tream, and the very pavements glowing
with a fiery redness, so as no horse or man was able to tread on them,
_and the demolition had stopped all the passages, so that no help
could be applied_, the eastern wind still more impetuously driving the
flames forward." By Wednesday night the central section of the City
was so burnt out that Pepys walked through Cheapside and Newgate
market. "It is a strange thing," he remarks, "to see how long the time
did look since Sunday." "Sad sight," he adds next day, "to see how the
river looks: no houses nor church near it." Friday, the 7th, early: "A
miserable sight of Paul's Church with all the roofs fallen in, and the
body of the quire fallen into St. Fayth's; Paul's School also, Ludgate
and Fleet Street."

We will conclude this with some more extracts from the evidence of
Pepys. On the next Sunday, when it is interesting to observe the
drought came to an end, he attended service twice, probably at St.
Olave's, Hart Street, Mark Lane, in the neighbourhood of Crutched
Friars. In the morning "Our parson made a melancholy but good sermon;
and many and most in the church cried, specially the women. The
church mighty full; but few of fashion, and most strangers. To church
again, and there preached Dean Harding [Nicolas Hardy, of Rochester];
but methinks a bad, poor sermon, though proper for the time; nor
eloquent in saying at this time that the City is reduced from a large
folio to a decimo-tertio." The phrase "most strangers" is not
surprising, as besides St. Paul's, some eighty-five parish churches
were in ashes, including two without the walls but inside the
Liberties. Our last extract is under date 12th November following, and
illustrates how such remains as had hitherto escaped desecration were
treated in the general disorder. Bishop Braybroke's efforts at reform
have been already acknowledged: his tomb was behind the high altar
towards the east. "In the Convocation House Yard [apparently the space
within the Chapter House Cloisters] did there see the body of Robert
Braybroke, Bishop of London, that died in 1404. He fell down in the
tomb out of the great church into St. Fayth's this late fire, and is
here seen his skeleton with the flesh on; but all tough and dry like a
spongy dry leather or touchwood, all upon his bones. His head turned
aside. A great man in his time, and Lord Chancellor. And now exposed
to be handled and derided by some, though admired for its duration by
others.