Whether the earthquake were its forerunner or not, a fearful calamity did certainly follow. On the 7th of July the sweating sickness broke out in London. This terrible malady was almost peculiar to the sixteenth century. It was unknown before the Battle of Bosworth Field, in 1485, when it broke out in the ranks of the victorious army; and it has never been seen again since this, its last and most fatal epidemic, in 1551. It is said to have been of the character of rheumatic fever, but its virulence and rapidity were scarcely precedented. In some cases death ensued two hours only after the attack; and few fatal instances were prolonged to two days. On the tenth of July, the King was hurried away to Hampton Court, for one of his grooms and a gentleman of the chamber were already dead. The fury of the plague, for a veritable plague it was, began to abate in London on the 20th; and between the 7th and 20th died in the City alone, about nine hundred persons [Note 2]. Nor was the disease confined to London. It broke out at Cambridge--in term time--decimating the University. The Duchess of Suffolk, who was residing there to be near her sons, both of whom were then at Saint John's, hastily sent away her boys to Bugden, the Bishop of Lincoln's Palace. But the destroying angel followed. The young Duke and his brother reached Bugden on the afternoon of July 13; and at noon on the following day, the Duchess was childless. The suspense was dreadful to those who lived in and near London. Every day Isoult watched to see her children sicken--for children were the chief victims of the malady; and on the 15th, when Walter complained of his head, and shivered even in the July sun, she felt certain that the sword of the angel had reached to her. The revulsion of feeling, when Dr Thorpe pronounced the child's complaint to be only measles, was intense. The baby, Frances, also suffered lightly, but Kate declined to be ill of any thing, to the great relief of her mother. So the fearful danger passed over. No name in the Avery family was inscribed on the tablet of death given to the angel. John Avery was very indignant at the cant names given by the populace to the sweating sickness. "The new acquaintance"--"Stop-gallant"--"Stoop, knave, and know thy master"--so men termed it, jesting on the very brink of the grave. "Truly," said he, "'tis enough to provoke a heavier visitation at God's hand, when His holy ears do hear the light and unseemly manner wherein men have received this one." "Nor is the one of them true," replied Dr Thorpe. "This disorder is no new acquaintance, for we had it nigh all over one half of England in King Henry's days. I know I had in Bodmin eight sick therewith at one time." When this terror was passing away, an event happened which rejoiced the Papists, and sorely grieved the Gospellers.