eet at the end of the month, Marvell
reports the appointment of two Committees, one "about the Fire of
London," and the other "to receive informations of the insolence of the
Popish priests and Jesuits, and of the increase of Popery." The latter
Committee almost at once reported to the House, to quote from Marvell's
letter of the 27th of October, "that his Majesty be desired to issue out
his proclamation that all Popish priests and Jesuits, except such as not
being natural-born subjects, or belong to the Queen Mother and Queen
Consort, be banished in thirty days or else the law be executed upon
them, that all Justices of Peace and officers concerned put the laws in
execution against Papists and suspected Papists in order to their
execution, and that all officers, civil or military, not taking the
Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance within twenty days be displaced."

In a very real sense the great fire of London continued to smoke for
many a weary year, and to fill the air with black suspicions and civil
discord.

Parliament had not sat long before it was discovered that a change had
taken place in its temper and spirit. The plague and the fire had
contributed to this change. The London clergy had not exhibited great
devotion during the former affliction. Many of the incumbents deserted
their flocks, and their empty pulpits had been filled by zealots, who
preached "Woe unto Jerusalem." The profligacy of the Court, and the
general decay of manners, when added to the severity of the legislation
against the Nonconformists, gave the ejected clergy opportunities for a
renewal of their spiritual ministrations, and as usual their labours,
_pro salute animarum_, aroused political dissatisfaction. Some of the
more outrageous supporters of the royal prerogative, the renegade May
among them, professed to see in the fire a punishment upon the spirit of
freedom, for which the City had once been famous, and urged the king not
to suffer it to be rebuilt again "to be a bit in his mouth and a bridle
upon his neck, but to keep it all open," and that his troops might enter
whenever he thought necessary, "there being no other way to govern that
rude multitude but by force."

Rabid nonsense of this kind had no weight with the king, who never
showed his native good sense more conspicuously than in the pains he
took over the rebuilding of London; but none the less it had its effect
in getting rid once and for ever of that spirit of excessive (