Pepy's Diary. 24 Feb 1667. By and by comes Sir Robert Viner (age 36) and my Lord Mayor to ask the King's directions about measuring out the streets according to the new Act for building of the City, wherein the King (age 36) is to be pleased¹. But he says that the way proposed in Parliament, by Colonel Birch (age 51), would have been the best, to have chosen some persons in trust, and sold the whole ground, and let it be sold again by them, with preference to the old owner, which would have certainly caused the City to be built where these Trustees pleased; whereas now, great differences will be, and the streets built by fits, and not entire till all differences be decided. This, as he tells it, I think would have been the best way. I enquired about the Frenchman² that was said to fire the City, and was hanged for it, by his own confession, that he was hired for it by a Frenchman of Roane, and that he did with a stick reach in a fire-ball in at a window of the house: whereas the master of the house, who is the King's baker, and his son, and daughter, do all swear there was no such window, and that the fire did not begin thereabouts. Yet the fellow, who, though a mopish besotted fellow, did not speak like a madman, did swear that he did fire it: and did not this like a madman; for, being tried on purpose, and landed with his keeper at the Tower Wharfe [Map], he could carry the keeper to the very house. Asking Sir R. Viner (age 36) what he thought was the cause of the fire, he tells me, that the baker, son, and his daughter, did all swear again and again, that their oven was drawn by ten o'clock at night; that, having occasion to light a candle about twelve, there was not so much fire in the bakehouse as to light a match for a candle, so that they were fain to go into another place to light it; that about two in the morning they felt themselves almost choked with smoke, and rising, did find the fire coming upstairs; so they rose to save themselves; but that, at that time, the bavins³ were not on fire in the yard. So that they are, as they swear, in absolute ignorance how this fire should come; which is a strange thing, that so horrid an effect should have so mean and uncertain a beginning.

Note 1. See Sir Christopher Wren's (age 43) "Proposals for rebuilding the City of London after the great fire, with an engraved Plan of the principal Streets and Public Buildings", in Elmes's "Memoirs of Sir Christopher Wren", Appendix, p.61. The originals are in All Souls' College Library, Oxford. B.

Note 2. "One Hubert, a French papist, was seized in Essex, as he was getting out of the way in great confusion. He confessed he had begun the fire, and persisted in his confession to his death, for he was hanged upon no other evidence but that of his own confession. It is true he gave so broken an account of the whole matter that he was thought mad. Yet he was blindfolded, and carried to several places of the city, and then his eyes being opened, he was asked if that was the place, and he being carried to wrong places, after he looked round about for some time, he said that was not the place, but when he was brought to the place where it first broke out, he affirmed that was the true place. "Burnet's Own Time", book ii. Archbishop Tillotson (age 36), according to Burnet, believed that London was burnt by design.

Note 3. brushwood, or faggots used for lighting fires.