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The cause of the Great Fire in London
The cause of the fire was that Thomas Farynor, the Baker of Charles II, went to bed without closing one of his stoves. A spark fell on the straw located nearby and because of this there was a fire. -
Sunday afternoon
At 1: 00 am a spark set fire to the straw on the floor of the bakery and started the fire. -
Monday
On Monday, September 3, the fire spread to the North and West, destroying St. Paul's Cathedral, as well as further South than the day before. The spread of the South stopped on the banks of the river, but was burned the house of London bridge. The blaze threatened to cross the bridge and endanger the borough of Southwark on the South Bank of the river. -
Tuesday
Tuesday, 4 September was the day of greatest destruction. The Duke of York's command post at Temple Bar, where Strand meets Fleet Street, was supposed to stop the fire's westward advance towards the Palace of Whitehall. He hoped that the River Fleet would form a natural firebreak, making a stand with his firemen from the Fleet Bridge and down to the Thames. -
Wednesday
The wind dropped on Tuesday evening, and the firebreaks created by the garrison finally began to take effect on Wednesday 5 September. Stopping the fire caused much fire and demolition damage in the lawyers' area called the Temple. Pepys walked all over the smouldering city, getting his feet hot, and climbed the steeple of Barking Church, from which he viewed the destroyed City, "the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw." -
Aftermath
An example of the urge to identify scapegoats for the fire is the acceptance of the confession of a simple-minded French watchmaker named Robert Hubert, who claimed that he was an agent of the Pope and had started the Great Fire in Westminster. He later changed his story to say that he had started the fire at the bakery in Pudding Lane. Hubert was convicted, despite some misgivings about his fitness to plead, and hanged at Tyburn on 28 September 1666.
