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80. The Great Fire of London · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to you an Airwave media podcast. Hi everybody,
0:19
Speaker 1: and welcome to Who Did What Now? The history podcast
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Speaker 1: That's not your History Class with me your host Kenny Charlwood,
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Speaker 1: History Harlote and reader All Books, Sad News Today, Everybody,
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Speaker 1: Sad News, Oh many News, First News Sad. I didn't
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Speaker 1: If you'd like to vote, that'd be absolutely amazing and
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Speaker 1: uh and good news of course, because you know you
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Speaker 1: have to have a sprinkle on of good news is
1:17
Speaker 1: that my very first Dublin show is next month. Now
1:21
Speaker 1: haven't got all the details ironed out yet, but once
1:24
Speaker 1: I know, you will know. So I actually want to
1:28
Speaker 1: thank everybody for their reviews as well. I've had like
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Speaker 1: at least one review a day, like the past like
1:36
Speaker 1: twenty days, Like it's amazing and you'll say such lovely
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Speaker 1: things like it's it's like ridiculously kind and it's things
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Speaker 1: have been up and down, you know, the past couple weeks,
1:48
Speaker 1: so it's really been quite nice too. Here lovely things,
1:53
Speaker 1: so thank you. And on top of that, I went
1:58
Speaker 1: to the murder Most Irish live show last week because
2:03
Speaker 1: we support each other. That's how it works in this
2:06
Speaker 1: business and the podcasting world. And like, the person who
2:11
Speaker 1: was supposed to come with me couldn't make it for
2:13
Speaker 1: health reasons, and so I knew my pal Ethan was
2:18
Speaker 1: in the country from Denmark. I was fairly sure he
2:22
Speaker 1: was back in the country from Denmark, and I was like, hey, buddy,
2:26
Speaker 1: you in Dublin. You want to go to a live
2:29
Speaker 1: podcast with me? And I failed to mention to him
2:33
Speaker 1: that it was a feminist murder crime podcast. So literally
2:40
Speaker 1: he sits down. One of the first things he hears
2:42
Speaker 1: is fuck men cast straight men, and it's like, oh
2:47
Speaker 1: oh no, and he's like, I'm just gonna drip my pint.
2:50
Speaker 1: Nobody will know I'm here. It's fine. They can smell
2:54
Speaker 1: this asshead. They're gonna come for me. It was so funny.
2:57
Speaker 1: It was so funny. Poor Ethan he was just I
3:04
Speaker 1: did not prepare him for what he was going into
3:08
Speaker 1: and he was like, I didn't even ask what I
3:09
Speaker 1: was going to and I was like, oh, no, you did.
3:11
Speaker 1: I just forgot to mention because I got lost for
3:15
Speaker 1: the first time, like in Dublin, because normally I'm pretty
3:18
Speaker 1: good at like figuring out where I am, but like
3:21
Speaker 1: it was raining and I hadn't eaten all day and
3:24
Speaker 1: I was just not with it. So he ended up
3:29
Speaker 1: having to find me and then show me where we
3:32
Speaker 1: were supposed to go, even though I had the root planned,
3:35
Speaker 1: like I had all figured out, but then Nope, completely
3:38
Speaker 1: buggered up absolutely, and like we're heading to the Sugar Club.
3:43
Speaker 1: We're heading down from Temple Bar and we're just like
3:49
Speaker 1: I had I put this well, We're going very fast.
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Speaker 1: It's a very brisk pace. We're practically running, and I'm
3:56
Speaker 1: practically running because I have to keep up with Ethan's big,
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Speaker 1: massive strides because he's six foot seven, and obviously I'm like,
4:04
Speaker 1: you know, like like one of those small dogs, just
4:08
Speaker 1: like trying to keep up. We like, and we're just
4:13
Speaker 1: like going for fast and He's like, we do we
4:14
Speaker 1: need to rush? And I was like, no, He's like,
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Speaker 1: why are we both going so fast? I was like,
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Speaker 1: I don't know. We're both from Diego, Like going at
4:22
Speaker 1: a gentle pace is just how things are. Why are
4:24
Speaker 1: we like this? And he's like, yeah, but everything so
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Speaker 1: far away. We're going where we have to get there
4:29
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I
4:31
Speaker 1: get it now. But yeah, it was a good night.
4:34
Speaker 1: We had a great time. I had a couple of
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Speaker 1: aparall sprits is actually they were very nice. And then
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Speaker 1: we went to McDonald's and the an obscene amount of
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Speaker 1: chicken nuggets nuggies. Fuck. I love nuggies though, Oh yum.
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Speaker 1: But anyway, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, what
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Speaker 1: your jibber drabber in fact me, In fact you I will,
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Speaker 1: But first we've got to get our source on. Our
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Speaker 1: sources are sixteen sixty six Plague, War and Hell Fire
5:04
Speaker 1: by Rebecca Rideal, London, a Social History by Roy Porter,
5:12
Speaker 1: The Diary of Samuel Peppers by Samuel Peppers by Permission
5:21
Speaker 1: of Heaven, The Story of the Great Fire of London
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Speaker 1: by Adrian Tinniswood, The Dreadful Judgment, The True Story of
5:29
Speaker 1: the Great Fire of London, by Neil Hansen, and of
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Speaker 1: course we have the London Gazette Andhistory dot Com. Are
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Speaker 1: you sitting comfortably good? Then let's begin The Great Fire
5:44
Speaker 1: of London. Now, this is something I've actually been really
5:48
Speaker 1: excited to talk about, because you know the whole point
5:51
Speaker 1: of creating this podcast was to talk about people and
5:54
Speaker 1: places and events and stuff that I found interesting and also,
5:59
Speaker 1: you know, utilize my skills because I've said it before
6:03
Speaker 1: and I'll say it again. My main area of expertise
6:05
Speaker 1: is the rise of sensationalism in the use of princes
6:08
Speaker 1: propaganda in the late modern period. That is a mouthful,
6:12
Speaker 1: I know. So like I try and deal with when
6:16
Speaker 1: I can information that is with hell or covered up
6:21
Speaker 1: or misleading and try to find the truth in it,
6:25
Speaker 1: you know, And that's usually where I'm at. And this
6:29
Speaker 1: is one of those things, because this is one of
6:33
Speaker 1: those events that if you're in school in Britain especially,
6:37
Speaker 1: you just know and everything happens in sixty sixes. You know.
6:42
Speaker 1: English history is full of sixty sixes, like Battle of
6:45
Speaker 1: Hastings ten sixty six, Great Fire of London sixteen sixty six,
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Speaker 1: England wins the World Cup nineteen sixty six, English History.
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Speaker 1: No one, You're welcome. But something I've noticed a lot
7:04
Speaker 1: about the way that we study events, especially is that
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Speaker 1: we separate ourselves from it, and it's seen as a
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Speaker 1: thing that's not right, like you, you come back mentalized,
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Speaker 1: like you. You separate it, so it's just a thing
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Speaker 1: that happened. Historical events, they tend to be separated and
7:30
Speaker 1: exist as if they're fantasy, like it's a story, as
7:35
Speaker 1: opposed to something real, something very real that happened two people.
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Speaker 1: Like it's as if we take the personhood out of
7:46
Speaker 1: it and we don't really discuss lives, livelihoods, people affected
7:53
Speaker 1: during and by and after, like we separate that is,
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Speaker 1: if people were not involved in it. There's this disconnect
8:02
Speaker 1: when it comes to events, and I've always wanted to
8:06
Speaker 1: touch on things like this, especially large historical events, especially
8:10
Speaker 1: something like this, because there's a lot of human error
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Speaker 1: in here, and it's very interesting because what leads to
8:16
Speaker 1: it and what comes after it. And because of the
8:20
Speaker 1: way we are taught about events, we perceive them in
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Speaker 1: a way that's just so separate to us, and I
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Speaker 1: think it's important to reconnect and try and observe it
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Speaker 1: from a different point of view. So I better get
8:34
Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, I better get into it. Stop rambling
8:37
Speaker 1: coody and tell us the history fact us. Okay, I'm
8:41
Speaker 1: on it, I promise. So leading up to the Great
8:46
Speaker 1: Fire of London. So King Charles the Second, the merry monarch,
8:51
Speaker 1: King Charles the Second, he is on the throne, and
8:56
Speaker 1: he is he's okay, I mean he's not. That was popular,
9:02
Speaker 1: but he is. He's the King of England. And the
9:06
Speaker 1: reason he's the King of England is because his father,
9:10
Speaker 1: King Charles the First, is no longer the King of England. Ah. Generally,
9:14
Speaker 1: in order for the crown to pass on from one
9:17
Speaker 1: to another, one of two things has to happen. You
9:22
Speaker 1: either abdicate your position. You abdicate the throne, you give
9:25
Speaker 1: up you give up your title, your claim. The other
9:31
Speaker 1: is death. And King Charles the First, Uh, well, how
9:36
Speaker 1: do I put this? Ah? He was kind of a tyrant,
9:42
Speaker 1: I mean kind of. He was a tyrant who believed
9:45
Speaker 1: in the divine right of kings. He thought he was
9:47
Speaker 1: God's representative on earth. He felt like everybody should be
9:49
Speaker 1: bound down before him, and that he should be answering
9:52
Speaker 1: to no one, And so he pissed a lot of
9:54
Speaker 1: fucking people off, which led to a civil war, some
9:59
Speaker 1: hilarious diskises and you know King Charles being deposed and
10:04
Speaker 1: his head being cut off, so you know, not great
10:07
Speaker 1: all round. So because he was so power hungry. When
10:11
Speaker 1: the Puritans in the Cromwell's it is always a fucking
10:14
Speaker 1: Gromwell and the Puritans had been in charge for a
10:17
Speaker 1: while and buggled things up royally excuse the pun Britain
10:22
Speaker 1: decided to you know, reinstate the monarchy and put King
10:26
Speaker 1: Charles the Second on the throne. So King Charles the
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Speaker 1: Second he's known as the merry Monarch. He's always shagging about.
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Speaker 1: He's putting money into the arts and he's funding a
10:36
Speaker 1: lot of stuff and he's doing he's doing, you know,
10:38
Speaker 1: he's doing all right. I mean, Parliament isn't super into
10:43
Speaker 1: him and he doesn't have as much power, and yeah,
10:48
Speaker 1: it's a it's a whole situation. So because they don't
10:52
Speaker 1: want him to have too much power because you know,
10:54
Speaker 1: the whole thing of his father being tyrannical and it's yeah,
10:59
Speaker 1: it's it's there's there's some stuff going on. And by
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Speaker 1: sixteen sixty six he's been on the throne for what
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Speaker 1: six years at this point, and he's been trying to
11:09
Speaker 1: make changes to London, especially because that's where he's loving
11:15
Speaker 1: at this point, and he's trying to implement sort of
11:18
Speaker 1: rules and laws, and they keep getting fucking vetoed because
11:22
Speaker 1: they're just pissed off that he's trying to do shit right.
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Speaker 1: And you know, there's a wee bit as in aphobia
11:27
Speaker 1: in there is if like the majority of British monarchs
11:30
Speaker 1: have not been foreign. But anyway, London in sixteen sixty
11:35
Speaker 1: six isn't doing too great. You know, England's at war
11:40
Speaker 1: with the Dutch and the French. They've been dealing with
11:45
Speaker 1: the plague for a fucking year. That's right. The plague
11:49
Speaker 1: is back and people are basically living on top of
11:53
Speaker 1: each other. So and like London is a very young city,
11:58
Speaker 1: not an age like it's fuck, you know, it's London.
12:01
Speaker 1: It's well old. But there's a lot of younger people
12:05
Speaker 1: living in London. And there's also a lot of sort
12:09
Speaker 1: of migration, So there's immigration and migrations. People are coming
12:12
Speaker 1: in and out, people from England, Scotland, Wales, whatever, and
12:18
Speaker 1: also from other countries so Belgium, France, the Netherlands, from everywhere,
12:23
Speaker 1: you know, because London with the Thames and everything, is
12:28
Speaker 1: also a trade city and it has been since the
12:32
Speaker 1: Romans were there, and it's very old in so many ways.
12:40
Speaker 1: The way that London is built at this time is
12:44
Speaker 1: it's still very much in line with the medieval city.
12:48
Speaker 1: It's practically medieval. So yeah, the way the houses are
12:53
Speaker 1: built and lined up, it's like, I don't know if
12:57
Speaker 1: you've ever played any of the Fable games, but it's
13:00
Speaker 1: like playing the Fable games, like that's what London looked
13:05
Speaker 1: like near enough. Everything was made of wood. It was
13:09
Speaker 1: a tinder box. Basically. Houses were built very close together,
13:13
Speaker 1: if not practically attached, and they would have these jetties,
13:19
Speaker 1: so there would be like the base of the house,
13:22
Speaker 1: like the lower floor, the ground floor, and then the
13:25
Speaker 1: floor above that would have these little extensions. Really, it's
13:29
Speaker 1: like having like the Weasley's house, and Harry Potter is
13:33
Speaker 1: one of the things I can think of it. Imagine
13:36
Speaker 1: you've got a square block and then you sit a
13:39
Speaker 1: rectangle on top of it, sideways like that, so you've
13:43
Speaker 1: got a little bit protruding either side. So you've got
13:46
Speaker 1: this little platform and you're going out just a little
13:49
Speaker 1: bit but that's like the top floor. So you'll have
13:53
Speaker 1: these protruding sort of top floors that would lead basically
14:00
Speaker 1: into each other. You know, they were technically separate, but
14:04
Speaker 1: they were so close, like physically close. And all of
14:08
Speaker 1: these buildings are made of wood, and some still had
14:13
Speaker 1: that roofs, which was illegal at this point. King Charles
14:19
Speaker 1: the Second he'd actually tried to like ban jetties, but
14:24
Speaker 1: they still existed. Like He's like, this isn't safe. Can
14:27
Speaker 1: we get rid of these? And effectively everyone went no, no,
14:34
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, not many of the houses were that
14:38
Speaker 1: there still was a couple because yeah, it just was.
14:42
Speaker 1: And so you've got houses in shops and stables and
14:47
Speaker 1: other buildings of bakeries and shit. You know, you've got
14:52
Speaker 1: all this all tightly packed together on these like Higgoldy
14:57
Speaker 1: Piggledy Narrow Street, and most buildings were you know, multipurpose,
15:03
Speaker 1: so you could live in there but also work in there,
15:06
Speaker 1: but also use it for storage. So people would be
15:10
Speaker 1: storing everything from like straw and hay and pitt and
15:15
Speaker 1: tallow and coal, tar canvas, spirits, rope, hemp resin and oil.
15:26
Speaker 1: Now take this, all of these incredibly flammable items, so
15:33
Speaker 1: so much of a fire hazard. And add that with
15:38
Speaker 1: the fact that quite a lot of businesses relied on
15:44
Speaker 1: open flames, so everything from food to metalwork and other
15:50
Speaker 1: such things. Like, there's just a lot of burning going on.
15:54
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of fire. Now this may shock you,
15:58
Speaker 1: gentle listener, but London had quite a habit of going
16:03
Speaker 1: on fire. Fires were pretty common actually, so most streets.
16:10
Speaker 1: They would have like these leather buckets that were supposed
16:14
Speaker 1: to be filled with water to help put the fires out,
16:17
Speaker 1: and they also had like hooks to bring down buildings.
16:20
Speaker 1: Now you ever see those gardoons where it was like
16:24
Speaker 1: a bunch of firemen in a row and they're just
16:26
Speaker 1: passing buckets up with water. Basically that it was very
16:31
Speaker 1: much a medieval sort of idea, but it was still
16:34
Speaker 1: here in the seventeenth century. But yes, London is a
16:38
Speaker 1: relatively young city, and by that I mean it is
16:42
Speaker 1: full of a lot of young people. So people would
16:45
Speaker 1: come from the countryside or wherever they were coming from.
16:48
Speaker 1: They would learn their trades, they would get skilled up
16:51
Speaker 1: their apprenticeships and whatnot, and then move back out to
16:55
Speaker 1: areas sort of and have more options. Like some would
17:00
Speaker 1: they obviously not everybody did, but a lot of people
17:02
Speaker 1: would just go back to their original areas once they
17:05
Speaker 1: had learned their skill, and then some people would go
17:09
Speaker 1: out and become like merchant, seamen and sailors, navy all
17:13
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But London itself was really fucking
17:18
Speaker 1: busy because it was like a trading port, and so
17:22
Speaker 1: you'd have like imports and exports like England exported quite
17:28
Speaker 1: a lot actually, so there was like leather and tan
17:32
Speaker 1: and lead and wool and cheese. Cheese was very important
17:41
Speaker 1: and you're thinking English cheese, really no, no, yes, cheese
17:45
Speaker 1: was just a big deal which will come to play
17:49
Speaker 1: later on and maybe the only thing that some people
17:51
Speaker 1: know about the Great Fire of London. And at this
17:55
Speaker 1: point London had a population of about four hundred and
17:59
Speaker 1: sixty thousand people like giver or take, And that's actually
18:03
Speaker 1: mad when you think about it, because about sixty years
18:07
Speaker 1: previously it only had about two hundred thousand, so it's
18:11
Speaker 1: more than doubled, which is even wilder when you take
18:14
Speaker 1: into consideration that between sixteen sixty five and sixteen sixty six,
18:20
Speaker 1: like one hundred thousand people died. Is a result of
18:26
Speaker 1: the Black Death of the plague, London still managed to
18:29
Speaker 1: have nearly five hundred thousand people. When you think about it,
18:33
Speaker 1: nearly half a million people lived in this city, even
18:36
Speaker 1: though for the last year two out of every seven
18:40
Speaker 1: people died as a result of the Black Death. That's
18:45
Speaker 1: fucking wild, Like it's it just shows you just like
18:48
Speaker 1: how much was coming in and out and London like
18:55
Speaker 1: physically is a bit weird. And I already explained like
18:59
Speaker 1: the Tetley packed house and whatnot, and this was mainly
19:02
Speaker 1: I mean, it was all over, but it was mainly
19:04
Speaker 1: inside sort of old London. So the City of London,
19:08
Speaker 1: because there's three parts effectively to London. So you've got
19:12
Speaker 1: the City of London, which is like the old Roman Wall,
19:15
Speaker 1: so you've got that which still to this day holds
19:18
Speaker 1: it in like a different regard because London City and
19:22
Speaker 1: the City of London are two different fucking things, which
19:25
Speaker 1: I wasn't really aware of until I started researching and
19:32
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper stuff, to be honest, and that was
19:34
Speaker 1: when I learned about there's like the met is one
19:37
Speaker 1: police force and then the City of London has a
19:40
Speaker 1: different police force. It's it's wild, like the Yeah, anyway,
19:46
Speaker 1: so we'll talk about that another time. That'll be another conversation.
19:49
Speaker 1: But yeah, there are three areas to London. You've got
19:52
Speaker 1: like again the old London, the Roman World London, the
19:54
Speaker 1: City of London. That's that, and then you've got the
19:57
Speaker 1: area around this, and then you've got the city of Westminster.
20:05
Speaker 1: You know, it's and unsurprisingly, the further you get from
20:12
Speaker 1: the densely populated part of the city, the wealthier people
20:17
Speaker 1: seem to be, you know, down by the strand and whatnot,
20:21
Speaker 1: Like there's just a little bit a little bit more
20:23
Speaker 1: money flying about. And speaking about wealth, right, a lot
20:28
Speaker 1: of people who lived in London didn't own the properties
20:31
Speaker 1: they lived in. They rented them. People would lodge in
20:35
Speaker 1: boarding houses and taverns and of course houses, which again
20:42
Speaker 1: can have become relevant later on. And London, Yeah, London
20:47
Speaker 1: is this dense, bustling city. You've got this high population density,
20:54
Speaker 1: you've got people living very close together, and you've just
20:57
Speaker 1: had one of the hottest summers on record, like it's
21:03
Speaker 1: it's just been so dry, and there is an easterly
21:07
Speaker 1: breeze this warm September evening in this wooden city and
21:17
Speaker 1: it is like the perfect storm for this to happen,
21:23
Speaker 1: but it's affected by well people. So it is the
21:29
Speaker 1: second of September sixteen sixty six, and on Pudding Lane
21:34
Speaker 1: in London. It's the early hours of the morning. It's
21:38
Speaker 1: a Sunday. And the thing about Sunday is Sunday was
21:42
Speaker 1: your rest day. It was the day where you know,
21:45
Speaker 1: you went to church, you saw friends, you had the
21:50
Speaker 1: day off. It was your day of rest. It's the sabbath.
21:54
Speaker 1: People would have been working and trading like all through
21:57
Speaker 1: the week, all the way through. And so Thomas Feigner,
22:03
Speaker 1: he has a bakery on Pudding Lane, which is Cold
22:07
Speaker 1: Pudding Lane because it was named after awful puddings. So
22:10
Speaker 1: basically like entrails and stuff that would fall off of
22:14
Speaker 1: butcher's carts as they were taken to the Thames. Because
22:18
Speaker 1: everything get dumped in the Thames, so fecal matter, urine,
22:24
Speaker 1: the just entrails go, just all your waste, all your
22:29
Speaker 1: waist ended up in the river which people would then
22:32
Speaker 1: use for bathing and drinking. But that's another story for
22:36
Speaker 1: another day, Okay. But yes there's the bakery, the Foreigner's bakery,
22:43
Speaker 1: and Thomas is living there with his wife and his
22:47
Speaker 1: children and their maid and they've got the bakery, and
22:52
Speaker 1: he goes to bed and his wife has this snag
22:56
Speaker 1: and feeling and she's like, did you check the fire?
22:58
Speaker 1: Did you make sure the fire was out? And he's like, yeah,
23:01
Speaker 1: it's definitely out. It's definitely out. Now, this may come
23:04
Speaker 1: as a shock to you, but the fire was not out.
23:10
Speaker 1: It had not been quilled. So around about one or
23:13
Speaker 1: two o'clock in the morning, something happens. A spark comes out,
23:19
Speaker 1: something wasn't closed up, and the fire begins to spread,
23:24
Speaker 1: and unfortunately for Thomas Feigner, his bakery is on fire. Now,
23:30
Speaker 1: luckily for the whole Foreigner family, an apprentice who was
23:34
Speaker 1: coming in to start his day, he was coming like
23:37
Speaker 1: in the really earlier hours of the morning. He shows up,
23:41
Speaker 1: sees the fire and just alerts the family. He is
23:44
Speaker 1: shouting at them, you know, places on fire, get the
23:47
Speaker 1: fuck out. Now. I'm not suggesting that was verbatim. I'm
23:52
Speaker 1: just saying that's the general gist of it. So the
23:56
Speaker 1: apprentice wakes up the Foreigner family and Thomas in his
23:59
Speaker 1: way and the children they escape through an upstairs window.
24:04
Speaker 1: The maid, however, is the first person to perish as
24:09
Speaker 1: a result of the fire. She was too afraid to
24:14
Speaker 1: leap out the window to climb out, and so she's
24:19
Speaker 1: stayed inside the bakery. And I don't know whether the
24:22
Speaker 1: smoke got to her first or whether she was engulfed
24:24
Speaker 1: in the flames, but she did not make it out.
24:29
Speaker 1: And it doesn't take long for the fire to spread.
24:32
Speaker 1: So these buildings, remember they're very close together. You've got
24:35
Speaker 1: the jetties, you know, Flames are licking the sides of
24:39
Speaker 1: these houses before consuming them. So sparks are going and
24:45
Speaker 1: there's this strong wind from the east which just starts
24:50
Speaker 1: billowing the flames down Fish Street Hill and it's going
24:54
Speaker 1: towards the Thames. And so this fire is raging. It
24:58
Speaker 1: is burning through the streets and people are shit scared.
25:03
Speaker 1: They're panicking. And it's the early hours of the morning.
25:08
Speaker 1: It's nighttime. These people have been working all week, so
25:14
Speaker 1: no one is in the right mind when they are
25:16
Speaker 1: woken up suddenly, like they're just not like a little
25:21
Speaker 1: bit of sleep deprivation is going to be is going
25:24
Speaker 1: to be playing a part here, because I know we
25:28
Speaker 1: talk about fight or flight all the time, but this
25:31
Speaker 1: is extreme for a lot of people, and so they're
25:34
Speaker 1: doing what they're supposed to do. They're filling up their
25:36
Speaker 1: buckets and they're trying to like douse the flames, but
25:39
Speaker 1: they've got a wind that's fighting against them, and so
25:42
Speaker 1: the next option they have is to pull down the buildings,
25:47
Speaker 1: which is the best way to create a firebreak. They
25:50
Speaker 1: want to pull down these buildings, and so people go
25:54
Speaker 1: to the Lord Mayor, Thomas Bludworth, and they're going to
25:58
Speaker 1: him because they need his permission to pull these fucking
26:00
Speaker 1: buildings down, and so they go off to see him.
26:04
Speaker 1: They wake him up. He's like, the file's not that
26:07
Speaker 1: bad because like London again used to fires, and he's like, insine,
26:11
Speaker 1: it's all the way over there, and like, no, it's bad.
26:14
Speaker 1: We need to pull down these buildings. And instead of
26:17
Speaker 1: you know, doing the right thing, he tells them that
26:22
Speaker 1: if they pull down the buildings, they're gonna have to
26:24
Speaker 1: pay for them because they're tenants. They don't own the buildings,
26:28
Speaker 1: so that's up to you. You're going to have this
26:31
Speaker 1: expense buildings that are going to be consumed by fire.
26:37
Speaker 1: And he's like, but if you pull them down first,
26:40
Speaker 1: you're liable, and he's convinced the fire ain't that bad anyway,
26:46
Speaker 1: Like they're asking him what to do, and he's he
26:48
Speaker 1: basically says, a woman will piss it out. Now.
26:53
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but that really doesn't instill
26:56
Speaker 2: a level of confidence and the official who' supper to
27:00
Speaker 2: be the man in charge of the safety and well
27:04
Speaker 2: being of London and its inhabitants.
27:09
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Samuel Peppers had also woken up, saw the flames
27:14
Speaker 1: in the distance and thought, it's not that bad. It's
27:17
Speaker 1: just another fire in London, and then he fell back asleep.
27:22
Speaker 1: By morning, the fire had started to spread like well fire, Oh,
27:29
Speaker 1: that was such a bad joke. It was such a
27:31
Speaker 1: bad joke. But yeah, the fire had spread to the riverside,
27:36
Speaker 1: so down at the wharfs, that's where a lot of
27:40
Speaker 1: inflammable things were stored, including tallow canvas, tar, pitch, fucking coal,
27:52
Speaker 1: just like all the stuff that burns really really well.
27:56
Speaker 1: So the fire reaches there and because it's Philip, you know,
28:00
Speaker 1: the stuff we'll usually use to start and continue fires,
28:03
Speaker 1: well fires just it's a blaze. And so once that's up,
28:10
Speaker 1: people couldn't get to the Thames to like fill up
28:12
Speaker 1: their buckets because it's blocked by a fucking wall of
28:15
Speaker 1: fire and then you've got this wind. So this wind
28:21
Speaker 1: is just picking up and you've got bits of just
28:26
Speaker 1: sparks and little bits of debris burning debris, are just
28:33
Speaker 1: embers floating in the wind, carried by the breeze, dropping
28:38
Speaker 1: onto other wooden roofs, two thatched roofs too, I don't know,
28:43
Speaker 1: just some tallow someone was using to make some soap,
28:46
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's fucking everywhere. And so the wind
28:51
Speaker 1: is spreading these embers all across. So these fires start
28:55
Speaker 1: appearing at different parts, like all around, so it's not
29:00
Speaker 1: in one singular location at this point. Because the fire
29:04
Speaker 1: seemed spreading now because of this, because it was sort
29:08
Speaker 1: of going here and there because of the wind, some
29:12
Speaker 1: people thought that, you know, the city was being deliberately attacked,
29:16
Speaker 1: that this was arson. And you have to consider at
29:20
Speaker 1: this point in time, like England is at war again
29:24
Speaker 1: with Holland with France, like that, there's fighting going on
29:27
Speaker 1: here and people were just getting very paranoid and they
29:31
Speaker 1: were believing that this was an attack, a deliberate attack,
29:35
Speaker 1: you know, on London, to bring England to its knees.
29:38
Speaker 1: And so this made it very difficult for anyone who
29:43
Speaker 1: could be seen as an enemy of England and or
29:46
Speaker 1: English people. But before we get into that, back to
29:49
Speaker 1: Samuel Peppers, who has been watching all of this from
29:54
Speaker 1: the Ohaalo's church. He's up in the steeple watching London burning,
29:58
Speaker 1: and he decides he's got to do something. He's going
30:01
Speaker 1: to the King for help. So the King is staying
30:04
Speaker 1: in Westminster, and so he gets a boat there to
30:07
Speaker 1: tell King Charles Second what's going on, and he the
30:12
Speaker 1: King is, you know, pretty worried about the entire city
30:16
Speaker 1: going up a blaze, and he sends peppis Bat into
30:20
Speaker 1: London to force the Lord Mayor to start tearing down
30:24
Speaker 1: buildings and stop the fucking fire. So Peb's heads back
30:28
Speaker 1: into London. He gets to Bloodworth, he gets to the mayor,
30:32
Speaker 1: and the Mayor's like, I'm tired, and he just boggers off,
30:37
Speaker 1: like he just he just disappears. He's gone, and nobody
30:40
Speaker 1: sees him until after the fire's gone, Like they he
30:44
Speaker 1: just buggers off. So while the fire is spreading, like
30:49
Speaker 1: they're trying to get these these fire engines in, I
30:53
Speaker 1: call them engines. They're kind of like fire carts and
30:55
Speaker 1: they've got like awee Pulley system and they're so it's
31:00
Speaker 1: so bulky that they can't really get through the narrow streets.
31:06
Speaker 1: And as they're trying to do that as well, you've
31:08
Speaker 1: got people panicking, and so you've got people blocking streets
31:11
Speaker 1: and trying to get through and it's just not doing
31:16
Speaker 1: much of anything, but they do start trying to pull
31:19
Speaker 1: the buildings down. At this point, it is gay and
31:23
Speaker 1: at lolldy and it is going over London Bridge. Now,
31:27
Speaker 1: at this point, London Bridge actually had houses on it.
31:31
Speaker 1: People lived on London Bridge. But luckily, or kind of unluckily,
31:37
Speaker 1: there had been a fire on London Bridge, I think
31:40
Speaker 1: either a year or a couple of years previously, and
31:43
Speaker 1: it burnt like one house, so one house was gone.
31:46
Speaker 1: So as the fire was spreading, the fact that this
31:50
Speaker 1: gap is there it acts as a fire break and
31:54
Speaker 1: so the fire doesn't cross the river, which lucky for
31:59
Speaker 1: some because because the last thing we want is for
32:06
Speaker 1: the fire to reach the Tower of London. Now why
32:10
Speaker 1: might we not want, you know, a massive fire to
32:13
Speaker 1: reach the Tower of London. That's because that's where all
32:18
Speaker 1: the artillery is held. So you have gunpowder and shit
32:24
Speaker 1: and oh my God's sidebar, that is something I forgot
32:26
Speaker 1: to mention is because of the civil war that had happened,
32:30
Speaker 1: you know, not that long ago, people still had like
32:35
Speaker 1: gunpowder stored in their houses. Not only were some houses
32:39
Speaker 1: you know, just going on fire, but some of them
32:42
Speaker 1: were fucking exploding because people had black powder in their
32:48
Speaker 1: houses left over from deposing the previous king. Like it
32:53
Speaker 1: just it just yeah, yeah, so like there's just there's
32:57
Speaker 1: just burning, burning, exploding, burn, And yeah, we don't we
33:03
Speaker 1: don't want to reach the you know, the artillery they
33:06
Speaker 1: heavily stocked tier of London. Kiss. That's that's that's really
33:11
Speaker 1: not good. We don't we don't need cannonballs just like
33:14
Speaker 1: shooting across the city. We don't, we don't need that.
33:16
Speaker 1: No no, no, no no no no no no no no.
33:20
Speaker 1: But yes, people are panicking in like somebody who's trying
33:25
Speaker 1: to get the heck at a dodge, somebody who's trying
33:27
Speaker 1: to help, and somebody who's going to exploit the situation
33:31
Speaker 1: for gain. So there are some people like putting up
33:36
Speaker 1: inflating charges for carts and boats to get people like
33:41
Speaker 1: out of the city or to move their goods further away,
33:44
Speaker 1: like Samuel Peppis ended up burying stuff in his garden.
33:48
Speaker 1: Like we all hear about the parmesan cheese. He buried
33:52
Speaker 1: parmesan cheese and a bunch of other valuables. Like I said,
33:55
Speaker 1: cheese was like a big deal. So a bunch of
33:58
Speaker 1: their expensive stuff was buried in their gardens to like
34:01
Speaker 1: protect it. And people would move like their belongings from
34:05
Speaker 1: like one building to like a friend or relative, just
34:10
Speaker 1: like further away from the fire. And some people would
34:12
Speaker 1: move things like even twice three times a day because
34:16
Speaker 1: of how quickly the fire was spreading. And at one point,
34:21
Speaker 1: people start putting their goods into Saint Paul's Cathedral because
34:25
Speaker 1: they're like, this is a big stone building, it'll be fine.
34:30
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert. It was not fine. And while King Charles
34:35
Speaker 1: the Second had given the order for the Lord Mayor
34:37
Speaker 1: to like start pulling down buildings, he decided he was
34:41
Speaker 1: going to be one of the people that was taking
34:43
Speaker 1: a boat and or cart out of the city. He
34:46
Speaker 1: just buggered off like by and throughout Sunday, King Charles
34:52
Speaker 1: is just offering help. He's offering royal lifeguards, soldiers, you know,
34:58
Speaker 1: just all the shit. But cause he's technically not supposed
35:01
Speaker 1: to overrule the Lord Mayor. It's just it's just a
35:05
Speaker 1: whole lot of you know, tom fuckery because King Charles
35:10
Speaker 1: the first, you know, drunk with power, and they don't
35:13
Speaker 1: want this happening again, so they're trying to like woulduce
35:16
Speaker 1: him down. But it gets to the point that on
35:19
Speaker 1: the Sunday, like King Charles's second ends up traveling down
35:23
Speaker 1: on a barge like to inspect the scene, and he
35:27
Speaker 1: makes sure he's seen doing it, because of course it's
35:29
Speaker 1: a decent PR move, but it's a PR move too,
35:32
Speaker 1: and he's like, shit, more stuff should be pulled down,
35:35
Speaker 1: because the Lord Mayor was supposed to be pulling things down,
35:38
Speaker 1: and the last time Peppe saw him, he was just
35:41
Speaker 1: out of it. Really, he wasn't coordinating things. He didn't
35:45
Speaker 1: really do well under pressure, really, and I do think
35:49
Speaker 1: sleep deprivation was like a part of it. But also,
35:53
Speaker 1: you know, he'd be fucked up. He fucked up royally
35:57
Speaker 1: because if he just pulled down those first couple of
35:59
Speaker 1: buildings probably could have contained this. But that's neither here
36:03
Speaker 1: nor there, except it's very much there. By Sunday night,
36:06
Speaker 1: the fire is absolutely raging. So because of these jettied buildings,
36:12
Speaker 1: there's this kind of vacuum that's being created on the
36:14
Speaker 1: lower streets, which is then fueling the fire and pumping
36:19
Speaker 1: it through and it's created this little fucking firestorm. And
36:24
Speaker 1: by Monday, most people who had been trying to put
36:27
Speaker 1: out the fire, we're just trying to get the heck
36:29
Speaker 1: out a dodge. They are just taking what they can
36:33
Speaker 1: and they're getting out. They're just going taking everything they
36:36
Speaker 1: can with them, and they're trying to get outside, you know,
36:39
Speaker 1: the city walls. They're trying to get to somewhere safe.
36:43
Speaker 1: So by Monday, this is actually where it starts going
36:46
Speaker 1: over London Bridge. I skipped a bit, but yeah, so
36:49
Speaker 1: it starts going up that way, doesn't make it across
36:52
Speaker 1: the river frank Christ And it's also heading towards the
36:58
Speaker 1: financial heart of the city. It's going up Lombard Street.
37:02
Speaker 1: You've got bankers' houses which are just on fire. The
37:05
Speaker 1: Royal Exchange catches fire by the afternoon. So all of
37:09
Speaker 1: these rich people, or at least wealthier people, are like
37:14
Speaker 1: rushing in to like collect all their gold coins because
37:17
Speaker 1: they don't want them to you know, melt. So they're
37:20
Speaker 1: grabbing these they're grabbing all their gold and they're just
37:22
Speaker 1: trying to save that. And it's on the Monday that
37:26
Speaker 1: King Charles Second says, fuck this for a game of
37:28
Speaker 1: soldiers and sends the Duke of York, the future King
37:32
Speaker 1: James the Second is Ah, it's just it's just an arsehole.
37:37
Speaker 1: Oh they all are anyway, they all are, really, there's
37:42
Speaker 1: just so many of them. So you've got banks, shops,
37:47
Speaker 1: the marketplace, everything is just burning, and the Duke of
37:53
Speaker 1: York is there with his Royal Lifeguards and they just
37:56
Speaker 1: start pulling down buildings. They're trying to create fire brecks,
38:00
Speaker 1: and even King Charles Second ends up coming out and
38:04
Speaker 1: he starts physically doing things himself. I mean he is
38:09
Speaker 1: physically working, putting out fires and moving shit, and he
38:14
Speaker 1: is seen doing it like there's there's a purpose to it.
38:18
Speaker 1: It's really good pr it is. It is a perfect
38:21
Speaker 1: little piece of propaganda. And when it doesn't last, but
38:23
Speaker 1: it's nice for when it does. And the Gazette manages
38:29
Speaker 1: to like publish like one more like paper, the London
38:32
Speaker 1: Gazette before, like the whole printing press just up in flames.
38:38
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, full of paper, what do we expect?
38:41
Speaker 1: But it's just gone, So like one of the reasons
38:44
Speaker 1: the Duke of York ends up being put in charge
38:46
Speaker 1: of like organizing like the firefighting efforts is because the
38:52
Speaker 1: majority of the people with get up and Go had
38:55
Speaker 1: got up and gone because they were at war with
38:59
Speaker 1: Holland in France and so they were out like currently fighting,
39:04
Speaker 1: and so King Charles he had tried to get like
39:06
Speaker 1: people to come in and come back, but they just
39:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't make it on time, like he'd sent for them.
39:12
Speaker 1: But it just wasn't happening. And so you've got the
39:15
Speaker 1: Duke of York, the Earl of Craven and like other
39:18
Speaker 1: courtiers are like in charge of their shit because the
39:21
Speaker 1: people who are supposed to be doing it just aren't
39:23
Speaker 1: either aren't available or have just fucked off. So yeah, yeah,
39:28
Speaker 1: it's not great. So you've got the camps around the perimeter,
39:31
Speaker 1: you've got trips, you've got people trying to break down fires.
39:35
Speaker 1: But because the way the fire was raging and because
39:38
Speaker 1: of you know, the aforementioned wars, order kind of just
39:43
Speaker 1: dissolved on the streets. So well, the wealth they are
39:48
Speaker 1: trying to get all their shit out of London because
39:50
Speaker 1: they're trying to just move stuff, they just start paying
39:54
Speaker 1: you know able bodied poor people to like move their
39:57
Speaker 1: stuff for them because they're like, hey, carry this, and
39:59
Speaker 1: the you make a shilling, fucking yes, I'll take a shilling,
40:03
Speaker 1: thank you very much. So they're doing that. So they're moving.
40:07
Speaker 1: There's a lot of movement, and at the gates things
40:11
Speaker 1: are starting to bottle neck up a weepit because you know,
40:14
Speaker 1: people are trying to get out the city and tensions
40:17
Speaker 1: are rising. So because of the firestorm, like we mentioned previously,
40:24
Speaker 1: and because of the way that the you know, the
40:27
Speaker 1: embers were flying around the city is people started to
40:31
Speaker 1: get like full conspiracy theorists. They were convinced that this
40:34
Speaker 1: was a coordinated attack and that they were being firebombed,
40:39
Speaker 1: and so it was assumed that, well, it was going
40:43
Speaker 1: to be a foreigner. So if you were like French
40:46
Speaker 1: or Dutch or had any kind of fucking accent at all,
40:51
Speaker 1: things were not great for you. On top of that,
40:53
Speaker 1: if you were Jewish because historically not the most well
40:58
Speaker 1: liked people for whatever fucking reason for I don't know, existing,
41:03
Speaker 1: I don't what, anyway, not the point, but also Catholics,
41:09
Speaker 1: because this was not an era of religious freedom, and
41:14
Speaker 1: also another reason why King Charles the second, wasn't like
41:16
Speaker 1: super popular with you know, the ruling elite. And that's
41:21
Speaker 1: because he was kind of lackadaisical when it came to
41:25
Speaker 1: like religion, He's like, I believe what you want. Whatever,
41:27
Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. He wasn't, you know, out
41:30
Speaker 1: persecuting people for religion. He wasn't that fussed about it.
41:33
Speaker 1: Like it it's fine, you know, believing her you want
41:37
Speaker 1: to believe in, just don't fuck with me. Seems fair
41:40
Speaker 1: enough to be honest. So yeah, it was like people
41:44
Speaker 1: believed it was a Catholic plot. This was you know,
41:48
Speaker 1: like a fire bomb attack by the armies. It was
41:52
Speaker 1: just terrorism. Like they're just convinced of it. So instead
41:58
Speaker 1: of you know, putting fires out and things like that,
42:03
Speaker 1: mobs and even some of the troops were just rounding
42:07
Speaker 1: up and like beating and attacking and just going after
42:11
Speaker 1: anyone with an accent, anyone different, anyone of a known
42:16
Speaker 1: like alternative creed. They were just going after them because
42:20
Speaker 1: the human condition, people just love to find someone to blame. Like,
42:26
Speaker 1: never mind the actual fire that is enraging around the city,
42:30
Speaker 1: that is just disintegrating as it goes, but there's this
42:36
Speaker 1: very real threatened danger to anyone of foreign birth, of
42:41
Speaker 1: an accent of anything like that. And it's so bad
42:44
Speaker 1: that the Spanish ambassador, because he's rich as fuck and
42:48
Speaker 1: has security, opens up his fucking home in one of
42:52
Speaker 1: like the safe areas and he just starts bringing people
42:56
Speaker 1: in to protect them, like most people did not have
43:00
Speaker 1: opportunity and when as lucky, but he was just like
43:03
Speaker 1: get in here, like fucking awful. Meanwhile, the fire rages
43:10
Speaker 1: on and London burns for four days. London is just
43:19
Speaker 1: burning and burning. Some people were literally scorched from just
43:26
Speaker 1: embers in the air, their skins burned by it's actually
43:31
Speaker 1: described as a shower of fire drops. And then of
43:35
Speaker 1: course there's the animals. There were like pigeons with like
43:38
Speaker 1: singed wings and cats whose fe had been burnt off.
43:43
Speaker 1: At this point, it's like nothing in London is safe.
43:48
Speaker 1: And then on Tuesday. On Tuesday, remember how I said
43:53
Speaker 1: earlier that a bunch of people had stored a fuck
43:56
Speaker 1: ton of stuff inside Saint Paul's Cathedral thinking it was
43:59
Speaker 1: going to be safe. Yeah, about that, it explodes, like
44:07
Speaker 1: it is so hot that like it just sends stones
44:12
Speaker 1: flying in the air. There's an explosion, and also in addition,
44:16
Speaker 1: further more, the roof of Saint Paul's Cathedral was made
44:20
Speaker 1: of lead. So the fire is so hot that it
44:24
Speaker 1: starts melting the roof, so it is trickling down the
44:31
Speaker 1: sides of the building onto the street and then burning
44:35
Speaker 1: the pavement. And it's fucking glowing, like the streets are glowing.
44:40
Speaker 1: Because you have to remember as well, like at like
44:42
Speaker 1: the peak of this fire, it is seventeen hundred degrees
44:48
Speaker 1: celsius about three nine hundred fahrenheit, Like it's hotter than lava,
44:58
Speaker 1: like volcanic lava. It is hotter than that. That is
45:03
Speaker 1: how fucking hot London got, which just seems like an
45:07
Speaker 1: average summer to be honest. But anyway, so you've got
45:10
Speaker 1: this fire that is hotter than you know, lava, and
45:15
Speaker 1: it is ninety one meters tall. Now when you consider
45:19
Speaker 1: that Saint Paul's Cathedral is one hundred and eleven meters tall,
45:22
Speaker 1: like there's a twenty meter difference. And this is you know,
45:28
Speaker 1: fucking volcano fire, which has by Tuesday just consumed Saint
45:34
Speaker 1: Paul's Cathedral. And then evening comes around and things start
45:40
Speaker 1: looking up because the wind is finally dining down like
45:44
Speaker 1: it's finally coming down. However, because it's not pushing the
45:50
Speaker 1: fire east, it means the fire has an opportunity to
45:55
Speaker 1: go west towards the Tower of London, because remember, we
46:01
Speaker 1: don't want the fire to go to the place with
46:03
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy two kg of gunpowder. Luckily, the
46:10
Speaker 1: people who fighting the fire actually clock this, actually, using
46:13
Speaker 1: their brains and of course their bodies, they managed to
46:16
Speaker 1: make a fire break, you know, in time, thus protecting
46:20
Speaker 1: the Tower of London and stopping from a bunch of
46:22
Speaker 1: stuff exploding, which is nice because London exploding not fun,
46:29
Speaker 1: not fun at all. Then the wind picks up again,
46:32
Speaker 1: pushing the fire down towards the Thames, luckily enough where
46:36
Speaker 1: there's nothing left to burn, like it's all ash at
46:39
Speaker 1: this point anyway, And by Wednesday night the fire is
46:43
Speaker 1: finally like it's under control. You've got the juky Yok's
46:48
Speaker 1: guards as troops. They're just managing it. And by Thursday
46:52
Speaker 1: morning the Great Fire of London was finally over. But
46:59
Speaker 1: that isn't really the end the story. So because it
47:01
Speaker 1: had been so fucking hot, you know, because of the
47:05
Speaker 1: seventeen hundred degree fire, the ground was so hot like
47:10
Speaker 1: for a lot of it. You just couldn't walk on it,
47:12
Speaker 1: like for days after the fire had gone, because that
47:16
Speaker 1: residual heat had stayed there. So quite a lot of
47:22
Speaker 1: London was you know, ash at this point, just cinders
47:26
Speaker 1: and debris. So Saint Paul's Cathedral just gone, the Royal Exchange,
47:34
Speaker 1: the Guildhall, the Customs House, eighty seven churches, fifty two
47:39
Speaker 1: company halls, and sixty five thousand homes. Sixty five thousand
47:49
Speaker 1: and a lot of people had been living outside the city.
47:53
Speaker 1: They were staying in refugee camps in fields just to
47:57
Speaker 1: be you know, safe away from the fire. And when
48:01
Speaker 1: the city cooled down and they could finally return well
48:05
Speaker 1: to where their home was for at least sixty five
48:09
Speaker 1: thousand people, more obviously because families and stuff, but for
48:12
Speaker 1: at least sixty five thousand people, they had no homes left.
48:19
Speaker 1: And that's not including like people who also lived in
48:23
Speaker 1: like their business and things like that. So this is
48:27
Speaker 1: it's so fucked up, really, And on top of that,
48:32
Speaker 1: there's this death toll. Now there's only between like six
48:37
Speaker 1: and eight like recorded deaths, depending on how you take it.
48:40
Speaker 1: But because of the chaos of the fire and because
48:43
Speaker 1: you know, the intensity of it, it would be very
48:49
Speaker 1: easy for human remains to just be incinerated, you know.
48:55
Speaker 1: So if you compare this fire to you know, other
49:00
Speaker 1: like fires with similar populations, the death toll is usually
49:04
Speaker 1: about five to six hundred. So it's more likely that
49:08
Speaker 1: you know, five to six hundred people lost their lives
49:11
Speaker 1: in the Great Fire of London than you know, the
49:14
Speaker 1: six to eight people that's like recorded, because it just
49:19
Speaker 1: doesn't add up, Like it doesn't add up, you know.
49:24
Speaker 1: And then of course there's wanting someone to blame. It's
49:28
Speaker 1: it's just a natural human thing. You want a reason
49:32
Speaker 1: for the situation. You want a reason for the occurrence.
49:36
Speaker 1: Because humans don't like happenstance. They don't like chance unless
49:45
Speaker 1: it's in their favor. Like they don't like just tragedy existing.
49:52
Speaker 1: They want a reason for it. It's like there's always
49:54
Speaker 1: someone to blame. So some people thought this was an
50:01
Speaker 1: act of God, you know, and that this was punishment
50:04
Speaker 1: for like anything from like the merry monarchs, like ways,
50:11
Speaker 1: to Puritan's extreme beliefs to general personal failings you know,
50:19
Speaker 1: within your belief system, especially when this is coupled with
50:22
Speaker 1: the plague. You know, they just felt like they're being
50:26
Speaker 1: punished for something. And there's this rumor that, you know,
50:31
Speaker 1: the Great Fire stopped the plague. It didn't. It didn't
50:35
Speaker 1: stop it. It was still there. The plague still exists today.
50:38
Speaker 1: So it didn't get rid of it, not by any stretch,
50:41
Speaker 1: not even in London. It lasted for a good while after.
50:46
Speaker 1: So some people are blaming, you know, God, or that
50:51
Speaker 1: they're being smited by God. Others blamed well, Catholics, Foreigners,
50:58
Speaker 1: et cetera. And one man actually ended up being blamed
51:04
Speaker 1: for it because you have this paranoia and fear and
51:08
Speaker 1: they want to scape go, you know, they want someone
51:10
Speaker 1: to blame. And so there's this this man, Robert Hubert,
51:17
Speaker 1: and he's French, and he's referred to as a wretched soul.
51:25
Speaker 1: Like he ends up confessing, but confessions in the seventeenth
51:29
Speaker 1: century tend to not have a lot of weight behind them.
51:33
Speaker 1: But he gets the blame of starting this fire, this
51:36
Speaker 1: French watchmaker. That's a false confession. It's definitely a false convention.
51:42
Speaker 1: Like even like the judge and the jury, like they
51:45
Speaker 1: don't believe he did it because it's they're just relying
51:48
Speaker 1: on his confession. But none of it, like adds up
51:52
Speaker 1: and Thomas Farrener the baker, he's actually one of the
51:55
Speaker 1: people that signs, you know, like his belief that Robert
52:00
Speaker 1: did it, because of course he doesn't want to get
52:02
Speaker 1: the blame. He doesn't want to get the blame of
52:05
Speaker 1: starting the fire, even though it was definitely his fault.
52:08
Speaker 1: He didn't douse his fire like it's his fault. And
52:13
Speaker 1: so like Robert Houston, he's executed like he's referred to
52:19
Speaker 1: as a wretched soul. So I think he had some issues, depression,
52:26
Speaker 1: maybe something else, but he needed help not being fucking tortured,
52:31
Speaker 1: made to give a false confession and then executed. That
52:35
Speaker 1: just seems, if you don't mind me saying, just a
52:38
Speaker 1: wee bit harsh. The ashes of the city were still
52:42
Speaker 1: smoldering when a decision had to be made, like so
52:47
Speaker 1: much of it had been destroyed, so many buildings burnt
52:52
Speaker 1: down that you could see from one side of the
52:54
Speaker 1: city to the other, you could see clear across, and
52:58
Speaker 1: so there was only one thing left to do rebuild it,
53:03
Speaker 1: which is what King Charles's second proclaims on the thirteenth
53:06
Speaker 1: of September seventeen sixty six, that London has to be rebuilt,
53:11
Speaker 1: and initially there was plans for it to be done
53:14
Speaker 1: by you know, the Royal Society and to like really
53:19
Speaker 1: like redesign it and really carefully create it. But they
53:23
Speaker 1: needed it built sooner rather than later, so they basically
53:28
Speaker 1: just set safety standards. So instead of basing it on
53:32
Speaker 1: this sort of old medieval you know, building structure like
53:37
Speaker 1: woodenhouses were replaced with brick. No more jetties. So basically
53:42
Speaker 1: the top floor could not be bigger than the foundation.
53:45
Speaker 1: It had to have the same like square footage, the
53:48
Speaker 1: same size top and bottom, and so most houses were
53:51
Speaker 1: built to a standard size. You know, water pipes, sewers like,
53:57
Speaker 1: they were all in place, so you know, going to
54:00
Speaker 1: be higher levels of hygiene or at least a wee
54:03
Speaker 1: bit more just a wee bit, a little bit more hygiene,
54:05
Speaker 1: a little bit more, a little bit more safety, just
54:08
Speaker 1: a tad But the way the streets basically stayed the same,
54:14
Speaker 1: like geographically, so it was still the same design as
54:19
Speaker 1: the medieval city, but just built better, built better, that
54:25
Speaker 1: is an academic term, not more structurally sound, no, no,
54:31
Speaker 1: built better. So after there's a couple of laws come
54:34
Speaker 1: into place, the Rebuilding of London Act, of sixteen sixty six,
54:37
Speaker 1: which basically was like the rules and regulations and safety
54:41
Speaker 1: for like houses and what not. The Fire of London
54:44
Speaker 1: Disputes Act, which were these fire courts that were established
54:48
Speaker 1: to basically stop people fighting over property and being like
54:51
Speaker 1: I owned this house. No, I owned this house, and
54:54
Speaker 1: to just try and like sort it out properly. And
54:57
Speaker 1: then the Act with the Nope, but the Act of
55:02
Speaker 1: the Prevention and Suppression God damn it, the sixty sixty
55:09
Speaker 1: seven Act for the Prevention and Suppression of Fire within
55:13
Speaker 1: the City of London and the liberties they roll. Basically,
55:17
Speaker 1: this made that all neighborhoods they would have like firefighting equipment,
55:22
Speaker 1: they would have axes, shovels, wore access to water. And
55:28
Speaker 1: then after this it also leads people to set up
55:34
Speaker 1: fire insurance and then all of these other companies starts
55:38
Speaker 1: up fire insurance and it's it's all about wild now.
55:43
Speaker 1: Some people just left London after the fire. They were
55:46
Speaker 1: like I'm fucking done by others, you know, try to
55:49
Speaker 1: rebuild their lives. There were really fun set up for
55:52
Speaker 1: people to kind of try and do that. And then
55:57
Speaker 1: you've got people like the editor of the Flunting gazette
56:01
Speaker 1: who stopped, you know, being an editor. He wasn't really
56:06
Speaker 1: doing his job and they would find him wandering around
56:10
Speaker 1: churches muttering to himself. And Samuel peppis how one of
56:16
Speaker 1: the reasons why we know so much about the Great
56:19
Speaker 1: Fire is that he would have nightmares of like, more fires,
56:25
Speaker 1: more fires were coming. These people clearly had PTSD, and
56:29
Speaker 1: these are the ones we know about because these are
56:32
Speaker 1: the ones that were written down. So these two people
56:35
Speaker 1: who had relative stability and funds and security for their
56:44
Speaker 1: own mental well being, if they are having PTSD and
56:48
Speaker 1: they're struggling, imagine what it was like for the lower classes,
56:54
Speaker 1: for minorities and those without privilege. Like it's just all
56:59
Speaker 1: of the trauma that a lot of people wouldn't have
57:02
Speaker 1: had a way to deal with, you know. And so
57:07
Speaker 1: that is the end of our tale of the Great
57:09
Speaker 1: Fire of London. Don't forget. If you liked my retailing
57:14
Speaker 1: of this piece of history, this event that once happened
57:20
Speaker 1: many months ago, feel free to write interview five stars
57:23
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever rating system occurs in
57:28
Speaker 1: your whole whole fandango there. Don't forget, there are still
57:32
Speaker 1: spots available as well on my Trover trip The Secret
57:36
Speaker 1: History of Scotland. Yeah yah yeah, yeah yeah yeah, Like
57:40
Speaker 1: I have found the coolest it's this this escape room,
57:46
Speaker 1: but it also has this spooky bar. It's awesome, it's historical.
57:51
Speaker 1: It's just it's a bit dark, but I think you're
57:55
Speaker 1: gonna love it. So the first five, like fully registered people,
58:00
Speaker 1: they're going to be going. I'm going to be taking
58:03
Speaker 1: them there and we're gonna win this escape room. We're
58:05
Speaker 1: gonna kick ass because that's what we do. And don't forget.
58:10
Speaker 1: You can follow me on all the socials. I generally
58:12
Speaker 1: respond to Instagram. Instagram's easier to message me on. So
58:17
Speaker 1: if you want to follow me on Instagram, who did
58:19
Speaker 1: what now? Pod? I will probably say something back to
58:22
Speaker 1: you unless you say something rude to me, or just
58:25
Speaker 1: send me memes. Don't fucking send me memes. Like, there
58:28
Speaker 1: are three people in my life that are allowed to
58:30
Speaker 1: send me memes, and unless you already know that you're
58:34
Speaker 1: one of those people, then you are not one of
58:36
Speaker 1: those people. I just don't send me videos out of context.
58:40
Speaker 1: I will not watch them. I just won't. Like. I
58:44
Speaker 1: don't know why. Maybe it's the newer divergency in me.
58:48
Speaker 1: It could be. I'm also on x formerly known as Twitter,
58:53
Speaker 1: I guess, and a bunch of others. I'm on Facebook.
58:56
Speaker 1: There's other stuff I'm around. I'm on TikTok, come on places,
59:00
Speaker 1: so yeah, follow interact for me in the Irish Podcast Awards,
59:05
Speaker 1: just to screw with them. It's the latest but it's fine.
59:10
Speaker 1: But yeah, and I guess it's a recommendation time. So
59:15
Speaker 1: for reading, I am going to suggest Bad Bridget. It's
59:21
Speaker 1: all about sort of Irish immigrants and Irish Americans. It's
59:26
Speaker 1: really interesting. You should give it a go. For watching,
59:32
Speaker 1: I'm going with only Murders in the Building because I
59:36
Speaker 1: love a weird, cozy mystery. And for listening, I think
59:42
Speaker 1: everybody should listen to Bustard's Greatest Hits album. Like all
59:48
Speaker 1: of the feminism just leaves my body when I listen
59:50
Speaker 1: to a Busted album. But there's this great version of
59:54
Speaker 1: She Wants to Be Me, which is just a fun,
59:55
Speaker 1: silly song.
59:57
Speaker 2: And it's got balling for Sevon like they're doing it
1:00:00
Speaker 2: with bowling for just it's so good.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: It's so good. It just fills me with weird emo joy.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: But with that, I'm gonna bid you a good night. So adios.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: Avo of Hud is my friendsh Bye, bye,