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Parentalia, thus describes the difficulties which his father met with in carrying out his design. Says Wren, Junior:
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In the place of the brass urn on the top (which is not artfully performed, and was set up contrary to his opinion) was originally intended a colossal statue in brass gilt of King Charles II., as founder of the new City, in the manner of the Roman pillars, which terminated with the statues of their Cæsars; or else a figure erect of a woman crown'd with turrets, holding a sword and cap of maintenance, with other ensigns of the City's grandeur and re-erection. The altitude from the pavement is 202 feet; the diameter of the shaft (or body) of the column is 15 feet; the ground bounded by the plinth or lowest part of the pedestal is 28 feet square, and the pedestal in height is 40 feet. Within is a large staircase of black marble, containing 345 steps 10-1/2 inches broad and 6 inches risers. Over the capital is an iron balcony encompassing a cippus, or meta, 32 feet high, supporting a blazing urn of brass gilt. Prior to this the surveyor (as it appears by an original drawing) had made a design of a pillar of somewhat less proportion--viz., 14 feet in diameter, and after a peculiar device; for as the Romans expressed by _relievo_ on the pedestals and round the shafts of their columns the history of such actions and incidents as were intended to be thereby commemorated, so this monument of the conflagration and resurrection of the City of London was represented by a pillar in flames. The flames, blazing from the loopholes of the shaft (which were to give light to the stairs within), were figured in brass-work gilt; and on the top was a phoenix rising from her ashes, of brass gilt likewise.
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Charles the Second, son of Charles the Martyr, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, a most generous prince, commiserating the deplorable state of things, whilst the ruins were yet smoking, provided for the comfort of his citizens and the ornament of his city, remitted their taxes, and referred the petitions of the magistrates and inhabitants to the Parliament, who immediately passed an Act that public works should be restored to greater beauty with public money, to be raised by an imposition on coals; that churches, and the Cathedral of Saint Paul, should be rebuilt from their foundations, with all magnificence; that bridges, gates, and prisons should be new made, the sewers cleansed, the streets made straight and regular, such as were steep levelled, and those too narrow made wider; markets and shambles removed to separate places. They also enacted that every house should be built with party-walls, and all in front raised of equal height, and those walls all of square stone or brick, and that no man should delay building beyond the space of seven years. Moreover, care was taken by law to prevent all suits about their bounds. Also anniversary prayers were enjoined; and to perpetuate the memory hereof to posterity, they caused this column to be erected. The work was carried on with diligence, and London is restored, but whether with greater speed or beauty may be made a question. At three years' time the world saw that finished which was supposed to be the business of an age.
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In the year of Christ 1666, the second day of September, eastward from hence, at the distance of two hundred and two feet (the height of this column), about midnight, a most terrible fire broke out, which, driven on by a high wind, not only wasted the adjacent parts, but also places very remote, with incredible noise and fury. It consumed eighty-nine churches, the City gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a vast number of stately edifices, thirteen thousand two hundred dwelling-houses, four hundred streets. Of the six-and-twenty wards it utterly destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt. The ruins of the City were four hundred and thirty-six acres, from the Tower by the Thames side to the Temple Church, and from the north-east along the City wall to Holborn Bridge. To the estates and fortunes of the citizens it was merciless, but to their lives very favourable, that it might in all things resemble the last conflagration of the world. The destruction was sudden, for in a small space of time the City was seen most flourishing, and reduced to nothing. Three days after, when this fatal fire had baffled all human counsels and endeavours in the opinion of all, it stopped as it were by a command from Heaven, and was on every side extinguished.
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This pillar was begun, Sir Richard Ford, Knight, being Lord Mayor of London, In the year 1671, Carried on In the Mayoralties of Sir George Waterman, Kt. } Sir Robert Hanson, Kt. } Sir William Hooker, Kt. } Lord Mayors, Sir Robert Viner, Kt. } Sir Joseph Sheldon, Kt. } And finished, Sir Thomas Davies being Lord Mayor, in the year 1677.
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This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of the most dreadful burning of this Protestant city, begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction, in the beginning of September, in the year of our Lord MDCLXVI., in order to the effecting their horrid plot for the extirpating the Protestant religion and English liberties, and to introduce Popery and slavery.