Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	authority_n	fire_n	great_a	16	3	2.1033	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27248	A narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid Popish plot, carried on for the burning and destroying the cities of London and VVestminster, with their suburbs, &c. setting forth the several consults, orders and resolutions of the Jesuites, &c. concerning the same. ... / by Capt. William Bedloe ... one of the Popish Committee for carrying on such fires.	Bedloe, William, 1650-1680.	1679 (1679)	Wing B1677; ESTC R11047	55,110	38

after followed though not doing that great Execution that they expected by reason of the absence of some of the persons that were to have managed the same After which Fire I was with Gifford and others several Nights on the Thames about London Bridge and there did make strict Observations of the Houses on either side making choice of the widest and the lowest Windows in their Vaults and Cellars or Lower Rooms and taking notice what Houses had the most and the most dangerous Combustible Materials in them and where they might best and most effectually put in their surest Fire-balls and Instruments in the Night under the Houses to burn down the Bridge which they concluded to do at High-water when their Boats might be brought almost equal to such Windows We considered likewise of means how to fire the Tower of London But Father Harcourt now lately executed for Treason then told us They had made sure of that place within and therefore ordered us not to concern our selves with that For it would be more for our advantage to preserve it for our Business than to destroy it In short for near a Twelve-month before I came in to make a Discovery I had been imployed to use all Arts and Endeavors to carry on this Design of Firing the City of London and other places about it and the Order and Conduct of it how and where to set my Fires was left chiefly to my management but with this limitation that the Iesuites who were the Master-Incendiaries and my Imployers were to see and inspect how far and how sure I had laid my Combustibles and Fewel which accordingly they did In August last I did endeavour to rent several old Cellars wherein to stow Wood Coal and other Preparations of which I was ordered to buy several Parcels which accordingly I bought as likewise several Barrels of Gun-powder and I did place them in many parts of the City and Suburbs in order to this Damnable Design And that the Reader may not think this a naked Affirmation but that the truth and certainty of what I here aver may the better appear I will here set down particularly some of the places that I so took to hold this Wood and Coal and where I did House many Chaldrons of Coals and Hundreds of Faggots c. to this purpose viz. Some Hundreds of Faggots and Provision of Coal c. for this very use I laid in at my Lodging in Essex Garden at the Back-door of the Palsgraves-Head Tavern near the Temple which was to burn the Temple with the Records and Writings there Another parcel was in Brewers-yard in the Strand at a Cellar and some old Buildings there which Cellar doth belong to Mr. Morgan at the Red Bible in Bedford-street Another parcel at Mr. Browns in White Friars Some I was to send into an Old Cellar at Mr. Withers's at the Plough in Seething Lane More into Red and White-Cross-street Bishops gave-street Queen H●ve and several other Places in and about the City All which I am ready to make truly to appear when and how I shall by Authority be required Several other Designs have been laid in order to this Work to set divers places on fire and not a few Persons imployed but none of them knowing each other some of which have taken effect in part some have not But without speedy prevention and great care they will alwayes as unwearied in villany attempt and too often as we have just cause to fear perform what they have laid and contrived by so many and different ways and means all still held in read ness and attending only the dismal Blow directed against our Sovereigns Life which God defend Amen The last Consult I had with them about the Affair of Firing was in August 1678. when I laid in my stores for the Work others were then consulting and advising how to put the King out of the way for by that phrase they generally express Murther and such of the Magistrates as did most oppose them And that being done my Firing of London was to follow and upon that Conflagration as a general Signal we were openly to appear in Arms and declare for the Pope Now for a more full satisfaction to all the World and the further Confirmation and Justification of what I have said and to demonstrate that the great Fire in 66. and divers others since were begun and carried on by the Contrivance and Industry of the Papists especially Iesuites and Priests and their Instruments I shall to this Testimony of mine own add the true Copies of divers Plain and Authentick Affidavits Depositions Examinations and Informations of many others given in unto Committees of Parliament and taken before Iustices of the Peace or other sufficient Authority relating to the same Matter And likewise annex an Account of the several notable Fires since 66. to this time with some Observations on the Circumstances thereof and remarkable Passages therein All which sufficiently corroborate and make it evident to whose Designs and Management it is that England ows most of the late Dismal Calamities by Fire which have been so much more frequent and destructive of late years notwithstanding the great Improvements of Care and Art to prevent and quench them than ever heretofore And first of all I shall recite those Testimonies relating to the Dreadful Fire in 66. the vast damage whereof may be conceived to be inestimable by this brief state of the Extent of the Ground laid desolate and the number of Houses then consumed extracted from the Certificates of the Surveyors soon after appointed to survey the Ruins whereby it appeareth THat the Fire that began in London upon the Second of September 1666. at one Mr. Farryners House a Baker in Pudding-Lane between the hours of One and Two in the Morning and continued Burning until the Sixth of that Month did over-run the space of Three hundred seventy three Acres within the Walls of the City of London and Sixty three Acres three Roods without the VValls There remain'd Seventy five Acres three Roods standing within the VValls unburnt Eighty nine Parish Churches besides Chappels burnt Eleven Parishes within the VValls standing Houses burnt Thirteen thousand two hundred Surveyors Jonas Moore Ralph Gatrix Upon the Eighteenth of the same September the Parliament came together and upon the 25th of the same month the House of Commons appointed a Committee to inquire into the Causes of the late Fire before whom the following Informations were given in and proved before the Committee as by their Report will more clearly appear bearing date the Two and twentieth of Ianuary 66. But upon the Eighth of February following the Parliament was Prorogued before they came to give their Judgment thereupon The Order of the House for the Committee Die Martis 25 Septembris 1666. 18 Car. 2. Resolved c. THat a Committee be appointed to inquire into the Causes of the late Fire and that it be referred to Sir Charles Harbord Mr.

promoting the most exquisite various and to us still new methods of doing mischief Treason and Rebellion private Murthers and publique Massacres poison'd Daggers and consecrated Knives All these have long since been their daily past-time the old Instruments of their worse than Pagan Cruelties But of late years they have thereto added and set on foot in these parts another medium of destruction to ruine Protestants in a more oblique and clandestine way since they had not as is hop'd they never shall have power to re-kindle the Marian Bonfires and consume their Bodies they resolv'd and make it their business treacherously to Fire their Houses to destroy their Goods and Estates till they might be strong enough to venture on their Persons This Hell-hatcht Design was hugg'd by these holy Fathers as a most Ghostly Expedient for their purpose for hereby they could undo Hundreds sometimes Thousands of Families in a few hours space and the poor Souls scarce ever imagine who hurts them Hereby they could lay waste our Metropolis and designed the same against other Goodly Cities Corporations and Chief Places of Trade against which they have a particular Spleen and then to ascribe the disaster to Providence as a Judgment for their Heresie or at least to make the Ignorant believe it was only the pure Effect of Chance or Default of a drowsie Negligence whilst in the mean time they with Triumph warm their own Fingers at the Flames and not only weaken and impoverish Protestants but in those Distractions necessarily attending such Calamities make great Advantages to themselves by Filtching Stealing Plundering c. Besides the opportunities they ever hoped then to gain of putting in execution their long designed General Massacre I speak not this by Guess or Hear-say but out of certain Knowledge And therefore as I have endeavoured to discharge my Duty to my Prince and Countrey in discovering other Intrigues and Machinations of this Cursed Popish Plot so I think my self obliged to set forth some Transactions that I have been privy unto particularly concerning this matter And therefore omitting several Consults which have been held and did all more or less relate to the grand Design viz. The Destruction of His Majesty whom God preserve His Religion and Government I shall at present only undertake to give an Account of what I know hath been Ordered in these Consults and in pursuance thereof prosecuted and attempted tending to the Firing of London Westminster c. In the moneth of Iune 1676. it was my Fortune to be at Paris at the English Covent of Benedictine Monks with whom by several means and on diverse accounts too tedious and not at all material here to be related I had much ingratiated my self so that at that time they reposed an Intire Confidence in me as a fit Instrument for their Purposes Amongst other Discourses that happened there about the great Business which they and others were then most vigoriously carrying on viz. To subvert the Protestant Religion and introduce Popery into England They fell to debate the several wars and means preparatory thereunto and what might be the best Expedients to facilitate and accomplish the same And as they did nothing without correspondence and communication of counsels from their Fellow-conspirators in England so some or one of them produced several betters from London wherein were divers particulars relating to the Firing of the City and Suburbs of London and other Cities and eminent Towns in England which was then and at all times concluded and agreed unto by them to be the chief way and almost only means in their power whereby to plain the way for their Design For they were unanimously of Opinion That it was absolutely necessary to weaken and ruin the said City of London ere they could bring any of their other contrivances to perfection In this Debate some of them thanked God such was their impious piety that their attempts upon London in that kind had hitherto succeeded very well and though the Houses beyond all expectation were rebuilt to a greater degree of Strength and Ornament than ever yet many Thousands of her Inhabitants still laboured under the Effects and languisht with Incurable Consumptions occasioned by the late Burning Fevers they had cast her into Adding that they would never leave that City till they had pulled down her Pride by Fire and Piracy After this Discourse and much more to the like purpose which was very freely and earnestly managed I being all the while present they at last proceeded to ask me Whether I would be assistant to them in carrying on that Business as I had been in the other great Concern This being one of the best Expedients to ripen and push on That To which I readily seem'd to assent assuring them that I could and would do more therein than any other could magnifying what intimate knowledge I had of all parts of London and some other great Trading Cities which did capacitate me to effect such a Business more certainly and securely than another In fine they were extreamly satisfied and told me That when I came to England I should be joyned as an Assistant to Father Gifford for prosecuting the said Affair This Gifford was a Jesuite and as the said Letters did specifie the Person that had managed the great Conflagration in 1666 and as they said was concerned in the Fire at Southwark which had happened not above a month before this Discourse and had attempted the like at many other times and places where he had miss'd of performance This likewise is the same Gifford mentioned in the Depositions of Mr. Stubbs and Mary Oxley herein after set forth whereby the later was brought to set Fire to her Masters House in Fetter-lane in April last At this Consult of the Benedictines there were several Letters produced as aforesaid all relating to the Firing of London and its Suburbs and other Towns in England and very urgent they were with me to be sure at my return to be very diligent and expeditious in dispatching the same and that I should receive necessary Orders Encouragement and Supplies to inable me thereunto But I being then upon a Iourney into Spain heard no more of that Business till the year 1678 and then I was in a Consult with the said Gifford and several others Priests and Iesuits who met in such Consults every Week in order to carry on the Business of Firing At this our Meeting it was concluded to fire Lime-house and Wapping first and then and by that means to burn all or the most of the Ships and Vessels in the River For which purpose several of the said Consultors and their Assistants were to be ready on the Water as men to help but indeed to fire the outwardest Ships and cut theirs or other Ships Cables as should be most convenient to make them fall foul on each other and burn together In pursuance of this Resolution a real Effect thereof was the Fire at Lime-house that shortly