He was impressed by young Churchill’s answer but said no more on that occasion. He did not forget, however, and saw to it that this particular page should attend him upon other similar occasions.
Each time he found that the young man missed very little of what was going on and always gave an intelligent answer and a shrewd appreciation of the problem involved. The Duke even summoned those officers conducting the drilling and made them explain to him what they intended. All this in John’s hearing, but without of course attaching him to the consultation.
Nevertheless young Churchill heard and absorbed it all. Through his young brother George, who had never in his childhood dared to disobey John, except by hiding from him, he managed to visit the Earl of Sandwich’s library while the latter was away at sea. There he made short inroads upon the nobleman’s book of naval history in the time of the ancients and from then on to present times. George kept watch while John read standing, alert to push the book back into its place on the shelf if any servant came in to disturb them.
They had one or two narrow escapes, but no disclosure. John stored his knowledge in his head until he could make notes of it; he bought news sheets in which he found accounts of petty encounters at sea, principally with the Dutch. He compared the actions of past times with those of the present. To analyse his conclusions gave him enormous pleasure.
‘When war comes to be declared with the Dutch,’ he told Godolphin, ‘I must by some means find my way into it. Will it be long to wait?’
‘No time at all, if you go for the present campaign at sea. For the port of Tangier, rather than the Dutch. We talk of it all the time in Whitehall. Those clerks of the Navy Office and Lord Sandwich and the Duke are continually coming to seek funds to set up ships for the Fleet in the Mediterranean. That’s where they fight now and are like to continue if funds be found for it.’
This news filled John with fresh resolve. But he could do nothing to further his desires except wait carefully upon the Duke and keep his ears and eyes open for any news of a martial kind.
Chapter Five
In the early hours of the morning of September 2nd, 1666 a journeyman working at Farriner’s bakehouse in Pudding Lane in the City of London smelled smoke and, tracing it to its origin, discovered fire. He decided that it was quite beyond him to deal with it by himself, for it grew rapidly as he gazed at it, horrified. So he promptly roused the household and while the older male members of it ran to confirm his report, the women threw on their clothes, gathered as many of their movable possessions as they could and ran out of the upper rooms in order to leave the house.
They met the men folk rushing back. The whole of the ground floor was ablaze, there was no escape that way. However they were all able to clamber on to the roof, over the roof next door and so to the ground and away. All, that is to say, but a maid-servant, who was overcome by the smoke, which hid from the others her choking, failing body, and so was left to perish.
The fire spread quickly. A strong easterly wind was blowing and continued to blow for the next five days. If it had come from the west, the prevailing direction then as now, the flames and sparks would have been blown towards the boundaries of the City to the east and so to the wide flats and marshes where it would have died out for want of fuel. As it was sparks leaped from the wooden back to back houses across the narrow streets to catch neighbouring roofs and trade signs hanging from shops and inns. All were totally vulnerable.
The fire moved west and south. It reached the riverside, where it found piles of inflammable goods in warehouses, at wharves, in barges. It swept along the shore, fed by piled-up rubbish, stacked wood, old tarred wooden skeletons of dead boats.
Fires were not unknown in London. In fact they were of fairly frequent occurrence and were usually brought under control by the efforts of the immediate neighbourhood or, as a sterner measure, by pulling down houses in the direct advance of the flames, so that a gap was made where beaters could attack with sticks and water.
But this fire was different. It had started very early in the morning, not much after midnight, well before dawn. Nothing had been done at the beginning to control it. The season had been dry, the wind was from the east. Above all the people had no heart to attack the flames. As a consequence of the long terror-filled months of the most severe epidemic of the plague for several years, there were far fewer inhabitants in any part of the town than there had been even a year before. Every family, every shop, inn, trade, had suffered losses, very often the head man, the owner, the leader. Without normal direction, bereaved and despondent, the survivors simply piled their belongings upon any cart or wagon they could find and fled to relations or friends further off.
In the first days of the continuing blaze the fugitives found they had not gone far enough. For the fire pursued them, so that they and their hosts had to flee again, while those who could do so and dreaded fugitives even more than the fire abandoned their houses while there was still time to find means to move their goods and chattels outside the walls of the city itself.
Reports of the fire came to Westminster and Whitehall quite soon. By the evening of the first day the Lieutenant of the Tower had been informed of the seriousness of the situation. Before that, quite early, still in darkness, the Lord Mayor had been roused and had gone on horseback to the scene. But he decided it was trivial, and expected it to be dealt with in the usual manner. He went home to bed.
The Lieutenant thought otherwise. His investigations horrified him. The fire had spread down to the river by London Bridge and had destroyed the Water House there and the first houses on the bridge itself. There a gap, caused by a former fire some years ago, had halted it. But along the riverside it was spreading rapidly. Several churches had been destroyed, along with many well-known inns, including the Old Swan tavern.
The Lieutenant sent a messenger to the King. So did Mr. Samuel Pepys of the Navy Office, who had gone to investigate by water and had passed the Bridge upstream in his boat, to discover the extent of the fire. He was able to report that nothing was being done to stop it, the people were removing their possessions in boats or simply running away on land.
Orders came back to pull down houses before the fire in the usual way, but they were not obeyed. The Lord Mayor proved useless in his attempts to organise a defence against the fire. The people had begun to panic. Had the fire been started by the Dutch, the French, the Papists? Instead of responding to the Lord Mayor’s orders and pleas, they tried to arm themselves against a supposedly imminent invasion.
In the afternoon, news of the spread of the fire having reached the King from several sources, he and his brother the Duke of York went down the river from Whitehall to see it for themselves. They were duly impressed: Charles was particularly annoyed by the stupidity of the Lord Mayor and the ineptitude of the Lieutenant of the Tower. Firebreaks ought by now to have been set up, particularly to the west of the burning, for the easterly wind was blowing more strongly than ever. But it was not until the following day, Monday, that the fire was officially recognised and announced in the London Gazette.
Meanwhile Charles had sent Lord Craven with a party of the Guards to help to subdue it and had placed the Duke at the head of operations. By this time the red glow could be seen even in the sunlight of that fine September morning, while the smoke hung all over the western part of the City and penetrated to Westminster itself.
Important noblemen, always on the lookout for opportunities to earn praise and recompense from the sovereign, joined the Duke’s organisation. With the help of the Earl of Manchester, my lords Craven, Ashley and others, fire posts were set up at Temple Bar, Fetter Lane and Cow Lane, manned by soldiers and volunteer civilians with forward posts served by the militia.
In the east the wind held back the flames, which made only slow progress. But to the west they spread with terrifying speed and force. Baynard’s Castle on the Thames had gone by Monday night except for its stout walls. The Heralds’ Office was burned, but the recrods were save
d and taken to Whitehall Palace.
To the north, towards St. Paul’s cathedral, churches, inns and houses were reduced to piles of burning ash. The clergy in many cases stored their valuable plate in the church crypts before leaving but such was the heat of the fire that much of the treasure was reduced to unidentifiable masses of molten gold and silver.
At the Court of Prince James young John Churchill was among the first of the gentlemen of the Household to volunteer for service in fighting the fire. The Duke had already noticed this particular page of honour for his interest in military matters, so he was not surprised to find young Churchill anxious to serve in the present emergency. In spite of his youth and general inexperience he appointed him to the fire post at Cornhill under the command of the young Duke of Monmouth, the eldest and most favoured bastard son of the King.
John had already seen this young man on several occasions among Charles’s immediate entourage, either playing cards or dice, amusing his father with lively anecdote, chiefly of a bawdy nature, or showing off his graceful mastery of the dance. John had not admired what he saw, but had confided this view to none but his friend Godolphin. It had not taken him long to learn that discretion was of life-saving importance. Gossip heaved up and down with the unceasing movement of a strong tide, while the heavy waves of scandal were apt to drown its originator just as readily as the victim.
At the Cornhill firepost the young Duke rallied his small group of men with characteristic charm and total lack of system or design.
‘The flames are not upon us yet, friends,’ he shouted to the group, which was composed of not more than twenty men. ‘So there must be no panic over our operations.’
‘What be they, your Grace?’ one middle-aged citizen demanded. He had abandoned his house in the neighbourhood and settled his wife and children with friends further off before returning to stop the fire, as he imagined.
Monmouth, who did not know the man and resented the question, gave him a haughty stare, but no answer. Let the fellow listen and obey and he would get his answer.
‘As the Duke, my uncle, hath ordered,’ he shouted to the others, ‘we must make a fire break. There, and there, and there,’ he pointed. ‘Go to it! Break them up! Break them down!’
No one moved. The Duke had pointed at three empty houses, two to the south, one to the west. The roaring, flaming menace, the smoke that enveloped them in great choking waves, lay to the east.
John Churchill groaned aloud. The little Duke was more stupid than he had yet realised. They had still time to make their break but it grew less with every minute.
‘On! On!’ shrieked Monmouth, waving his arms now to every point in the compass.
John seized his opportunity. Three other young men had moved near him to get a good look at the King’s bastard. They were apprentices whose masters had used them to move his goods and then told them he had no further use for them, his business having been destroyed for the time being. John swept his eyes over them, cried, ‘Follow me!’ and dashed away through the smoke towards the nearest house that lay in the path of the fire, now only a couple of streets away.
These houses had all been abandoned. If they had been pulled down and their timbers pushed into a heap to prevent them filling the narrow roadways and thus forming a link to guide the fire, it might have been stopped at Cornhill.
But the action was too slow, too inefficient. They lacked tools of a size and weight to lay the houses to the ground, though they were small and made of wood and plaster, not brick. Moreover the Duke of Monmouth proved to be quite useless in controlling the men under his command. He was very young, only nineteen at this time; he was the spoilt darling of his father’s heart, no one at Court dared to criticise his conceit, his showing-off, his slow mind, his underlying vulgarity. But Cornhill was not the Court. The middle-aged merchant citizens facing ruin found no pleasure in pulling down a part of their own neighbourhood in order that rival tradesmen further off might escape and flourish.
So they worked reluctantly, often stopping to put out abandoned objects of value and lay them aside to take away later. While John Churchill and his young men made a fine heap in the direct advance, it was not supported by the efforts of those at either hand.
The fire had now approached to within fifty yards, its heat had become unbearable, sparks flying on the wind in advance of it. The roar and crackle numbed the brain, the smoke had now passed over their heads and beyond, the air they breathed burned in their mouths and noses, burned into their lungs. They turned and fled.
John, rushing back to where Monmouth stood, white-faced, gasping, irresolute, grasped his arm and croaked out, ‘For God’s sake, sir, order our retreat or we shall fall before the flames! There be some already scarce able to walk, let alone run!’
Monmouth stared at him. His slow wits told him he had seen this young man before, with his uncle Prince James, at Court, and now, yes, today, beside him today.
‘You sir,’ he gasped, his lips trembling, ‘you belong to the Duke?’
‘Aye, your Grace.’
‘Then go tell him we – we must leave this post. At once. Yes, at once.’
John nearly laughed. Of those who had worked beside him during their feeble efforts to make a break in the path of the fire, he saw only three beside himself. The others had disappeared into the smoke pall to the west.
He tightened his grip on the Duke of Monmouth’s arm, turning him round and beginning to force him to walk away, assuring him as they moved that he would go back at once to the Duke of York to report their failure and to ask for fresh orders.
‘Failure! What failure?’ demanded Monmouth, stopping in his tracks. ‘You will report no such thing, sir! This Fire is a malignant force of nature. It is a—’
He stopped speaking, overcome equally by the malignant force of nature that had dried up his mouth and the force of his own nature engulfing him in speechless fury.
When they were sufficiently far away from the advancing fire to be safe, at least for the time being, John turned his unhappy commander over to those two of his gentlemen who had followed without interfering. He bowed respectfully, hatless, because he had lost that important part of his dress in pulling down houses; gloveless, for those articles of apparel had been torn to shreds in the same exercise. With his clothes, stockings and shoes covered with fine ash, dust, and the dirt of ages, he made his way back to where the Duke of York, still at work directing his own plans for the Fleet Ditch, was directing his men in person.
All the way there John had to struggle through the crowds that still fled westwards, pursued by the monster that hourly took on more and more of a human malignancy in their terrified minds. They still made no effort to fight it. Their one idea was to escape with as many movable goods as possible. Not now to friends a few streets away, but further off, even beyond the city walls – to the outlying villages, to Kensington in the west, in the north to the hills at Highgate and Hampstead, to Islington and the fields beyond that. Every cart that could be hired or taken, every horse, had already gone. In the more fashionable parts about the theatres in Covent Garden and along the Strand, all areas where the plague had taken a heavy toll and where the great lords and their families had not yet returned from their refuges in the country, their dependants and housekeeping staff had already made good their escape, using any coach that stood in the yard, any newly fashionable sedan chair, waiting their master’s return. From those houses at the waterside they took to the boats. Craft of all kinds and sizes covered the river, making always upstream when the tide allowed, even rowing desperately against it to gain distance to the west before the monster reached them.
John Churchill, trudging back through the throng, ignored all demands for help with a cry of ‘On the Duke’s business!’ He managed to avoid being forced from his errand. He was nearly exhausted when he came upon the first of the militia. Here he needed to argue his identity to avoid a more serious conscription, but he managed it with his inborn forcefulness in the face of
opposition. Again upon two occasions he escaped by taking to his heels and outdistancing the pursuers. When finally he reached the Duke’s immediate entourage he was breathless, shaking and so weak that as he made his low bow he very nearly fell on his face. In a faint trembling voice he gave his message from Monmouth.
The Duke showed his anger in his stiffened body and the pallor of his smoke-grimed face. But all he said was, ‘You have done well to reach me! Why did his Grace not bring back his men instead of making it your business to inform me?’
‘They had mostly dispersed already, when his Grace ordered the retreat, your Highness,’ John answered. It was a very poor excuse and he was not surprised to see the Duke frown. So he added, ‘His Grace had need of rest and—food. We had not eaten—’
‘You too,’ James said, turning to his gentlemen. ‘Take my page and feed him,’ he ordered. Then turned away to consider again how he might use the Fleet Ditch to halt the fire.
By the next day half the City had gone, but still the fire, helped by the continuing east wind, spread further and further west and north. During Monday night the wealthy merchants had fought to save their valuable goods and records in the great halls of their guilds; to move them to places of safety. The iron-bound boxes of the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths and their irreplaceable accounts went to the Tower. At the Drapers’ Hall the plate was put down a well. But most of the halls of the many trades were totally destroyed, except where by good fortune a piece of open ground or a large garden left a space the fire could not cross.
Guildhall was burned out but the stone walls stood and the crypt survived, though Gog and Magog burned with the rest of the furniture. The records were removed and saved.
Behind Guildhall the Coopers’ Hall was destroyed after the collected members met and each took away to safety a part of the company’s property.
At Moorgate and Cripplegate the fire posts at last had a measure of success, both in holding back the fire or by blowing up houses in the path of its advance.
A Question of Loyalties Page 5
