鈥楤lack-Friers 1623'. Corpses buried beneath the rubble of a building collapse. A disaster; and an event claimed as a judgement on papists; the victims being Catholics.The Fatal Vespers is the name given to a disaster in Hunsdon House; Blackfriars; London; at the French ambassador's house in the year 1623.On the 5 November 1623 about three hundred persons assembled in an upper room at the French ambassador's residence; Hunsdon House; Blackfriars; for the purpose of participating in a religious service by Robert Drury and William Whittingham; two Jesuits. While Drury was preaching the great weight of the crowd in the old room suddenly snapped the main summer-beam of the floor; which instantly crashed in and fell into the room below. The main beams there also snapped and broke through to the ambassador's drawing-room over the gate-house; a distance of twenty-two feet. Part of the floor; being less crowded; stood firm; and the people on it cut a way through a plaster wall into a neighbouring room. The two Jesuits were killed on the spot. About ninety-five persons lost their lives; while many others sustained serious injuries.Some people regard this calamity as a judgment on the Catholics; "so much was God offended with their detestable idolatrie". Since the date of the event was in the new-style calendar 5 November; several commentators perceived the event as divine vengeance for the Gunpowder Plot.[London]: J. O. for John Rothwel; 1657.From: Samuel Clarke; Englands Remembrancer; containing a true and full narrative of those two never to be forgotten deliverances: the one from the Spanish Invasion in eighty eight: the other from the Hellish Powder Plot: November 5. 1605. Whereunto is added the like narrative of that signal judgement of God upon the Papists; by the fall of the house in Black-Friers London; upon their fifth of November; 1623; etc.G. 3517 Opposite page 67London; British Library.