Page 27 - Yearbook issue try out
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St Paul’s survives the Blitz of 1940-1941
Sweyn Forkbeard had two cracks at attacking the everyone to return to their home at night to
reinforced City and failed both times. His son, “couvre-feu”, or curfew. Ostensibly a fire measure,
Canute, was more successful, conquering London it made secret plots more difficult to organise. It
and England by treaty – his attempts to hold back didn’t help much with the fires: his son, William
the sea were less successful (though actually, that Rufus, witnessed the second of the City’s great fires
was his intention). that burned most of the City to the ground in 1087.
The next group of Vikings to pay a visit to the City The Black Death, or “Great Mortality”, hit London
had become bourgeois by enjoying a century in 1348-1349 and has been described as “the most
of wine, women and song in Normandy. One lethal catastrophe in recorded human history”.
illegitimate son of these Vikings, William the Barney Sloane, who spoke to us in June, estimates
Conqueror, arrived in England in 1066. He didn’t from his excellent research into wills made and
attempt to take the City by force: rather he cut a “enrolled” that more than 33,000 people – 60
deal in April 1067, a deal that still holds and that per cent of London’s population – perished in
strengthened the City’s political independence. nine months. As recorded by the monk John of
Reading, “there was in those days death without
William’s reign was not without its difficulties in the sorrow, marriage without affection, penance
City, and rebellious citizens caused him to impose without instruction, want without poverty, and
a law curbing night-time fires, which obliged flight without escape …” (continued on page 26)
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