Death's Bright Angel
Page 27
In that sense, posterity might have taken Robert Hubert more seriously had he been Dutch, for in September 1666, Dutchmen undoubtedly had motives in spades for wanting London to burn. As it is, the supposed eyewitness accounts of deliberate acts of arson, be they allegedly committed by Dutchmen, Frenchmen, or English Catholics, have invariably been dismissed as fantasy or mass hysteria. Yet the sheer amount of such evidence, along with its partial corroboration by previously unknown, and rather more dispassionate, sources like the letters to the Wynns of Gwydir of 6 September 1666, and of John Tremayne to his father (and, indeed, Robert Hubert’s original Havering-atte-Bower deposition), suggest this possibility has been dismissed too readily.
3. Finally, if we accept that the timing of, and political context surrounding, Captain Peterson’s statement in 1681 (and its subsequent publication in 1683), puts its truth in doubt, then Robert Hubert’s supposed alibi must also be doubted. And if that alibi falls, then it is impossible to eliminate the possibilities that either the watchmaker of Rouen threw a fireball into a house in Whitehall when the fire in the City was already raging, as he originally claimed; or that Robert Hubert – or his companion Stephen Piedloe – really did set off a fireball in Farriner’s bakery in the early hours of 2 September 1666, thereby triggering the Great Fire of London.
Acknowledgements
This has been a more complex book to write than some of its predecessors in the series; consequently, I owe more debts than usual, to a broader body of people and sources.
My account of ‘Sir Robert Holmes, his bonfire’ is based closely on the historical record. My principal sources were Holmes’ own account of the attack, printed in The Rupert and Monck Letterbook (Navy Records Society), Frank Fox’s succinct summary in his magisterial The Four Days Battle (Seaforth Publishing), and the comprehensive study in Dutch by Anne Doedens and Jan Houten, 1666: de ramp van Vlieland en Terschelling, which links to the website commemorating the 350th anniversary of the ‘English Fury’. Alan Marshall’s excellent account of Aphra Behn’s intelligence activities fortuitously came out just in time for me to consult it for this book (‘”Memorialls for Mrs Affora”: Aphra Behn and the Restoration Intelligence World’, in Women’s Writing, vol. 22, 2015). Leigh-on-Sea library provided invaluable material on the history of the town. For the historical essay, most of the principal sources that I consulted are identified and thanked at the appropriate points in the text. However, particular thanks must go to the staffs of the London Metropolitan Archives, the Society of Genealogists, Somerset Record Office and the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. For Roger L’Estrange’s career and political attitudes, I referred to a 2011 doctoral thesis by Darrick N. Taylor (University of Kansas), and Mark Goldie’s essay on The Observator in Roger L’Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture (2008).
By far the best source for the Great Fire, though, was the City of London itself. Walking its streets, visiting or revisiting its churches (including the plaques marking the sites of the long lost ones), and simply calculating its distances and sightlines, provided perspectives that it would be impossible to glean from any book; this despite the fact that the City which Matthew Quinton knew fell victim successively to the Great Fire (of course), the Victorians, the Luftwaffe, venal planners, incompetent politicians, and mediocre, grossly over-rated architects.
Particular thanks must go to Matthew Baylis, Peter Bumstead, Frank Fox, Adam Georgie, Malin Joakimson, Geoff Lavery, Peter Le Fevre, Professor Steve Murdoch, Dr Gijs Rommelse, and Frits de Ruyter de Wildt. Peter Buckman, my agent, and Ben Yarde-Buller at Old Street Publishing, provided their customary encouragement and critical input. Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden, is truly a national treasure, a residential library where authors can find peace, quiet, and inspiration. It was there, and on the walks around the adjacent Hawarden estate, that I developed the plot of Death’s Bright Angel, and the library’s excellent resources also provided me with several of the books I needed for my research. Finally, thanks as ever to Wendy for her love, support, encouragement, and invaluable advice and criticism.
J D Davies
Bedfordshire
15 December 2015
The Matthew Quinton Journals
The Matthew Quinton Journals – find out more by clicking here
Gentleman Captain
Mountain of Gold
The Blast That Tears the Skies
The Lion of Midnight
The Battle of All The Ages
The Rage of Fortune
Death’s Bright Angel
The Devil Upon the Wave
Ensign Royal
About the Author
J. D. Davies was born in Wales and now lives in Bedfordshire. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the seventeenth-century navy. His Pepyss Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare, 1649-1689, won the Samuel Pepys Award in 2009.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
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Copyright © J. D. Davies, 2016
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