.
Sir Roger L’Estrange, the Licenser of Almanacs, told Sir Edward Walker that most of those that came under his notice foretold the fire, but that he had struck the prophecy out.[156] Lady Carteret told Pepys a curious little fact, which was, that abundance of pieces of burnt papers were driven by the wind as far as Cranborne, in Windsor Forest; “and, among others, she took up one, or had one brought her to see, which was a little bit of paper that had been printed, whereon there remained no more nor less than these words: ‘Time is, it is done.’”[157]
It is well known that the unfortunate Roman Catholics were charged with the crime of having set London on fire, and there appears to have been a very sufficient reason why the people should persist in affirming this fable. The judges determined, in the case of disputed liability between landlord and tenant, that the tenants should bear the loss in all casualties of fire arising in their own houses or in those of their neighbours; but if the fire was caused by an enemy they were not liable. As one poor man was convicted and hanged for the crime, it was held that the landlords must be mulcted.[158] Public opinion shifted about in this matter, for we read that on September 16th, 1667, Pepys saw “a printed account of the examinations taken, touching the burning ... showing the plot of the Papists therein, which it seems hath been ordered to be burnt by the hands of the hangman, in Westminster Palace.”[159]
London remained in ruins for many months, and as late as April 23rd, 1668, Pepys describes himself as wearily walking round the walls in order to escape the dangers within. At last new streets of houses arose from the ruins, but, unfortunately, in spite of the proposals of Wren, Hooke, and Evelyn for erecting a handsome and well-arranged city, the old lines were in almost every case retained.