CHAPTER I

PLAGUE

The Plague of 1603, which is said to have swept away 30,578 persons, is one of the four great plagues of London of the seventeenth century. Historians, in their desire to account for these visitations, talk glibly about the sanitary arrangements of the City, the scant supply of good water, the crowded houses, and so forth as helping to spread the Plague. No doubt these things did help and encourage the visitation. Let us point out, however, that the City a hundred years after the plague of 1666—say, in 1766—was far more crowded than at that time, that its sanitary arrangements were no better, and that the people, though the New River water was laid on, continued to drink the water of the City wells (not, certainly, so many as before the fire), which received the filtrations and the pollutions of a hundred and fifty burial-grounds. They also continued their cess-pools, their narrow lanes, and their kennels filled with refuse of all kinds. Yet in the eighteenth century there was no plague. Let us also point out that parts of all great cities in Europe were, and are still, extremely crowded and filthy, yet no plague. In other words, it is dangerous to be unwashed, but not in itself a sufficient cause of plague. There must have been causes, of which one knows nothing, why the Plague should take hold of the City on four separate occasions in one century, and after devastating it on a grand scale, should go away for good. All the precautions observed in 1666 are recorded to have been taken in 1603. Women who had to do with the sick and the dead, if they went abroad, carried in their hands a red staff, so that people gave them a wide berth. Warnings were issued against attending funerals; dogs were killed; infected houses were marked with a red cross; streets were cleansed; bonfires were lit at street corners; the grave-diggers and the conductors of the dead carts did their work with the protection of tobacco; a thick cover of earth was laid upon the dead. The people, thrown out of work by thousands, were relieved and maintained by the Corporation and the City Companies.

There exists a strange and whimsical account of this plague entitled _The Wonderful Yeare 1603_. The writer has no intention of setting down a plain unvarnished tale, as will be seen from the following extracts (_Phœnix Britannicus_):—

“A stiffe and freezing horror sucks up the rivers of my blood; my haire stands on ende with the panting of my braines: mine eye balls are ready to start out, being beaten with the billowes of my teares: out of my weeping pen does the ink mournfully and more bitterly than gall drop on the pale-faced paper, even when I do but thinke how the bowels of my sicke country have been torne. _Apollo_, therefore, and you bewitching silver-tongued _Muses_, get you gone: I invocate none of your names. Sorrow and truth, sit you on each side of me, whilst I am delivered of this deadly burden: prompt me that I may utter ruthfull and passionate condolement: arme my trembling hand, that I may boldly rip up and anatomize the ulcerous body of this _Anthropophagized Plague_: lend me art (without any counterfeit shadowing) to paint and delineate to the life the whole story of this mortall and pestiferous battaile. And you the ghosts of those more (by many) than 40,000, that with the virulent poison of infection have been driven out of your earthly dwellings: you desolate hand-wringing widowes, that beate your bosomes over your departing husbandes: you wofully distracted mothers that with dishevelled hair fall into swounds, while you lie kissing the insensible cold lips of your breathless infants: you outcast and downtrodden orphans, that shall many a yeare hence remember more freshly to mourne, when your mourning garments shall look old and be forgotten: and you the Genii of all those emptyed families, whose habitations are now among the Antipodes: joine all your hands together, and with your bodies cast a ring about me: let me behold your ghastly vizages, that my paper may receive their true pictures and eccho forth your grones through the hollow trunke of my pen, and rain down your gummy tears into mine incke, that even marble bosomes may be shaken with terrour, and hearts of adamant melt into compassion.”

He goes on to describe the many who ran away:—

“It was no boot to bid them take their heels, for away they trudge thick and threefold: some riding, some on foote, some without bootes, some in their slippers, by water, by land, swom they westward: many to Gravesend none went unless they were driven: for whosoever landed there never came back again. Hacknies, water-men, and wagons were not so terribly employed many a year: so that within a short time there was not a good horse in Smithfield, nor a coach to be set eye on: for after the world had once run upon the wheeles of the pest cart, neither coach nor caroach durst appeare in his likenesse. Let us pursue these run-awayes no longer, but leave them in the unmercifull hands of the country-hardheaded Hobbinolls (who are ordained to be their tormentors), and return back to the siege of the citie.

* * * * *

Every house lookte like St. Bartholomew’s Hospitall, and every street like Bucklersbury, for poor Methridatum and Dragonwater (being both of them in all the world, scarce worth threepence) were boxt into every corner, and yet were both drunke every hour at other men’s cost. Lazarus lay groaning at every man’s door: marry no Dives was within to send him a crum (for all your Gold-finches were fled to the woods) nor a dogge left to licke his sores, for they (like Curres) were knockt downe like oxen, and fell thicker than acornes. I am amazed to remember what dead marches were made of three thousand trooping together: husbands, wives, and children being led as ordinarily to one grave as if they had gone to one bed. And those that could shift for a time, and shrink their heads out of the collar (as many did) yet went they most bitterly miching and muffled up and downe with rue and worme-wood stoft into their eares and nostrils, looking like so many bores’ heads stuck with branches of rosemary, to be served in for brawne at Christmas. This was a rare world for the Church, who had wont to complaine for want of living, and now had more living thrust upon her than she knew how to bestow: to have been clarke now to a parish clarke was better than to serve some foolish justice of peace, or than the yeare before to have been a benefice.

* * * * *

Never let any man aske me what became of our Phisitions in this massacre; they hid their synodicall heads as well as the prowdest: and I cannot blame them: for their phlebotomes, losinges, and electuaries, with their diacatholicons, diacodions, amulets and antidotes had not so much strength to hold life and soule together; as a pot of Pindar’s Ale and a nutmeg: their drugs turned to dirt, their simples were simple things: Galen could do no more than Sir Giles Goosecap: Hipocrates, Avicen, Paracelsus, Rafis, Fernalius, with all their succeeding rabble of doctors and water-casters were at their wits end, or, I think, rather at the world’s end, for not one of them durst peepe abroad, or if any did take upon him to play the ventrous knight, the plague put him to his nonplus: in such strange and such changeable shapes did this camelion-like sicknes appeare, that they could not (with all the cunning in their budgets) make pursenets to take him napping.”

The Plague first made its appearance in the East End; it raged at Gravesend. On the alarm of its spreading all those who could took flight; those who were left behind were the working-men, craftsmen, journeymen, and servants, who lost their work and their wages. Among the fugitives were the physicians, whose place was taken by quacks; and in the City there perished many thousands, sometimes whole families dying in a single house; sometimes poor wretches lying down to die in the street or under a stall; in a word, all the horrors of such a visitation with which Defoe has made the world familiar.

Twenty-one years later, on the accession of Charles, the Plague returned, and, continuing for a year, carried off 35,417 persons in London alone. I mention it in this place because the same writer, Benjamin Spencer, who gave us _The Wonderful Yeare_ lived to write in 1625 _Vox Civitatis_, the Lament of London. The City complains that her children have infected the air with their sins; we need not enumerate the sins; in this respect every city is conservative. These and not the stinks of the City, not the reeking shambles, the noisome kennel, the malarious laystall are the cause of the Plague. Nor is her trouble only caused by sickness and death of multitudes:—

“This is not all my trouble, for my sorrows are increased like my sins: sickness hath consumed my substance: and with David, I justly say, I am weak and poor. My poverty lieth in being void of Trade, Money and victual. All which I am well nigh destitute of at this time. This I confess to be justly inflicted on me for my Pride, with which I have sought to outface Heaven. My tinckling feet, and my tip-toe Pace, my horned Tyaras, and crisp-curled locks, Shin-pride, and shoe-pride. Fulness of Bread hath made me lift my heel against my Maker, I said in my prosperity I should never be moved: but Thou, O Lord, hast turned Thy face, and I am troubled. My children have been so full-fed, that they have fallen out among themselves, the meanest thinking himself as good as the Magistrate, and the mighty refusing to look upon the cause of the mean. My Merchants have been the companions of Princes, but now are gone; their place is scarce to be found. How hath my back groaned with heavy burdens: and now Issacher stands still for want of work. One Waine may carry all I sell in a day. I have had such trading, that I could scarce find time to serve God, but now every day is a holiday, because I have prophaned His holy day (even His blessed Sabbath) which hath been dedicated to Him, as a remembrance of His glorious resurrection. But I have laid dead in sins and trespasses. I have given liberty to my servants to execute their wills in Sabbath breaking and deceiving: now God hath proclaimed liberty for them to the pestilence, to wandering, and to idleness. My apprentices have been the children of knights, and justices of the country (which they accepted at my hands joyfully), but now my children are cast out by those Swines like dung, rated like Beggars, served like swine in Hogsties, buried in the Highway like Malefactors.”

With a great deal more, from which we perceive that the same things happened in 1625 as in 1603. Aldermen, Common Councilmen, Magistrates, Physicians, Lawyers, Clergymen, all ran away, and among the dying sat the children not yet infected, crying for bread. It would seem—a fact that I have not elsewhere observed—that they turned the rooms over the City gates into hospitals or receiving houses for the children, doubtless the orphaned children.

Besides the two visitations of Plague already mentioned, there were in the seventeenth century two more, viz. in 1636 and 1665, the first of these occurring after an interval of no more than five years since the preceding one. The deaths from Plague for these four visitations were as follows; the numbers must be taken as approximate only:—

In 1603 there died of Plague 30,561 persons. „ 1625 „ „ 35,417 „ „ 1636 „ „ 10,400 „ „ 1665 „ „ 68,596 „

That is to say, in sixty-three years there died 144,974 persons of Plague alone. There were, however, many more victims, because between 1603 and 1636 the Plague was hardly ever absent. The deaths from Plague every year ranged from 1000 to 4000, though in one or two years there were none.

For the greatest and last visitation, that of 1665, we have, besides the graphic account of Defoe, also the more sober notices of Pepys and Evelyn. There were warnings of the approach of the Plague. In the autumn of 1663 it was reported to be raging in Amsterdam; ships from Holland were placed in quarantine; in December 1664 one person died of Plague in London; in February 1665 another death was reported; in April there were two; in May the number began to increase, running up to nine, fourteen, and forty-three. The summer of 1665 was extremely hot; an unclouded sky continued for weeks; there was no rain to wash the streets; there was no wind to refresh the air; if the people made bonfires to create a draught, it was observed that the flame and smoke mounted straight up. In June all those who could escape to the country left the town in whatsoever vehicles they could get—coaches, carriages, waggons, and carts. There was a general stampede, until the villagers stopped it, driving back the people with pitch-forks, and the Lord Mayor stopped it by refusing certificates of health. Then, the mortality rising daily by leaps and bounds, the people sat down in their houses to die, or wandered disconsolately about the desolate streets, marking the crosses on the doors with sinking hearts.

It must be observed that the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the Aldermen remained at their posts, that the Archbishop of Canterbury remained at Lambeth, and that the Duke of Albemarle and Lord Craven remained in their town houses; the Court, however, went away, and the judges removed their courts to Oxford. The physicians excused their flight by the plea that they accompanied their patients, and the City clergy—those who ran away—that they had followed their flocks.

There was no trade or craft of any kind carried on; shops, warehouses, offices, quays were closed or deserted; ships that arrived laden remained unnoticed in the Pool; the craftsmen and the common people had no work and drew no wages; servants and apprentices were thrust into the street; except for food there was nothing bought or sold; the quays, the port, the streets were silent; there was no grumbling of the broad wheels of waggons; there were no street cries; there were no bells; there were no children shouting and running about the streets. The churches, deserted by their incumbents, were taken over by Nonconformist ministers. It was contrary to law, but at such a time who cared for law? These preachers, braver than their persecutors, exhorted fearlessly crowded congregations, catching at every word of consolation or hope; quacks of the basest kind issued their advertisements, professing to cure the Plague. All kinds of ridiculous remedies were tried; plague water, amulets, hot spices, cupping glasses, besides old mediæval nostrums, all these were advocated and proved futile. The parishes which suffered most were St. Giles in the Fields; St. Andrew’s, Holborn; St. Clement Danes; St. Martin’s in the Fields, and Westminster. When the disease abated in those parts it broke out with equal force in Cripplegate, St. Sepulchre’s; St. James’s, Clerkenwell; St. Bride’s, and St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate. The City was divided into districts, each with surgeons, nurses, watchers, and grave-diggers; infected houses were closed; their doors were marked with a red cross a foot long; the grave-diggers removed the bodies of those who died in the streets; in the night the cart went round to collect the dead; the bodies were thrown into _fosses communes_, or common graves, either in the parish churchyard or some place set apart outside the town. There were hospitals erected called Pest Houses, one in Tothill Fields and one in Old Street; but those were only for people who could afford to pay. In a tract entitled “God’s terrible voice to the City,” by the Rev. Thomas Vincent, there is a picture, not overdrawn, of the City in August when the Plague was at its worst:—

“In August how dreadful is the increase! Now the cloud is very black, and the storm comes down upon us very sharp. Now death rides triumphantly on his pale horse through our streets, and breaks into every house where any inhabitants are to be found. Now people fall as thick as the leaves in autumn when they are shaken by a mighty wind. Now there is a dismal solitude in London streets: every day looks with the face of a Sabbath day, observed with a greater solemnity than it used to be in the City. Now shops are shut, people rare and very few that walk about, insomuch that the grass begins to spring up in some places; there is a deep silence in every street, especially within the walls. No prancing horses, no rattling coaches, no calling on customers nor offering wares, no London cries sounding in the ears. If any voice be heard it is the groans of dying persons breathing forth their last, and the funeral knells of them that are ready to be carried to their graves. Now shutting up of visited houses (there being so many) is at an end, and most of the well are mingled amongst the sick, which otherwise would have got no help. Now, in some places, where the people did generally stay, not one house in a hundred but what is affected: and in many houses half the family is swept away: in some, from the eldest to the youngest: few escape but with the death of one or two. Never did so many husbands and wives die together: never did so many parents carry their children with them to the grave, and go together into the same house under earth who had lived together in the same house upon it. Now the nights are too short to bury the dead: the whole day, though at so great a length, is hardly sufficient to light the dead that fall thereon into their graves.”

During this terrible time, when all work was suspended, the people were only kept from starving by munificent gifts. The King gave £1000 a week; the City £600 a week; the Archbishop of Canterbury many hundreds every week; there was the whole industrial population of the City to be provided for. Some got employment from the Corporation as watchmen, grave-diggers, searchers, and the like; most had no work and no wages; their insufficient nourishment no doubt assisted the disease, which raged with the greatest force among the poorer sort. Bartholomew Fair was forbidden. In September Pepys writes, “To Lambeth: but Lord! what a sad time it is, to see no boats upon the river, and grass grows all up and down Whitehall Court, and nobody but wretches in the street.” The people began to get back and to go about their usual business in December; the Court returned in February, and it was soon observed that the streets were as full of people as ever. Yet nearly 70,000 had fallen, or perhaps one in three. If with the present population of 5,000,000 one in three were to die of Plague there would be a loss of 1,700,000. It seems as if about a third part of the population of London were cut off by this scourge. Happily it was the last of the great plagues. The history of London is no longer interrupted by the death of one-third of its people.

The following notes are a brief diary of the Plague as it was observed by Pepys—

1665 April 30th. “Two or three houses in the City already shut up.” May 24th. “All the news ... is of the plague growing upon us in this town.” June 7th. “The hottest day that ever I felt in my life. This day I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord, have mercy upon us’ writ there.” June 10th. “Hear that the Plague has come into the City.” June 15th. “The town grows very sickly and people to be afraid of it: there dying this last week of the plague 112 from 43 the week before.” June 20th. “There died four or five at Westminster of the plague.” June 21st. “I find all the town almost going out of town, the coaches and waggons being full of people going into the country.” June 29th. “The Mortality Bill is come to 267.” July 1st. “To Westminster, where I hear the sickness increases greatly. Sad at the news that seven or eight houses in Basinghall Street are shut up of the plague.” July 3rd. “The season growing so sickly, that it is much to be feared how a man can escape.” July 12th. “A solemn fast day for the plague growing upon us.” July 13th. “Above 700 died of the plague this week.” July 20th. “There dying 1089 of the plague this week.” July 21st. “The plague growing very raging and my apprehensions of it great.” July 22nd. “To Foxhall, where to the Spring Garden, but I do not see one guest there, the town being so empty of any one to come thither.” July 25th. “Sad the story of the plague in the City, it growing mightily.” July 26th. “Sad news of the death of so many in the parish” (his City parish) “of the plague, forty last night, the bell always going.” July 27th. “The weekly bill ... about 1700 of the Plague.” July 31st. “The last week being 1700 or 1800 of the Plague.” Aug. 2nd. “A public fast ... for the plague.” Aug. 3rd. “I had heard was 2020 (deaths) of the plague.” Aug. 10th. “In great trouble to see the Bill this week rise so high, to above 4000 in all, and of them above 3000 of the plague.” Aug. 16th. “Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people and very few upon the ’Change. Jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the plague; and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.” Aug. 28th. “To Mr. Colvill the goldsmith’s, having not been for some days in the streets: but now how few people I see, and those looking like people that had taken leave of the world.” Aug. 31st. “The plague above 6000.” Sep. 7th. “Sent for the Weekly Bill, and find 8252 dead in all, and of them 6978 of the plague.” Sep. 14th. “Decrease of 500 and more.” Sep. 20th. “(Dead) ... of the plague, 7165.” Sep. 27th. “Blessed be God! there is above 1800 decrease.” Oct. 4th. “The plague is decreased this week 740.” Oct. 12th. “Above 600 less dead of the plague this week.” Oct. 16th. “Lord! how empty the streets are, and melancholy, so many poor sick people in the streets full of sores; and so many sad stories overheard as I walk.” Oct. 31st. “Above 400 less ... of the plague, 1031.” Nov. 5th. “The plague increases much at Lambeth, St. Martins, and Westminster.” Nov. 9th. “The Bill of Mortality is increased 399 this week.” Nov. 15th. “The plague—Blessed be God!—is decreased 400, making the whole this week but 1300 and odd.” Nov. 22nd. “I was very glad ... to hear that the plague is come very low; the whole under 1000, and the plague 600 and odd.” Dec. 13th. “Our poor little parish is the greatest number in all the city, having six, from one last week.”

1666 Jan. 3rd. “Decrease of the plague this week to 70.” Jan. 8th. “To Paternoster Row, few shops there being yet open.” Jan. 10th. “Plague is increased this week from 70 to 89.” Jan. 16th. “The plague 158.” Jan. 23rd. “Plague being now but 79.” Jan. 31st. “Plague decreased this week to 56.” Mar. 13th. “Plague increased to 29 from 28.” April 25th. “Plague is decreased 16 this week.” May 12th. “The plague increases in many places and is 53 this week with us.” June 6th. “A monthly fast day for the plague.” July 2nd. “The plague is, as I hear, increased but two this week.” Aug. 6th. “Greenwich worse than ever it was, and Deptford too.” Aug. 9th. } “Mrs. Rawlinson is dead of the sickness ... the mayde Aug. 10th.} also is dead.”

It will be observed that the Plague lingered until the Great Fire of September 2 drove it clean away.

The best—that is, the most graphic—account of the Plague is that of Daniel Defoe. It is, perhaps, too long. The mind grows sick in the reading. He presents us, after his favourite method, with a series of pictures and portraits of individuals. When it is remembered that his book appeared in the year 1720, the year, that is, of the great Plague of Marseilles, and fifty-five years after the event, it is generally believed that his history is a work of pure fiction. I think it can be shown, however, that it was not a work of fiction at all, but simply a work of recollection. To the old man of sixty came back the memories and the tales that he had heard as a boy not yet in his teens.

Defoe was born in the year 1661. His father lived in Cripplegate, where, as we know, he had a shop. The child, therefore, was four years of age in the Plague year. A child of four observes a great deal and may remember a great deal. Children vary very much in respect to observation and memory. For instance, a child would remember, perhaps, anything out of the common in the buying and selling of goods in his father’s shop, where he looked on at the customers. Defoe says: “When anyone bought a joint of meat, he would not take it out of the butcher’s hand, but took it off the hooks himself; on the other hand, the butcher would not touch the money, but put it into a pot full of vinegar which he kept for that purpose. The buyer carried always small money to make up any odd sum, so that he might take no change.” This must surely have been seen by the child and remembered. It happened in his own father’s shop before his eyes. Another thing. The Great Fire not only drove the lingering Plague out of the City, but actually drove away the memory of it. Who could talk or think about the Plague with this other awful affliction to consider? Now Cripplegate—where the child Defoe lived—was not touched by the Fire; it was very heavily afflicted by the Plague, but the Fire spared it. Therefore to the people of Cripplegate the Plague continued as the chief incident in their lives; they continued to talk of their adventures, their escapes, their sufferings, and their bereavements long after the people within the walls had left off thinking of theirs. And the boy grew up amid such talk. Therefore he was never allowed to forget his childish impressions. The awful silence in the streets, save for the shrieks and groans of the plague-stricken; the rumbling of the burial carts at night; the houses deserted, infected, no longer marked but left with open doors ready for the robber who roamed about with impunity till Death seized him and he fell; the poor wretch, gone mad with terror and suffering and bereavement, moaning and crying in the street; the closed shops; the poor creatures sitting down in any porch or on any stall to die—all these things were told to the boy over and over again, until they were burned into his brain, to be reproduced in the most wonderful account of a plague that has ever been written. Therefore, and for this reason, Defoe’s _History_ is a real history; the incidents are not invented but remembered. While we allow something for the embroidery of the novelist we must acknowledge that we have a contribution to the history of that terrible year larger, fuller, more human, than we can find in Pepys or in Evelyn, or in any other contemporary authority.

On the first appearance of the Plague of 1665 the Mayor and Aldermen issued orders of precaution similar to those which had been framed in the visitation of the year 1625. These orders are contained in a collection of “valuable and scarce Pieces” relating to the Plague of the latter year, published for J. Roberts at the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, 1721. This collection gives in full the orders of the Mayor and Council as follows:—

“Examiners to be appointed in every Parish. First, it is thought Requisite, and so ordered, that in every Parish there be one, two, or more Persons of good Sort and Credit, chosen and appointed by the Alderman, his Deputy, and Common Council of every Ward, by the Name of Examiners, to continue in that Office the space of two Months at least: And if any fit Person so appointed, shall refuse to undertake the same, the said Parties so refusing to be committed to Prison until they shall conform themselves accordingly.

THE EXAMINER’S OFFICE

“That these Examiners be sworn by the Aldermen, to enquire and learn from time to time what Houses in every Parish be Visited, and what Persons be Sick, and of what Diseases, as near as they can inform themselves; and upon doubt in that Case, to command Restraint of Access, until it appear what the Disease shall prove; And if they find any Person sick of the Infection, to give order to the Constable that the House be shut up; and if the Constable shall be found Remiss or Negligent to give present Notice thereof to the Alderman of the Ward.

WATCHMEN

“That to every infected House there be appointed two Watchmen, one for every Day, and the other for the Night; and that these Watchmen have a special care that no Person go in or out of such infected Houses, whereof they have the Charge, upon pain of severe Punishment. And the said Watchman to do such further offices as the sick House shall need and require: and if the Watchman be sent upon any Business, to lock up the House, and take the Key with him; And the Watchman by Day to attend until ten of the Clock at Night; and the Watchman by Night until six in the Morning.

SEARCHERS

“That there be a special care to appoint Women-Searchers in every Parish, such as are of honest Reputation, and of the best Sort as can be got in this kind: and these to be sworn to make due Search, and true Report to the utmost of their Knowledge, whether the Persons whose Bodies they are appointed to Search, do die of the Infection, or of what other Diseases, as near as they can. And that the Physicians who shall be appointed for Cure and Prevention of the Infection, do call before them the said Searchers, who are or shall be appointed for the several Parishes under their respective Cares, to the end they may consider whether they are fitly qualified for that Employment; and charge them from time to time as they shall see Cause, if they appear defective in their Duties.

“That no Searcher during this time of Visitation, be permitted to use any publick Work or Employment, or keep any Shop or Stall, or be employed as a Laundress, or in any other common Employment whatsoever.

CHIRURGEONS

“For better assistance of the Searchers, for as much as there hath been heretofore great Abuse in misreporting the Disease, to the further spreading of the Infection; it is therefore ordered, that there be chosen and appointed able and discreet Chirurgeons, besides those that do already belong to the Pest House: Amongst whom the City and Liberties to be quartered as the places lie most apt and convenient; and every of these to have one Quarter for his Limit; and the said Chirurgeons in every of their Limits to join with the Searchers for the View of the Body, to the end there may be a true Report made of the Disease.

“And further, that the said Chirurgeons shall visit and search such like Persons as shall either send for them, or be named and directed unto them, by the Examiners of every Parish, and inform themselves of the Disease of the said Parties.

“And forasmuch as the said Chirurgeons are to be sequestered from all other Cures, and kept only to this Disease of the Infection; it is ordered, That every of the said Chirurgeons shall have Twelve-pence a Body searched by them, to be paid out of the Goods of the Party searched, if he be able, or otherwise by the Parish.

NURSE-KEEPERS

“If any Nurse-keeper shall remove herself out of any infected House before twenty eight Days after the Decease of any Person dying of the Infection, the House to which the said Nurse-keeper doth so remove herself, shall be shut up until the said twenty eight Days be expired.

NOTICE TO BE GIVEN OF THE SICKNESS

“The Master of every House, as soon as any one in his House complaineth, either of Botch, or Purple, or Swelling in any part of his Body, or falleth otherwise dangerously Sick, without apparent Cause of some other Disease, shall give knowledge thereof to the Examiner of Health within two Hours after the said Sign shall appear.

SEQUESTRATION OF THE SICK

“As soon as any Man shall be found by this Examiner, Chirurgeon or Searcher to be sick of the Plague, he shall the same Night be sequestered in the same House. And in case he be so sequestered, then though he afterwards die not, the House wherein he sickened shall be shut up for a Month, after the use of the due Preservatives taken by the rest.

AIRING THE STUFF

“For Sequestration of the Goods and Stuff of the Infected, their Bedding, and Apparel, and Hangings of Chambers, must be well aired with Fire, and such Perfumes as are requisite within the infected House, before they be taken again to use: This to be done by the Appointment of the Examiner.

SHUTTING UP OF THE HOUSE

“If any Person shall have visited any Man, known to be infected of the Plague, or entered willingly into any known infected House, being not allowed; the House wherein he inhabiteth, shall be shut up for certain Days by the Examiner’s Direction.

“None to be removed out of infected Houses, but, etc., Item, That none be removed out of the House where he falleth sick of the Infection, into any other House in the City (except it be to the Pest-House or a Tent, or unto some such House, which the Owner of the said visited House holdeth in his own Hands, and occupieth by his own Servants), and so as Security be given to the Parish whither such Remove is made, that the Attendance and Charge about the said visited Persons shall be observed and charged in all the Particularities before expressed, without any Cost of that Parish, to which any remove shall happen to be made, and his Remove to be done by Night; and it shall be lawful to any Person that hath two Houses, to remove either his sound or his infected People to his spare House at his choice, so as if he send away first his Sound, he may not after send thither the Sick nor again unto the Sick the Sound. And that the same which he sendeth, be for one Week at the least shut up and secluded from Company for fear of some Infection, at the first not appearing.

BURIAL OF THE DEAD

“That Burial of the Dead by this Visitation, be at most convenient Hours, always either before Sun-rising, or after Sun-setting, with the Privity of the Churchwardens or Constable, and not otherwise: and that no Neighbours nor Friends be suffered to accompany the Corps to Church, or to enter the House visited, upon pain of having his House shut up, or be imprisoned. And that no Corps dying of Infection shall be buried, or remain in any Church in time of Common-Prayer, Sermon, or Lecture. And that no Children be suffered at time of burial of any Corps in any Church, Church-yard, or Burying-place to come near the Corps, Coffin, or Grave. And that all the Graves shall be at least six Foot deep. And further, all publick Assemblies at other burials are to be forborn during the Continuance of this Visitation.

NO INFECTED STUFF TO BE UTTERED

“That no Clothes, Stuff, Bedding or Garments be suffered to be carried or conveyed out of any infected Houses, and that the Criers and Carriers abroad of Bedding or old Apparel to be sold or pawned, be utterly prohibited and restrained, and no Brokers of Bedding or old Apparel be permitted to make any outward Shew, or hang forth on their stalls, shopboards or Windows towards any Street, Lane, Common-way or Passage, any old Bedding or Apparel to be sold, upon pain of Imprisonment. And if any Broker or other Person shall buy any Bedding, Apparel, or other Stuff out of any infected House, within two Months after the Infection hath been there, his House shall be shut up as Infected, and so shall continue shut up twenty Days at the least.

NO PERSON TO BE CONVEYED OUT OF ANY INFECTED HOUSE

“If any Person visited do fortune by negligent looking unto, or by any other Means, to come, or be conveyed from a Place infected, to any other Place, the Parish from whence such Party hath come or been conveyed, upon notice thereof given, shall at their Charge cause the said Party so visited and escaped, to be carried and brought back again by Night, and the Parties in this case offending, to be punished at the Direction of the Alderman of the Ward: and the House of the Receiver of such visited Person to be shut up for twenty Days.

EVERY VISITED HOUSE TO BE MARKED

“That every House visited, be marked with a red Cross of a Foot long, in the middle of the Door, evident to be seen, and with these usual printed Words, that is to say, ‘Lord have Mercy upon us,’ to be set close over the same Cross, there to continue, until lawful opening of the same House.

EVERY VISITED HOUSE TO BE WATCHED

“That the Constables see every House shut up, and to be attended with Watchmen, which may keep them in, and minister Necessaries unto them at their own Charges (if they be able) or at the common Charge if they be unable: The shutting up to be for the space of four Weeks after all be whole. That precise Order be taken that the Searchers, Chirurgeons, Keepers and Buriers are not to pass the Streets without holding a red Rod or Wand of three Foot in length in their Hands, open and evident to be seen, and are not to go into any other House than into their own, or into that whereunto they are directed or sent for; but to forbear and abstain from Company, especially when they have been lately used in any such Business or Attendance.

INMATES

“That where several Inmates are in one and the same House, and any Person in that House happen to be infected; no other Person or Family of such House shall be suffered to remove him or themselves without a Certificate from the Examiners of Health of that Parish; or in default thereof, the House whither he or they so remove, shall be shut up as in case of Visitation.

HACKNEY-COACHES

“That care be taken of Hackney-Coachmen, that they may not (as some of them have been observed to do) after carrying of infected Persons to the Pest-House, and other Places, be admitted to common use, till their Coaches be well aired, and have stood unemployed by the space of five or six Days after such Service.

ORDERS FOR CLEANSING AND KEEPING OF THE STREETS SWEET

THE STREETS TO BE KEPT CLEAN

“First, it is thought necessary, and so ordered, that every Householder do cause the Street to be daily pared before his Door, and so to keep it clean swept all the Week long.

THAT RAKERS TAKE IT FROM OUT THE HOUSES

“That the sweeping and Filth of Houses be daily carried away by the Rakers, and that the Raker shall give notice of his coming, by the blowing of a Horn, as heretofore hath been done.

LAYSTALLS TO BE MADE FAR OFF FROM THE CITY

“That the Laystalls be removed as far as may be out of the City, and common Passages, and that no Nightman or other be suffered to empty a Vault into any Garden near about the City.

CARE TO BE HAD OF UNWHOLESOME FISH OR FLESH AND OF MUSTY CORN

“That special care be taken, that no stinking Fish, or unwholesome Flesh, or musty Corn, or other corrupt Fruits, of what sort soever be suffered to be sold about the City, or any part of the same.

“That the Brewers and Tipling houses be looked unto, for musty and unwholesome Casks. That no Hogs, Dogs, or Cats, or tame Pigeons, or Conies, be suffered to be kept within any part of the City, or any Swine to be, or stray in the Streets or Lanes, but that such Swine be impounded by the Beadle or any other Officer, and the Owner punished according to Act of Common-Council, and that the Dogs be killed by the Dog-killers appointed for that purpose.”

* * * * *

It was further ordered, and for once the City did provide a sufficient number of constables to enforce these orders, that the multitude of rogues and wandering beggars that swarm in every place around the City shall be dispersed, and that no beggars be allowed in the City at all. That the theatres be closed and that none of the sports be held which attract assemblies of people, such as bear-baitings, ballad-singings, buckle-play, and the like; that public feasts and dinners be discontinued, particularly those of the City companies; that tippling be discouraged, and that every tavern, ale-house, coffee-house, and cellar be closed at 9 o’clock.

And further that the Aldermen and Common Council should assemble once a week to hear reports upon the manner of carrying out these rules.

* * * * *

The following is a contemporary account by the Rev. John Allin; it was published in the thirty-seventh volume of _Archæologia_:—

“Loveing ffriend,—Yours of the 16th instant I have received and give you hearty thankes for that particular accompt you gave me of your affayres. If I can possibly gett time I thinke to write to you againe on Thursday: but I thought it not amiss for the inclosed’s sake, to write a few lines now, and to give you my thoughts of the death of Tolhurst’s sister. According to your description of her, there hath not one of those thousands yet dyed here with all the signall characters of this present Plague more evident than she had, which this inclosed will in parte confirme to you. Concerning the external effects of this internall infection, there are these three, with one or more or all of which this distemper is usually attended, botches, blaines, and carbuncles, to which I may add a fourth, spotts commonly called the tokens, and are very symtomatical never ariseing till the full state of the disease, even when deathe stands at the doore: for very few or none live that are so markt. For the botches or pestilential bubos, they usually aries but in 3 places, whereof the principal emunctorys of the body are:—behind or under the ears when the braine is afflicted; under each arme when the heart or vitalls are afflicted; in the groynes principally when the liver is afflicted. The blaines and carbuncles may and doe aries generally in any parte of the body, necke, face, throate, backe, thighs, armes, leggs, etc., and all of them very hard: and obstinate to be dealt with withall, and must have several proceedings with them: and if any of them, after once appearing, either fall or retire backe againe, it is a very bad and dangerous symptome. The botches sometimes rise to a very great buiggnes, especially under the armes and in the groines; if so under the ears they quickly choake or kill with paine, there being no roome for them to bee extended: if they rise something in an oblongish forme, and red at the first, it is so much the better then if round, though as they grow to more maturity they will tend to a more round forme, as they come to ripen, especially on the topp; if they rise white it argues coldnes and want of heate and spot to drive them out, and must bee more carefully helpt forwards with internal drivers and externall drawers. The blaines rise first like blisters, but not puffy, as if sweld with wind or water, but hard, not yielding to the touch: but if they come forward to any maturity (which they are very difficult to bee brought to, and many dye if they have blaines) there will bee a very hard and knotty bunch of corrupt matter in them. The carbuncles, though it may be rise roundly like a pinn’s head, yet presently rise up to a pointed boile, very hard: sometimes fiery red, sometimes black, and sometimes blewish in places: red the best, ye others worst. All of these risings (if they be accurately observed at the first; but especially the carbuncles and blaines) have a particular symptome annexed to them, viz. they are generally circled about with red or blew circles, sometimes with both: sometimes they are broader then a bare circle, one within another: the red colour argue the small blood affected or choler abounding: the blewish argue the arteriall blood from the hearte affected; the blacke choler adust or melancholy: white, the potre actions of cold and crude humours most. For the spotts or tokens, which most generally are forrerunns of certain death, they do more generally this year then formerly appeare in divers parts of the body, formerly usually and allmost onely to be found upon the region of the hearte and liver, or the brest, and against it on the backe; but now on the necke, face, hands, armes, amost anywhere as well as there: sometimes as broad as farthings, these are called tokens: sometimes this yeare as broad as an halfecrowne: sometimes smaller: but always of more colours than one. If they bee observed at first rising sometimes with a red circle without and blew within: sometimes with a blew circle without and red within: sometimes one more bright red, the other blewish or darker, sometimes blacker: the blew from the arteriall, the red from the venall blood affacted, the blacke from melancholy as is aforesaid. Of the swellings, or mixt as the infection is mixed more or lesse, these usually come forth about the state of the disease, when nature hath done its utmost to expell but cannot conquer: which endeavours to expel the utmost send forth these external symptomes of it: and generally when these come out the party seemes not sick as before, but dye presently within a day or 2 at the utmost after. Many times this distemper strikes the vitalls so immediately, that nature hath not time to putt forth either spotts or blotches, and then it is the highest infection, most aptly called the Pestilence, and not the Plague: but done by a more immediate stroake of the destroying Angell. But, if such bodyes bee kept a little length of time after death, sometimes spoots will then arise which did not before, especially whilst any warmth remayne in the body: but how many are therefore deceived, because either they view the body onely immediately when dead, or bury them whilest warme: others, wickeddly to conceal the hands of God, will drive them in agaune, and keepe them in with colde and wett cloths.”