His Majesty the King and His Royal Highness the Duke of York
Palace of Whitehall
* * *
I was resting in the middle of the afternoon, in a lane a little to the west of Garlickhithe, taking some ale to quench my mighty thirst, when word came that the Royal Exchange was ablaze. That meant the post house would have gone, and Cornhill with all the shops that Cornelia loved so much, and Threadneedle Street. I looked at Francis Gale, as sooty and begrimed as myself, and he at me, but neither of us had any words left. The London we knew was being wiped from the map, street by street, stone by stone, and it seemed there was nothing any mortal being could do about it.
A lad was running up the lane toward us, shouting, but at first I could not hear him over the din of the fire and falling houses. What new horror could he be proclaiming? Had the flames reached the Tower? If so, was the vast powder arsenal about to explode? Or had the street prophecies been fulfilled, and the French and Dutch really were invading? Part of me prayed for the latter to be true. At least Frenchmen and Dutchmen were tangible enemies; foes who could be confronted, and defeated, unlike the inexorable flames.
‘Looters!’ The word was clear now. ‘Looters at the wharf by Black Swan Alley! My father’s business…’
I stood, and grabbed hold of the boy.
‘Take us there,’ I said.
Francis beckoned to the dozen or so Sceptres closest to us, led by Carvell and John Tremar.
Down we went, through the warren of alleyways toward the river, fighting our way through the carts and people trying to get west, the stench of burning tar and pitch getting stronger with every step we took. The wharf was no different to any of its neighbours: a narrow piece of land, fronted by rickety wooden pilings and a crane, warehouses stretching behind it, up toward Thames Street. Lighters and barges were crowded up against it. Vintners Hall stood behind and a little to the east of the wharf, its roof ablaze.
On the wharf, a man was being beaten into a bloody pulp by three rough-looking fellows. Behind them, a dozen or so of their kind were rolling barrels of wine out of the warehouse, then stacking them on the deck of a lighter.
‘Father!’ cried the boy.
I drew my sword and advanced. The three men drew daggers, and turned toward me. The lad ran to his father, who fell to the ground.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ demanded the largest robber. ‘This place is ours, so fuck off and find your own.’
‘Your place? I don’t think so. And here and now, I am the King’s justice.’
The other looters had left their barrels, and were forming into a tight formation behind their leader. They had cudgels and knives, and they looked like the sorts of fellows who had seen many a fight in their time.
‘King’s justice? Like we give a shit for the Papist whoremaster Charles Stuart? With me, boys!’
The gang charged. The leader came at my right side, abetted by a plague-scarred, pockmarked fellow on the left. They had to avoid the greater reach of my sword, but if one of them could get under my guard while the other kept my swordarm occupied.
Pock-Mark feinted low, and the leader attacked high, stabbing for my neck. But such an obvious move was meat and drink. I pivoted, threatening Pock-Mark and then bringing my sword back up to block the leader, whose dagger struck my blade.
To my left, Francis Gale was engaged in a ferocious fist-fight with a dusky fellow who might have been a Spaniard or an Italian. To my right, Julian Carvell was exchanging vicious knife-thrusts with a young, nimble, one-eyed creature. All over the wharf, Sceptres and looters battled each other, while fire raged above the nearby rooftops and flame-flakes fell on us at every moment.
Now Pock-Mark and the leader came at me together, both jabbing for my chest, stepping away from each other in the hope that I would leave a gap in my guard. But this exposed Pock-Mark’s left flank, just for a moment – I lunged, below his knife-arm, piercing him in the ribs, below the heart. He screamed and backed away, clutching at the bloody wound. The leader pressed home his attack, and as I swung around, his knife sliced a gash across my right arm, a mere second after it would have done the same to my neck. I felt the pain, saw the blood flow, but had taken enough wounds in my life to know it would not hinder me. I cut for the leader’s shoulder, but he ducked out of the way in time. In doing so, though, he showed me his left side. I shifted my weight and thrust for his head. My blade ripped through the flesh of his left cheek and took off his ear. The fellow grabbed at the wound, screaming pitifully. Then he turned and ran, his minions breaking off from their own battles to follow him.
Julian Carvell came up to me. He picked up one of the many bottles of wine scattered across the wharf, smashed the top off it, and poured it onto my wound. I gasped, for it stung hideously. Then he tore off the sleeve of his shirt, which he wrapped around my wound without a by-your-leave.
‘Beggin’ pardon, Sir Matthew,’ he said, ‘but you’ll soon have as many scars as me.’
The pain from the wound was dreadful, but I could still move the arm freely. If necessary, I could still wield a sword, or take hold of a fire-hook.
Suddenly, flames erupted from the head of the alleyway just to the east of the wharf where we stood. The first swirls of smoke rose from the roof of the warehouse behind us.
‘Back!’ I cried. ‘Fall back on Queenhithe, men!’
Francis Gale helped the beaten merchant to his feet. The man and his son turned, and looked at the abandoned barrels of wine littering the wharf, where they would shortly fall victim to the fire. It did not take a seer to divine what they were thinking.
* * *
That afternoon and early evening, we pulled down more houses, around Trinity Lane and thereabouts. But the fire was merciless. Queenhithe itself, the principal dock on that part of the river, was consumed, and all the buildings around it – countless houses, warehouses, the glorious old Three Cranes in Vintry where in happier times I had enjoyed many a meal and good companionship with my old, dear, dead friend, Vice-Admiral Sir William Berkeley. I watched as flames took hold on the roof of Baynard’s Castle, the squat, ancient riverside fortress where so much of England’s history had been written. There, Edward the Fourth was crowned, his brother Richard the Third proclaimed King, Bloody Mary proclaimed Queen. But not even the weighty armour of history can defend a building from a disaster such as this. Soon, all of the castle’s multiple octagonal towers and narrow gables that fronted the river were ablaze, flames spouting forth like dragon’s breath from its countless windows, sheets of fire issuing from its roof like infernal mainsails blowing in the gale from Satan’s breath.
That is how Whitehall will burn, I thought. That is what the destruction of Parliament will look like.
Dispirited, the Sceptres and I made our way up Saint Peter’s Hill. We slumped in front of an alehouse at the back of the Heralds’ office, eating and drinking in silence, trying to recover our breath and our senses. I felt overwhelmingly tired, my arm was painful, and I was on the verge of sleep, when a loud voice stirred me.
‘Make way, there! You men, out of the way!’
I looked up, and saw familiar red uniforms. Life Guards. Bloodworth must have allowed them into the City, or else he had been given no choice in the matter.
In the middle of the Life Guards was a face I knew. A proud-looking, hawk-faced man in his early thirties, wearing a soot-stained grey coat, looked intently from side to side. I stood. Francis Gale and the rest of the Sceptres followed my lead.
I bowed.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ I said.
The man looked at me uncertainly, then screwed up his eyes to look at me more closely.
‘Quinton? Dear Lord in Heaven, is that really you, Sir Matthew?’
‘My apologies, Highness. I have not had the occasion to clean or dress myself for an audience.’
It was intended as a jest, but I should have known better than to attempt such a thing with the notoriously serious man before me, who merely frowned.
> ‘No. You have been busy, I see. Would that more men in this City had been as busy as you.’
James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, the King’s brother and heir, was the opposite of his sibling in so many ways: fair rather than dark, dour rather than frivolous, stupid rather than intelligent. But he was a man of action, who had led our fleet heroically in battle the year before, so he had my respect and that of the Sceptres around me.
‘It’s all gone between here and the river, Highness. Queenhithe, Baynard’s Castle – all of it.’
‘I feared so, but wanted to see for myself. Your report makes that unnecessary, Sir Matthew.’
‘We have to stop it, sir. You and His Majesty received my note?’ He nodded. ‘There is only one way. You are a seaman yourself, Your Royal Highness, you know it to be true.’
The Duke’s thin lips creased, in what might have been taken for a smile. Few things visibly pleased this serious prince, but being counted a true seaman was one of them.
‘If it were left to me, I would give the order this very minute,’ he said. ‘I said so to my brother the King, when we received your letter. But there are still many who baulk at it – who think of the amount of property that will be destroyed, and raise one legal nicety after another. They are still convinced that the wind will drop at any moment, and the river will rise. Seamen know differently, Sir Matthew, but the Privy Council of England and the Common Council of London contain precious few seamen, more’s the pity. What’s more, my brother has recalled the Duke of Albemarle from the fleet. Only he can save London, it seems. Only he can give the King his capital for a second time.’ Now, there was no hint of a smile upon the face of the man who would, one day, be King James the Second. The Duke would surely have known of my fraught relationship with Albemarle. Did he, too, wonder why both his brother and the people of England had such unaccountable faith in the obese old turncoat? ‘Until His Grace arrives, though, or His Majesty sees fit to adopt the stratagem you proposed, I have set up posts at Temple Bar, and then four more north and east of there. A hundred men to fight the fire at each, along with thirty soldiers. Advance posts at Aldersgate, Coleman Street, Cripplegate. All of them commanded by two or three gentlemen of good rank. God willing, we can halt the fire at those positions, if we can pull down enough properties in good time. And the Fleet River ought to be a natural barrier that the fire will not cross.’
I offered up a silent prayer that he was right. Ravensden House, with Cornelia and my brother, stood not far to the west of the Fleet River. But much still stood to the east of it, directly in the path of the blaze. One building above all. Occasional gaps in the pall of smoke made it possible to make out its tower, rearing proudly above every lesser building, every lower steeple. But I could also see the waves of flame just to the east, still blown upon the gale, still clawing their way west like the fingers of Beelzebub.
The Duke of York’s eyes followed mine, round to the north.
‘Paul’s Church is doomed,’ he said, flatly, ‘unless a miracle saves it. And I do not think this is a time of miracles in London, Sir Matthew.’
‘Perhaps not, Highness. But when the story is written of how London burned, let it not be said that men did not fight for it.’
‘Amen to that. God go with you, Matt Quinton.’
I called the Sceptres together. Taking a respectful leave of the Duke of York, we made our way uphill, toward Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
Chapter Twenty-One
All night, and into the morning, we pulled down houses along Watling Street and Distaff Lane, trying to create a large enough firebreak in front of the cathedral. Exhausted men snatched a few minutes of sleep when and where they could, often on the bare ground. And all the while, a stream of people and carts passed us, fleeing the ruins of the City and the vast bow of fire that still advanced across London, with no sign of abating. Some folk cried that they had already moved their goods two or three times, as each supposed place of safety, well to the west of the blaze, was engulfed in its turn as the relentless flames advanced. And now it was day-in-night, just as it had been night-in-day when the smoke blotted out the September sun. Midnight was as bright as any summer’s noontime. It was hot, and breathing was difficult. I had been in western Africa, during my command of the Seraph, and I had served many months in the Mediterranean Sea, so I knew such conditions well enough. Several times that night, as my senses twisted around due to lack of sleep, I thought myself back off the coast of Algiers, or far up the Gambia River.
There were endless reports of the progress of the Fire, through the Monday and into Tuesday. The Guildhall had perished. Cheapside, the greatest highway in London, was ablaze, Lombard Street already gone. Bankers by the score were said to be ruined, and some men smiled at this. But only the very rich could now afford to hire carts in London. What had cost ten shillings three days before now fetched a price of fifty pounds, the carters seizing the opportunity of a lifetime with both avaricious hands. Although its eastward advance was much slower, into the teeth of the gale, the fire was said to be only two or three hundred yards short of the Tower, and that meant the Navy Office, the ordnance store, and the Smithfield victualling yard, were all under immediate threat. If they burned, our fleet could not keep the sea. I thought of ordering my men there, to do what we could in the east, but we would never be able to work our way through the stationary rivers of humanity trying to escape down every road, lane and alleyway heading north or west. And in my heart, I knew I had to stay within range of Ravensden House, in case the fire threatened it. Threatened my brother, my wife, and my unborn child.
And all the while, a constant backdrop, there were the shouts, at once angry and terrified.
‘The French are landed at Dover! Beaufort is marching on London at this very minute!’
‘Seize the Dutch! Hang every last one of ’em!’
‘A Papist’s throwing fireballs into an apothecary’s in Leadenhall! Constables!’
‘God’s righteous judgement upon a sinful nation for bringing back the fornicator Charles Stuart.’
‘I tell you, a dozen French Jesuits were seen in Pudding Lane as the fire began!’
‘Don’t trust the Life Guards – they answer to the Papist Duke of York!’
I tried to shut my mind to it all. Cornelia and Captain Ollivier had escaped the wrath of the mob, if only barely, but how many innocents were being assaulted – perhaps murdered – all across London, simply because they were born Dutch or French? And knowing the indiscriminate rage of the English all too well, I wondered how many Germans and Swedes were being mistaken for Dutch, or Spaniards and Portuguese for French.
Instead, I applied myself to the handle of a water pump, directing a jet onto a blazing house at the Saint Maudlin’s end of the Old Change. Martin Lanherne and a party of Sceptres were with me, Francis having gone to see if he could save something from Saint Margaret Moses on Pissing Lane, where his mother had been baptised, before the church was consumed by the flames. Every bone in my body ached. My right arm was numb with pain from the knife wound. I longed for sleep. Yet somehow, I kept myself working the pump, the only way by which I could drive out the images in my head. The fires of London, and of Brandaris, and of the ships in the Vlie, all merging into one, spreading across the map of Europe, then burning the entire world.
I was barely aware of the tall man at my shoulder, or of his companion, standing to his left.
‘We will relieve you here, Sir Matthew Quinton,’ said the tall man, whose dark face framed the most impossibly ugly nose. ‘You look as though you could do with a pot of ale and a wash. And sleep. London will not burn any more or less quickly if the heir to Ravensden dozes for an hour.’
My mind was so far gone, I was hallucinating. That could be the only explanation for it. It was simply impossible for both the King of England and the Duke of York to be standing before me, stripped to their shirts, covered in dirt, faces blackened by soot, prising my hands from the handle, laying their own upon
it, and beginning to pump as if possessed.
‘Y- your Majesty – your Royal Highness –’
‘Go, Matt,’ said the King. ‘Go and rest, in God’s name, in the knowledge that we have agreed to execute your proposal to halt the fire.’
Lanherne led me away.
‘Seems the two of them have been all over the City,’ he said. ‘Helping with the pumps and the water buckets, encouraging the firefighters, giving orders to pull down buildings. God save them both.’
Like almost every man of Cornwall, Martin Lanherne was a staunch royalist. In his case, the wounds he had taken in Grenville’s famous western army bore ample testimony of his devotion to the cause of the Stuarts.
‘But my place is still at the pump.’
‘Not when you’ve had a royal order it isn’t, Sir Matthew. Would you have me commit treason, rather than make sure you do as the King has commanded you?’
That was how I came to be sleeping on a pallet in a deserted coaching inn by Saint Augustine Watling Street. And that was where I was woken, after what seemed to be barely a moment’s slumber, by Francis Gale.
‘The fire’s across the Fleet River, Matthew,’ he said. ‘Dorset House is ablaze. It’s advancing on the Temple.’
I was on my feet in an instant. From the Temple, it was only a stone’s throw to Ravensden House.
* * *
West through Paul’s churchyard, where fire flakes were falling by the score; then through the throng clogging Ludgate, to behold the terrible sight beyond it. The fire was across the Fleet, all right, advancing much more quickly near the Thames, where there were still wharves and flammable cargoes aplenty to fuel it. Not only was Dorset House in flames: so, too, were Blackfriars, Bridewell prison, and Saint Bride’s Church. It was only a matter of time before it crossed Water Lane into Whitefriars, which bordered the Temple; and Ravensden House was just beyond the Temple. But it was not only my family’s London home that was under threat. If the east wind continued to blow, and the fire continued to rage unchecked through the Liberties beyond London’s walls, then it would inevitably reach the King’s palace at Whitehall, and then to Westminster, where Parliament and the Abbey would surely burn. Old Fawkes was surely grinning in his grave.
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