<P> Order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of suspicious foreigners setting fires . The fears of the homeless focused on the French and Dutch, England's enemies in the ongoing Second Anglo - Dutch War; these substantial immigrant groups became victims of lynchings and street violence . On Tuesday, the fire spread over most of the City, destroying St Paul's Cathedral and leaping the River Fleet to threaten King Charles II's court at Whitehall, while coordinated firefighting efforts were simultaneously mobilising . The battle to quench the fire is considered to have been won by two factors: the strong east winds died down, and the Tower of London garrison used gunpowder to create effective firebreaks to halt further spread eastward . </P> <P> The social and economic problems created by the disaster were overwhelming . Evacuation from London and resettlement elsewhere were strongly encouraged by Charles II, who feared a London rebellion amongst the dispossessed refugees . Despite numerous radical proposals, London was reconstructed on essentially the same street plan used before the fire . </P> <P> By the 1660s, London was by far the largest city in Britain, estimated at half a million inhabitants . John Evelyn, comparing London to the Baroque magnificence of Paris, called it a "wooden, northern, and inartificial congestion of Houses", and expressed alarm about the fire hazards posed by the wood and the congestion . By "inartificial", Evelyn meant unplanned and makeshift, the result of organic growth and unregulated urban sprawl . </P> <P> London had been a Roman settlement for four centuries and had become progressively more crowded inside its defensive city wall . It had also pushed outwards beyond the wall into squalid extramural slums such as Shoreditch, Holborn, and Southwark, and had reached far enough to include the independent City of Westminster . </P>

Who was involved in the great fire of london