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A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2) by Charles Creighton

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

661 words  |  Chapter 53

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
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1. Chapter 1 2. CHAPTER I. 3. CHAPTER II. 4. CHAPTER III. 5. CHAPTER IV. 6. CHAPTER V. 7. CHAPTER VI. 8. CHAPTER VII. 9. CHAPTER VIII. 10. CHAPTER IX. 11. CHAPTER X. 12. CHAPTER XI. 13. CHAPTER XII. 14. CHAPTER I. 15. introduction of a miracle, and is otherwise more circumstantial. While the 16. episode of the seventh century, to which he devotes thirty-eight lines of 17. CHAPTER II. 18. 1307. Future research may perhaps discover where Gilbert taught or was 19. introduction of maize into Lombardy at an interval of two or three 20. CHAPTER III. 21. 3939. The population of the same three parishes in 1558, or shortly after 22. 3639. It may be assumed to have lost more than half its people; but it 23. 1741. The Institution Book of the diocese of Norwich, he says (with a 24. CHAPTER IV. 25. 1349. The pestilence had lasted some fourteen months, from its first 26. CHAPTER V. 27. 1528. If there were any better regimen in the later epidemics than in the 28. 1551. Sweating sickness of the original sort was never again the _signum 29. CHAPTER VI. 30. 1563. 12 June 17 31. 1564. 7 January 45 32. 1518. In April of that year, the Court being in Berkshire or Oxfordshire, 33. 1. First a ’tre from the Mayor of London to every alderman of each 34. 2. To cause all infected houses to bee shutt up and noe person to come 35. 3. That some honest discreete person be appoynted to attend each such 36. 4. For the poorer houses infected that the Alderman or his deputy doe 37. 5. That such as shall refuse to pay what they are assest shall be 38. 6. That all bedding and cloathes and other thinges apt to take 39. 7. Lastly that a bill with ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ in greate ’tres 40. 1. That they should follow the good example of the orders devised and 41. 2. That the officers aforesayde with the curate of euery parish and 42. 3. To discharge all inmates out of all houses that there be noe more 43. 4. To cause the streetes lanes and passages and all the shewers sinkes 44. 1. That speciall noatis be taken of such houses infected as sell 45. 2. That euery counstable within his precinct haue at all tymes in 46. 3. That noe person dwelling in a house infected bee suffered to goe 47. 4. That they suffer not any deade corps dying of the plague to be 48. 5. To appoynt two honest and discreete matrons within euery parish who 49. 6. That order be taken for killing of dogs that run from house to 50. 2. The restraining of the building of small tenements and turning 51. 4. The increase of buildings about the Charterhouse, Mile End Fields; 52. 5. The pestering of exempt places with strangers and foreign 53. 8. The killing of cattle within or near the city. 54. 1588. In 1585 houses were shut up[685]; in 1586 a case at Southwell was 55. 1. First to command that no stinking doonghills be suffered neere the 56. 2. Every evening and morning in the hot weather to cause colde water 57. 3. And whereas the infection is entred, there to cause fires to be 58. 4. Suffer not any dogs, cattes, or pigs to run about the streets, for 59. 5. Command that the excrements and filthy things which are voided from 60. 6. That no Chirurgions, or barbers, which use to let blood, do cast 61. 7. That no vautes or previes be then emptied, for it is a most 62. 8. That all Inholders do every day make clean their stables, and cause 63. 9. To command that no hemp or flax be kept in water neere the Cittie 64. 10. To have a speciall care that good and wholesome victuals and corne 65. 11. To command that all those which do visit and attend the sick, as 66. 1597. In August there were 23 deaths, and in September 42 deaths. The 67. 1588. It was said to have been brought to Wester Wemyss, in Fife, by a 68. CHAPTER VII. 69. 1494. Typhus-fever, or war-fever with famine-fever, now begins to be a 70. CHAPTER VIII. 71. CHAPTER IX. 72. introduction of a third term, _punctilli_, which Gruner, however, takes to 73. 1538. They may be farther helped to a conclusion by the following curious 74. CHAPTER X. 75. 10. In the second place, no deaths are included from the out-parishes 76. 1624. The letters of the time enable us to see what it was that disturbed 77. CHAPTER XI. 78. 12. On December 7, Mr Yorke, captain of the ‘Hope,’ died of sickness, on 79. 1614. In 1617 he published his ‘Surgion’s Mate,’ “chiefly for the benefit 80. 4. The comforting and corroborating the parts late diseased. 81. CHAPTER XII. 82. 1625. His account of the burials by the cart-load in plague-pits is also 83. 1636. An importation from abroad had been alleged as early as the great 84. 1665. Its two great predecessors (not reckoning the smaller plague of 85. 1662. These fractions have been added in the table, so as to make 1603 86. 1666. There was also a sharp epidemic in Cambridge and in the country 87. introduction of inferior bread, 224 _note_ 88. Introduction, p. lxxvi. 89. 110. Aelred, the chief collector of the miraculous cures by Edward the 90. 220. The late Rev. S. S. Lewis, fellow and librarian of the College, who 91. 449. He says also: “The school doors were shut, colleges and halls 92. Introduction, p. 11. 93. 4585. (_Hist. MSS. Commission_, V. 444.) 94. 1878. _Med. Times and Gaz._ I. 1878, p. 597. 95. 1873. (Transact. Camb. Antiq. Soc. 8vo. series, vol. XIV.) 96. 1589. New ed. 1596, p. 272. 97. 1580. Brassavolus, writing _de morbo Gallico_, and illustrating the fact 98. 29. Stow puts the mortality under the year 1513. 99. Chapter VIII. London, 1578). 100. 198. Mr Rendle, in one place, seems to imply disapproval of this mode of 101. 1525. The same kind of misdating occurs among the printed letters of 102. 260. Brusselle, 1712. 103. 171. Buried in the parish of Stepney from the 25th of March to the 20th of 104. Book II. p. 36.

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