Chapter VI · (continued 2)

Despite this statute, the shambles in the parish of St Nicholas within Newgate (adjoining the ground now occupied by Christ’s Hospital, and formerly by the Grey Friars) became an established institution of the city. They were a subject of petition to Parliament in 1488-9, and they were still there to give occasion in 1603 to severe remarks by Thomas Lodge, poet and physician, who practised in Warwick Lane, in their immediate neighbourhood. The Act of 1388, it will be observed, was to be set in motion “at his suit that will complain;” so that there was little more in it than the immemorial remedy from a nuisance at common law.

The reign of Henry V. appears to have been marked by care for the public health, perhaps not greater than in Edward III.’s time, but exceptional, in the records at least, under the later Plantagenets and until the accession of the Tudor dynasty. Among other evidences (some of which may be gathered from Stow’s Survey) is the ordinance of 1415 (3 Hen. V.) against a nuisance in the Moor, beyond the wall and the ditch on the Finsbury side. The Moor was, in Fitzstephen’s words, “a great fen, which watereth the walls on the north side.” In 1415 there was a “common latrine” in it, and “sicknesses arose from the horrible, corrupt, and infected atmosphere,” issuing therefrom[625]. Its removal was ordered, and in the same year (1415) chaussées were built across the fen, one to Hoxton and another to Islington. The ditch all the way round from the Tower to Blackfriars had been cleansed the year before (1414).

Another statute, 3 Henry VII. (1488-9) cap. 3, may be quoted to show that the slaughter-houses were the chief nuisance, that their effects on health were perceived (as in Edward III.’s time), and that it was necessary to appeal to the king’s personal interest in the matter as a motive for redress.

Petition to the King from the parishioners of St Faiths and St Gregories in London, near St Pauls.

“That it was soo that grete concourse of peple, as well of his Roial persone as of other grete Lordes and astates wyth other hys true subgettes often tymes was had unto the said Cathedrall Chirche, and for the moost part through oute the parisshe aforesaide, the whiche often tymes ben gretly ennoyed and invenemed by corrupt eires, engendered in the said parisshes by occasion of bloode and other fowler thynges, by occasion of the slaughter of bestes and scaldyng of swyne had and doon in the bocherie of Seynt Nicholas Flesshamls, whos corrupcion by violence of unclene and putrified waters is borne down thrugh the said parishes and compasseth two partes of the Palays where the Kynges most Roiall persone is wonte to abide when he cometh to the Cathedrall Chirche for ony acte there to be doon, to the Jubardouse [jeopardous] abydyng of his most noble persone and to ouer grete ennoysaunce of the parisshens there, and of other the Kyngis subgettes and straungers that passe by the same;

Compleynte whereof at dyverse and many seasons almost by the space of xvi yeres contynuelly, as well by the Chanons and petty Chanons of the said Cathedrall Chirche, londlordes there ... made to Mayor and aldermen of the city; and noo remedie had ne founden.

... Considering that in few noble cities or towns or none within Christendom, where as travellyng men have labored, that the comen slaughter hous of bestys sholde be kept in ony speciall parte within the walle of the same lest it myght engender Siknesse to the destruccion of the peple.”

The King etc. “ordeyned and stablished that no Bocher shall sley within the said house called the Scaldinghouse or within the walls of London.”

And the same “in eny citte, Burghe and Towne walled within the Realm of Englonde and in the Towne of Cambridge, the Townes of Berwyk and Carlile only except and forprised.”

The popular knowledge of and belief in a high doctrine of contagion are curiously shown by the terms of the Act touching Upholsterers in 1495 (II Hen. VII. cap. 19).

The Act was intended to prevent beds, feather-beds, bolsters and pillows from being sold in market outside London, “beyond control of the Craft of Upholders.” Outside the craft an inferior article was apt to be offered, which was at once a lowering of a good and worthy standard and a danger to health. There were two kinds of corrupt bed-stuffs “contagious for mannys body to lye on,” firstly, scalded feathers and dry pulled feathers together; and secondly, flocks and feathers together. Besides these, quilts, mattresses and cushions stuffed with horse hair, fen down, neat’s hair, deer’s hair and goat’s hair, “which is wrought in lyme fattes,” give out by the heat of man’s body, a savour and taste so abominable and contagious that many of the King’s subjects thereby have been destroyed. These corrupt and unlawful stuffs and wares might indeed be made by any person or persons for their own proper use in their houses, so they be not offered for sale in fairs or markets.

The reign of Henry VIII. is not marked by any ordinances or Acts for the restraint of plague or the like sickness by other than quarantine measures. The common ditch between Aldgate and the postern of the Tower was cleansed in 1519 at the charges of the city; in 1540 the Moor ditch was cleansed: and, not long before, the ditch from the Tower to Aldgate. In 1549 the ditch was again cleansed at the charges of the City Companies[626]. In April, 1552, John Shakespeare, the poet’s father, a citizen of Stratford-on-Avon in good circumstances and afterwards mayor of the town, was fined twelve pence (eight to ten shillings present value) for not removing the heap of household dirt and refuse that had accumulated in front of his own door[627]. In the records of the borough of Ipswich[628], scavengers are mentioned in the 32nd of Henry VIII. (1540): they were elected in every parish, and the gatherings of refuse ordered to be carried and laid at four places, namely: Warwick Pitts, College Yard, behind the Ditches next John Herne, and the Dikes in the Marsh. When queen Elizabeth visited Ipswich (in 1561, 1565 and 1577), she rated not only the clergy on the laxity of their behaviour, but also the civic authorities upon the filthy condition of the streets. “A marked improvement,” says the borough historian, “certainly took place in Ipswich at this period, as is incontestably shown by the constant exhortations and promulgations of laws for the preservation of cleanliness.”

In the Description and Account of the City of Exeter, written by John Vowell, or Hoker, chamberlain of the city and member of Parliament for it in the reign of Elizabeth[629], we find the following about the offices and duties of scavengers “as of old.”

They are “necessary officers who cannot be wanting in any well-governed city or town, because by them and their service all things noisome to the health of man, and hurtful to the state of the body of the commonwealth, are advertised unto the magistrate, and so they be the means of the redress thereof. And therefore they be called Scavengers, as who saith Shewers or Advertisers, for so the word soundeth.” Among other duties they had the oversight of pavements, that they were swept weekly, of slaughter-houses, dunghills and the like, of dangerous buildings and of encroachments upon the streets, of chimneys, and of precautions against fires (tubs of water to be in readiness at the doors to quench fires and cleanse the streets); and on Sundays they had to attend the mayor of Exeter to the church of St Peter’s.

These officers of the municipality discharged their duties, says the Elizabethan writer, “as of old;” from which we may conclude that some such regulation had existed from quite early times. The scavengers are mentioned by Stow at the end of his account of each City ward along with other officers. We have already seen, from the court rolls of the manor of Castle Combe under the year 1427, that villagers were fined or admonished for creating nuisances. A sudden revival of zeal in that way at Castle Combe in the year 1590 may have been due to the vigorous sanitary policy of Elizabeth’s government:

“And that the inhabitants of the West Strete doe remove the donge or fylth at John Davis house ende before the feaste of Seynct Andrew th’apostell next, and that they lay no more there within x foote of the wey, sub poena iii s iiii d.

“And that none shall lay any duste or any other fylth in the wey or pitte belowe Cristopher Besas house, sub poena pro quolibet tempore xii d.

“And that none shall soyle in the church yerde nor in any of our stretes, for every defaulte to lose xii d.

“And that the glover shall not washe any skynes, nor cast any other fylth or soyle in the water runnynge by his house, sub poena x s[630].”

There is an interval of a century and a half between the two instances of sanitary vigour adduced from the Castle Combe manor court; but there is no reason to believe that the tradition of common cleanliness ever lapsed altogether, in that or in any other village or town of the country.

Some part of the rather unfair opinion as to the foulness of English life in former times may be traced to a well-known letter by Erasmus to the physician of cardinal Wolsey. There are grounds for believing that Erasmus must have judged from somewhat unfavourable instances.

“We read of a city,” says Erasmus, “which was freed from continual pestilence by changes made in its buildings on the advice of a philosopher. Unless I am mistaken, England may be freed in like manner.” He then proceeds to go over the defects of English houses, and to suggest improvements. The houses were built with too little regard to the aspect of their doors and windows towards the sun. Again, they have a great part of their walls filled with panes of glass, admitting light in such wise as to keep out the wind, and yet letting in at chinks of the windows the air as if strained or percolated, and so much the more pestilential by being long stagnant. These defects he would remedy by having two or three sides of a house exposed to the sky, and all glazed windows so made that they should open wholly or shut wholly, and so shut that there might be no access of noxious winds through gaping seams; for if it be sometimes wholesome to admit the air, it is sometimes wholesome to keep it out. Inside the houses Erasmus professes to have seen a shocking state of things—the floors covered with rushes piled, the new upon the old, for twenty years without a clearance, befouled with all manner of filth, with spillings of beer and the remains of fish, with expectoration and vomit, with excrement and urine[631]. Here we have clearly to do with the intelligent foreigner. On the other hand, as far back as the reign of Richard I., Englishmen would appear to have contrasted their own personal habits with those of other nations, much as the summer tourist does now. English youths, it has been said, go through Europe with one phrase on their lips: “Foreigners don’t wash.” Richard of Devizes implies somewhat the same. A Frankish youth is being advised where to settle in England, Winchester being chosen by excluding the other towns one by one. Bristol, for example, was wholly given over to soap-boilers: everyone in Bristol was either a soap-boiler or a retired soap-boiler; “and the Franks love soap as much as they love scavengers[632].” We may cry quits, then, with Erasmus over the rush-strewn floors. It is clear, also, that the glazed fronts of English houses, which he took exception to, are the very feature of them that Sir Thomas More prided himself upon; in that as in other external things the London of his day seemed to him to leave little to be desired as the capital of Utopia, his chief subjects of remark being the shambles and the want of hospitals for the sick[633].

Thus, when we attempt to clear the sense of our rather mixed notions on the unwholesome life of former times, we must feel constrained to withdraw a great part of the accusation as to nuisances tolerated or scavenging neglected. Most of all was the government of Elizabeth marked by vigour in its attempts to restrain plague, not only by quarantine measures, but also by radical sanitation.

Queen Elizabeth and her Council were baffled by the persistence of plague in London in 1581-82-83; the infection pursued its own course despite all efforts to “stamp it out,” so that the letters from the lords of the Council to the mayor begin to assume a somewhat querulous and impatient tone[634]. To a letter of remonstrance, 21st September, 1581, the mayor replied next day that every precaution had been taken. On the 22nd March, 1582, the mayor retorted upon the Court that an artificer in leather, dwelling near Fleet Bridge, had the plague in his house, that his house had been shut up, and he restrained from going out; nevertheless he had access to the Court in the things of his art, both for the queen and her household. On the 1st September, 1582, the plague having greatly increased as appeared by certificate of the number of the dead during the last week, the Privy Council informed the mayor that this was in part “by negligence in not keeping the streets and other places about the city clean, and partly through not shutting up of the houses where the sickness had been found, and setting marks upon the doors; but principally through not observing orders for prevention of the infection heretofore sent to them by the Council.” The mayor sent answer the same day that every care had been taken: the streets had been cleansed every other day; the parish clerks had been appointed to see to the shutting up of infected houses, and putting papers upon the doors; he had also appointed some of his own officers to go up and down the city to view and inform him whether these things had been done.

So much did the Council believe, or affect to believe, that the mayor could control the plague if he carried out their orders, that they used the adjournment of the law courts as a threat to the city. On the 15th October, the Term was announced to be held at Hertford, and all persons from infected London houses were forbidden to repair thither with merchandise, victual, &c.[635]. Then follow in January, 1583, letters touching an impracticable attempt of the Privy Council to have a list printed of all inns and taverns that had been infected within the last two months. The mayor made a catalogue which was pronounced too long. On 21st April, 1583, the infection had much increased, and the lords of the Council again urged upon the mayor to have infected houses shut up, and provision made for feeding and maintaining the inmates thereof. They desired to express her majesty’s surprise that no house or hospital had been built without the city, in some remote place, to which the infected people might be removed, although other cities of less antiquity, fame, wealth, and reputation had provided themselves with such places, whereby the lives of the inhabitants had been in all times of infection chiefly preserved. The mayor, on 3rd May, wrote that the Court of Aldermen had published orders for the stay of the plague; but that they were comparatively powerless so long as crowds of the worst sort of people resorted to see plays, bear-baiting, fencers, and profane spectacles at the theatre, and Curtain, and other the like places.

The plague pursued its own course, wholly unaffected, so far as one can see, by everything that was tried. One thing that was not touched by the sanitary policy, was probably more relevant than all else to the continuance of plague—the disposal of the dead. The theoretical importance attached to that as an original cause of plague has been avowed in the chapter on the Black Death. We have here to see how the theory of it as a favouring thing for the continuance of the infection squares with the facts in such a city as London under the Plantagenets and Tudors.

The Disposal of the Dead.

Intramural interment was one of the most cherished practices of Christendom so long as the word “intramural” had a literal meaning. Hence the correctness of the imagery used of the Spiritual City:

Probably each of the one hundred and twenty small parish churches of London in the medieval period stood in its small churchyard. In an exceptional time like the Black Death, these proved insufficient for the daily burials: three new cemeteries were enclosed and consecrated outside the walls—two of them in Smithfield and the other at Aldgate. These all soon passed into the hands of friars, and became the grounds of monasteries. The churches or churchyards of monasteries were in great request for burial, but not for common burials, or for burials in a time of epidemic. The ‘Vision of Piers the Ploughman’ is clear enough that the friars took no large view of their duties; they affected the care of the dead, but only if they were well paid:

“For I said I nold | be buried at their house but at my parish church. | For I heard once how conscience it told | that where a man was christened by kynde [nature] he should be buried, | or where he were parishen, right there he should be graven. | And for I said this to friar, a fool they me held | and loved me the less for my lele speech | ... I have much marveil of you and so hath many another | why your convent coveteth to confess and to bury | rather than to baptise bairns that ben catechumens.”

The reason why the friars paid so much attention to burials was that these rites were the most profitable:

“And how that freris [friars] folowed folke that was riche | and folke that was pore at litel price they sette, | and no corps in their kirk-yerde ne in their kyrke was buried | but quick he bequeath them aught or should help quit their debts.”

The friars in the towns would appear, then, to have been as much in request for the disposal of the dead within their precincts as the monks were in the country, both alike taking a certain part of that duty out of the hands of the regular parish clergy. Hence we may assign a good many burials, perhaps mostly of the richer class, as in Stow’s long lists of conventual burials, to the various precincts of Whitefriars, Blackfriars, Greyfriars (within Newgate) or Friars Minor (Minories), Carthusians, or other settlements of the religious orders in the city and liberties of London. It is not unlikely that the narrow spaces for burial in and around the old churches in the streets and lanes of the city were already getting crowded, and that the friars naturally acquired a large share of the business of burial because their consecrated houses and enclosed grounds were situated where there was most room, namely in the skirt of the Liberties, or in waste spaces within the walls.

The parish churchyards within the walls became insufficient, not merely because of the generations of the dead, but because they were encroached upon. In 1465 the churchyard of St Mary le Bow in Cheapside was so encroached upon by building of houses that John Rotham or Rodham, citizen and tailor, by his will gave to the parson and churchwardens a certain garden in Hosier-lane to be a churchyard; which, says Stow, so continued near a hundred years, but now is built on and is a private man’s house[636]. In like manner there was a colony of Brabant weavers settled in the churchyard of St Mary Somerset, and the great house of the earl of Oxford stood in St Swithin’s churchyard, near London Stone. John Stow’s grandfather directed that his body should be buried “in the little green churchyard of the parish church of St Michael in Cornhill, between the cross and the church wall, as nigh the wall as may be.” For some years previous to 1582, as many as 23 of the city parishes were using St Paul’s churchyard for their dead, having parted with their own burial grounds. But in that year (letter of 3 April, 1582[637]) the number of parishes privileged to use St Paul’s churchyard was reduced to 13, the ten restrained parishes being provided for in the cemetery gifted to the city in 1569 by Sir Thomas Roe, outside Bishopsgate, “for the ease of such parishes in London as wanted ground convenient within the parishes.” The state of St Paul’s churchyard may be imagined from the words of a remonstrance made two years after, in 1584: “The burials are so many, and by reason of former burials so shallow, that scarcely any grave could be made without corpses being laid open[638].” Twenty years before, in 1564, or the year after the last great plague which we have dealt with, Medicus, one of the speakers in Bullein’s Dialogue of the Fever Pestilence brings in “the multitude of graves in every churchyard, and great heaps of rotten bones, whom we know not of what degree they were, rich or poor, in their lives.”

St Paul’s churchyard would appear to have received the dead of various parishes from an early date. There was a large charnel house for the bones of the dead on the north side, with a chapel over it, dedicated to the Virgin and endowed in 1282. Stow says that the chapel was pulled down in 1549, and that “the bones of the dead, couched up in a charnel under the chapel, were conveyed from thence into Finsbury field, by report of him who paid for the carriage, amounting to more than one thousand cart-loads, and there laid on a moorish ground, in short space after raised, by soilage of the city upon them, to bear three windmills. The chapel and charnel were converted into dwelling-houses, warehouses, and sheds before them, for stationers, in place of the tombs.” Elsewhere he names Reyne Wolfe, stationer, as the person who paid for the carriage of the bones and “who told me of some thousands of carry-loads, and more to be conveyed.” From this we may infer that the graves were systematically emptied as each new corpse came to be buried, according to the principle of a “short tenancy of the soil” which is being re-advocated at the end of the 19th century by the Church of England Burial Reform Association.

The spaces reserved for burial around the newer parish churches in the liberties, such as St Sepulchre’s and St Giles’s, Cripplegate, were gradually pared down and let out for buildings by the parish. Stow, in his Survey of 1598, says that St Sepulchre’s church stands “in a fair churchyard, although not so large as of old time, for the same is letten out for buildings and a garden plot.” The records of St Giles’s, Cripplegate, show that rents were received by the parish for detached portions of the churchyard in 1648[639].

To take an instance of new city graveyards still remaining: The old fifteenth-century parishes of St Ewin and St Nicholas in the Flesh Shambles became united in the parish of Christ Church within Newgate, which, under that name, buried many, as we may read in Stow’s Survey. At length its burial ground was full, and it acquired a not very large plot next to the churchyard of St Botolph’s outside Aldersgate. Its neighbour parish within the walls, St Leonard’s in Foster Lane, acquired the next conterminous plot for its new burial-ground. All three graveyards are now thrown into one strip of public garden by the removal of the two cross walls which originally kept the ground of each parish separate.

While the graveyards were thus curtailed, and dwelling-houses built close up to them, the mode of burial was none of the safest. To take the instance of the great Cripplegate parish again: some few, like John Milton, would be buried within the church in leaden coffins; others would be laid in the ground of the churchyard in the same way, full burial dues being paid; but many more, for whom the dues were remitted, would be buried in a sheet, with no coffin at all, in the part of the churchyard reserved for the poor[640]. For the parish of St Saviour’s, Southwark, the scale of burial dues was as follows: “In any churchyard next the church, with a coffin, 2s. 8d.; without a coffin, 20d.; for a child with a coffin, 8d.; without a coffin, 4d. The colledge churchyard, with a coffin, 12d.; without a coffin, 8d.” One of their broadsheets, dated 1580, has a picture of a body ready for burial in a cerecloth, a close fitting covering tied at the head and feet, and neatly finished[641].

It is not to be supposed that no voices were raised against the overcrowding of the old city churchyards. Intramural burial is one of the many practical topics in Latimer’s sermons: in 1552 he denounced the state of St Paul’s churchyard as an occasion of “much sickness and disease,” appealing to its notorious smells; the citizens of Nain, he said, “had a good and laudable custom to bury their corses without the city, which ensample we may follow[642].” Preaching at Paul’s Cross on the 8th of August, 1563, when the plague was already destroying at the rate of five hundred in a week, Turner, commonly called Turner of Boulogne, made two solemn petitions to my lord mayor of London: the one was that the dead of the city should be buried out of the city in the field; the other was that no bell should be tolled for them when they lay at the mercy of God departing out of this present life, “for that the tolling of the bell did the party departing no good, neither afore their death nor after[643].” In the writings on plague, putrefying animal matters, such as carrion or offal, are always mentioned among the causes; but it is only rarely that the ordinary burial of the dead is referred to. In the seventeenth century, the filling of the soil with products of cadaveric decomposition played a greater part in the theory of plague, especially in the writings of Prosper Alpinus, physician to the Venetian consulate at Cairo. Among English books, the treatise on Plague by Dr Gilbert Skene, of Edinburgh (1568), is the only one that is at all clear upon the point. In his fourth chapter, on the places which be most pestilential, he includes the localities “where many dead are buried,” the ground there becoming “fat and vaporative;” and in his first chapter, on causes in general, he instances “dead carrions unburied, in special of mankind, which, by similitude of nature, is most nocent to man, as every brutal is most infectant and pestilential to their own kind.” But even if these truths had been generally apprehended, religious prescription and usage would have been too strong to allow of radical measures being adopted. The grand provocative of plague was no obvious nuisance above ground, but the loading of the soil, generation after generation, with an immense quantity of cadaveric matters, which were diffused in the pores of the ground under the feet of the living, to rise in emanations, more deadly in one season than in another, according as the level of the ground-water and the heat of the earth determined the degree of oxidation, or the formation of the more dangerous half-way products of decomposition.

So little is known of the great plagues of London in 1406-7, 1464, 1479, 1500, and 1513, that we can only conjecture how the dead, to the number perhaps of one hundred in a day at the height of the epidemic, were disposed of—probably in trenches in the fields of Whitechapel, Smithfield and Finsbury, or in such parishes as St Sepulchre’s. The skirts of the city were used also to deposit the soil upon. Thus it happened that the ground outside the walls, which came in time to be the densely populated liberties and out-parishes, and the chief seat of all later plagues, had for generations before received the refuse of the city and a large proportion of the bodies of the dead. An instance mentioned by Stow, in 1598, may be taken as standing for many more: “On the right hand, beyond Shoreditch Church toward Hackney, are some late-built houses upon the common soil; for it was a lay-stall.”

What remains to be said of localities and circumstances of plague in London will come in with the history of successive epidemics, which we may now resume and carry to the end of the Tudor period.

Chronology of Plague, 1564-1592.

The amount of plague in London for the two or three years next following the great epidemic in the autumn of 1563 is accurately known from Stow’s abstracts of the weekly bills of mortality. It was exceedingly little, the deaths being but one or two or three in a week, and often none. The figures come to an end with July, 1566, and it is probable that the bills may not have been made for a time after that. The proposal made by Sir Roger Martyn in a letter of 20th October, 1568, to the earl of Northumberland, that all strangers arriving from over sea should be quarantined at Gravesend, would have been instigated by the known prevalence of plague and other malignant types of sickness in Scotland and at various parts of the continent of Europe. It was just in those years, before and after the founding of the Royal Exchange in 1566, that the concourse of merchants to London, especially from the war-troubled Low Countries and France, was greatest.

The revival of plague in London, after the great epidemic of 1563, was probably in 1568. In the city records there are orders relating to searchers, shutting up of houses, and collections for infected households, dated 12 October, 1568 (10 Elizabeth), 27 March and 19 October, 1569. But in 1568 the regulations, like the proposal for quarantine of shipping, may have been made more against the importation of cases from outside than on account of cases actually in London. It is in 1569 that we definitely hear of plague in the capital:—

“The plague of pestilence somewhat raging in the city of London, Michaelmas Term was first adjourned unto the 3rd of November, and after unto Hillary Term next following[644].” This outbreak of the autumn and winter of 1569 must have been considerable: for we find the earl of Essex writing from York on the 30th October to Cecil to say that he would have come to London before “had not the plague stayed him[645];” and Thomas Bishop, giving account of his movements to the Council, says that he remained in London until the 10th October, “when the plague increasing, I departed[646].”

The year 1570 was one of the more disastrous plague-years on the Continent, that now recur somewhat frequently down to the end of the century. “There was general disease of pestilence,” says Stow, “throughout all Europe, in such sort that many died of God’s tokens, chiefly amongst the Venetians, of whom there died of that cruel sickness about threescore thousand.” In London, on 2nd August, a death in the Tower was put down to plague; but there is no other evidence of its prevalence in the capital[647]. In the beginning of next winter, 1571, there was plague at Cambridge (letter of 18th November)[648]; and at Oxford in the same year it left such misery, says Anthony Wood, that divers scholars were forced to beg[649]. In 1573 it reappeared in London, at its usual season, the end of the year: it raged so violently “that the Queen ordered the new Lord Mayor not to keep the usual feast upon his inauguration[650].” The register of St Andrew’s parish, at Hertford, bears witness to the flight of Londoners to that favourite refuge; there were numerous burials of the plague in 1573, and in subsequent years, many of them being of London citizens[651]. It was in London again in 1574: a letter of 15 November, to the sheriff and justices of Surrey, orders that they should not allow the people to resort to plays and shows [in Southwark] “at that time of contagion[652],” while the figures from a weekly bill of mortality, which have been preserved, show that the outbreak had been one of the more considerable degree—for the week 22-28 October, in the city and liberties (108 parishes), buried of all diseases, 166, whereof of the plague, 65[653].

The known provincial centres in 1574 were Stamford, Peterborough and Chester. The Stamford visitation was one of a good many that the town suffered from first to last, and must have been a severe one; in one month, from 8 August to 7 September, 40 had been buried of the plague, “and the town is so rudely governed, they have so mixed themselves, that there is none that is in any hope of being clear. It is in seventeen houses, and the town is in great poverty; but that the good people of the country send in victuals, there would many die of famine. St Martin’s parish is clear[654].” The corporation records also bear witness to the confusion caused, the new bailiffs having been sworn in before the Recorder in a field outside, instead of in the usual place[655]. Peterborough, which was not far off, is known to have had a visitation, from an entry in the parish register, “1574, January. Here began the plague[656].” At Chester, “plague began, but was stayed with the death of some few in the crofts[657].”

The year 1575 is somewhat singular for an epidemic of plague in Westminster, but none in the city of London: the deaths for one week in the former are known[658]; and, as regards the immunity of London, Cecil had removed previous to 16 September, from Westminster to Sir Thomas Gresham’s house in the City to avoid the infection[659]. It had been at Cambridge in the winter of 1574-5, and was “sore” in Oxford down to November, 1575.

The same year, 1575, was a season of severe plague in Bristol and other places of the west of England. Some 2000 are said (in the Mayor’s Calendar) to have died in Bristol between St James’s tide (July 25) when the infection “began to be very hot,” and Paul’s tide (January 25)[660]. As early as the 11th July, the corporation of Wells had ordered measures against the plague in Bristol; but Wells also appears to have had a visitation, if the 200 persons buried, according to tradition, in the “plague-pit” near the north-eastern end of the Cathedral (besides many more buried in the fields) had been victims of the disease in 1575[661]. At Shrewsbury in that year the fairs were removed on account of plague[662]. From a claim of damages which came before the Court of Requests in 1592, it appears that plague had been in Cheshire in 1576; at Northwich the house of one Phil. Antrobus was infected and most of the family died; on which some linens in the house, worth not more than 13sh. 4d. were put in the river lest they should be used; the son, who was a tailor, claimed compensation, through the earl of Derby, sixteen years after[663].

At Hull, in 1576, there was an outbreak, small compared with some other visitations there, in the Blackfriars Gate, the deaths being about one hundred[664]. It is somewhat remarkable to find the borough of Kirkcudbright making regulations in the month of January, 1577, a most unlikely season, to prevent the introduction of the plague then raging on the Borders[665]. In September, 1577, there were issued orders to be put in execution throughout the realm in towns and villages infected with the plague. More definitely it is heard of on 21 October at Rye and Dover, and on 3 November, 1577, in London.

We now come to a series of years, 1578 to 1583, for which we have full particulars of the burials in London, from plague and other causes, and of the christenings. These valuable statistics, the earliest known, are preserved among the papers of Lord Burghley, who procured them from the lord mayor of London[666], and are here given in full, having been copied from the MS. in the library of Hatfield House[667].

Abstracts of Burials and Baptisms in London, 1578-1583

1578

Week ending Dead Of plague Of other diseases Christened

Jan. 2 62 7 55 66

9 90 12 78 52

16 63 14 49 59

23 95 33 62 59

30 82 25 57 65

Feb. 6 88 24 64 51

13 102 25 77 59

20 100 26 74 77

27 84 12 72 84

Mar. 6 79 10 69 58

13 66 9 57 53

20 75 5 70 57

27 63 12 51 60

Apr. 3 96 19 77 64

10 89 25 64 67

17 102 31 71 66

24 91 37 54 62

May 1 109 25 84 44

8 116 33 83 37

15 141 43 98 48

22 109 36 73 66

29 119 34 85 43

June 5 99 38 61 51

12 91 35 56 41

19 76 34 42 54

26 75 18 57 48

July 3 92 34 58 52

10 99 35 64 48

17 98 39 59 52

24 129 63 66 49

31 100 41 59 59

Aug. 7 132 73 59 76

14 152 78 74 72

21 232 134 98 63

28 205 113 92 58

Sept. 4 257 162 95 84

11 297 183 114 64

18 308 189 119 68

25 330 189 141 72

Oct. 2 370 230 140 76

9 388 234 154 62

16 361 234 127 73

23 281 175 106 58

30 258 130 128 68

Nov. 6 278 127 151 60

13 230 116 114 64

20 172 77 95 66

27 155 84 71 68

Dec. 4 160 77 83 60

11 161 65 96 69

18 129 44 85 62

25 94 20 74 68

7830 3568 4262 3150

1579

Week ending Dead Of plague Of other diseases Christened

Jan. 1 100 27 73 54

8 67 13 54 68

15 75 16 59 74

22 63 9 54 81

29 79 19 60 75

Feb. 5 84 23 61 46

12 81 16 65 63

19 69 15 54 61

26 70 10 60 77

Mar. 5 51 6 45 71

12 61 16 45 72

19 66 10 56 65

26 75 13 62 68

Apr. 2 81 19 62 53

9 82 27 55 79

16 77 22 55 53

23 58 10 48 44

30 71 10 61 57

May 7 64 12 52 51

14 68 14 54 42

21 75 12 63 54

28 78 13 65 47

June 4 66 7 59 56

11 49 7 42 46

18 74 14 60 60

25 65 13 52 45

July 2 57 11 46 50

9 62 9 53 66

16 73 19 54 52

23 72 12 60 63

30 72 13 59 67

Aug. 6 66 12 54 61

13 70 18 52 67

20 68 12 56 61

27 63 10 53 58

Sept. 3 66 14 52 65

10 85 25 60 55

17 66 11 55 80

24 44 8 36 63

Oct. 1 60 9 51 42

8 56 8 48 75

15 68 14 54 70

22 49 6 43 71

29 52 10 42 76

Nov. 5 47 8 39 66

12 37 2 35 69

19 60 2 58 84

26 44 6 38 69

Dec. 3 43 3 40 78

10 55 4 51 80

17 49 4 45 70

24 51 3 48 78

31 42 3 39 72

3406 629 2777 3370

1580

Week ending Dead Of plague Of other diseases Baptised

Jan. 7 49 1 48 78

14 58 4 54 58

21 50 5 45 63

28 28 2 26 74

Feb. 4 54 5 49 81

11 49 2 47 91

18 47 3 44 81

25 48 3 45 68

Mar. 3 52 0 52 77

10 48 2 46 74

17 48 1 47 75

24 52 3 49 68

31 48 2 46 59

Apr. 7 48 1 47 77

14 53 1 52 78

21 40 1 39 74

28 43 1 42 75

May 5 58 1 57 72

12 54 0 54 69

19 40 2 38 75

26 44 0 44 72

June 2 36 1 35 59

9 41 0 41 54

16 46 2 44 60

23 55 2 53 59

30 47 4 43 57

July 7 77 4 73 65

14 133 4 129 66

21 146 3 143 61

28 96 5 91 64

Aug. 4 78 5 73 71

11 51 4 47 53

18 49 1 48 72

25 63 3 60 62

Sept. 1 48 0 48 71

8 35 2 33 69

13 52 1 51 69

22 52 1 51 95

29 65 2 63 55

Oct. 6 35 1 34 63

13 44 2 42 56

20 45 2 43 56

27 40 3 37 80

Nov. 3 60 7 53 75

10 59 5 54 67

17 57 3 54 75

24 45 2 43 70

Dec. 1 54 3 51 83

8 58 1 57 56

15 53 8 45 59

22 53 4 49 61

29 89 3 86 66

2873 128 2745 3568

1581

Week ending Dead Of plague Of other diseases Baptised

Jan. 5 42 5 37 63

12 53 4 49 65

19 50 1 49 65

26 46 1 45 59

Feb. 2 49 2 47 56

9 38 0 38 63

16 48 0 48 87

23 56 5 51 52

Mar. 2 56 0 56 62

9 60 2 58 74

16 52 2 50 80

23 41 1 40 89

30 44 3 41 74

Apr. 6 42 2 40 39

13 47 1 46 53

20 37 1 36 41

27 37 2 35 60

May 4 47 0 47 52

11 40 1 39 50

18 46 1 45 59

25 64 13 51 62

June 1 48 4 44 60

8 57 2 55 56

15 65 7 58 62

22 57 6 51 73

29 56 7 49 52

July 6 72 9 63 62

13 69 9 60 64

20 94 19 75 70

27 95 24 71 89

Aug. 3 87 23 64 58

10 130 30 100 75

17 148 47 101 72

24 143 43 100 55

31 169 74 95 72

Sept. 7 186 85 101 54

14 180 76 114 59

21 203 86 117 55

28 218 60 158 88

Oct. 5 205 107 98 74

12 193 74 119 83

19 128 42 86 77

26 125 35 90 88

Nov. 2 115 45 70 85

9 93 26 67 61

16

23

30

Dec. 7 [The figures in part wanting, and in part defaced.]

14

21

28

3931 987 2954 2949

(45 weeks)

1582

(74 Parishes clear, week ending Jan. 4.)

Week ending Dead Of plague Of other diseases Baptised

Jan. 4 63 11 52 57

11 75 13 62 76

18 79 13 66 73

25 58 13 45 90

Feb. 1 73 5 68 66

8 71 12 59 77

15 76 16 60 88

22 82 10 72 74

Mar. 1 69 11 58 81

8 85 13 72 81

15 77 11 66 71

22 62 11 51 65

29 73 16 57 85

Apr. 5 90 13 77 74

12 78 19 59 63

19 88 22 66 56

26 82 20 62 69

May 3 95 23 72 55

10 68 12 56 62

17 62 11 51 59

24 61 10 51 61

31 57 15 42 65

June 7 67 15 52 49

14 48 11 37 52

21 72 11 61 63

28 57 9 48 62

July 5 60 20 40 54

12 88 25 63 66

19 80 30 50 61

26 99 31 68 65

Aug. 2 101 45 56 68

9 116 42 74 77

16 142 70 72 64

23 148 85 63 67

30 205 111 94 70

Sept. 6 229 139 90 74

13 277 189 88 79

20 246 151 95 76

27 267 145 122 63

Oct. 4 318 213 105 87

11 238 139 99 63

18 289 164 125 74

25 340 216 124 54

Nov. 1 290 131 159 66

8 248 149 99 77

15 202 98 104 70

22 227 119 108 74

29 263 124 139 63

Dec. 6 144 58 86 59

13 155 68 87 —

20 — — — —

27 142 68 74 91

6762 2976 3786 3433

(51 weeks)

1583

Week ending Dead Of plague Of other diseases Baptised

Jan. 3 137 50 87 69

10 140 57 83 53

17 160 72 88 67

24 162 59 103 59

31 144 40 104 73

These tables were compiled from weekly bills furnished to the Court, and doubtless drawn up like the bills of 1532 and 1535 to show the deaths from plague and from other causes in each of the several parishes in the City, Liberties and suburbs. It is clear that the results were known from week to week, for a letter of January 29, 1578, says that the plague is increased from 7 to 37 (? 33) deaths in three weeks. But that was not the beginning of the epidemic in London; it was rather a lull in a plague-mortality which is known to have been severe in the end of 1577, and had led to the prohibition of stage-plays in November[668].

In that series of five plague-years in London, only two, 1578 and 1582, had a large total of plague-deaths. The year 1580 was almost clear (128 deaths from plague), and may be taken as showing the ordinary proportion of deaths to births in London when plague did not arise to disturb it. The baptisms, it will be observed, are considerably in excess of the burials; and as every child was christened in church under Elizabeth, we may take it that we have the births fully recorded (with the doubtful exception of still-births and “chrisoms”). But while the one favourable year shows an excess of some 24 per cent. of baptisms over burials, the whole period of five years shows a shortcoming in the baptisms of 33 per cent. Thus we may see how seriously a succession of plague-years, at the endemic level of the disease, kept down the population; and, at the same time, how the numbers in the capital would increase rapidly from within, in the absence of plague. There is reason to think that plague was almost or altogether absent from London for the next nine years (1583 to 1592); and it is not surprising to find that the population, as estimated from the births, had increased from some 120,000 to 150,000. The increase of London population under Elizabeth was proceeding so fast, plague or no plague, that measures were taken in 1580 to check it. The increase of London has never depended solely upon its own excess of births over deaths; indeed, until the present century, there were probably few periods when such excess occurred over a series of years. Influx from the country and from abroad always kept London up to its old level of inhabitants, whatever the death-rate; and from the early part of the Tudor period caused it to grow rapidly. I shall review briefly in another chapter the stages in the growth of London, as it may be reckoned from bills of mortality and of baptisms. But as the proclamation of 1580, against new buildings, the first of a long series down to the Commonwealth, has special reference to the plague in the Liberties, and to the unwholesome condition of those poor skirts of the walled city, this is the proper place for it:

“The Queen’s Majesty perceiving the state of the city of London and the suburbs and confines thereof to encrease daily by access of people to inhabit in the same, in such ample sort as thereby many inconveniences are seen already, but many greater of necessity like to follow ... and [having regard] to the preservation of her people in health, which may seem impossible to continue, though presently by God’s goodness the same is perceived to be in better estate universally than hath been in man’s memory: yet there are such great multitudes of people brought to inhabit in small rooms, whereof a great part are seen very poor; yea, such must live of begging, or of worse means; and they heaped up together, and in a sort smothered with many families of children and servants in one house or small tenement; it must needs follow, if any plague or popular sickness should by God’s permission enter among those multitudes, that the same should not only spread itself and invade the whole city and confines, as great mortality should ensue the same, where her Majesty’s personal presence is many times required; besides the great confluence of people from all places of the realm by reason of the ordinary Terms for justice there holden; but would be also dispersed through all other parts of the realm to the manifest danger of the whole body thereof, out of which neither her Majesty’s own person can be (but by God’s special ordinance) exempted, nor any other, whatsoever they be.

For remedy whereof, as time may now serve until by some further good order, to be had in Parliament or otherwise, the same may be remedied, Her Majesty by good and deliberate advice of her Council, and being thereto much moved by the considerate opinions of the Mayor, Aldermen and other the grave, wise men in and about the city, doth charge and straitly command all persons of what quality soever they be to desist and forbear from any new buildings of any new house or tenement within three miles of any of the gates of the said city, to serve for habitation or lodging for any person, where no former house hath been known to have been in memory of such as are now living. And also to forbear from letting or setting, or suffering any more families than one only to be placed or to inhabit from henceforth in any house that heretofore hath been inhabited, etc.... Given at Nonesuch, the 7th of July, 1580[669].”

Among the more special suggestions of the mayor, on the causes and prevention of plague, previous to this proclamation were[670]:

1. The avoiding of inmates in places pretending exemption.

2. The restraining of the building of small tenements and turning great houses into small habitations by foreigners.

3. The increase of buildings in places exempt.

4. The increase of buildings about the Charterhouse, Mile End Fields; also at St Katherine’s along the water side.

5. The pestering of exempt places with strangers and foreign artificers.

6. The number of strangers in and about London of no church.

7. The haunting of plays out of the Liberties.

8. The killing of cattle within or near the city.

The best glimpses that we get of the plague in London in 1578 are in letters to Lord Burghley[671]. On October 22, the Recorder of London, Sir W. Fleetwood, writes to him that he “has been in Bucks since Michaelmas, because he was troubled every day with such as came to him having plague sores about them; and being sent by the Lords to search for lewd persons in sundry places, he found dead corses under the table, which surely did greatly annoy him.” It will be seen by the statistics that the deaths from all causes had risen to more than three hundred in a week before Michaelmas—a small mortality compared with that of 1563, or of any other London epidemic of the first degree. From other letters, relating to plague at St Albans, Ware and other places near London, it may be concluded that the citizens had escaped from London to their usual country resorts in plague-time. On August 30 there were said to be sixty cases of plague at St Albans, and on October 13 Ware is said to have been “of late” infected. Plague-deaths are entered also in the Hertford parish registers in 1577 and 1578[672]. On 14 September the infection was in the “Bull” at Hoddesdon (Herts), but the landlord refused to close his house against travellers on their way to the Court. On Oct. 13, 1578, two deaths are reported from Queens’ College, Cambridge, “the infection being taken by the company of a Londoner in Stourbridge Fair;” these two deaths had “moved many to depart” from the University[673]. In the same month it was at Bury St Edmunds. Earlier in the year, a letter from Truro (11 April) says that the plague was prevalent in Cornwall.

The epidemic of 1578 at Norwich was relatively a far more serious one than that of the capital, and was traced to the visit of the queen: “the trains of her Majesty’s carriage, being many of them infected, left the plague behind, which afterwards increased so and continued as it raged above one and three-quarter years after.” From August 20, 1578, to February 19, 1579, the deaths were 4817, of which 2335 were of English and 2482 of “alyan strangers,” ten aldermen being among the victims[674]. At Yarmouth, in 1579, two thousand are said to have died of the plague between May-day and Michaelmas[675]. Colchester had plague from December, 1578 to August, 1579[676]. It was at Ipswich and at Plymouth in 1579; the epidemic at the latter must have been severe, if the estimate of 600 deaths, given in the annals of the town, is to be trusted[677]. It was again at Stamford in 1580, as appears from an order of the corporation, September 7, prohibiting people from leaving the town[678]. Other centres of plague in 1580 were at Rye, which was cut off from intercourse with London[679], at Leicester, where an assessment for the visited was appointed by the common hall of the citizens[680], at Gloucester, from Easter to Michaelmas, and at Hereford and Wellington, the musters in October having been hindered by “the great infection of the plague[681].”

On February 4, 1582, six houses were shut up at Dover, and on September 12 there was plague in Windsor and Eton[682]. In the parish register of Cranbrooke (Kent), 18 burials are specially marked (as from plague) in 1581, 41 in 1582, and 22 in 1583[683]. It was much dispersed in the Isle of Sheppey, the year after (1584) from Michaelmas into the winter.

Although the years from the spring of 1583 to the autumn of 1592 appear to have been unmarked by plague in London, they witnessed a good many epidemics along the east coast, and in a few places elsewhere, of which the particulars are for the most part meagre.

A casual mention is made of plague at Yarmouth in 1584[684]. The town of Boston appears to have had plague continuously for four years from 1585 to 1588. In 1585 houses were shut up[685]; in 1586 a case at Southwell was supposed to have been imported from Boston[686]; in the parish register the burials from plague and other causes in 1587 reach the high figure of 372, and in 1588 they are 200, the average for eight years before being 122, and for twelve years after, only 84. In 1588 one Williams, of Holm, in Huntingdonshire, was sent for to cleanse infected houses in St John’s Row, which had been used as pest-houses[687]. Within ten miles round Boston the plague prevailed; at Leake there were 104 burials from November, 1587, to November, 1588, the annual average being 24; at Frampton there were 130 burials in 1586-87, the average being 30; at Kirton there were 57 burials in 1589, and 102 in 1590[688].

Another centre on the east coast was Wisbech. In 1585 it appeared in the hamlet of Guyhirne. In 1586 it entered Wisbech itself, caused the usual shutting up of houses, and so increased in 1587 that there were 42 burials in September and 62 in October[689], being three or four times more than average. It is mentioned also at Ipswich in 1585, and at Norwich in 1588[690]. At Derby, in 1586, there was plague in St Peter’s parish[691]. At Chesterfield in November, 1586, there were plague-deaths, and again in May 1587[692]. At Leominster, in 1587, there was an excessive mortality (209 burials)[693].

The other great centre on the east coast in those years was in Durham and Northumberland[694]. In 1587 the infection began to show at Hartlepool, and in the parishes of Stranton and Hart; at the latter village 89 were buried of the plague, one of them an unknown young woman who died in the street. In 1589 the plague entered Newcastle and raged severely; of 340 deaths in the whole year in St John’s parish, 103 occurred in September; the total mortality of the epidemic to the 1st January, 1590, was 1727. Durham also had a visitation in 1589, plague-huts having been erected on Elvet Moor. Those were years of scarcity, the year 1586 having been one of famine-prices.

The great event of the time was the defeat of the Spanish Armada off the French coast from Calais to Gravelines in the last days of July, 1588. A southerly gale sprang up, which drove the magnificent Spanish fleet past the Thames as far as the Orkneys. It was perhaps well for England that the winds parted the two fleets. The English ships, which had come to anchor in Margate Roads to guard the mouth of the Thames, were in two or three weeks utterly crippled by sickness. The disease must have been a very rapid and deadly infection. Lord Admiral Howard writes to the queen: “those that come in fresh are soonest infected; they sicken one day and die the next.” In a previous letter to Burghley he writes: “It is a most pitiful sight to see the men die in the streets of Margate. The Elizabeth Jonas has lost half her crew. Of all the men brought out by Sir Richard Townsend, he has but one left alive.” The ships were so weak that they could not venture to come through the Downs from Margate to Dover[695]. It is doubtful whether any part of this sickness and mortality was due to plague, which was not active anywhere in the south of England in that year. Want of food and want of clothes, and in the last resort the hardness and parsimony of Elizabeth, appear to have been the causes. Lord Howard begs for £1000 worth of new clothing, as the men were in great want, and Lord H. Seymour writes that “the men fell sick with cold.” Dysentery and typhus were doubtless the infections which had been bred, and became communicable to the fresh drafts of men. But in the Spanish ships, beating about on the high seas and unable to land their men or even to help each other, the sickness grew into true plague, so that the broken remnants of the Armada which reached Corunna were like so many floating pest-houses.

In 1590 and 1591, at a clear interval from the Armada year, there was much plague in Devonshire. The evidence of its having been in Plymouth comes solely from the corporation accounts; at various times in 1590 and 1591 there were paid, “ten shillings to one that all his stuff was burned for avoiding the sickness,” a sum of £5. 19s. for houses shut, and a like sum to persons kept in, and sixteen shillings to four men “to watch the townes end for to stay the people of the infected places[696].” The chief epidemics, however, appear to have been at Totness in 1590 and at Tiverton in 1591. The parish register of Totness enters the “first of the plague, Margary, the daughter of Mr Wyche of Dartmouth, June 22, 1590,” from which it may be inferred that plague was first at Dartmouth, nine miles down the river, and had ascended to Totness. The following monthly mortalities will show how severe the infection became at Totness in the summer and autumn immediately following[697]:

This heavy mortality from plague (246 deaths) was hardly over, when the infection began in March, 1591, at Tiverton. It is said to have been introduced by one William Waulker “a waulking man or traveller.” From 1st March, 1591, to 1st March, 1592, the deaths from plague and other causes were 551, or about one in nine of the population[698].

The London Plague of 1592-1593.

The epidemic of plague, which reached its height in the year 1593, began to be felt in London in the autumn of 1592[699], and is said to have caused 2000 deaths before the end of the year. On the 7th September, soldiers from the north on their way to Southampton to embark for foreign parts had to pass round London “to avoid the infection which is much spread abroad” in the city. On the 16th September, the spoil of a great Spanish carrack at Dartmouth could be brought no farther than Greenwich, on account of the contagion in London; no one to go from London to Dartmouth to buy the goods. It was an ominous sign that the infection lasted through the winter; even in mid winter people were leaving London: “the plague is so sore that none of worth stay about these places[700].” On the 6th April, 1593, one William Cecil who had been kept in the Fleet prison by the queen’s command, writes that “the place where he lies is a congregation of the unwholesome smells of the town, and the season contagious, so many have died of the plague[701].” From a memorial of 1595, it appears that the neighbourhood of Fleet Ditch had been the most infected part of the whole city and liberties in 1593; “in the last great plague more died about there than in three parishes besides[702].” The epidemic does not appear to have reached its height until summer; on 12th June, a letter states that “the plague is very hot in London and other places of the realm, so that a great mortality is expected this summer.” On 3 July the Court “is in out places, and a great part of the household cut off [? dispensed with].” The infection is mentioned in letters down to November, after which date its public interest, at least, appears to have ceased.

Of that London epidemic a weekly record was kept by the Company of Parish Clerks, and published by them, beginning with the weekly bill of 21st December, 1592. The clerk of the Company of Parish Clerks, writing in 1665, had the annual bill for 1593 before him, with the plague-deaths and other deaths in each of 109 parishes in alphabetical order, and the christenings as well[703]. For the next two years, 1594 and 1595, he appears to have had before him not only the annual bills but also a complete set of the weekly bills of burials and christenings according to parishes. The same documents were used by Graunt in 1662, and had doubtless been used by John Stow at the time when they were published. The originals are all lost, and only a few totals extracted from them remain on record. To begin with Stow’s. The mortality of 17,844 from all causes in 1593 is given as for the City and Liberties only. But there was already a considerable population in the parishes immediately beyond the Bars of the Liberties, which were known as the nine out-parishes, namely those of St Clement Danes, St Giles in the Fields, St James, Clerkenwell, St Katharine at the Tower, St Leonard, Shoreditch, St Martin in the Fields, St Mary, Whitechapel, St Magdalen, Bermondsey, and the Savoy. Besides these there were important parishes still farther out—the Westminster parishes, Lambeth, Newington, Stepney, Hackney and Islington. Of these, Whitechapel, Stepney, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell and some of the western parishes contributed largely to the plague-bills of the epidemics next following, in 1603 and 1625, and it is known from the parish registers of some of them that they contributed to the mortality of 1593. It is probably to these parishes that we should ascribe the difference between the above total of 17,844 (for City and Liberties) and the much larger total of deaths “in and about London,” given on the margin of a broadside of 1603: “And in the last visitation from the 20th of December, 1592 to the 23rd of the same month in the year 1593, died in all 25,886—of the plague in and about London 15,003.” The addition for the parishes beyond the Bars would thus be 8,042 deaths from all causes, and from plague alone 4,541—numbers which will seem not inadmissible if they be compared with the figures for the corresponding parishes ten years after, in 1603, Stepney alone having had 2,257 deaths in that plague-year[704].

For the two years next following 1593, Graunt’s book of 1662 has preserved the totals of deaths from all causes and from plague in the 97 old parishes within the walls and in 16 parishes of the Liberties and suburbs; he has omitted the christenings, although he had the figures before him. Taking these along with the figures already given for 1593, we get the following table for three consecutive years:

Year Plague deaths Other deaths Total deaths Christenings

1593 10,662 7,182 17,844 4,021

1594 421 3,508 3,929 —

1595 29 3,478 3,507 —

The proportion of mortality in 1593 that fell to the old area within the walls is known, from Stow’s abstract of the figures, to have been about the same as in the space of the Liberties (8598 in the one, 9295 in the other), the deaths from other causes than plague having been rather more in the latter than within the walls. Probably the population in the Liberties was about equal to that in the City proper, the acreage being rather less in the former, but the crowding, doubtless, greater.

The London plague of 1592-93 called forth two known publications, an anonymous ‘Good Councell against the Plague, showing sundry preservatives ... to avoyde the infection lately begun in some places of this Cittie’ (London, 1592), and the ‘Defensative’ of Simon Kellwaye (April, 1593). The dates of these two books show that the alarm had really begun in the end of 1592 and early months of 1593. Kellwaye’s book is mostly an echo of foreign writings, the only part of it with direct interest for English practice being the 11th chapter, which “teacheth what orders magistrates and rulers of Citties and townes shoulde cause to be observed.” As that chapter sums up the various Elizabethan and other orders, and constitutes a short epitome of sanitary practice, I append it in full:

“Teacheth what orders magistrates and rulers of Citties and townes shoulde cause to be observed.

1. First to command that no stinking doonghills be suffered neere the Cittie.

2. Every evening and morning in the hot weather to cause colde water to be cast in the streetes, especially where the infection is, and every day to cause the streets to be kept cleane and sweete, and clensed from all filthie thinges which lye in the same.

3. And whereas the infection is entred, there to cause fires to be made in the streetes every morning and evening, and if some frankincense, pitch or some other sweet thing be burnt therein it will be much the better.

4. Suffer not any dogs, cattes, or pigs to run about the streets, for they are very dangerous, and apt to carry the infection from place to place.

5. Command that the excrements and filthy things which are voided from the infected places be not cast into the streets, or rivers which are daily in use to make drink or dress meat.

6. That no Chirurgions, or barbers, which use to let blood, do cast the same into the streets or rivers.

7. That no vautes or previes be then emptied, for it is a most dangerous thing.

8. That all Inholders do every day make clean their stables, and cause the doong and filth therein to be carryed away out of the Cittie; for, by suffering it in their houses, as some do use to do, a whole week or fortnight, it doth so putrifie that when it is removed, there is such a stinking savour and unwholesome smell, as is able to infect the whole street where it is.

9. To command that no hemp or flax be kept in water neere the Cittie or towne, for that will cause a very dangerous and infectious savour.

10. To have a speciall care that good and wholesome victuals and corne be solde in the markets, and so to provide that no want thereof be in the Cittie, and for such as have not wherewithall to buy necessary food, that there to extend their charitable and goodly devotion; for there is nothing that will more encrease the plague than want and scarcity of necessary food.

11. To command that all those which do visit and attend the sick, as also all those which have the sickness on them, and do walk abroad: that they do carry something in their hands, thereby to be known from other people.

Lastly, if the infection be in but few places, there to keep all the people in their houses, all necessaries being brought to them. When the plague is staid, then to cause all the clothes, bedding, and other such things as were used about the sick to be burned, although at the charge of the rest of the inhabitants you buy them all new.”

The letters of the time give us a glimpse of this plague in London. On November 3, 1593, Richard Stapes writes to Dr Cæsar, judge of the Admiralty Court, residing at St Albans (doubtless to escape the infection): “My next door neighbour and tenant on Sunday last buried his servant of the plague, and since, on the other side of me, my son-in-law has buried his servant; but I cannot say his was the sickness because the visitors reported that the tokens did not appear on him as on the other[705].”

The epidemic of 1592-93 continued in London at a low level into the year 1594, when 421 persons died of the plague in the City and Liberties. Next year the plague-deaths had fallen to 29. Watford and Hertford, two of the most usual resorts of Londoners in a sickly season, were infected by plague from 1592 to 1594, many of the deaths being of refugees from the capital. At Watford there were 124 burials in the first eight months of 1594, a number much above the average, and many of them marked in the register as plague-deaths[706]. At Hertford plague-deaths appear in the registers of All Saints and St Andrew’s parishes in 1592 and 1594. But the greatest mortality at Hertford was in 1596; in St Andrew’s parish there were 13 burials in March, the average being one or two in the month; the mortality declined until July, in which month there were buried, among others, between the 12th and 26th, five children of one of the chief burgesses (mayor in 1603)[707]. These may or may not have been plague-deaths, the year 1596 having been unhealthy, as we shall see, with other types of sickness.

Meanwhile, in several provincial towns at a greater distance from the capital than the summer resorts in Hertfordshire, there was plague in the end of 1592, at the same time as in London, and in the following years. At Derby, “the great plague and mortality” began in All Saints parish and in St Alkmund’s, at Martinmas, 1592, and ended at Martinmas, 1593, stopping suddenly, “past all expectation of man, what time it was dispersed in every corner of this whole parish, not two houses together being free from it[708].” At Lichfield in 1593 and 1594 upwards of 1100 are said to have died of the plague[709]. At Leicester, on the 21st September, 1593, a contribution was levied for the plague-stricken[710]. At Shrewsbury in 1592-3 there was either plague itself or alarms of it[711]; in the parish of Bishop’s Castle there was the enormous mortality of 135 in July and August, 1593, and 182 burials for the year, the average being 25[712]. In the same years the infection was in Canterbury, as appears from entries of payments “to Goodman Ledes watchying at Anthony Howes dore ... when his house was first infected with the plague,” and, the year after, “to those ii pore folkes which were appointed to carry such to burial as died of the plague; and also to the woman that was appointed to sock them[713].” There are also various references to houses visited and to poor persons relieved. Nottingham and Lincoln are also mentioned as having been notoriously afflicted with plague in 1593[714].

A solitary record of plague comes from Cornwall in 1595. On 3rd May a letter from the justices at Tregony to the Privy Council states that the inhabitants, having been charged by the justices at the General Sessions to restrain divers infected houses within the borough, were molested in executing these commands, and had made complaint thereof[715].

All that remains to be said of plague in England until the end of the Tudor period (1603) relates exclusively to the provinces; unless the records are defective, London was clear of plague for nine years following 1592-94, just as it was clear for nine years preceding. The year 1597 was one of great scarcity in more than one region of England. At Bristol wheat is quoted at the incredible figure of twenty shillings the bushel; a civic ordinance was made that every person of ability should keep in his house as many poor persons as his income would allow[716]. But it is from the North of England in 1597 that we have more particular accounts of famine and of plague in its train. Writing in January, 1597, the dean of Durham says[717]:

“Want and waste have crept into Northumberland, Westmoreland and Cumberland; many have come 60 miles from Carlisle to Durham to buy bread, and sometimes for 20 miles there will be no inhabitant. In the bishopric of Durham, 500 ploughs have decayed in a few years, and corn has to be fetched from Newcastle, whereby the plague is spread in the northern counties: tenants cannot pay their rents; then whole families are turned out, and poor boroughs are pestered with four or five families under one roof.”

On the 16th of January, 1597, he wrote again: “In Northumberland great villages are depeopled, and there is no way to stop the enemy’s attempt; the people are driven to the poor port towns.” On the 26th of May, the dean again complains that there is great dearth in Durham; some days 500 horses are at Newcastle for foreign corn, although that town and Gateshead are dangerously infected. On the 17th September, Lord Burghley, minister of State, is informed that the plague increases at Newcastle, so that the Commissioners cannot yet come thither (the Assizes were not held at all on account of plague about Newcastle and Durham): foreign traders were selling corn at a high price, until some members of the town council produced a stock of corn for sale at a shilling a bushel less[718]. There are no figures extant of the plague-mortality at Newcastle in 1597; but at Darlington the deaths up to October 17 were 340; and in Durham, up to October 27, more than 400 in Elvet, 100 in St Nicholas, 200 in St Margaret’s, 60 in St Giles’s, 60 in St Mary’s, North Bailey, and 24 in the gaol. The whole mortality in St Nicholas parish from July 11 to November 27 was 215. Many of the burials were on the moor. The infection broke out again at Darlington and Durham in September, 1598[719].

Coincident with this severe plague on the eastern side, there was an equally disastrous plague in the North Riding of Yorkshire and in Cumberland and Westmoreland. The plague began at Richmond in the autumn of 1597. In August there were 23 deaths, and in September 42 deaths. The epidemic appears to have reached its height in the summer of 1598, the deaths in May having been 93, in June 99, in July 182 and in August 194. These figures indicate a grievous calamity in so small a place as Richmond. The outbreak which began on the 17th August, 1597, was over in December, 1598. The stress of the epidemic is shown by the fact that the churchyard was insufficient for the burials, many of the dead having been buried in the Castle Yard and in Clarke’s Green[720]. Of this severe plague in Cumberland and Westmoreland there are few exact particulars. According to an inscription at Penrith Church, “on the north outside of the vestry, in the wall, in rude characters[721],” the deaths in 1598 were:—

At Penrith 2260,

" Kendal 2500,

" Richmond 2200,

" Carlisle 1196.

We are able to measure the accuracy of these round totals by the monthly burials for Richmond given above; the months of July and August, 1598, with 182 and 194 deaths respectively, were the most deadly season; and it is hardly conceivable that there had been as many as 1800 deaths at Richmond in the months when the epidemic was rising to a height and declining therefrom according to its usual curve of intensity.

Again, the parish register of Penrith gives only 583 deaths from the infection, the inscription on the church wall making them 2260. Perhaps the discrepancy is to be explained by including the mortality in the various parishes of which Richmond, Penrith, Kendal and Carlisle were respectively the centres and market-towns. Thus at Kirkoswald there were buried, according to the parish register, 42 of the pestilence in 1597, and no fewer than 583 in 1598[722],—a number which, if correct, means a death-rate comparable to that of the Black Death itself. Again, in the small parish of Edenhall, 42 were buried of the pestilence in 1598[723]. Appleby, also, is known to have had a severe visitation[724], and so had probably many other parishes.

The Tudor period of plague closes with a severe epidemic at Stamford, which began in the end of 1602. On December 2 the corporation resolved to build a cabin for the plague-stricken, and in January following they levied a fourth part of a fifteenth for the relief and maintenance of people visited with the plague. This epidemic is said to have carried off nearly 600; the parish registers of St George’s and St Michael’s contain entries of persons “buried at the cabbin of the White Fryers[725].”

Plague in Scotland, 1495-1603.

The history of plague in Scotland subsequent to the medieval period is of interest chiefly as affording early illustrations of the practice of quarantine. We last saw the disease prevailing in or near Edinburgh in 1475, the island of Inchkeith, in the Firth of Forth, being used as a quarantine station. It was doubtless the possession of convenient islands near the capital—Inch Colm and Inch Garvie were both used for the same purpose afterwards—that led the Scots government to follow the example of Venice and other foreign cities at no long interval of time. When we next hear of plague in Scotland it is again in connexion with infected persons on the island of Inchkeith and in the town of Leith, some time between 13th August, 1495, and 4th July, 1496[726].

But these quarantine practices were not confined to the Firth of Forth. On the 17th May, 1498, the town of Aberdeen was warned by proclamation of the bell of certain measures to be taken so as to preserve the town from the pestilence “and strange sickness abefore,” the principal precaution being a guard of citizens at each of the four gates during the day, and that the gates be “lockit with lokis and keis” at night. The “strange sickness abefore” is doubtless the other invasion (of syphilis) which the aldermen tried to check by an order of April, 1497; but “the pestilence” in the order of May 1498 must have been the plague itself[727]. Nothing more is heard of it at Aberdeen or elsewhere in Scotland in that year. It appears to have been somewhat general in Scotland in 1499 and 1500. The audit of burgh accounts, mostly held in June, 1499, was postponed to January 1500 in some cases, the bailie of North Berwick explaining that he was prevented by the plague from coming to the Exchequer[728]. An extra allowance is made to the comptroller, Sir Patrick Hume, in March 1500, “for his great labour in collecting fermes in different parts of the kingdom in time of the infection of the plague.” At Peebles, hides and woolfells were destroyed during the plague of 1499. There was a renewal of it in 1500, the audit being again delayed until November. The custumar of Aberdeen brings his account of the great customs of that burgh down only to the 3rd July, 1500, “because after that date the accountant, from dread of the plague, did not enter the burgh of Aberdeen[729].”

It is from the same northern city that our information on plague in Scotland comes exclusively for the next forty-five years, not, of course, because its experience was singular, but because its borough records are known[730].

On the 24th April, 1514, various orders were made at Aberdeen against a disease that seems to have been the plague: “for keeping of the town from strange sickness, and specially this contagious pestilence ringand in all parts about this burgh;” and, again, watching the gates (as in 1498) against persons “coming forth of suspect places where this violent and contagious pestilence reigns.” Lodges were erected on the Links and Gallow-hill, where the infected or suspected were to remain for forty days. In the following year (1515), sixteen persons were banished from the town for a year and a day for disobeying the orders “anent the plague.” On the 27th July, 1530, these orders are renewed “for evading this contagious pestilence reigning in the country.” On September 15, 1539 (the year after a plague in the North of England), the plague is called in the municipal orders by a distinctive name: the orders are for avoiding the “contagius infeckand pest callit the boiche, quilk ryngis in diverse partis of the same [realm] now instantly”—the botch being a name given to plague in England also as late as the Elizabethan and Stuart periods.

The years 1545 and 1546 were also plague-years in Scotland. At a council held at Stirling on the 14th June, 1545, the session of the law courts was transferred to Linlithgow “because of the fear of the pest that is lately reigning in the town of Edinburgh[731].” On 10th September, of the same year, the town council of Aberdeen issued orders for evading the pest. On September 18 the plague was in the English army at Warkeshaugh, and it is reported from Newcastle, on 5 October, to be raging on the borders[732]. On March 21, 1546, a house in Aberdeen was shut up for the pest; and there are evidences of its continuance in August, October and December both in that town and “in certain parts of the realm:” on the 11th October the St Nicholas “braid silver” was given for the sustentation of the sick folk of the pest; on the 17th December an Aberdonian named David Spilzelaucht was ordered to be “brint on the left hand with ane het irne” for not showing the bailies “the seiknes of his barne, quilk was seik in the pest[733].” In November, 1548, the plague is at St Johnstone (Perth), and the Rhinegrave, with troops there, sick of it and like to die[734].

In 1564 the Scots Privy Council ordered quarantine for arrivals from Denmark, in the manner that was practised on merchandise for nearly three centuries after. As these early practices in the Forth are curiously like those that used to be practised in the Medway in the eighteenth century, I shall quote a part of the order of the Scots Privy Council, dated, Edinburgh, September 23, 1564[735]:

“That is to say, becaus maist danger apperis to be amangis the lynt, that the samyn be loissit, and houssit in Sanct Colm’s Inche, oppynout, handillet and castin forth to the wynd every uther fair day, quhill the feist of Martimes nixt to cum, be sic visitouris and clengearis as sal be appointit and deput thairto be the Provest, Baillies and Counsall of the burgh of Edinburgh upoun the expensis of the marchantis, ownaris of the saidis gudis. And as concerning the uther gudis, pik, tar, irine, tymmer, that the samyn be clengeit be owir flowing of the sey, at one or twa tydis, the barrellis of asse to be singit with huddir set on fyre, and that the schippis be borit and the sey wattir to haif interes into thame, to the owir loft, and all the partis within to be weschin and clengeit; and siclike that the marinaris and utheris that sall loase and handill the gudis above written, be clengeit and kepit apart be thameselffis for ane tyme, at the discretioun of the saidis visitouris, and licenses to be requirit had and obtenit of the saidis Provest, Baillies and Counsall before they presume to resort opinlie or quietlie amangis oure Soverane Ladeis fre liegis.”

The same autumn another foul ship from the Baltic arrived and entered the port of Leith in evasion of quarantine; the master and others are to be apprehended and kept in prison until justice be done upon them for the offence[736].

A severe outbreak of plague in Scotland in the year 1568 gave occasion to the first native treatise upon the disease in the English tongue, the essay by Dr Gilbert Skene, at one time lecturer on medicine at King’s College, Aberdeen, but probably removed before 1568 to Edinburgh, where he became physician to James VI.[737] The author says that the plague has “lately entered” the country, and he is led to write upon it in the vulgar tongue for the benefit of those who could not afford to pay for skilled advice, or could not get it on any terms: “Medecineirs are mair studious of their awine helthe nor of the common weilthe.” The panic caused by the plague must have been considerable: “Specialie at this time whan ane abhorris ane other in sic maneir as gif nothing of humanitie was restand but all consumit, euery ane abydand diffaent of ane other.”

Although Skene’s treatise bears numerous traces of the influence of foreign writers on plague, the same being freely acknowledged in the section of prescriptions and regimen, yet the book is much better than a mere compilation. Thus, under the causes of plague, he gives the stock recital of blazing stars, south-winds, corrupt standing waters, and the like; but in mentioning, as others do, dead carrion unburied, he adds that the corrupting human body is most dangerous of all “by similitude of nature.”

A season favourable to plague is marked by continual wet in the last part of Spring or beginning of Summer, without wind, and with great heat and turbid musty air.

Anticipating a remark by Thomas Lodge in 1603, and a common experience as regards rats in the recent plagues of various parts of India and China, he points out that the mole (moudewart) and serpent leave the earth, being molested by the vapour contained within the bowels of the same. “If the domesticall fowlis become pestilential, it is ane sign of maist dangerous pest to follow.” Among the spots that are most pestilential are those near standing water, or where many dead are buried, the ground being fat and vaporative. Of the duration of infection: “na pest continuallie induris mair than three yeris,” according to the principle of “rosten ance can not be made raw againe.”

The diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment are given fully and in systematic scholarly order. I give the following long extract on the signs and symptoms of plague, as being the first native account of the disease in this country:

Quhairby corrupt be pest may be knawin.

Thair is mony notis quhilkis schawis ane man infectit be pest. First gif the exteriour partis of the bodie be caulde, and the interiour partis of the bodie vehement hait. As gif the hoill bodie be heavie with oft scharpe punctiounis, stinkand sweiting, tyritnes of bodie, ganting of mowthe, detestable brathe with greit difficultie, at sumtyme vehement fever rather on nycht nor day. Greit doloure of heid with heavynes, solicitude and sadnes of mynd: greit displesour with sowning, quhairefter followis haistelie deth. As greit appetit and propensnes to sleip albeit on day, raving and walking occupeis the last. Cruell inspectioun of the ene, quhilkis apperis of sindre colouris maist variant, dolour of the stomak, inlak of appetite, vehement doloure of heart, with greit attractioun of Air; intolerable thirst, frequent vomitting of divers colouris or greit appetit by daylie accustum to vomit without effecte: Bitternes of mowth and toung with blaiknit colour thairof and greit drouth: frequent puls small and profund, quhais urine for the maist part is turbide thik and stinkand, or first waterie, colourit thairefter of bilious colour, last confusit and turbide, or at the beginning is zallow inclyning to greine (callit citrine collour) and confusit, thairefter becummis reid without contentis. Albeit sum of thir properteis may be sene in haile mennis water, quhairby mony are deceavit abydand Helth of the patient, quhan sic water is maist manifest sing of deth, because the haill venome and cause conjunit thar with, leavand the naturall partis occupeis the hart and nobillest interioure partis of the body. Last of all and maiste certane, gif with constant fever, by the earis, under the oxstaris, or by the secrete membres maist frequentlie apperis apostumis callit Bubones, without ony other manifest cause, or gif the charbunkil apperis hastelie in ony other part, quhilk gif it dois, in the begining, testifies strenthe of nature helth, and the laitter sic thingis appeir, and apperand, it is the mair deidlie. At sumtym in ane criticall day mony accidentis apperis—principalie vomiteing, spitting of blude, with sweit, flux of womb, bylis, scabe, with dyvers others symptomis maist heavie and detestable.”

The signs of death in pestilential persons are as follow:

“Sowning, cold sweats, vomiting; excrements corrupt, teuch; urine black, or colour of lead. Cramp, convulsion of limbs, imperfection of speech and stinking breath, colic, swelling of the body as in dropsy, visage of divers colours, red spots quickly discovering and covering themselves.”

The great plague which was the occasion of Skene’s writing, probably the most severe that Edinburgh experienced, entered that city on the 8th September, 1568, having been brought, it was said, by “ane called James Dalgliesh, merchant[738].” A letter of 21st September, from the bishop of Orkney, then in Edinburgh, to his brother-in-law Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston, whose house was near the plague-huts erected on the Muir, refers to the infection as then active:

“By the number of sick folk that gaes out of the town, the muir is liable to be overspread; and it cannot be but, through the nearness of your place and the indigence of them that are put out, they sall continually repair about your room, and through their conversation infect some of your servants.” He advises him to withdraw to a house on the north side. “And close up your houses, your granges, your barns and all, and suffer nae man come therein while it please God to put ane stay to this great plague[739].”

The following account of Edinburgh practices in plague-times is given by Chambers[740]:

“According to custom in Edinburgh the families which proved to be infected were compelled to remove, with all their goods and furniture, out to the Burgh-moor, where they lodged in wretched huts hastily erected for their accommodation. They were allowed to be visited by their friends, in company with an officer, after eleven in the forenoon; anyone going earlier was liable to be punished with death—as were those who concealed the pest in their houses. Their clothes were meanwhile purified by boiling in a large caldron erected in the open air, and their houses were clensed by the proper officers. All these regulations were under the care of two citizens selected for the purpose, and called Bailies of the Muir; for each of whom, as for the cleansers and bearers of the dead, a gown of gray was made, with a white St Andrew’s Cross before and behind. Another arrangement of the day was ‘that there be made twa close biers, with four feet, coloured over with black, and [ane] white cross with ane bell, to be hung upon the side of the said bere, which sall mak warning to the people.’”

The same writer says that the plague lasted in Edinburgh until February, 1569, and that it was reported to have carried off 2500 of the inhabitants. The plague-stricken in the Canongate were sent to huts “on the hill” and money was collected for their support[741].

The plague of 1574 was again chiefly along the shores of the Firth of Forth. It came to Leith on October 14th, it was said by a passenger from England, and several died in that town before its existence was known at large. On October 24th it entered Edinburgh, “brought in by ane dochter of Malvis Curll out of Kirkcaldy[742].” On the 29th October the town council of Glasgow ordered that no one should be allowed to enter from Leith, Kirkcaldy, Dysart, Burntisland and Edinburgh (in respect of Bellis Wynd only), and that no one in Glasgow was to repair to Edinburgh without a pass[743]. Two days after (October 31st) the Scots Privy Council, at Dalkeith, issued an order to check the spreading of the plague landwards “through the departure of sick folk and foul persons:” no one to conceal the existence of plague, and the infected “to cloise thame selffis in[744].” On November 14th the sittings of the Court of Session were suspended owing to pest within some parts of Edinburgh, in Leith, and some towns and parts of the north coast of Fife[745]. In December the Kirk session of Edinburgh appointed an eight days’ fast for the plague threatening the whole realm.