Abstract:
The Restoration of Charles II inaugurated a period of societal and institutional reconstruction in the aftermath of the English Civil Wars and Interregnum (1642-60). Six years later, a terrible fire broke out in London, desolating the urban fabric and necessitating a vast rebuilding project. In either case, a veritable break with the past was enacted, and the ensuing state and City constituted entirely new structures. That the Great Fire of London occurred in the context of the Restoration was to have profound consequences. This thesis examines these, demonstrating how the politics of the 1660s contoured responses to the disaster as well as the shape of the rebuilt City. When the Fire struck, the predominant popular reaction was one of panic and blame towards outsiders. This drew on the economic and religious contexts of the period, which were fundamentally European in scope. Calamity gave way to opportunity in the aftermath, as ideas of urban improvement pervaded the rebuilding process. Fellows of the early Royal Society proved great advocates of this approach, and their involvement introduced the precepts of natural philosophy in royalist colours to the ideas about the new London. Christopher Wren, emerging as one of the most significant of these figures, continued to influence the materiality of the new City through his work in constructing new St Paul's cathedral. The Crown and Church sought to use this structure as a means of associating themselves with their pre-Interregnum forerunners, and so transcend historical rupture. Wren's pivotal role as architect, however, introduced a continental classicism which, as well as defining the wholly new cathedral, declared the European standing of its design.
