Lord Blackwood Presents, a true account of the events of 1666.

In September of 1666, a fire broke out in the cramped, overcrowded city of London at a bakery, shortly after midnight.

The primary firefighting technique at the time was to demolish the neighboring

buildings to prevent it from spreading, but the residents of the neighboring homes protested,

so the Lord Mayor was summoned to authorize it. Upon arrival, the Lord Mayor hesitated,

claiming that the buildings were rented and the owners could not be found, so he dismissed the severity of the fire and left.

The fires spread through the city over the course of the following four days, eventually destroying over 13,000 houses, 87 churches, and St. Paul's Cathedral, leaving an estimated 70,000 people without homes.

Lord Theodore Blackwood, noted explorer and resident of London, did not live during this time,

but his grandfather did.

In this tale, Blackwood will tell of his grandfather's experience during this time, and what actually led up to that great fire.

In the year of Our Lord, 1,665, a great plague struck the city of London and its environs, as has been well documented by historians and by those

who lived in and endured those times.

By the time the great conflagration of the following summer burned most of the city to cinders,

over half the population of London had died, both of the disease itself, and of the many curious and queer phantasmagoria that followed in its wake.

Of the former, much has been written, but of the latter little has been documented for posterity,

as those firsthand accounts which remain often disagree on the fundamental nature of those events, and

authorities of the Church of England and of Her Majesty's government have sought at several

points in the intervening decades to suppress the truth.

It is with no small amount of trepidation that I have written this account, for there are

many within the government

who would prefer that the true history of that year remain a secret. Those who have read my diaries

serialized in the London papers, however, will know that I have never shied away from telling the

...