The King's Evil

When the alarm was raised, Jonathan Bale was three- quarters of a mile away in Baynard's Castle Ward but he heard it clearly. Bells were rung, drums were beaten and pandemonium was carried freely on the wind. He jumped out of his bed and rushed to the window, flinging back the shutters to look up at a sky which was brightly illumined by the false dawn of a fire. This was the crisis which had brought him so rudely awake earlier on. He groped for his clothes.

'What is it?' murmured his wife, still half asleep.

'A fire,' he said.

'Where?'

'On the other side of the city. I must help to fight it.'

'But it is not in your parish.'

'I am needed, Sarah.'

'Let someone else take care of it.'

'I have to go.'

'Now?'

'At once.'

'Why?'

It was a rhetorical question. Jonathan Bale's sense of duty knew no boundaries. Wherever and whenever an emergency arose, he would lend his assistance without a second thought. Other constables stayed strictly within the bounds of their own parish and few ventured outside their respective wards but Jonathan was different. Imbued with ideals of civic responsibility, he treated the whole of London as his territory. If the city was under threat in any way, he would race to its defence.

When he was dressed, he gave his wife a hurried kiss before letting himself out of the house. Long strides took him around the first corner into Thames Street and he headed eastward. The bending thoroughfare with its tall buildings on both sides obscured the fire from him at first but its glare guided his footsteps. Distant panic gradually increased in volume. Still in night attire, a few people were stumbling out of their houses to ask what was going on. They showed curiosity rather than apprehension, secure in the knowledge that the fire was much too far away to affect them or their property. The further he went, the more people he encountered and Jonathan was soon having to pick his way through a small crowd.

The sky was now lit as if by a noonday sun. He was over halfway there when he heard the full-throated roar of the fire. Eager to reach the scene, Jonathan broke into a trot and dodged the anxious citizens who now poured out of their homes in disarray as they sensed an impending catastrophe. Thames Street was turning into a cauldron of fear and confusion. Men shouted, women screamed, children cried and animals expressed their own alarm. The noise was deafening and an acrid smell grew fouler with each second. Jonathan ran on through the commotion. He was soon having to buffet a path with his broad shoulders. Fire was an ever-present menace in London and, in his time, he had seen many but none of them compared in scale and ferocity with the blaze which now confronted him.

When he rounded a bend, he saw a sheet of yellow flame advancing slowly towards him, eating its way along Thames Street with a voracious appetite and swallowing everything down to the riverfront. Smoke billowed in the swirling wind. A series of violent explosions went off as the fire found new stocks of combustible material in yards, cellars and warehouses. Jonathan came to an abrupt halt and stared in horror at the grotesque firework display. Expecting a degree of danger, he was instead looking into the jaws of death. This crisis was potentially more threatening than the Great Plague and far more immediate.

The fire was still some distance away but its warm fingers were already bestowing lascivious caresses on his face. Jonathan gritted his teeth and moved on. Thames Street was in turmoil. The panic-stricken families who tumbled out of their houses were met by the first fleeing victims of the fire. Carts, coaches and packhorses bore the most precious possessions of those whose homes were already doomed. People unable to afford transport of any kind simply carried what they could in their arms. Jonathan saw a man bent double under the weight of a heavy sack and an old lady staggering along with a spinning wheel. Two small children dragged their meagre belongings over the cobbles in a tattered bedsheet. Three men lugged a stout oak table.

When he got closer to the blaze, Jonathan saw the most stark evidence yet of its power. Even the rats were leaving, darting out of their hiding places in wild profusion and joining the general exodus. Three of them scampered uncaringly over the constable's shoes. Cats and dogs bade clamorous farewells as they scuttled away but not all animals were fortunate enough to escape. Crazed horses kicked and neighed in burning stables. A donkey brayed for mercy in the heart of the fire. A goat was trapped in a blazing garden and searched feverishly for an exit. Geese honked in a locked shed. Chickens clucked their noisy requiems. Pigeons too slow to leave their perches found their wings singed as soon as they took to the air and they plummeted to instant death. Creatures who lived in thatch, crevice or timber were extinguished with callous delight. No living thing was spared.

Jonathan paused to assess where he could be most useful. The fire engines were defunct and it was left to chains of men, passing buckets of water along, to continue the fight. Heat was now so fierce that they were pushed further and further back. When water was hurled, it did not even reach the flames in some cases. Braving the pain, Jonathan took his turn at the head of a chain, snatching a leather bucket from the man behind him and flinging its contents at the blazing doorway of a house. His bucket was exchanged for a full one and he emptied that at the same target. It was all to no avail. Whipped up by the wind, the fire was spreading with increased fury. It was clear that buckets of water would never contain the blaze, still less quell it. There was an additional problem. The dry summer had left water levels very low and there was an unsteady flow from the conduits. Buckets took longer than usual to fill and Jonathan was soon having to wait minutes for a fresh supply of water to be passed along to him. The fire raged on inexorably.

The building suddenly crumbled to the ground in front of them and forced them to jump back. The man beside Jonathan - a tall, thin, wiry individual with rolling eyes - flung up his arms in despair.

'It is hopeless!' he wailed.

'The fire must be checked,' said Jonathan. 'They must pull down a row of houses in its path and create a firebreak.'

'The Lord Mayor has forbidden it.'

'Why?'

'He fears the cost involved in rebuilding.'

'Would he rather lose the entire city?'

'Sir Thomas would not give the order.'

'Somebody must,' insisted Jonathan. 'Where did the fire start?'

'Who knows?' said the man. 'I was fast asleep when the alarm was raised. By the time I got here, Fish Street Hill was ablaze and the houses at the northern end of the bridge were alight. In the past half-hour, we have been driven back a hundred yards or more. We are powerless.'

'Fire posts must be set up at once.'

'Tell that to the Lord Mayor.'

'More water!'

'What is the point?'

'We must fight on!' urged Jonathan, exhorting the others in the chain. 'More water there! Keep the buckets coming! We must not give in. Something may yet be saved.'

It was a forlorn hope. Though he tossed gallons of water at the fire, he made no discernible impact. It blazed up defiantly in front of him and encroached on both sides. Hysteria mounted. Many people fled west along the crowded thoroughfare but most scurried towards the river with their belongings, hoping to put the broad back of the Thames between themselves and certain extinction, only to find the myriad boats and lighters already filled with frightened refugees. Quick to take advantage of the situation, watermen doubled and trebled their prices before rowing their passengers to the uncertain safety of Bankside. When they scrambled ashore with their money, their furniture, their musical instruments and anything else they had salvaged, they looked back at a fire which seemed to engulf the whole of the riverfront from London Bridge to Dowgate and beyond. Flames danced madly on the water as the Thames mirrored the calamity.

Jonathan Bale struggled on against impossible odds for well over an hour. His hair was singed, his face was running with perspiration and holes had been burned in his coat by flying sparks. His whole body ached and smarted but he would not give up. Only when the water supply ceased did he have any respite. He looked down the long line of exhausted bodies between him and the conduit.

'More water!' he ordered, panting from his exertions.

'There is none!' called a voice at the far end. 'It has dried up.'

'How?'

'Someone must have cut into the pipe further up to fill buckets of their own. There is barely a trickle down here.'

'We have done all we can, my friend,' gasped the man next to Jonathan. 'We must look to our own salvation.'

'There is too much to do here. That is why I came.'

'Where do you live?'

'On Addle Hill.'

'Near Baynard's Castle?'

'Yes.'

The man was surprised. 'You came all this way to help?'

'I was needed.'

'You and a thousand like you are needed, my friend, but there would still not be enough of us to put out this fire. I'll home to Cornhill. I have done my share here. It is time to worry about my own house. Do likewise.'

'The fire will never reach Addle Hill,' said Jonathan.

'Do not be so sure,' warned the other. 'If this wind holds, the blaze will spread all the way to the Palace of Westminster to burn the royal breeches. And so it should,' he added with bitter reproach, 'for the King is the true cause of this fire.'

'That is treasonable talk.'

'It is the plain truth.'

'Fires are caused by folly and neglect.'

'The King's folly and the King's neglect.'

'I will not listen to such nonsense.'

'Then look around you,' urged the man, waving an arm. 'See for yourself. This is no ordinary fire. It is a judgement on us. King Charles and his vile Court have corrupted the whole of London. The fire has been sent to purge the city. We must all suffer for his sins.' He gave Jonathan a nudge. 'Go home, my friend. Return to Addle Hill. Protect your family. Save yourself while you still may. Nothing can stop this blaze now.'

The man staggered off. Jonathan watched him go and reflected on what he had said. His position as a constable obliged him to reprimand the fellow but he had considerable sympathy with the view expressed. England was ruled once more by a Stuart king. A monarchy which Jonathan had been pleased to see ended was now emphatically restored. As a result, London was indeed a wicked city and nobody was better placed to see the extent of its depravity than someone who patrolled the streets in the office of constable. Jonathan was a God-fearing man who always sought guidance from above and he was bound to wonder if the conflagration really was a sign of divine anger. There were Biblical precedents of cities being punished for their corruption.

The problem was that the innocent would suffer along with the guilty. Jonathan thought about his wife and children, still asleep, quite unaware that their blameless lives might be under threat. Their safety came first. He had to get back to them. The fire now raged totally out of control and buildings were crashing to the ground all around him. Smoke stung his eyes and caught in his throat. Scorching heat pushed him back like a giant hand.

Chaos reached a new pitch and he was heavily jostled in the ensuing tumult. Brushing some sparks from the sleeve of his coat, Jonathan pushed his way through the seething mass of bodies and trotted back down Thames Street in a futile attempt to outrun disaster.