Adrian Tinniswood

I mean, Dorchester burned down in the early 17th century, if I remember right.

Northampton burned down in the 1670s, I think.

To go back to what I was saying earlier, it was a world lit by fire, and that meant that fires broke out all the time.

Most of the time, they weren't that serious, but occasionally were.

And there may be a climate story, a climate change story to talk about here, but I'm not sure that...

We can associate climate change with the fact that you've got an entire society that depends on open flame.

You know, accidents happen.

Well, he always saw it wasn't his fault.

But if I had just accidentally burned down the second largest city in Christendom, I'd probably say it wasn't my fault either.

What seems to have happened, what we know, is that in the early hours of the 2nd of September, that was Sunday morning, Farriner's manservant woke him up, came upstairs and said, there's smoke coming up from the basement, which is where the ovens were.

And Farriner and his daughter Hannah and the manservant tried to get downstairs, and there was smoke.

They couldn't get down to the ground floor.

So they clambered out of a bedroom window and into their neighbor's bedchamber, which must have been quite a shock for their neighbor at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Their maidservant had a fear of heights.

So the story goes, and she wouldn't jump.

She wouldn't walk out onto the roof.

And she died.

She died of, presumably, smoking inhalation.

She was the first casualty of the fire of London.

They raised the alarm.