Introduction
In 1665, an epidemic of plague claimed some 70,000 lives in London alone. Then on September 2nd, 1666, fire broke out in Pudding Lane, and raged for five days. Casualties were low, but dozens of churches and civic buildings were destroyed, and over 13,000 houses went up in flames leaving some 80,000 Londoners homeless. On the 7th, John Evelyn went wandering among the ashes.
Friday 7th.
I WENT this morning* on foot from Whitehall as far as London Bridge, through the late Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, by St Paul’s,* Cheapside, Exchange, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, and out to Moorfields, thence through Cornhill, etc.,* with extraordinary difficulty, clambering over heaps of yet smoking rubbish, and frequently mistaking where I was. The ground under my feet so hot that it even burnt the soles of my shoes. [...]
The bye-lanes and narrower streets were quite filled up with rubbish, nor could one have possibly known where he was, but by the ruins of some Church or Hall, that had some remarkable tower or pinnacle remaining. I then went towards Islington and Highgate, where one might have seen 200,000 people of all ranks and degrees dispersed and lying along by their heaps of what they could save from the fire, deploring their loss, and though ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one penny for relief, which to me appeared a stranger sight than any I had yet beheld. His Majesty and Council* indeed took all imaginable care for their relief by proclamation for the country to come in and refresh them with provisions.*
* The fire began on Sunday 2nd September 1666, shortly after midnight, and raged (reaching 1,250°C) until the high winds dropped on Wednesday 5th, but even then, wrote Evelyn, “there was yet no standing near the burning and glowing ruins by near a furlong’s space”. It put him in mind of Hebrews 13:14, ‘for here have we no continuing city’ and of the fall of Troy. “London was,” he exclaimed, borrowing from Book II of Virgil’s Aeneid, “but is no more!“ By Friday 7th, Sir John could walk the wider streets, though the heat was still difficult to bear. All this walking was by way of research: on the following Thursday, the 13th, Sir John presented Charles II with a plan for rebuilding the City.
* This was the old St Paul’s Cathedral, dating back to 1087 and standing on church foundations going back to the beginning of the seventh century. “Thus lay in ashes” Sir John lamented “that most venerable church, one of the most ancient pieces of early piety in the Christian world.” Construction of a new cathedral, designed in daring English baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren with input from Sir John, was begun in 1675 and completed in 1710.
* From Fleet Street on the north bank of the River Thames, Sir John walked in an S-shape (from the bottom left) working east past St Paul’s, Cheapside and the Royal Exchange to Bishopsgate, turning northwest towards Aldersgate, and turning east again to Moorfields before making a dollar-sign of it and heading directly south to Cornhill a few yards along from the Royal Exchange. Pudding Lane, the origin of the fire, is just a little further on, nearer the river. Evelyn tells us that Moorfields was one of the places where the homeless gathered in numbers, “some under tents, some under miserable huts and hovels, many without a rag, or any necessary utensils, bed or board, who from delicateness, riches, and easy accommodations in stately and well-furnished houses, were now reduced to extremest misery and poverty.”
* King Charles II (r. 1649-1685), who was assisted by his brother and heir James, Duke of York, and by the rather dithering Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth (1620-1682). “It is not indeed imaginable” wrote Sir John “how extraordinary the vigilance and activity of the King and the Duke was, even labouring in person, and being present to command, order, reward, or encourage workmen; by which he showed his affection to his people, and gained theirs.”
* Another eyewitness, naval administrator and fellow-diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), recorded that Evelyn was increasingly upset at the unsatisfactory response that this plea garnered from the nobility and the Church in the weeks that followed. “None of the nobility come out of the country at all to help the King,” Pepys remembered Evelyn lamenting, some three weeks later, “or comfort him, or prevent commotions at this fire; but do as if the King were nobody; nor ne’er a priest comes to give the King and Court good council, or to comfort the poor people that suffer; but all is dead, nothing of good in any of their minds.”
Précis
On September 7th, 1666, Sir John Evelyn took a walk through the streets of London to see for himself the devastation wreaked by five days of the Great Fire. Amid the baking, charred remains, he saw tens of thousands of destitute Londoners, too stunned even to beg; happily, the Government arranged for charitable donations to be brought to them. (59 / 60 words)
On September 7th, 1666, Sir John Evelyn took a walk through the streets of London to see for himself the devastation wreaked by five days of the Great Fire. Amid the baking, charred remains, he saw tens of thousands of destitute Londoners, too stunned even to beg; happily, the Government arranged for charitable donations to be brought to them.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: despite, if, may, not, or, otherwise, whereas, whether.
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