S1 • E3 Jun 30, 2010
Everyone knows that the Great Fire of London started at a baker's in Pudding Lane; that it was a terrible accident; and that hardly anyone died. However, many Londoners, reeling from plague and war, and torn apart by sectarian tensions, believed that the fire had been started deliberately by a foreign enemy living within their midst. And they wanted to make sure a foreigner would pay for this crime of the century. For several apocalyptic days and nights, as the city burned, Londoners hunted the foreign fire-starters. The first target was the Dutch, whose cities, navy and empire Britain coveted; the second was the French, our fundamentalist religious enemies. After an orgy of rage and violence, cosmopolitan London had found its incendiary alien - a Frenchman who claimed to have committed this act of terror - and from whom the mob would, quite literally, demand their pound of flesh. But many were left wondering whether the real horrors had been committed by Londoners themselves.
