July 10, 1212

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Joel Byers

On THIS DAY IN HISTORY! July 10th, 1212, the most severe of several early fires of London burned most of the city to the ground. Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone First Mayor of London was finally let go after twenty-four consecutive terms after his debacle of hiring the City Planning Firm of Porc dePaille et Porc deBaton, which led to the city being built with mostly wood frames and thatch roofs. Roger Fitzalan was able to wrest the post of Mayor away from Fitz-Ailwin after promising the citizens of London that he would use the City Planning Firm of Porc deBrique and use their time-honored established fire-proof building materials, stone and bricks. The ownership of most of the quarries and brickyards within two days walk of the city also led to Mr. Fitzalan becoming insanely wealthy and dressing himself and his family with garments made entirely from live hedgehogs. The Mayor Roger Fitzalan served as Mayor of London until his mysterious death in 1214. The official cause of death published by his wife and children attributed it to syphilis and his habit of sleeping with pox-ridden prostitutes, but recent discoveries of a hidden family diary attributed the second Mayor of London’s death to one of scientific inquiry gone horrible awry. From the drawings and maps found in the diary, the heretofore lost grave of Roger Fitzalan was found along with many small mummified mammals remains. Archeologist have been able to piece together the fragmented last moments of Mayor Fitzalan’s last moments from the diary and the many pithy sayings scrawled on Mayor Fitzalan’s sarcophagus. It seems that the Second Mayor had an epiphany and believed that it one were to tie enough hedgehogs together in a huge pyramid shape, a man (in particular the Mayor himself) would be able to float from a great height to safety and all involved (especially himself and his favorite 300 or so pet hedgehogs) would survive, or Bob wouldn’t be your uncle. On August 23, 1214, the Mayor put his theory (and 300 or so of his favorite live hedgehogs, and if you were fluent in hedgehogian you would have been very shocked at the language they were using in their squeaky protest of the planned experiment) to the test from the top of the Tower of London. The Mayor was documented in the diary as ignoring his wife’s pleas and insisted upon being the hedgehog (as he refused to be called a guinea pig) first to try his new invention. Sadly, when the Mayor took the first trial leap off the Tower of London, it also proved to be his last. The screams of the hedgehogs as they plummeted to their deaths were heard as far away as the upper Thames and attracted many ravens and cats to the squishy feast. It was also discovered that live hedgehog underwear is unadvisable on oh so many levels.

[Facebook] [MySpace] [Twitter] More »

About Joel Byers

Born in North Georgia and educated at some very fine public institutions. Real education started after graduating from college and then getting married and raising two boys. Has the ability to see the funny and absurd in most things and will always remark on it, even if it means getting the stink-eye from his victims.
This entry was posted in 13th Century, Historical Facts and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *