The Great London Fire of 1666 and John Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis

Among the many historical disasters supposedly foretold by in the prophecies of Nostradamus was the Great London Fire 1666. The London blaze was far more devastating then the Chicago Fire. In place of the legend of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern and burning down much of that toddlin’ town, the culprits of the London Fire of 1666 also dealt with cows in the form of milk used to make bakery goods. The King’s Baker’s Shop on Pudding lane was the locus of the origin of the great inferno that would eventually burn throughout the city for four days. The path of the London Fire of 1666 was at least 40 miles and the devastation was much like a contemporary path of a tornado. By the time the fire was finally contained almost 15,000 homes were destroyed, along with 80 churches and an untold number of businesses. Some estimates place say as much as 90% of London’s inhabitants were touched by the fire’s path of destruction.

It is not unusual for some good to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of such a natural disaster. Of course, often the bad outweights the good, but in the case of the London Fire at least one of the good was utilitarian: The utter lack of a capable response by the firefighters of London to deal with wooden structure after wooden structure being taken down by the heat of the flames resulted in new homes and businesses being built out of brick or stone that was, naturally, far more resistant to fire. Insurance companies rejoiced at this evolution. In addition, the fire was the genesis for the legendary architect Christopher Wren to start working on St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Another work of art also owes its birth to the Great London Fire of 1666. John Dryden had long been a popular poet, but it was the poem he wrote in memory of the fire that may have done the most to cement his legacy. In his poem “Annus Mirabilis” John Dryden interprets the Great Fire of London as a patriotic call to rebuild the city from its ashes into a Phoenix taking flight as one of the great cities in the world, urging that its citizenry take this opportunity to recreate London as a new Rome. “More great than human, now, and more August, / New deified she from her fires does rise.” John Dryden even imbues the fire with the characteristics of some sort of redemptive act by which London shall achieve a sort of salvation, growing greater with the expectation that the world is going to change and England will be the country to lead it. “By an high fate thou greatly didst expire; / Great as the world’s, which at the death of time / Must fall, and rise a nobler frame by fire.”

London was still a medieval city at the time of the fire, but grew into a modern metropolis through the efforts of Christopher Wren and others to rebuild the city in a more modern way. Dryden’s poem reflects and anticipates this far-reaching desire of London’s inhabitants to create something better and nobler out of the destruction left behind by the Great London Fire of 1666.