the fire running further, that in
a very little time it got as far as the Steeleyard, while I was there.
Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the
river or bringing them into lighters that layoff; poor people staying
in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then
running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the
water-side to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I
perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows
and balconys till they were, some of them burned, their wings, and fell
down. Having staid, and in an hour's time seen the fire: rage every way,
and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their
goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the
Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high and driving it into the City; and
every thing, after so long a drought, proving combustible, even the very
stones of churches, and among other things the poor steeple by which
pretty Mrs.--------lives, and whereof my old school-fellow Elborough is
parson, taken fire in the very top, an there burned till it fell down:
I to White Hall (with a gentleman with me who desired to go off from the
Tower, to see the fire, in my boat); to White Hall, and there up to the
Kings closett in the Chappell, where people come about me, and did give
them an account dismayed them all, and word was carried in to the King.
So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of Yorke what I saw,
and that unless his Majesty did command houses to be pulled down nothing
could stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and the King commanded
me to go to my Lord Mayor--[Sir Thomas Bludworth. See June 30th,
1666.]--from him, and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down
before the fire every way. The Duke of York bid me tell him that if
he would have any more soldiers he shall; and so did my Lord Arlington
afterwards, as a great secret.

[Sir William Coventry wrote to Lord Arlington on the evening of this
day, "The Duke of York fears the want of workmen and tools to-morrow
morning, and wishes the deputy lieutenants and justices of peace to
summon the workmen with tools to be there by break of day. In some
churches and chapels are great hooks for pulling down houses, which
should be brought ready upon the place to-night against the morning"
("Calendar of State Papers," 1666-66, p. 95