In Ashes Lie

EPILOGUE The Phoenix

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON: June 21, 1675

For nearly seven years the ground here lay empty and hollowed, after the last of the rubble was cleared away. The corpses jarred so rudely from their homes were removed to a place of more respect, and the unknown body found in the east end given decent burial. Piece by piece, the shattered remnants were demolished. Yellow flowers now starred the earth, as if a tiny meadow would flourish in the heart of the City.

Other gaps still remained, scattered here and there along the newly marked streets and lanes. But London had risen quickly from the barren ground, and a casual eye could miss the empty lots, the gutted churches still awaiting repair. The Fire Courts did their work well, with a fairness that disgruntled many but betrayed few: those who lied or tried to move the boundary markers of their property were punished, and tenants placed in balance with their landlords, so that none would lose more than they must. For those who worked in brick or stone, the surveyors and carters and above all the architects, this was a golden age indeed, full of opportunity and wealth.

Many of the company halls were replaced, and a number of the churches, though some few were gone, never to be built again. A new Exchange stood along Cornhill, watched over by the statue of its founder Gresham, found miraculously preserved among the ashes. The new Custom House was much finer than the old, a splendid sight along the bank of the Thames.

And now the shouts of workmen filled the air atop Ludgate Hill, as a stone slid ponderously along the ground.

The cavity left behind by the destruction of the old cathedral, once filled with rainwater and debris, had since been dug anew. Not to the same shape: Sir Christopher Wren, who among the King’s surveyors had taken command of the rebuilding, yearned desperately to bring a fresh elegance to London. His plan for a new City had been discarded, along with several more unusual proposals for the cathedral, but here he had something like a victory.

The architect watched as the workmen coaxed and swore the first foundation stone into place. One stone set; many thousands to come.

It would be a different cathedral than the one London had known for centuries. But it was still St. Paul’s, standing proudly atop the City’s western hill—just as the streets were still the streets, from broad Cheapside down to many of the small lanes and alleys and courts. They stood now dressed in brick instead of the familiar timber and plaster, but even a disaster so great as the terrible Fire could not divide London from itself.

And as above, so below. So long as a cathedral stood on Ludgate Hill, so long as the Tower of London faced it from the east—so long as the wall held its arc, and the London Stone pierced the ground at the City’s heart—thus would London’s shadow endure.

And rise a fairer phoenix from its ashes.