In May 1679 the people were thrown into a panic by the discovery of a so-called plot to burn down the City again. The house of one Bird in Fetter Lane having been burned, his servant, Elizabeth Oxley, was suspected of wilfully causing the fire; she was arrested and examined. What follows is a very remarkable story. The woman swore that she had actually caused the fire, and that she had been persuaded to do so by a certain Stubbs, a Papist, who promised her £5 if she would comply. Stubbs, being arrested, declared that the woman’s evidence was perfectly true, and that Father Gifford, his confessor, incited him to procure the Fire, saying that it would be a godly act to burn all heretics out of their homes. The Irishmen were also implicated; the Papists, it was said, were going to rise in insurrection in London and an army was to be landed from France. Five Jesuits were executed for this business, and so great was the popular alarm, that all Catholics were banished from the City and ten miles round. CHAPTER V CONTEMPORARY EVIDENCE I proceed to quote four accounts of the Fire from eye-witnesses. Between them one arrives at a very fair understanding of the magnitude of the disaster, the horrors of the Fire, especially at night, and the wretchedness of the poor people, crouched over the wreck and remnant of their property. “Here”—Evelyn is the first of the four—“we saw the Thames covered with floating goods, all the barges and boates laden with what some had time and courage to save, as on the other, the carts carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with movables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! Such as happly the world had not seene the like since the foundation of it, nor be outdone till the universal conflagration of it. All the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seene above 40 miles round for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame: the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of Towers, Houses and Churches, was like a hideous storm, and the aire all about so hot and inflamed, that at the last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for neere two miles in length and one in bredth. The clowds also of smoke were dismall and reached upon computation neere 56 mile in length. Thus I left it this afternoone burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. It forcibly called to my mind that passage _non enim hic habemus stabilem civitatem_: the ruines resembling the picture of Troy. London was, but is no more.”