A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of PlagueCreighton, Charles
History
A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of Plague
Creighton, Charles
Epidemics -- Great Britain -- History
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].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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