["One Hubert, a French papist, was seized in Essex, as he was getting out of the way in great confusion.  He confessed he had begun the fire, and persisted in his confession to his death, for he was hanged upon no other evidence but that of his own confession.  It is true he gave so broken an account of the whole matter that he was thought mad.  Yet he was blindfolded, and carried to several places of the city, and then his eyes being opened, he was asked if that was the place, and he being carried to wrong places, after he looked round about for some time, he said that was not the place, but when he was brought to the place where it first broke out, he affirmed that was the true place.  “Burnet’s Own Time,” book ii.  Archbishop Tillotson, according to Burnet, believed that London was burnt by design.]

that was said to fire the City, and was hanged for it, by his own confession, that he was hired for it by a Frenchman of Roane, and that he did with a stick reach in a fire-ball in at a window of the house:  whereas the master of the house, who is the King’s baker, and his son, and daughter, do all swear there was no such window, and that the fire did not begin thereabouts.  Yet the fellow, who, though a mopish besotted fellow, did not speak like a madman, did swear that he did fire it:  and did not this like a madman; for, being tried on purpose, and landed with his keeper at the Tower Wharf, he could carry the keeper to the very house.  Asking Sir R. Viner what he thought was the cause of the fire, he tells me, that the baker, son, and his daughter, did all swear again and again, that their oven was drawn by ten o’clock at night; that, having occasion to light a candle about twelve, there was not so much fire in the bakehouse as to light a match for a candle, so that they were fain to go into another place to light it; that about two in the morning they felt themselves almost choked with smoke, and rising, did find the fire coming upstairs; so they rose to save themselves; but that, at that time, the bavins—­[brushwood, or faggots used for lighting fires]—­were not on fire in the yard.  So that they are, as they swear, in absolute ignorance how this fire should come; which is a strange thing, that so horrid an effect should have so mean and uncertain a beginning.  By and by called in to the King and Cabinet, and there had a few insipid words about money for Tangier, but to no purpose.  Thence away walked to my boat at White Hall, and so home and to supper, and then to talk with W. Hewer about business of the differences at present among the people of our office, and so to my journall and to bed.  This night going through bridge by water, my waterman told me how the mistress of the Beare tavern, at the bridge-foot, did lately fling herself into the Thames, and drowned herself; which did trouble me the more, when they tell me it was she that did live at the White Horse tavern in Lumbard Streete, which was a most beautiful woman, as most I have seen.  It seems she hath had long melancholy upon her, and hath endeavoured to make away with herself often.