A Bad Year for London (Part 2): Fire

Leading on from my previous post which covered the Great Plague epidemic that struck London in 1665-1666 I am now going to look at the other defining event in the life of 17th Century London, an event which took place when the Plague was still dying down. If you haven't guessed it yet (or failed to notice the picture above) then I should tell you that I am of course referring to the Great Fire that burned four fifths of the old city to the ground in just four days and allowed for the complete rebuilding of London from the charred ground up, laying the foundations for the modern metropolis that we see straddling the River Thames today.

The story of the Fire of London is more than just about the destruction of a city, however. It also raises other issues of the day such as religious divisions and the tumultuous relationship between the English and their foreign neighbours. It even exposes the tense ties between London and the Crown that were ultimately healed as a result of this tragedy, a tragedy that began in the early hours of Sunday September 2nd 1666.

The Urban Firetrap

The factors that made old London susceptible to fire were pretty much the same ones that made it susceptible to diseases like the Plague, namely the densely-packed buildings built as part of an unregulated general urban sprawl that conspired to cram the highest number of people into the least amount of space. Thatched roofs had been outlawed after an earlier devastating fire in the Middle Ages but wood remained the primary building material.

"A great smoking wen. A place of fear and flames, disease and dread."
(A contemporary chronicler's description of 17th Century London)

Despite the Plague outbreak taking out a sizable chunk of its population, London in September 1666 was still home to some 300,000 people, roughly 1/16 of the entire population of England. Despite the obvious risks associated with the tightly-packed wooden buildings, the lives of most Londoners were dominated by fire and they used it for just about everything: cooking, boiling, baking, heating, lighting, burning. Many of the household industries that operated there were also dependant on fire in some way. Foundries, smithies and glaziers were tolerated in the City of London despite them being theoretically illegal. Warehouses along the riverfront were stocked to the rafters with imported combustible goods and highly flammable materials such as pitch, tar, hemp, rosen and flax had been used in the construction of houses. The city was, in essence, a giant bomb waiting for the fuse to be lit.

The restored King Charles II was only too aware of the potential risk of a major conflagration in London but his efforts to do anything about it were often blocked by the city authorities who harboured a long-standing grudge against the monarchy. During the English Civil War some 20 years previously, London was amongst the first areas to desert the Crown in favour of the Parliamentarian cause and the anti-royal sentiment in London remained strong amongst those of the Civil War generation who now occupied the top City government offices. This meant that Charles' authority over his own capital city was practically null and void. His 1661 royal decree forbidding overhanging upper-stories on buildings was ignored by the city magistrates whilst a warning letter he had written to the Lord Mayor also went unheeded.

Sunday September 2nd

The fire started in the early hours of the morning at the premises of the King's baker, Thomas Farynor in Pudding Lane, about one city block north-east of London Bridge. Farynor and his family were awoken and were forced to escape via an upstairs window but their maidservant was too frightened to jump and became the first official victim of the fire. At first the fire did not seem all that remarkable but the parish constables suggested that the adjoining houses, tinder dry after months of drought, ought to be pulled down in order to prevent it spreading. Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth, a typical example of the bolshy but ineffective types that governed the City during that period, soon arrived on the scene and quickly cemented his place in the history books by exclaiming that "a woman could piss it out!" before returning home to bed, totally unconvinced as to the seriousness of the situation. Driven on by a stiff easterly gale, the flames increased in ferocity and soon began to attack surrounding properties.

As you probably know already, one of the best accounts of the Great Fire comes from the diary of Samuel Pepys, a senior official in the Navy Office who lived on Seething Lane near the Tower of London, upwind of the growing fire. His accounts provide a wealth of information on the subject and tell the story far better than I or anyone else ever could so I shall be quoting him A LOT. At around 3am he was woken by a maid and informed of what was happening.

"(Lord’s day). Some of our maids sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast to-day, Jane called us 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 nightgown, and went to her window, and thought it to be on the backside 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." (Samuel Pepys)

Whilst Pepys snoozed away merrily the fire quickly got out of control and was spreading beyond the Pudding Lane locale. It claimed its first church, St Margaret's New Fish Street before moving south down Fish Street Hill, the main thoroughfare leading from London Bridge to the heart of the old city. St Magnus the Martyr guarded the entrance to the bridge and was the second church to fall to the fire. As dawn broke the houses on London Bridge were burning and a gap in the buildings created by an earlier fire was all that stopped this one from spreading to Southwark, then a small independent settlement on the south bank of the Thames. That morning Pepys, having been woken again by his concerned staff, witnessed the scene from the top of the Tower of London:

"By and by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned down to-night by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street Hill, by London Bridge. So I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower, and there got up upon one of the high places, Sir J. Robinson’s little son going up with me; and there I did see the houses at that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side the end of the bridge; which, among other people, did trouble me for poor little Michelle and our Sarah on the bridge."
(Samuel Pepys)

At around this time the flames reached the warehouses along the river and the flammable materials inside gave an added ferocity to the blaze which was still being egged on by the wind. The burning warehouses prevented the volunteer firefighters from accessing water from the river itself. The fire then destroyed the water wheels beneath London Bridge which pumped river water up to a water tower in the centre of the city at Cornhill.

The burning of the water wheels caused a total failure of the piped water supply in the City of London, forcing the people to change their priorities. Most now abandoned any attempt to fight the advancing fire and instead focused on getting themselves and their belongings out of the Square Mile. Many tried to escape via the river but the services of the lightermen and their boats had suddenly become rather expensive. Opportunism was rife as anyone near London with a boat or a horse and cart flocked towards the city to exploit the desperate throngs. The price of hiring a cart suddenly shot up from two shillings to the small fortune of £40 (over £4000 in today's money).

Samuel Pepys

Frustrated with what he perceived as a lack of effective action by the City authorities, Pepys made his way west to the royal palace at Whitehall and took his grievances straight to the top:

"So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of York 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 from him, and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down before the fire every way." (Samuel Pepys)

Charles' brother Prince James, Duke of York (the future James II) offered his troops, the Royal Life Guards, to assist in fighting the fire despite being fully aware that sending royal soldiers onto City of London turf, even during a crisis such as this, was a risky political business. Pepys returned to the city and soon found Mayor Bloodworth who reacted to the King's command with utter dispair:

"At last met my Lord Mayor in Cannon Street, like a man spent, with a handkerchief about his neck. To the King’s message he cried, like a fainting woman, “Lord! what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.”" (Samuel Pepys)

Defiant to the last, Bloodworth refused James' offer of military assistance and went home to rest. With no troops around, order in the streets quickly broke down and the narrow roads became jammed with the frantic exodus traffic. The only ways out of the City of London were through the eight narrow gates in the old Roman city wall: Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate, Aldgate and the Postern Gate at the Tower. As traffic levels grew the gates became almost impassable and the attempts by the authorities to close the gates and force the people inside to fight the fire certainly did not help things.

Later that day the King sailed down the river from Whitehall on the royal barge to inspect the goings-on first-hand. He was dismayed to find out that houses were still not being pulled down. In a bold move he dared to override the authority of Bloodworth and the other City bosses by ordering wholesale demolitions in order to create firebreaks. Unfortunately for many Londoners the order came far too late. The King's delay in wrenching control of the situation from the local authorities had effectively sealed London's fate. As night fell Pepys and some acquaintances went to an ale house on the south bank and saw out the day watching the growing fire from there.

Monday September 3rd

"And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loathe to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till some of them burned their wings, and fell down." (Samuel Pepys)

As Sunday became Monday the fire's advance into the heart of the City continued unabated. The east wind pushed the mighty wall of flame westwards whilst it also moved north into the financial district. Many of London's citizens were former members of Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army had thus reserved the right to keep hold of their muskets. This meant that many of London's houses contained significant supplies of gunpowder, adding further fuel to the inferno. The London Gazette only just managed to put out that week's edition on Monday before the printing premises went up in smoke. The General Letter Office, through which post for the entire nation passed, burned down at around the same time, disrupting communications and making it more difficult and time-consuming to call in outside assistance.

The fire was now completely out of control and thrived off the easterly gale, creating what the modern lexicon now describes as a firestorm. The intense heat sucked in all the available oxygen, creating strong inward winds which  fanned the flames. Pepys wrote that he was "almost burned by a shower of fire-drops" as he viewed the conflagration from downwind on the river. He was describing the hot cinders and embers that were being carried all over the place on the wind, starting new blazes far ahead of the main fire and further complicating efforts to either escape or fight the flames.

By Monday afternoon the Great Fire had begun to consume the City of London's affluent financial core around Cornhill, Leadenhall Street, Broad Street and Threadneedle Street. The bankers of Lombard Street rushed to gather up their stacks of gold coins, so vital to the wealth and prosperity of London, and get them safely out of the Square Mile before they melted away in the intense heat. The Royal Exchange burned down in the late afternoon and the Cheapside was now under threat. Cheapside was the City of London's main shopping thoroughfare and was home to many business that sold opulent and luxury consumer goods. The approaching fire triggered a new wave of panic as the shopkeepers rushed to get their wares out of harm's way.

John Evelyn, a courtier, diarist and contemporary of Pepys based outside the city in Deptford, travelled west to witness the catastrophe for himself and provide a new wealth of first-hand accounts to us lucky people.

"The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures without at all attempting to save even their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them." (John Evelyn)

To the south of the gutted financial district, the fire continued to advance west along the Thames waterfront. An attempt was made to halt the fire by demolishing buildings and creating a firebreak near the docks at Queenhithe but this turned out to be ineffective. Mayor Bloodworth had seemingly abandoned his civic obligations and left the City by this point as there is no further account of his whereabouts. The King finally lost patience and overrode the local authorities once and for all, placing the Duke of York in charge of the firefighting operations. Royal troops finally began to enter the fire zone on Monday evening and immediately proceeded to restore some degree of public order and resume firefighting operations.

Monday night was marked by the destruction of Baynard's Castle, the Tower of London's unofficial western counterpart and the most dominant landmark on the riverfront. As the leading edge of the fire neared the western limits of the City of London at Blackfriars it was hoped that the fortress-mansion's massive stone walls would halt the advance of the flames. Alas those flames somehow managed to get inside and the colossal structure burned all night.

Tuesday September 4th

Tuesday was the day of greatest destruction. Despite the renewed firefighting efforts under royal supervision, the Great fire quickly devoured what remained of the western half of the walled city. Troops commanded by King Charles himself had created a firebreak to the north of the main conflagration and this held until mid-afternoon when the flames jumped across the gap and began to destroy the shops of Cheapside. Charles and his men pulled back to Cripplegate in an attempt to hold the fire at the northern city wall, effectively abandoning the north of the city to its fate in order to protect the densely populated suburbs further out. The city's Medieval Guildhall, headquarters of the City of London authorities, caught fire shortly afterwards and was badly damaged.

James, Duke of York in his later years as King James II

James, Duke of York further cemented his status as the hero-of-the-hour by making a stand alongside his men at the River Fleet, hoping that the stagnant filth-clogged waterway would act as a natural firebreak and ensure the fire did not make its way further west towards Whitehall and Westminster. Despite their best efforts The easterly wind was still blowing strong and it drove the flames beyond the western city wall and over the Fleet into the western suburban districts of Holborn and Bridewell. James and his men found themselves outflanked on both sides by the advancing fire and were forced to retreat back along Fleet Street towards Temple Bar to avoid being cut off. Near-panic broke out at Whitehall as the impending danger grew ever nearer.

"Oh, the confusion there was then at that court!" (John Evelyn)

Whilst James and his firefighters were busy playing cat-and-mouse with the fire in the west, they were oblivious to a serious danger developing on the opposite side of town. Throughout Tuesday the fire unexpectedly began to spread eastwards from the Pudding Lane area, straight into the wind, meaning that the Tower of London, home to the largest gunpowder stockpile in the land, was under threat. If the fire had got in there there would have been an explosion so enormous that even Guy Fawkes wouldn't have recommended sticking around to watch. The Governor of the Tower requested help but with all resources tied down elsewhere the garrison were forced to take matters into their own hands. They spent the day using their explosives to demolish the surrounding buildings, an approach which ensured that the Tower was spared, averting an even greater catastrophe.

The eastward spread of the fire also placed Pepys' own house in the firing line. Having already moved out most of his belongings to the home of his friend Sir William Rider at Bethnall Green he and his neighbours were forced to take more drastic action to protect some of their more, shall we say, "valuable" items.

"Sir W. Batten not knowing how to remove his wine, did dig a pit in the garden, and laid it in there; and I took the opportunity of laying all the papers of my office that I could not otherwise dispose of. And in the evening Sir W. Penn and I did dig another, and put our wine in it; and I my Parmesan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things." (Samuel Pepys)

Pepys' haste to ensure the safety of his cheese turned out to be unnecessary as his house only just escaped the blaze in the end but he was one of the few lucky ones. Most of the thousands displaced by the fire ended up being housed in makeshift camps set up in areas such as Parliament Hill (present day Hampstead Heath) or Islington, which in those days were well outside the built-up area. The largest camp of all was at Moorfields, a large area of public parkland just north of the city. Both Pepys and Evelyn visited Moorfields and commented on the destitution they witnessed as will as the undiminished sense of Londoner's pride shown by those that they met.

Back in the city, the still-raging fire had already destroyed dozens of London's parish churches but it was now ready to claim the ultimate prize. Compared to the elegant domed Baroque structure that stands today, the old St Paul's Cathedral was a giant looming Norman/Gothic monster more akin to its surviving counterparts out in the provinces (Durham, York, Salisbury, Norwich, Canterbury, Lincoln etc) The church dominated its surroundings and the skyline for miles around, with no other building in London even coming close to matching it for size.  It had long served as the final resting place for many famous names in English history, housing the tombs of such luminaries as the Saxon King Ethelred the Unready and John of Gaunt, son of Edward III and founder of the Royal House of Lancaster.

By 1666, however, the cathedral had been decaying for over a century, a downward spiral that began with the loss of its soaring spire (the tallest in England) to a lightning strike in 1561. Its spirital value also seemed to be increasingly lost on the people as the vast interiors had drifted into various secular uses. The building had also been badly desecrated by Parliamentarian soldiers during the Civil War and Interregnum periods, when it was used as a stable for cavalry horses. Nevertheless the crumbling old pile retained its place in Londoners' hearts and it was hoped that it would soon get the essential maintenance it needed.

The old St Paul's Cathedral viewed from the west, showing the neo-Classical porch added by Inigo Jones in the 1630s, one of the only significant attempts at sprucing up the decaying building.

The cathedral's thick stone walls and wide empty surrounding plaza made it attractive to those in need of a safe place to store their belongings away from the approaching fire. The printers and publishers from nearby Paternoster Row were amongst the first to store their wares inside and soon the cathedral crypt was chock-full of stashed goods, mostly of the paper variety.

Unfortunately for St Paul's and the various paraphernalia hidden away inside, the Church of England and City authorities had chosen this time of all times to begin the long-awaited restoration, appointing a little-known astronomer and part-time architect named Christopher Wren to carry it out. This meant that at the time of the Great Fire the entire building was encased in wooden scaffolding, awaiting the start of the work. Despite the value of the cathedral as a safe refuge being so obviously compromised the people still stored their goods away inside, seemingly too desperate or too stupid to put two and two together.

Once the fire reached and surrounded St Paul's the end result was all-too predictable. The scaffolding caught fire and then the roofs which collapsed into the building and set off the flammable material stored in the crypt.

"The stones of St Paul's flew like grenades, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them" (John Evelyn)

The venerable old church quickly burned down to a shell, bringing an end to any practical hopes of restoring it in its current form. To many onlookers this particular loss signified the death of old London. The more radically religious minds, already scared witless by the fact that the current year contained the number "666", began to wonder if this hellish conflagration meant something far greater. In an age where God was still widely believed to have a direct hand in earthly events, it began to look as though this really could be the end of the world.

Wednesday September 5th

If Londoners had been demoralised by the destruction of St Paul's Cathedral the night before then at least they now had some good news to celebrate. On Wednesday morning the easterly wind finally dropped, bringing the westward spread of the fire to an abrupt halt. The fire was stifled by the the brick and stone-built Temple complex off Fleet Street whilst on Fleet Street itself James' firefighters were able to stop the flames merely yards short of the church of St Dunstan-in-the-West, saving Whitehall and allowing the jittery courtiers to breath a sigh of relief. Further north the fire was stopped at Pye Corner near Newgate before it could enter the heavily-populated suburb of Smithfield.

The calming of the winds allowed the firebreaks to take effect. James had heeded the example of the Tower of London garrison and, in his capacity as Lord High Admiral, brought in sailors from the fleet to destroy buildings more quickly and effectively with gunpowder. King Charles' efforts to halt the fire at Cripplegate were also successful and the fire in that area was kept within the city walls. Charles had also been riding around the city in his carriage, raising public morale with his presence and distributing gold coins in order to stir the firefighters to greater efforts.

With the spread of the fire now under control it was merely a case of damping down as best one could and wait for the fire to burn itself out, which it soon did. Isolated pockets of fire burned for several more days but the worst was finally over.

The total extent of the Great Fire's destruction.

The material cost of the Great Fire of London was just as staggeringly high as its human cost was mysteriously low. As well as the grand public buildings which I have already mentioned. The blaze destroyed around 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, 44 livery company halls and three of the city gates. The monetary cost of the disaster is estimated at around £10 million (over £1 billion in today's money), a monumental sum considering that the annual income of the City treasury at the time was only around £12,000.

Over 70,000 people were made homeless by the disaster but the number of recorded deaths, although not specified exactly, is generally agreed to be less than ten. Historians have attempted to explain away the surprisingly low official death toll by claiming that the total does not include the many who must have been incinerated without trace or died of starvation or disease afterwords in the refugee camps (bear in mind that the Great Plague epidemic had still not quite gone away). There is also the small matter of the fate of London's non-English population, which I will now look into.

Bloody Foreigners

"There, when I come, I find the gates shut, but no guard kept at all, which troubled me, because of discourse now begun, that there is plot in it, and that the French had done it." (Samuel Pepys)

Before the fire was even a day old there was rumours spreading around that the fire was no accident. The circumstances surrounding the beginnings of the disaster seemed too convenient, such as the hot, dry, windy weather and the fact that the water wheels at London Bridge were taken out almost straight away, preventing any effective control measures. The fires being started away from the main blaze, caused by the sparks and cinders carried on the wind, give the impression that fresh fires were being set on purpose. As such stories began to circulate in the burning city, those Londoners who were not busy fleeing soon began to develop a mob mentality.

The 17th Century English were a naturally xenophobic people, a mindset resulting from over 100 years of religious turmoil and foreign wars. London's sizable European immigrant community, although usually tolerated to an extent, often became scapegoats in times of crisis. The Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667) was in progress at the time of the fire as the English sought to challenge the Dutch domination of the emerging global trade routes. Less than a month before the fire before the fire an English naval force under Vice-Admiral Robert Holmes had sacked and burned the Dutch town of West Terschelling, an event known as "Holmes' Bonfire". Therefore to Londoners the outbreak of their Great Fire seemed a no-brainer. It had to be a revenge attack by the Dutch. Soon more erroneous reports were circulating of a Dutch invasion fleet sailing up the Thames and of foreigners being caught with grenades or matches or casting "fireballs" into buildings.

As their city burned to the ground the angry mobs roamed the streets looking for what they perceived to be the enemy agents living in their midst, placing the entire immigrant population in serious danger. The Dutch were primary targets but anyone else not English also faced being roughed-up. A schoolboy named William Taswell noted later on in his memoirs how he watched in shock as a blacksmith casually walked up to a Frenchman in the street and struck him about the head with an iron bar. Another Frenchman was attacked after he was found carrying what was assumed to be a bag of grenades. They turned out to be tennis balls.

As James and his troops entered the area late on Monday they found the city in turmoil. Those who weren't running away were going around indiscriminately beating up or attempting to lynch anyone with strange clothes or a strange accent. Many of the soldiers intended to be used in fighting the fire instead found themselves having to go round rescuing foreigners from the mobs and arresting them for their own safety. James had not yet made his infamous conversion to Catholicism but he also took great pains to protect London's Catholics who had also found themselves being scapegoated for the fire. Even after the restoration Protestant fanaticism was still strong, especially in London. This meant that Catholics were seen as being just as suspicious as foreign aliens in the eyes of many. Being supporters of the Pope effectively labelled them as agents of a foreign power too.

As the fire died down the people of London seemingly got what they were looking for. A young French watchmaker named Robert Hubert came forward and confessed outright that he had started the fire in Westminster before quickly changing his story and claiming that he had indeed started it in Pudding Lane. He stated that he had sailed to England on board a Swedish ship and, along with an unknown accomplice, had set a fireball through the window of Thomas Farynor's bakery. As Hubert was both a foreigner and a Catholic, the people felt that their long-held suspicions had been ultimately justified. However, when the authorities looked into Hubert's story it became clear that something was rather amiss.

Anti-Catholic propaganda depicting Robert Hubert

At Hubert's trial it was noted that the young Frenchman was so crippled that he could hardly walk, let alone slip in and out of heavily populated areas without being noticed. Thomas Farynor himself admitted to the court that his ground-floor bakery had no such window through which Hubert could have fired the house. Nevertheless Farynor was quick to add his name to the growing petition that demanded Hubert's prosecution, presumably to deflect responsibility for the fire away from himself. It was even revealed by the captain of the Swedish ship that Hubert was not even in England when the fire broke out and had in fact crossed the Channel two days afterwards.

It was pretty obvious to the court that Robert Hubert could not have started the Great Fire but according to 17th Century English law, an admission of guilt meant exactly that. Hubert had confessed that he had done it so therefore, in the eyes of the law he must have done it. Despite their reservations, the court found Hubert guilty and sentenced him to death, giving Londoners the satisfaction that justice had been done. Hubert was later hanged at the Tyburn gallows, after which his corpse was torn apart limb-from-limb by the vengeful crowd.

So we can agree with much certainty that Hubert was not the culprit if there was any culprit at all. If anything he was little more than an attention-seeker with suicidal tendencies whose intention was to go to a glorious death and be remembered as something more than just another clock-tinkerer. Even after his execution, however, the resentment towards the minorities did not go away and the authorities did little to suppress. In fact, when the Monument commemorating the Great Fire was built just off Pudding lane, it had a plaque installed on it which blamed the Catholics for the fire:

"Here by permission of heaven, hell broke loose upon this Protestant city..... the most dreadful Burning of this City; begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction... Popish frenzy which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched..."

It was not until the time of Catholic emancipation in the 1830s that those words were finally chiseled off. Since then, most historical opinion has written-off the idea of the Great Fire being started deliberately, preferring instead to argue that the whole thing was simply a terrible accident.

The Monument to the Great Fire of London

Did the Fire Kill the Plague?

One of the most commonly stated impacts of the Great Fire of London is that the flames burned out the rat infestation and destroyed the city's filthy slum dwellings, ensuring that the dreaded Bubonic Plague would never ravage the population ever again. The fact that a large Plague outbreak never did occur again in London (or anywhere else in Britain, for that matter) after 1666 seems to lend weight to that assumption although a degree of closer inspection suggests that the explanation is not quite so straightforward.

Yes the Great Fire did destroy much of London but we must remember that the main breeding grounds for the Plague were not in the City of London itself (although it wasn't far behind in terms of its squalidness) but in the overpopulated suburban areas which were growing out of control outside the old walls. Apart from those western areas I mentioned earlier, the fire was stopped before it could reach the outer areas, meaning that the most disease-prone parts of London were actually spared. To me this suggests that there are other factors beyond my knowledge (The history of medical science is not my strong point.) that also helped to rid London of Plague. Perhaps it was more to do with the outlying suburbs being reorganised and redeveloped to alleviate their own fire risks and bring them in line with the new city that was growing out of the ashes of the fire. Whatever the people of London did, let's just say that it worked.

A New Beginning

In the wake of the fire, Charles II feared a revolt against his regime by the army of homeless Londoners and he greatly encouraged them to move away and try their luck settling elsewhere. In February 1667 a special Fire Court was set up to settle disputes between tenants and landlords with regards to property rights and who should rebuild based an ability to pay. Although the verdict on most cases was usually reached within a day. The fact that the court existed for over five years gives testament to the sheer volume of legal wrangling that needed to be resolved in the aftermath of the fire.

These legal problems interfered massively with plans to rebuild the city. Many famous faces of the era, including Wren, Evelyn, Robert Hooke, Richard Newcourt and Valentine Knight, submitted grand plans for the rebuilding of the gutted city. The various ideas differed in style but were mostly in favour of clearing away the old Medieval street plan in favour of elegant Baroque facades, wide sweeping avenues and grand open piazzas. Wren's design in particular presents a truly awe-inspiring vision of what might have been.

Christopher Wren's unrealised vision for a radically different City of London.

Had one of these plans been accepted and put into effect then then new London would have rivalled the great European cities in magnificence. Not even Paris or Rome could have topped it. Unfortunately none of these plans were realised due to the fact that London simply had to rebuild and get back on its feet as soon as possible. The ongoing legal disputes made it impossible to establish exactly who owned what land and the process of finding owners, compensating them and chopping and changing land ownership in general for the sake of establishing a new street layout was simply not practical. Therefore the new city that arose after the fire was rebuilt using the old street plan which still largely persists to this day.

Despite having to pass up the chance to create a whole new London from scratch, the city authorities certainly learned their lessons from the fire and the rebuilding was regulated accordingly to counter the old risks of disease and fire. Wood was out whilst brick and stone were very much in. The streets were widened and open wharves were built along the river with no buildings blocking access to the water. Christopher Wren, still smarting at not being able to implement his grand design for the whole city, found much consolation in being awarded the task of rebuilding London's burned churches, including St Paul's Cathedral. He was also co-responsible for the designing and building of the Monument, alongside Robert Hooke.

St Paul's Cathedral: Wren's magnum opus.

Within a decade or so of the Great Fire London was largely up and running again although work on the larger buildings went on for a lot longer. The saga of the reconstruction of London at last came to a symbolic ending in late 1711 when the new St Paul's Cathedral was declared complete, with a 78-year-old Christopher Wren still being around to see it. He would live on till the grand old age of 90, having carved out a reputation as the greatest English architect of his era. The cathedral and his other churches continue to occupy their places on London's ever-changing skyline, reminding us of the event that dragged a city kicking and screaming into the modern age.

A Bad Year for London (Part 1): Plague

"BRING OUT YER DEAD!!!"

Perhaps no other saying better defines European history in the Medieval and Early Modern periods. In the age before adequate understanding of medical science disease was all over the place and claiming lives left, right and centre. The King of Kings in terms of ye olde worlde ailments is undoubtedly the Bubonic Plague, one of the deadliest bacteria known to man. The story of how the infamous "Black Death" swept across Europe in the late 1340s and killed half its population still puts the chills up me personally. I think that we can all agree that it was (and still is) a disease not to be messed with.

However, we all know that the Black Death was not the only instance of a major plague outbreak. Epidemics happened pretty much all the time and some have become legendary unto themselves due to their ferocity. Here I'll be focusing on one such incident which turned out to be the last major outbreak of Plague in Britain. The Great Plague of London struck England's capital in the spring of 1665 and kicked off a very bad year for the city which culminated in the Great Fire. Both events were instrumental in the transformation of London from dirty rat-infested post-Medieval sinkhole into a vibrant modern metropolis.

London in the 1660s

In the years immediately following the restoration of the Stuart monarchy London was by far the largest city in England and was home to around 500,000 people, more than the next 50 towns in England combined. The rose-tinted idea that one could go to London and seek their fortune had been pulling people in from far and wide for centuries but the city was struggling to cope with its burgeoning population and its people, the underclass in particular, were increasingly finding themselves crammed into smaller spaces.

Only around 80,000 people lived in the City of London itself, the "Square Mile" bounded between the River Thames and the old Roman city wall. The rest lived in the more recently built suburban districts that were springing up outside the city wall such as Holborn and Shoreditch which, thanks to a complete lack of urban planning, were growing out of control.

Extract of Claes Visscher's 1613 panorama of London.

Although nowadays the term "suburban" is used to describe cushy living in nice big houses far away from the dirty old inner-cities, in the 17th century it signified something rather less salubrious. The suburban areas of Stuart London were, if anything, even worse than the city itself. To say they were dirty and overpopulated would be a major understatement. One such area was the locale around Fleet Street which headed westwards out of the city towards Temple Bar where it became The Strand. In that area thousands of people were trying to live and earn their keep and often it was several to a room. Local polluting and waste-producing industries such as butchers and tanners dumped animal offal and other unpleasant items in the nearby River Fleet which by this stage had degenerated from the wide fast-flowing river discovered by the Romans into little more than a stinking and clogged ditch, the absolute stereotype of a Medieval open sewer.

With its high population, lack of space and abject filth it should have been obvious to all and sundry that a major biological disaster in London was inevitable. The same factors that had allowed the Black death to spread so freely three centuries earlier were now conspiring again. The rats and their accompanying fleas were able to roam freely around the city and the people, still unaware as to the true causes of Plague, could do nothing about it. Plague was just one of many accepted risks in that society even though there had already been three Plague epidemics in 17th Century England which had killed thousands each time. When the first cases began to appear in 1665 few ordinary people took much notice.

The Plague Stirs

It is thought that the Plague arrived in London in 1665 via flea-infested cotton bales delivered to the docks from Amsterdam. That city had suffered its own outbreak the previous year in which around 50,000 people died. As had been the case during the Black Death, international trade simply carried on as normal during outbreaks, assisting in the spread of the disease. As a result the first cases in London appeared in the poorer parishes such as St Giles-in-the-Fields where the dock workers lived.

Because the inhabitants of these areas were amongst the dregs of society aspects of their lives often went unrecorded by the local authorities. Therefore it is not known exactly when or where the first case appeared or who the unfortunate victim was. The first recorded case was dated April 12th 1665 and was situated in the area now known as Covent Garden, right in the heart of the densely populated western suburbs. As soon as the disease appeared the authorities leaped into action with the long established methods of containment. The infected household was shut up and sealed off with the healthy occupants imprisoned inside with the afflicted. A red cross was then daubed on the door with paint as a warning for people to stay well away.

With hindsight it is easy to find these old school methods rather laughable but to those at the time it seemed like all they could do. Preventing human contact was one thing but they remained unaware that such a horrible disease could be spread by something as insignificant as the bite of a flea. Needless to say the efforts to strangle the disease at birth failed and it was able to get out into the wider community. Soon the number of Plague deaths being recorded and published in the Bills of Mortality started to rise to unusually high levels, alerting the literate public to the fact that something was seriously wrong.

"The Bells were Hoarse with Tolling"

The number of recorded Plague deaths per week continued to skyrocket into the Summer, the time of year when the disease is at its most virulent. By July Plague had arrived in the City of London itself and as red crosses began appearing on doors in more affluent neighbourhoods, those who were able to leave began deserting the city en-masse, oblivious to the risk of transporting the Plague elsewhere. King Charles II and his court abandoned Whitehall palace and moved to Oxford, with Parliament following closely behind.

Whilst the national government turned tail and fled, the City of London authorities did no such thing. The Lord Mayor, Sir John Lawrence made the commendable decision to stay in London although he took rather drastic measures to protect himself. For the duration of the outbreak Lawrence voluntarily sealed himself inside a large specially-built glass box in order to avoid coming into contact with other people and official documents were heated over a candle before being handed through to him. The city Aldermen also stayed at their posts in order to better coordinate what little fight they could put up against the relentless spread of the Plague. The Church of England hierarchy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, entrusted their fate to the almighty and also stayed behind to ensure that the church did not drown under the deluge of death.

Other notable people who stayed behind include the diarist Samuel Pepys and a saddler named Henry Foe. Both men kept a written record of what they saw and Foe's nephew, the writer Daniel Defoe, would go on to write a fictional account of the outbreak entitled A Journal of the Plague Year which was published in 1722 and presumably based upon his uncle's writings.

The Plague raged on through London throughout the Summer with the local economy nosediving along with the population as wealthy merchants and professionals fled and businesses, starved of employees and customers alike, closed down. Anyone with an ounce of money or common sense abandoned the city leaving behind only a small crowd of physicians, apothecaries, dead collectors and volunteer "Plague doctors" to assist the clergy and city authorities who had largely run out of ideas by this point. They tried to stop people leaving by closing the city gates and not allowing anyone out without an official "Certificate of Health", leading to a thriving black market in forged certificates.

A typical depiction of a Plague doctor

From his glass cell Mayor Lawrence gave the order to cull every dog and cat in the city, incorrectly believing them to be responsible for spreading the disease. The trained bands and other local volunteers immediately went out and massacred around 15,000 dogs and over 30,000 cats. Inevitably the Great London Pet Genocide, as I like to call it, failed to stop the disease and in fact did much to assist its spread. Without dogs and cats around, there was essentially nothing to stop the rats.

The church found itself lost for answers too. They were still largely of the opinion that Plague was caused either by evil spirits or by the presence of miasmas (i.e. "bad air") and could suggest nothing more useful than the lighting of bonfires and the burning of fragrances in order to smoke out the disease. Nonetheless the bonfires raised the morale of Londoners for a while until the early onset of the Autumn rains put a stop to them. Smoking tobacco was also heavily encouraged.

As the death toll rose to thousands per week London's parish churches were becoming overwhelmed. With the graveyards filling up the authorities inevitably began digging mass-graves in outlying areas, leading to a rather undignified final resting place for many of the victims. The practice of ringing the church bells to announce the death of a parishioner meant that the increasingly lifeless streets of London soon became enveloped in a dense cacophony of noise as the bells of its 100+ churches rang out almost constantly. This continued for so long that one chronicler pointed out that "the bells of London were hoarse with tolling". The eerie racket of the never-ending bell ringing gave an appropriate ambiance to the city which, at the current rate, was well on its way to becoming a ghost town.

The Eyam Incident

Fortunately for the rest of the country, the Plague outbreak of 1665 remained almost exclusively within London and its immediate environs. However, there were a couple of significant examples of the disease getting out of London and the most famous story of all takes us a world away from the cramped and dirty city streets and into the idyllic heart of rural Derbyshire.

At the beginning of September 1665 a wool merchant delivered a consignment of cloth to George Viccars who lived and worked as a tailor in the village of Eyam, around 25 miles north of Derby in the picturesque Hope Valley. Within a week Viccars was dead from the Plague. It turned out that the cloth he had bought in came from London and was most likely infested with the deadly fleas. As more people in the village started showing symptoms, they began to fear the worst.

A reminder of Eyam's appointment with death

The villagers turned to their local Anglican priest, Rev. William Mompesson and the out-of-favour Puritan minister Thomas Stanley, who had lost his job following the Restoration but nevertheless remained in the village, for advice on how to deal with this unforseen crisis. Mompesson was able to convince the villagers to do something truly heroic given the circumstances. They all agreed to contain the infection by isolating themselves in the village, not allowing anyone in or out. This self-imposed quarantine was effectively a death sentence for the people of Eyam but it would ensure the disease did not get out. The outbreak in Eyam lasted 14 months and killed around 260 of the village's 350 inhabitants.

The first outsiders to enter Eyam after the outbreak found that only around a quarter of the village's population had survived. Survival appeared to be random among the villagers. Rev. Mompesson survived as did the local gravedigger Marshall Howe, despite his constant contact with infected corpses. The village of Eyam would recover but its people had paid a heavy price in their valiant and successful effort to contain the Plague.

The Outbreak Fades

Back in London, the death rate from the Plague reached its peak in September 1665, topping out at over 7000 deaths a week. Had that toll persisted then the entire population of the city would have been dead by Christmas. Fortunately for those who remained the outbreak was checked by that traditional enemy of the Plague bacteria, cold weather. As the year drew to an end the number of deaths began to drop and the first winter frosts signified that the worst was finally over.

In February 1666 it was deemed safe for the King and Parliament to return to London and the Lord Mayor finally left his protective glass box, his caution having seemingly been vindicated by the fact that he had escaped infection. The continuation of international trade had spread the Plague to France where it lingered for a year before dying out in the following winter. Although Plague cases in London continued at a modest pace, those who had fled the city slowly began to return to their homes.

By the end of August 1666 the number of new cases was down to a manageable level and life in the city was beginning to return to normal. The total death toll resulting from the outbreak is estimated at over 100,000. This makes it the worst post-Black Death outbreak of the disease in Britain as well as the last significant occurrence of Plague in British history. As September dawned Londoners felt that they had at last beaten the dreaded Plague and could get on with their lives. Unfortunately fate had another rather nasty surprise in store for the people of ye olde London town, one that would have drastic long-term consequences and help to ensure that the Bubonic Plague would never haunt the streets of England's capital again.

The Kennedy Curse: The Chain of Misfortune that Brought Down a Dynasty

President John F. Kennedy with his brothers Robert and Ted in the early 1960s.

We all know about the tragic events that took place in Dallas on November 22nd 1963. Everyone alive at the time remembers where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot dead as he paraded through that Texan city. His death was as much of a disaster for American liberalism as it was a relief to those big businesses and establishment figures who had felt threatened by his bold new approach to government and preference for people over profit. Kennedy's often controversial policies and the circumstances surrounding his assassination have provided ample fodder for conspiracy theorists down the years but there is more to the story of America's most well-known political family than this one sad tale.

The 20th Century history of the Kennedy family is peppered with incidents of death, scandal and general misfortune, typically involving firearms, women or light aircraft mixed with foggy weather conditions. All these events have served to either tarnish the clan's reputation or remove those members who seemed destined to fulfill their political ambitions, leading some commentators to suggest that there is a curse on the Kennedys that prevents them from ever being able to turn their vision for America into reality. The fact that today's generation of Kennedys mostly languish on the fringes of the political scene or have abandoned politics altogether in favour of other career paths continues to demonstrate this lack of success.

So what is behind this mysterious "curse"? Could it really be that this one family is simply prone to vast amounts of bad luck? Did their political views or millionaire's lifestyles help to put them at additional risk? Some have said that there is a rather more sinister side to the whole thing, suggesting that many of these misfortunes were set up as part of a conspiracy by the American political and business establishments who were determined to prevent the Kennedys from getting near the White House or staying there too long. To fully understand the concept of a Kennedy Curse we must go back almost 100 years and meet the man who laid the foundations of this great political dynasty, and its downfall.

Background

The story of the modern Kennedy family begins with its last great patriarch, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr. (1888-1969). The grandson of an Irish immigrant who arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 1849, Joe Kennedy's family had quickly established themselves in the local business and political communities. They had also become one of the most if not the most high profile Roman Catholic family in what was a traditionally Protestant-dominated American society.

Joe's father was the first Kennedy to enter American politics as a member of the Democratic Party (albeit only at state level) and Joe was expected to carry on where he had left off. Joe himself turned out to be more successful in business and finance but he never forgot about his family's political calling. That calling became a reality in 1914 when Joe married Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald (1890-1995), the daughter of the Democrat Mayor of Boston, John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. The marriage united the two great Massachusetts Catholic families and created what would go on to be known as the Kennedy political dynasty.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.

Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy went on to have nine children. They were:

• Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr (1915-1944)
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)
• Rose Marie Kennedy (1918-2005)
• Kathleen Agnes Kennedy Cavendish (1920-1948)
• Eunice Mary Kennedy Shriver (1921-2009)
• Patricia Helen Kennedy Lawford (1924-2006)
• Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968)
• Jean Ann Kennedy Smith (1928-)
• Edward Moore Kennedy (1932-2009)

With money in the bank, plenty of children and much political clout, Joe Kennedy had much reason to be pleased with himself and hopeful that someday a Kennedy might occupy the White House. The good fortune continued as Joe correctly predicted that the rampant stock speculation of the 1920s would lead to a market crash, proceeding to withdraw from the stock market and invest his money in real estate instead. When the Wall Street Crash finally occurred in 1929 and the entire US economy collapsed around his ears, Kennedy was laughing all the way to the bank (assuming of course that he could find one that was still open). Between 1929 and 1935 his personal fortune skyrocketed from $4 million to $180 million (nearly $3 billion in today's money) whilst the country was in the grip of the great depression.

Having managed to turn massive profits even during the worst economic recession in living memory, it would be hard not to forgive Joe Kennedy for thinking that he and his family were invincible and that it was only a matter of time before he or his heirs topped the political tree. His business credentials and political pedigree had already earned him a number of token jobs in President Franklin Roosevelt's administration, including chairmanship of both the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Maritime Commission. In 1938 he was sent to London to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, his most prestigious job yet and one that allowed him access to the top echelons of British high society. However, the good times were not to last and as the world took a nosedive into the horrors of the Second World War, the infamous Kennedy Curse seemingly began with it.

The Early Tragedies

The first setback to hit the Kennedy family was brought upon them by Joe himself. In his first year or so as Ambassador to Britain he had supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards the Nazi regime in Germany and had tried to arrange private meetings with Adolf Hitler on at least two occasions, without prior consultation with the US State Department. This reflected badly on him once war broke out in September 1939, as did certain allegations that he possessed anti-Semitic views.

The final straw came as Nazi troops overwhelmed much of Europe and Britain was left standing alone. Kennedy argued against giving economic and military aid to the UK and stated in an interview with the Boston Sunday Globe in November 1940, as Germans bombs rained down daily across Britain, that "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here.". He was of the controversial opinion that the war was more about self-preservation than it was about protecting the principles of democracy.

"It's all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time." ... "As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn't that [Britain is] fighting for democracy. That's the bunk. She's fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us... I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it's up to me to see that the country gets it" (Joseph P. Kennedy, 1940)

Kennedy's comments led to him being viewed as a defeatist in Britain and as untrustworthy in American government circles. The Roosevelt administration felt that he was no longer of the right mindset to represent the United States and, in the face of a national public outcry and pressure from the government, Kennedy resigned as Ambassador and spent the rest of the war on the sidelines although he did some work to rally support for Roosevelt and the war effort amongst the Irish Catholic community after America entered the conflict in December 1941.

If daring to suggest that democracy was finished is an example of the elder Kennedy's increasingly poor judgment, it pales into insignificance compared to another decision that he made shortly afterwards. As she had grown into adulthood the Kennedys' eldest daughter Rose Marie began suffering from violent mood swings and exhibiting a rebellious out-of-control streak. in 1941 doctors suggested to her father that a prefrontal lobotomy operation, a relatively new procedure at the time, would help to calm the 23-year-old's mood swings. Joe gave the go-ahead and Rose underwent the lobotomy. Unfortunately the operation was botched and Rose was left incontinent and mentally retarded, spending the rest of her life in an institution whilst the family told lies about what had happened to her.

With his own Presidential ambitions in self-made tatters after the Ambassador episode. Joe now hoped that his children would some day seek election to the White House. His eldest son, Joseph Kennedy, Jr. was the obvious candidate to be the family's new political standard-bearer but that dream came to an early end over southern England in August 1944. Serving as a US Navy bomber pilot, Joe Jr. was taking part in Operation Aphrodite, a new plan to use explosive-laden bombers to target German missile sites in occupied France. The idea was that Kennedy and his co-pilot Wilford John Willy would fly the bomber across the Channel and then bail out. The empty plane would then be flown directly into its target by remote control from an accompanying aircraft.

Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.

Joe Kennedy, Jr. had turned down the opportunity to return home (having completed 25 combat missions) in order to take part in Operation Aphrodite and things seemed to be going according to plan until the convoy of aircraft was about to cross the English coast near Blythburgh, Suffolk. For some unknown reason the bomber exploded prematurely before Kennedy and Willy's planned bail-out, killing both men instantly. The aircraft following behind, piloted by President Roosevelt's son Elliot, was badly damaged and only just managed to return to base.

The death of Joe Jr. at the age of just 29 was a tragedy for the family and was the first in a string of aircraft accidents involving Kennedys. It also saw his younger brother John suddenly thrust into their father's idealistic role of future President-in-waiting. Less than a month after the accident came the death in action of Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy's aristocratic husband William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington and heir to the English Duchy of Devonshire. They had been married for barely four months. Kick herself was killed in May 1948 when the aircraft carrying her and her new romantic interest, the Earl of FitzWilliam crashed over southern France. Her father was the only Kennedy at her Anglican funeral service, the other siblings staying away at the behest of their staunchly Catholic mother.

One Hollywood Beauty, Two Assassinations and a VERY Dodgy Car Accident

Proponents of a Kennedy Curse tend to focus their evidence hunt specifically on the events that took place in the 1960s. This is because it was those events that ultimately brought an end to the Kennedy dream that Joe Sr. had worked so hard to make a reality. At the start of the decade the family was on a roll and had the Presidency of the United States almost within their grasp. By the end of it, however, they were all but finished.

By the 1950s the Kennedy Curse was evidently in full swing. Two of the nine siblings were dead and another incapacitated. Fortunately the family's fortunes looked up for a while and the eldest surviving son, John F. Kennedy, began working his way up through Congress with the hope of ultimately reaching the Presidency. Having been first elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, John moved up to the Senate in 1952, serving his home state of Massachusetts. By 1960 he was ready to achieve the Kennedy family's ultimate goal, winning the Democratic Party nomination and ultimately the Presidential election that year. Although he hadn't been able to do it himself. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. had finally accomplished his dream of getting his family to the very pinnacle of American politics.

John F. Kennedy's election represented a bold new direction in the eyes of many Americans.

Whilst the established political and business elites had good reason to fear John's radical (at least by their standards) political vision, most ordinary people and outside observers viewed his election as a fresh start. He was immensely popular and as the first Roman Catholic and Irish-American US President he became something of an embodiment of the American dream, the idea that one could come to America and be a success, albeit a few generations down the line in the case. The establishment would have gladly brought him down a peg or two but the President was able to ride out any attack or personal smear they could throw at him.

There is one JFK non-scandal in particular that the conspiracy theorists and proponents of the Kennedy Curse love to look into and it involved arguably the most famous woman in America at the time. Marilyn Monroe's raunchy performance of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at John's birthday celebrations in May 1962 inevitably set tongues wagging about the possibility of an illicit relationship between the two. Within months of this performance the actress was dead under very dubious circumstances involving drugs. She was just 36 years old.

Advocates of a conspiracy put forward the theory that Marilyn Monroe was bumped off in order to cover up her affairs not only with John but also with his brother and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Other theorists claim that she was killed for the exact opposite reason, in order to discredit the Kennedys. Either way the Kennedy administration managed to avoid becoming embroiled in the issue of Monroe's death and carried on as normal, presumably feeling rather untouchable just as Joe Sr. may have felt when he dodged the Wall Street Crash.

Did the Kennedy Curse claim the life of Marilyn Monroe?

We all know how this story ends. Less than three years after taking office President John F. Kennedy was no more. His Presidential motorcade was passing through Dealy Plaza in the centre of Dallas on November 22nd 1963 when shots from a high-powered rifle were fired at his open-topped car. However many bullets were fired, two managed to find their target. The first wounded Kennedy in the back and neck whilst the second fatal shot struck him in the head. The car sped to the nearest hospital but it was all in vain. Shortly after the stricken man arrived doctors gave up the fight and a Catholic priest administered the last rites. The 35th President of the United States was then declared dead.

The assassination has gone on to become one of the most debated events in modern history and stands as the most extreme example of the Kennedy Curse. A young misfit and known Communist sympathiser named Lee Harvey Oswald was later arrested in a Dallas movie theater after shooting dead a policeman and, after the rifle that killed Kennedy was traced to him, charged with both murders. Oswald was never brought to trial for killing President Kennedy as he himself was shot dead during a routine jail transfer by a vengeful small-time mafiosi named Jack Ruby. Oswald's own murder only added more fuel to the fire being stoked up by the conspiracy theorists. Had the killer been silenced? Was there something untoward going on? For the Kennedy family, however, all they could do was try and pick up the pieces.

JFK's slaying brought an abrupt end to his efforts to mould America in his family's own political image and his relations and colleagues in the Democratic Party were forced to find another poster boy. Inevitably it did not take long for the spotlight to fall upon Robert. As the next Kennedy son he was naturally expected to carry on from where his brother had left off. He soon resigned as Attorney General and won himself a Senate seat in the State of New York, intending to make a move for the White House in 1968.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy on the campaign trail in California.

Robert Kennedy duly entered the race for the Democratic Party nomination in March 1968 but did not immediately emerge as a frontrunner, instead becoming locked in a battle with fellow Senator Eugene McCarthy and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey for the nomination. The turning point came when Robert won the crucial California primary in June, effectively setting himself up for overall victory in the primary campaign. Kennedy fever seemed to be sweeping the nation again and Robert's policy of racial justice was winning the hearts of those who had been shocked by the recent assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Following his victory in California Robert gave a short speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles before leaving with his escort via a kitchen passageway. It was there that a 24-year-old Palestinian man, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, gunned him down. Robert F. Kennedy died 26 hours later on June 6th 1968. The Kennedy Curse had struck again.

So where do we go from here now that Robert is dead too? Yes, you guessed it. All eyes now turned to the 36-year-old Edward "Ted" Kennedy who now found himself as the family's final hope. The youngest Kennedy sibling had won John's former Senate seat in Massachusetts in 1962 and was already making a name for himself in Washington as a legislator and proponent of the Kennedy belief system. However, Ted did not yet feel ready nor did he think it was appropriate to jump into his brothers' shoes straight away so he hung back and the 1968 Presidential election went to the Republicans and their candidate Richard Nixon. The Democrats held out high hopes that Ted would run in 1972 and the evidence suggests that he was not planning to let them down. Unfortunately for him fate had other ideas in store.

In July 1969 Ted Kennedy travelled to the island of Martha's Vineyard of the coast of Massachusetts in order to take part, as per family custom, in the annual Edgartown sailing Regatta. Whilst there he took the opportunity to throw a party for a few of his close associates and several of the "Boiler Room Girls" who had worked as secretaries during Robert's doomed primary campaign. He held the get-together on July 18th at a cottage on the neighbouring island of Chappaquiddick where he they could enjoy more privacy. The party went on for some time and (according to his own testimony) Kennedy left at around 11:15pm along with one of the secretaries, Mary Jo Kopechne, intending to give her a lift to the ferry landing and take the boat back across to Martha's Vineyard, where Kennedy had booked a hotel room for himself in Edgartown.

On the morning of July 19th two amateur fisherman discovered a large car submerged upside-down by the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick. The police were contacted at 8:20am and they soon traced the car to Ted Kennedy and discovered the body of Mary Jo Kopechne inside. Kennedy himself had made his own way back to Edgartown after consulting his friends for advice on what to do and did not report the accident to the police himself until 10am, making him guilty of leaving the scene of an accident and failing to report an accident. He received a suspended sentence and was very lucky to hang on to his Senate seat. Nonetheless the incident caused a national scandal that tarnished his reputation permanently.

Ted Kennedy goes on national TV to give his account of the Chappaquiddick incident.

Although Ted Kennedy insisted that there was nothing going on between himself and Kopechne, the scandal arose not only because he failed to report the accident straight away but also due to the curious nature of the accident in relation to Ted's version of events. For starters he shouldn't have been anywhere near the Dike Bridge if it was his intention to drive to the ferry landing for they were on opposite sides of the island. Ted claimed that he took a wrong turn after leaving the cottage, got lost and drove the car off the Dike Bridge after misjudging his approach. This seems odd considering that both he and Kopechne had already driven around Chappaquiddick several times and should therefore have been familiar with the well-signposted roads.

Ted claimed that he was able to get out of the car but was not able to reach Kopechne so he went back to the cottage for help. He and two of his friends returned to the scene but were still unable to reach the car. He then claimed that he returned alone to his hotel in Edgartown and did nothing else until the next morning, citing shock as the main reason why he did not immediately notify the authorities. An examination of the car and Kopechne's body revealed that she survived in the car for some time after the accident, meaning that she may well have been rescued had Kennedy reacted sooner.

Mary Jo Kopechne

As with the assassinations of his two brothers, there have been alternative theories put forward about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick but I won't go into those now because they are two detailed and numerous to summarise effectively. Whatever really happened on Chappaquiddick that night, the events effectively destroyed Ted's chances of ever becoming President and would dog him for the rest of his life.

The Later Years

The disgracing of Ted Kennedy as a result of the Chappaquiddick incident was the final nail in the coffin as far as the family's presidential aspirations were concerned. Nonetheless the Kennedy Curse still did not seem to go away as misfortune continued to dog what remained of the clan. In November 1969, mere months after Chappaquiddick, the curtain was finally brought down on the great Kennedy era as Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. finally died at the age of 81, having outlived four of his nine children. The old man had spent the last years of his life in a wheelchair and largely unable to speak after suffering a major stroke in 1961. Nonetheless he remained mentally sharp and was only too aware of the tragedies that befell the family in that decade. When he died, the reputation of the Kennedy family as a political force mostly died with him.

I say "mostly" died with him because Ted Kennedy actually did manage to keep the family flame burning by serving another 40 years in the Senate until his death from brain cancer at the age of 77 in 2009. He even had a pop at running for President in 1980 but the ghosts of Chappaquiddick and the fact that he was challenging a sitting President (Jimmy Carter) for the Democratic Party nomination doomed the attempt to failure. The departure of Patrick J. Kennedy (son of Ted) from the House of Representatives in January 2011 ended a 64-year run of Kennedys holding elected office in Washington that started with JFK taking up his seat in the House in January 1947.

Aside from illness and old-age related deaths, there continued to be accidents and misfortune involving the family. In 1973 Joseph P. Kennedy II (son of Robert) crashed his car and left a female passenger permanently paralyzed whilst Edward Kennedy, Jr. lost a portion of his right leg due to bone cancer that same year. David Kennedy (another son of Robert) died of a drug overdose in 1984 and Michael Kennedy (yet another son of Robert) was killed in a skiing accident in 1997. In 1999 the Kennedy Curse claimed its final high-profile victim as John F. Kennedy, Jr. followed the example of his late uncle and aunt and got himself killed in an aircraft accident.

Curse, Conspiracy or Plain Bad Luck?

The inspiration to write this article came from Matthew Smith's 2005 book, The Kennedys: The Conspiracy to destroy a Dynasty. As the title suggests, Smith is of the opinion that there was dirty work involved not only in the John F. Kennedy assassination but also in the Marilyn Monroe episode, the shooting of Robert and the Chappaquiddick incident. Focusing on the 1960s he believes that all these incidents and tragedies were a contrived attempt by the big-business-dominated political establishment to ensure that the Kennedy vision for America was never going to be realised. Smith's version of events is aptly summed up in this extract from the sleeve notes:

"As far as those involved in this grand plot were concerned, John F. Kennedy should never have become President in the first place - to them it was a tragic mistake. Having been elected, Kennedy was certainly not a man to be pandered to, not even a man to be tolerated. His fresh approach to government brought with it important changes, such as the revision of the role played by the government in its support of the Establishment. The needs of big business were to take second place to the needs of the people. This was intolerable. His intention to take away from the oil industry the depletion allowances that had made them excessively rich was another big cause for concern. His plans to introduce health benefits for the sick and support for the elderly and the unemployed gave rise to great fears that he had a socialist streak which might even be identifiable as communist. From the moment he took office he was on his way out. It was only a question of time." (Matthew Smith)

Whilst I cannot help but think that Smith looks at the Kennedy political philosophy through heavily rose-tinted spectacles there are certainly grounds to suggest that the American right bore a major grudge against the family to the point where they'd be encouraged to take action of the illicit kind. Smith's theory goes a little something like this. Having failed to discredit President Kennedy by killing off Marilyn Monroe, they have him murdered instead and kill the killer Oswald too in order to prevent him from talking. Robert Kennedy takes up the family mantra and tries to run for the Presidential nomination himself so he is removed as well. Ted is expected to take his place but hesitates on account of his inexperience, giving the conspirators time to contrive a believable scandal that would all but destroy his political career rather than risk another assassination. The result was the incident at Chappaquiddick. Ted and his Senate career might have survived but he was never going to become President after that one.

Do I believe in Matthew Smith's theory of an establishment conspiracy against the Kennedys? Not really, although I can understand why certain individuals such as Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan would have wanted to kill them. As far as I'm concerned that is all the two assassinations were, actions by two individuals who bore a grudge against the Kennedys' political outlook. Chappaquiddick, on the other hand, was most likely just a tragic accident and Ted Kennedy's failure to report it straight away was probably due more to shock and fears for his reputation rather than because there was something sinister and beyond his control going on.

All in all I think that the idea of a Kennedy Curse is rather far-fetched considering that I don't believe in karma or witchcraft or other spiritual mumbo-jumbo. However, I do believe that the Kennedys were somewhat more susceptible to misfortune simply because of they were the people they were. If you come from a wealthy, powerful and high-profile family whose members live millionaire's lifestyles (When was the last time you heared about a poor person dying in a private plane crash?) and possess political opinions outside the generally accepted frame of thought then you are asking for trouble in my opinion, especially in a country like the United States where to challenge the supremacy of big business is like challenging an angry bull to a tickling contest.

The Exiled Emperor: Napoleon on Saint Helena

"Royal Highness, - Exposed to the factions which divide my country, and to the enmity of the great Powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career; and I come, like Themistocles, to throw myself upon the hospitality (m'asseoir sur le foyer) of the British people. I claim from your Royal Highness the protections of the laws, and throw myself upon the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of my enemies."

(Napoleon Bonaparte's formal letter of surrender to the Prince Regent, 1815)

It is strange to think that this sad deflated asylum request came from that man who until very recently been Europe's most powerful ruler. Now his army had been routed for the last time by the British-led coalition at Waterloo and the French Emperor, having already abdicated once only to return to a hero's welcome, was forced to give up his throne once again. This time, however, Napoleon Bonaparte was going for good.

After his second abdication, the ex-Emperor surrendered to the British aboard HMS Bellerophon and spent three months on board anchored off the Devon coast whilst the British wondered what to do with him. They certainly did not want to grant his request for asylum in England yet they knew the previous attempt to exile him (to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean) had failed. They were determined to get Napoleon as far away as possible, to somewhere where he could be out of both sight and mind, somewhere with no chance of escape and where they could keep an eye on him. Fortunately for the British they had just the place.

The decision was taken to exile Napoleon to the tiny island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. This 47-square-mile windswept rock, 1200 miles off the west coast of Africa, was first discovered by the Portuguese in 1502 but had since come into the hands of the British East India Company who used it as a water-supply stop for their vessels en-route to and from India. The island's population was around 4000, of whom 1000 were soldiers; the presence of Napoleon would triple the number of troops on the island. Napoleon himself was dismayed at the news that he would be making the long voyage to Saint Helena, calling his predicament "a death sentence" His ship arrived at the island in October 1815 and first impressions were apparently not good. A British doctor on board the ship described Saint Helena as "the ugliest and most dismal rock conceivable... rising like an enormous black wart from the face of the deep".

A Life of Boredom

As expected, Napoleon found life on Saint Helena dull and uneventful. However he was able to take some solace in the fact that he had been allowed to bring a small entourage of old friends and servants from the old days along with him. The former grand marshal of his palace, Henri-Gratien Bertrand came with him as did Count Charles Tristan de Montholon, a member of the prerevolutionary French aristocracy who had deserted Napoleon after the first abdication only to return to his side when the Emperor returned from Elba. Monthelon's attractive young wife also made the trip, prompting much island gossip with regards to her late-night visits to the former Emperor's room.

For the first few weeks Napoleon and his followers stayed in a garden pavilion belonging to a local merchant named William Balcombe until their main accommodation, a 23-room villa called Longwood House was made ready. Napoleon became well acquainted with Balcombe and his family but the friendship was brought to an abrupt end in 1818 when the British authorities suspected Balcombe was acting as an intermediary between Napoleon and his former supporters in Paris and had him expelled from the island.

Napoleon's party moved into Longwood House in December 1815. Only six months had passed since Waterloo but Napoleon's new home was hardly fit for a king. Longwood was located on an exposed upland plateau some miles from the island's capital, Jamestown, instilling an acute sense of isolation in the occupants that not even the round-the-clock presence of British soldiers could remedy. As if being constantly buffeted by the Atlantic winds wasn't bad enough, the house itself was in a poor state of repair, infested with mold, vermin and damp and hardly good for Napoleon's delicate health. He and his friends were stuck there, bored almost to tears by the routine. One attendant described his time spent their as being being boredom from Monday through Friday and great boredom on Sunday. The exiles would spend time playing chess or cards while Napoleon busied himself dictating his memoirs, reading aloud to the others or retracing his old military campaigns on maps, musing over what he or his enemies could have done differently.

The Best of Enemies

In April 1816 Major General Sir Hudson Lowe arrived on Saint Helena to take up his position as the island's new governor and, by extension, Napoleon's jailer. Lowe was known for being indecisive and was not popular with his colleagues, who described him as stupid, suspicious and jealous and lacking in both education and judgement. Napoleon took an instant dislike to the new arrival, noting that he had "a most villainous face".

Sir Hudson Lowe

Lowe was greatly concerned at the possibility that his new charge might escape so he imposed harsh restrictions on the former Emperor's freedom of movement, screened his visitors, censored his mail and cut back on maintenance fees for maintaining Longwood. Face-to-face encounters between Napoleon and Lowe became less frequent and were stopped altogether after a heated argument on August 18th. After that less than friendly confrontation, Bertrand was forced to act as an intermediary between the two men.

With his suspicions already aroused by the poor state of Longwood House, the arrival of Hudson Lowe all but convinced Napoleon that his British captors were trying to kill him and he wasn't the only one who believed that. The Times newspaper in London reported the claims of Napoleon's ill treatment despite Lowe's attempts to cover them up. They noted that the ex-Emperor was was constantly falling victim to colds and suffered from gum disease and sunlight-induced headaches. By July 1818 Lowe had found out that Napoleon's Irish physician was the most likely source of these information leaks. The doctor was immediately thrown off the island and, upon his return home, told the press of Lowe's opinion that Europe would benefit greatly from Napoleon's death, further enhancing the speculation that something untoward was afoot.

On top of the stories of foul play, it was becoming increasingly clear that perceptions of the former Emperor were changing. False press reports that he had escaped from the Saint Helena in 1818 actually led to outpourings of sympathy in some British political circles. Napoleon was starting to become something of a romantic hero, a lonely, persecuted and flawed genius, in the eyes of the British. The news that he had taken up gardening at Longwood also increased the British upper-class' affection for him.

The Final Illness

On August 15th 1819 Napoleon turned 50 but there was no celebration at Longwood. The exile's health was starting to go downhill and his circle of friends was shrinking. He was particularly saddened by the decision of Count Montholon's wife to go back to Europe with her three children, the youngest of whom was born on the island and rumoured to be Napoleon's. Weight-gain and depression had taken hold and Napoleon, a sad bloated shadow of his former self, told his valet that he was expecting to die very soon.

In September a new physician, a Corsican named Francois Antommarchi arrived along with two priests and a cook sent from Rome by Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch. Napoleon told Antommarchi that his father had died of cancer and he wanted to know if it was hereditary. Antommarchi feared the worst but tried to cheer Napoleon up by prescribing gardening as exercise. Napoleon's health improved for a while but within a year he was suffering again from acute headaches, fever and nausea, beginning his inevitable slide towards death. Napoleon Bonaparte finally died on May 5th 1821 at the age of 51, still convinced that he was being murdered by stealth.

"France, army, head of the army, Joséphine."

(Napoleon's last words)

Under British supervision, Antommarchi performed the autopsy and concluded that Napoleon's death had been caused by a cancerous stomach ulcer. That finding was generally accepted at the time and the late Emperor's suspicions were written off as the vengeful paranoia of a dying man. When the news of Napoleon's death reached Europe, the continent which had dominated only a decade earlier breathed a collective sigh of relief and could now move on.

Napoleon's body was buried on Saint Helena and remained there until 1840 when the political situation in France finally made it possible to repatriate his remains back to his homeland. Following a grandiose and ceremonious funeral procession through the streets of Paris Napoleon's body was laid to rest in an elaborate tomb where it remains to this day. Some his surving fellow exiles had attended the exhumation but Count Montholon was not there, for he had flipped his allegiance once again and was now in the service of Napoleon's nephew, who would go on to rule France as Napoleon III.

Napoleon's tomb in Paris

Foul Play?

"I die prematurely, murdered by the English oligarchy and its hired assassin"

(Extract from Napoleon's last will and testament)

When Napoleon's body was exhumed on Saint Helena in 1840 his remains were found to be rather well-preserved. This his given further wait to the theory that the British had been trying to kill him prematurely based on the idea that a body will not decay if it has been exposed to arsenic. If this is the case with Napoleon then he must have been given a heck of a lot of the stuff. A scientific examination of a preserved lock of Napoleon's hair in the 1960s revealed the presence of significant amounts of arsenic although some investigators dispute the importance of this find. A counter-argument as that the arsenic in fact came from vapours released by the reaction between mold fungus and Longwood House's 19th Century copper-arsenic tinged green wallpaper, which could well have been responsible for Napoleon's declining health during his time living there.

If Hudson Lowe and his men were not trying to speed up Napoleon's death then could there have been another suspect? Perhaps someone close to the ex-Emperor? In that case there is a likely candidate to focus on. Count Montholon's questionable loyalties and reputation as a flip-flopper have made him a target for suspicion, especially as he was charged with looking after Napoleon's supply of imported South African wine. The theory goes that Montholon, acting on behalf of the restored Bourbon monarchy in France, poisoned the wine with arsenic in order to kill Napoleon and remove the threat he posed to the Bourbon regime just by being alive. This theory is supported by the fact that two other people who inadvertently drank from Napoleon's wine stash also became ill.

It is intriguing to think that the former Emperor of the French was murdered by one of his own but all in all I don't think that there was any real foul play involved in his death. In my opinion the stomach cancer was the ultimate cause of Napoleon's death after his health had been compromised by the poor environment at Longwood which he had to endure for almost six years. To be honest I don't think even I could have survived those conditions for that long.