The epidemic was at its height in the capital from the 9th to the 19th of July, and it lingered until the 30th. In this time, at the lowest computation, nearly a thousand people perished. The exact number is somewhat differently stated, Stow says 960 died, of whom 800 in the first week. Caius (English treatise) reports that 761 died from the 9th to the 16th, besides those on the 7th and 8th, of whom no register was kept, and 142 from the 16th to the 30th. Machyn, a citizen resident in London, says that 872 were certified by the chancellor to have perished from the 8th to the 19th; whilst, in a manuscript in the Harleian Collection, we are told that 938 persons were carried off between the 7th and 20th. These numbers render it probable that when Caius, in his Latin treatise, written some time after, speaks of 960 dying in one city, his statement refers to the metropolis. One testimony, however, places the mortality much higher. Christopher Froschover, in a letter, dated London, August the 12th, affirms that 2,000 had died in the city, and 200 at Cambridge. The short space of time occupied by the pestilence, with the awfully abrupt seizure, and speedy termination of the fatal cases, rendered the destruction so appalling. It was the “sudden death,” with battle and murder equally dreaded. Again the palace was attacked. A celebrated lawyer, Sir Thomas Speke, was seized there, and had only time to reach his house in Chancery Lane, before he breathed his last. There were some dancing in the Court at nine o’clock, who were dead at eleven, says a sermon of the period. There died in London, writes Machyn, “mony marchants and grett ryche men and women, and yonge men.” Howes, in his continuation of Stow, relates that “seven honest householders did sup together, and before eight of the clock the next morning six of them were dead.” The young king fled to Hampton Court, whence he addressed a letter to the bishops, inciting them to persuade the people to prayer, and to see God better served. There are several references to the malady in the preaching of Bradford and Hooper: the latter made it the subject of a pastoral charge and homily.