By Permission Of Heaven: The Story of the Great Fire of London

Adrian Tinniswood leaps between war, politics, disaster and renewal in his history of the Great Fire of London, By Permission of Heaven.
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Tinniswood takes us on a tour of middle 17th Century England just prior to the fire. England is at war with the Dutch and French. London has just suffered and continues to suffer under the plague in , over 7, people per week died of the plague in London.

It is only 6 years since Charles II was restored to the throne. The heir to the throne is married to a Catholic and is suspected to be a Ca By Permission of Heaven gets 3 Stars for a well-rounded look at the Great Fire of London.

The heir to the throne is married to a Catholic and is suspected to be a Catholic himself. Being Catholic in England at this time is not a good thing. As far as most ordinary citizens were concerned, Popery and arbitrary government were natural companions. It went without saying that the dearest wish of Pope Alexander VII was the suppression of ancient English liberties; and that Catholic Europe saw England as a jewel just waiting to be set in the papal crown.

Although he was writing in , during a particularly virulent epidemic of anti-Catholicism, many citizens in September would have agreed unquestioningly with the Protestant pamphleteer Henry Care, and his picture of a Catholic state: Yourselves forced to fly destitute of bread and harbour, your wives prostituted to the lust of every savage bog-trotter, your daughters ravished by goatish monks, your smaller children tossed upon pikes, or torn limb from limb, whilst you have your own bowels ripped up.

By Permission of Heaven: The True Story of the Great Fire of London

This, this gentlemen is Popery. Soon after the Middle Temple fire — which was of course blamed on the Papists — an otherwise civilised lawyer named William Lawrence wrote with approval of a Swedish method of deterring Jesuits. When the Swedes caught a Jesuit, he was placed in a shed and had his testicles stapled to a block; then he was given a knife and the shed was set on fire, so that he was faced with a choice between castrating himself and being burned alive. The fire starts in a bakery and, aided by gale force winds, quickly spreads out of control.

Tinniswood covers the spreading fire, efforts to fight it and the impact on the population. Over 70, people were left homeless but amazingly, the death toll due to the fire is only in the single digits. I was hoping for more on the fire and how the people survived the coming winter. Was the fire set or an accident?

By permission of heaven: the story of the Great Fire of London | RCP London

Most everyone thought he was lying and not quite right in the head. Pinning down the cause was an interesting discussion. The King was adamant it was an accident because, if it was attributed to enemy action, he could lose his throne just like his Dad, Charles I. Legally, the tenants of the houses and buildings would be liable to rebuild the structures if it was an accident. How to figure out who pays to rebuild? The Fire Court was in session.

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Claims heard under civil law routinely involved lots of money, lengthy delays, complications of Dickensian proportions; then, as now, the only sure winners were the lawyers. And the Fire of London promised to unleash a flood of actions the like of which had never been seen before. Tinniswood spends some time on the legal wrangling after the fire and I found it interesting. He also brings in the rebuilding efforts and the architects. Christopher Wren is just an amateur architect but events conspire to bring him to the fore.

I did not think Tinniswood spent enough time on the rebuilding efforts. Religion figures throughout the story, used to support various factions and their ideas. Overall, a very good recounting of the Great Fire. Any visitor to or resident of London will find this a great place to read about how London came to be in its current form. Mar 26, Meaghan rated it really liked it Shelves: This is an excellent piece of history, a gripping hour-by-hour account of the Great Fire of London and its aftermath.

From Pudding Lane it spread to Wall Street...

The descriptions, many of them taken from diaries of the period, make you feel like you were really there. London was completely trashed -- picture New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, except with fire instead of flood. Yet, surprisingly, there were very few fatalities perhaps a dozen or less , and London as a whole displayed admirable fortitude in coping with the disaster; it w This is an excellent piece of history, a gripping hour-by-hour account of the Great Fire of London and its aftermath.

Yet, surprisingly, there were very few fatalities perhaps a dozen or less , and London as a whole displayed admirable fortitude in coping with the disaster; it was able to stagger to its feet and begin rebuilding almost immediately. If I can fault the book I may say that I think it began too slowly. There are forty pages of exposition, describing how London and its people were in , before the Great Fire starts. But it's not a big deal, and I think connoisseurs of popular British history would really enjoy this. Apr 03, Margaret rated it it was amazing. A rattling good read. This is the story of the period leading up to London's Great Fire, the terrifying and confused days of the fire itself, and then the aftermath.


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Tinniswood has pieced together the human, political and economic consequences of this cataclysm in a measured, yet gripping fashion, recreating the period in telling detail. Who knew, for instance, that the clothworkers of Coventry would suffer so from the consequences of the fire? Or that foreigners would come under the kind of suspicion and mistrust that asylum seekers here can feel in our own times? This is an evocative, gripping account. Dec 07, Jerry Smith rated it liked it Shelves: In depth account of the Great Fire of London with a lot of detailed context and personalities.

Sets the scene of the conflagration very well, England essentially as we always have really warring with the rest of Europe - notably the Dutch and French at this time. A lovely tribute on the fire's anniversary-there is a small statue of John Donne in St Pauls which survived the fire intact apart from scorch marks on the base. A really interesting post, and I found the graphics about the extent of the fire helped me understand and follow the scope of it. There's much here for any of us writing about pre-industrial revolution city life, where fire was an omnipresent danger.

I have the Adrian Tinniswood book by this same title about the fire right here on my bookshelf: Excellent read if folks want even more about the fire. I remember going to Kensington Palace Museum when I was a child. I was fascinated by the replica that had been built showing London on fire. It amazed me every time I saw it. Jane called up about three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City. So I rose, and slipped on my night-gown and went to her window, and thought it to be on the back side of Mark Lane at the farthest; but, being unused to such fires as followed, I thought it far enough off, and so went to bed again, and to sleep.

By and by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above houses have been burned down tonight by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street, by London Bridge. So I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower; and there got up upon one of the high places,. London, in early , was a city still suffering from the great plague. The death rate was slowing down but new cases were still happening even up to the time of the fire.

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The King and his court had evacuated the city and the government was run from Oxford through the winter and early spring. Yet in the summer of life was returning to the city. The markets were open and trade was thriving once more.


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England was at war with Holland and France and that meant that in the summer the fleet put to sea looking for an engagement that would decide the war. An enjoyable, readable and informative story of the Great Fire of London of September years ago as I write. It includes a brief introduction to the historical background a serious outburst By Permission of Heaven is a thrilling account of the Great Fire of London that makes terrific use of a vast array of first-person accounts By Permission of Heaven: A work of dynamic history that depicts in fascinating detail the cataclysm that was the Great Fire of London and the modern European capital that rose from its ashes.

By Permission of Heaven is a thrilling account of the Great Fire of London that makes terrific use of a vast array of first-person accounts and forensic investigation. The result is an impeccable achievement in historical storytelling that calls to mind equal parts Patricia Cornwell, Sebastian Junger, and Iain Pears. By Permission of Heaven follows the conflagration from its beginnings in a Pudding Lane baker's kitchen in through the extreme devastation it wreaked.