rles II., bonfires were lit, the City bells rung,
and London broke into a sudden flame of joy. Pepys, walking homeward
about ten o'clock, says:--"The common joy was everywhere to be seen. The
number of bonfires--there being fourteen between St. Dunstan's and
Temple Bar, and at Strand Bridge, east of Catherine Street, I could at
one time tell thirty-one fires."

On November 17, 1679, the year after the sham Popish Plot concocted by
those matchless scoundrels, Titus Oates, an expelled naval chaplain, and
Bedloe, a swindler and thief, Temple Bar was made the spot for a great
mob pilgrimage, on the anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth.
The ceremonial is supposed to have been organised by that restless
plotter against a Popish succession, Lord Shaftesbury, and the gentlemen
of the Green Ribbon Club, whose tavern, the "King's Head," was at the
corner of Chancery Lane, opposite the Inner Temple gate. To scare and
vex the Papists, the church bells began to clash out as early as three
o'clock on the morning of that dangerous day. At dusk the procession of
several thousand half-crazed torch-bearers started from Moorgate, along
Bishopsgate Street, and down Houndsditch and Aldgate (passing
Shaftesbury's house imagine the roar of the monster mob, the wave of
torches, and the fiery fountains of squibs at that point!), then through
Leadenhall Street and Cornhill, by the Royal Exchange, along Cheapside
and on to Temple Bar, where the bonfire awaited the puppets. In a
torrent of fire the noisy Protestants passed through the exulting City,
making the Papists cower and shudder in their garrets and cellars, and
before the flaming deluge opened a storm of shouting people. This
procession consisted of fifteen groups of priests, Jesuits, and friars,
two following a man on a horse, holding up before him a dummy, dressed
to represent Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, a Protestant justice and wood
merchant, supposed to have been murdered by Roman Catholics at Somerset
House. It was attended by a body-guard of 150 swordbearers and a man
roaring a political cry of the time through a brazen speaking-trumpet.
The great bonfire was built up mountain high opposite the Inner Temple
gate. Some zealous Protestants, by pre-arrangement, had crowned the prim
and meagre statue of Elizabeth (still on the east side of the Bar) with
a wreath of gilt laurel, and placed under her hand (that now points to
Child's Bank) a golden glistening shield, with the motto, "