"
But belief that the dreaded papists had set fire to the city,
lingered in the minds of many citizens. When the city was
rebuilt, this opinion found expression in an inscription cut over
the doorway of a house opposite the spot where the fire began,
which ran as follows:
"Here, by the permission of heaven, hell broke loose on this
protestant city from the malicious hearts of barbarous papists,
by the hand of their agent Hubert, who confessed, and on the
ruins of this place declared the fact, for which he was hanged.
Erected in the mayoralty of Sir Patience Ward, Knight."
The loss caused by this dreadful conflagration was estimated at
ten million sterling. According to a certificate of Jonas Moore
and Ralph Gatrix, surveyors appointed to examine the ruins, the
fire overrun 373 acres within the walls, burning 13,200 houses,
89 parish churches, numerous chapels, the Royal Exchange, Custom
House, Guildhall, Blackwell Hall, St. Paul's Cathedral,
Bridewell, fifty-two halls of the city companies, and three city
gates.
As speedily as might be, the king and his parliament then sitting
at Oxford, sought to restore the city on a scale vastly superior
to its former condition. And the better to effect this object,
an act of parliament was passed that public buildings should be
rebuilt with public money, raised by a tax on coals; that the
churches and the cathedral of St. Paul's should be reconstructed
from their foundations; that bridges, gates and prisons should be
built anew; the streets made straight and regular, such as were
steep made level, such as were narrow made wide; and, moreover,
that every house should be built with party walls, such being of
stone or brick, and all houses raised to equal height in front.
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