The petition was considered by the King in council, a proclamation was issued, and full powers were given to the surveyor, backed by commands that he should take effectual care that the proclamation was obeyed. This Wren was very ready to do: with all his gentleness and courtesy he had inherited much of Bishop Wren's firmness, and had no intention of swerving from his point. The churches of the City began to rise gradually. Pepys says:[125]-- 'It is observed, and is true, in the late fire of London, that the fire burned just as many parish churches as there were hours from the beginning to the end of the fire; and next that there were just as many churches left standing as there were taverns left standing in the rest of the City that was not burned, being, I think, thirteen in all of each: which is pretty to observe.' There has been much dispute as to whether or not Wren repaired S. Sepulchre's Church. Mr. Elmes and others declare that he repaired it in 1671, but Mr. Hoby, one of its churchwardens, who made a careful study of all the parchments and papers belonging to S. Sepulchre's, gives it as his deliberate opinion that-- 'The church was not destroyed, but very much injured, by the Fire of London, in 1666. The inhabitants would not wait until Sir C. Wren could attend to them, but repaired their own church, and did it so badly that a long time elapsed before he would grant the certificate necessary to enable them to obtain the money from the commissioners.'[126] As has been said, such unauthorised building and patching took place pretty frequently, and all that recent researches have brought to light goes to prove that Wren had very little to do with S. Sepulchre's. [_S. MARY LE BOW._]