1666: The False Confession That Sent an Innocent Man to the Gallows for the Great Fire of London
Robert Hubert, a French watchmaker, confessed to starting the Great Fire of London, claiming he had thrown a fireball through a bakery window to set the blaze alight. Records showed he had not even set foot in England until two days after the fire began, and neither the judges nor the jury who tried him believed he was guilty.
He was hanged at Tyburn on this day in 1666 anyway. Afterwards, a crowd of Londoners tore his body apart before it could be handed over to the Company of Barber-Surgeons for dissection.
Hubert never withdrew his confession, insisting to the end that he had set the fire, even as the evidence against his own story mounted.
