The Little Book of the End of the World (15 page)

Interestingly, in another link that ties Cromwell to the Endtimes, one of Cromwell’s close advisors – and holder of the title of Secretary of Foreign Tongues in his Parliament – was poet and writer of
Paradise Lost
, John Milton.

The Fifth Monarchists

Taking their name from a reference in the Book of Daniel, the Fifth Monarchy Men were an organisation formed in 1649, who believed that the Apocalypse would occur within the next few decades. Specifically, they believed that the year 1666 would bring about the End of Days by combining the 1,000 years that Satan would spend in the pit with the number of the Beast.

The Fifth Monarchists were formed in the wake of the complex political landscape of seventeenth-century Britain where Charles I had been deposed and Britain flirted with the idea of becoming a parliamentary democracy. This was seen as the end of the British Empire, the fourth empire that must end before Jesus would build his fifth empire on Earth.

The Great Plague of London

Distance from Europe is not always a bad thing: while the United Kingdom may have been left out of some of the dramatic events of the Middle Ages, it also escaped the clutches of the Black Death, which swept across the continent in the fourteenth century.

But this was only delaying the inevitable, with the Great Plague making its way to London in 1665; with its arrival, several writers likened it to the biblical plagues of the Old Testament.

The plague was transmitted by flea bites from infected rats, a common occurrence in the London of the time. The infection then led to the growth of boils and pustules around the neck and other lymph nodes, with gangrene causing the death of other bodily organs. This gangrene would cause skin and tissues to turn black, especially on the extremities of fingers and toes, earning the disease’s nickname of the Black Plague.

By the seventeenth century, conditions had improved enough that the plague was no longer as deadly as it once was. But it still proved to be a death sentence to Londoners living in poor and squalid conditions.

Estimates suggest that the Black Plague was responsible for the death of around 40 per cent of the total population of Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. When it landed in London in 1665, the plague killed over 100,000 people, but it is possibly responsible for much more: diarist Samuel Pepys suggested that the clerks of London were overwhelmed by the reported deaths during the period, and the figures for actual deaths could be nearly 30 per cent higher than those recorded.

While London’s overall death toll was lower than that of the earlier continental outbreaks, this strain of the disease still proved to be particularly infectious, with carriers falling to the disease very quickly; the Black Plague struck a London that was not prepared, and had no real idea how to deal with such a crisis.

Some people preached that the plague was sent from God to cleanse the city, and with the symptoms of the disease, it was a justifiable argument. The swelling of the lymph nodes meant pustules and growths around the crotch, and with the disease being especially prevalent around the ‘unclean’ portions of the city, those commentators linked the plague to the presence of sin.

The Great Plague of London was not alone in its apocalyptic effects on the city. However, as plague landed on London’s streets, fire was just a little bit behind.

The Great Fire of London

The phrase ‘cleansing fire’ is usually used in a religious context, with the notion that flames will destroy sins and purify the people. However, this proved to be a very beneficial case for the London of September 1666.

On the night of the 2 September, a fire started in a bakery on Pudding Lane that quickly spread to neighbouring buildings. At a time of timber construction, there was ample fuel for the fire to spread.

Firefighting measures of the time focused on destroying buildings to stop the fire’s growth, rather than quenching existing flames. But this dramatic method of destroying the fire’s path was not enacted as quickly as needed. Because of the destruction to homes and businesses, London’s Lord Mayor, Thomas Bloodworth, was slow to act. That the fire had started in the middle of the night also meant that it had already grown to a significant blaze before the authorities were called on to address it directly.

The fire raged across the city for three days, only dying out on 5 September; as a result of both the fire and the attempts to contain it, over 1,000 buildings were destroyed. Nearly 100 of these buildings were churches, and St Paul’s Cathedral was counted among the fatalities.

The Great Fire had an unexpected up-side, however: by September 1666, the tail-end of the Great Plague was still simmering through parts of London, and the fire is credited with eliminating the last remnants of the disease.

The year of the Great Fire of London should not be ignored, and some of the citizens’ more fanciful ideas suggested that this was, in fact, part of the End of Days, thanks to the year containing the number of the Beast.

13

NEWTON, NUMBERS AND SECRET MESSAGES

While the United Kingdom was not as directly affected by the Renaissance as mainland Europe, it was a key player in a different sort of revolution.

The scientific revolution is not a clearly defined movement, nor is it limited to a specific time or place: it is instead a catch-all phrase to describe the leaps and bounds of scientific discovery that formed the basis of the modern world. The expression was first coined in 1939, referring to the time between the 1500 and 1800: although scientific advancements continued well past 1800, most of our later discoveries are based on knowledge that was uncovered during this period.

The scientific revolution also meant some interesting interactions between science and religion. We’ve already looked at how philosophers such as Nostradamus used code in order to avoid behaviour that could be seen as heretical, but he was not alone. The Roman Catholic Church placed limits on what European scientists were allowed to investigate, and many discoveries were oppressed or hidden, as they challenged the faith of the Church.

That is not to say that all scientists turned their back on religion: in fact, some of the most interesting scientific developments of this period were discovered by men who continued to practise their faith.

GALILEO GALILEI

Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa in February 1564 and became one of the foremost scientists in the field of early physics. Some of Galileo’s theories have since been disproved, but those same theories provided something to be challenged and interrogated. However, he is probably best remembered as one of the first men to experience first-hand the struggle between science and faith, and to face the consequences of that battle.

Galileo and his scientific endeavours were found guilty of heresy and placed under house arrest in 1633, but the main contributing factor to this conviction was not due to Galileo’s own discoveries. Galileo was an ardent supporter of Copernicus and his theory that the Earth was round and revolved around the sun; this contradicted the religious belief that the universe revolved around the Earth. By supporting and teaching Copernicus’ theories, as well as using them as the basis of his own work, Galileo ran afoul of the authorities in his staunchly religious native Italy.

Since Galileo’s death, the controversy of his life has become a talking point for Vatican authorities: while his work was officially removed from the list of banned books in 1835, his is still a complicated legacy. Pope John Paul II expressed regret over how the Church originally handled Galileo and his teachings, but his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, suggested that the reaction to Galileo was an appropriate reaction of the time that cannot be judged by modern standards of reason.

But even as his discoveries challenged the faith of the Church, Galileo did not turn his back on religion. In fact, he and other scientists like Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton cast their scientific studies towards the world of religion and faith as well, all to help better understand the world around them, where it had come from and where it could be going.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo da Vinci is better known as an artist than a scientist, but during his lifetime, neither was an exclusive discipline. Da Vinci sought to better understand the natural sciences so as to improve his art, with much of his studies focusing on anatomy and architecture. Da Vinci was also an inventor, whose scientific endeavours were surprisingly ahead of their time.

There is no evidence to link Da Vinci directly with the End of the World, but fictional works of the twentieth century have made him a key player, possessing secret knowledge about the Endtimes. Dan Brown’s novel
The Da Vinci Code
suggests that Da Vinci was part of a secret society, the Priory of Sion, that was trusted with the hidden truths of the Catholic Church, and that there are clues to these secrets throughout the body of his work.

Brown’s book had a significant cultural impact, giving further credence to a conspiracy theory that the works of the past might contain religious truths and help to provide illumination on Revelations and the End of the World.

The Priory of Sion

Papal documents from the twelfth century mention a small monastic order in Mount Zion in Jerusalem, literally a priory. This is the only factual account of any such order with official ties to the Catholic Church.

However,
The Da Vinci Code
seems to take its inspiration from a slightly different source, namely a twentieth-century French society with notions of grandeur.

Under French law, a society of any sort needs to be registered, and the Priory of Sion was registered in 1956 under the name of Pierre Plantard. The paperwork showed that the Priory of Sion indicated that it would be a semi-religious organisation, a sort of charity/outreach programme working in the community. The organisation was dissolved in that same year, although it was revived multiple times throughout the remainder of the twentieth century.

Plantard concocted an intricate backstory for the order, claiming that it was descended from this Jerusalem-based Abbey of Our Lady of Mount Zion, and that both the abbey and the order had been founded by the pope himself.

Through forged documents and paper-thin historical connections, Plantard claimed to be descended from Dagobert II, a seventh-century king of central Europe. Through Dagobert, Plantard claimed that he was the fulfilment of Nostradamus’ predicted Great Monarch, a figure equivalent to the Last Roman Emperor.

Plantard’s claims have been widely debunked multiple times, usually stemming from his own overeager claims of authenticity. In 1993, for example, Plantard claimed that recently deceased millionaire Roger-Patrice Pelat was a member of his secret society. However, in a turn of events that Plantard could not have foreseen, Pelat’s fortunes and death were under investigation for a conspiracy all their own, involving the apparent suicide of former French Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy. Plantard’s claims dragged him into the investigation, and when he was brought before the courts, he was forced to admit that most of his documentation and claims had been forged.

ISAAC NEWTON

Isaac Newton is a name more closely associated with science class than religion or history, but for a man born in 1642, he has had a surprisingly large influence on the modern world. Newton’s studies laid the foundation for modern physics: not only did he formulate universal laws such as gravity and energy, but he also did the basic mathematics that made all manner of mechanical devices possible.

Newton was also a man of faith, and he is known to have devoted much of his free time to the mathematical theory of the Bible, searching for hidden meanings in its pages. He did enough research that he even had his own opinions on how the world would end.

Newton was born into an Anglican family, but his early relationships with religion were not amiable: his father had passed away, and when his mother re-married a clergyman, Newton was left to the care of his grandmother. Newton attended university at Cambridge, and would have been required to join the priesthood after he completed his studies – several accounts suggest that Newton considered dropping out of college to avoid this outcome. However, there was no deadline to this ordination, and Newton succeeded in avoiding this fate by postponing taking any vows until he finally received special dispensation directly from King Charles II.