Whilst the south thus suffered, the north could offer no asylum. In York and Hull the pestilence was severely felt. It ravaged Lancashire; one parish register gives us the dates and number of deaths. In Ulverstone parish there were five buried on the 17th, two on the 18th, four on the 19th, eleven on the 20th, six on the 21st, six on the 22nd, two on the 23rd, and three on the 24th of August. On the 7th of that month we find it in the neighbourhood of Leeds. Whitaker quotes that “on the 7th of August, 1551, the sweating sickness was so vehement in Liversage, that Sir John Neville was departed from Liversage Hall to his house at Hunslet, for fear thereof. It speedily despatched such as were infected; for one William Rayner, the same day he died, had been abroad with his hawk.” The disease did not disappear till the end of September. Several of the most distinguished men of the age fell its victims, as we learn in a letter from Roger Ascham to Sir William Cecil. In Catholic countries the sad fate of England was held a judgment on her departure from the Romish faith. At home it roused that spirit of piety and benevolence, which is never wanting in the Anglo-Saxon race in the time of suffering and distress. The religious fervour of the period burned higher in the gale; and, no doubt, amid the terrors of the sweating sickness, many acquired that trust in Providence and fearlessness of death, which were in the ensuing religious troubles to be so severely tried. On the other hand, amongst the masses, as Grafton drily observes, “As the disease ceased, so the devotion quickly decayed.” From this time the Sudor Britannicus has never reappeared in its epidemic form. In one or two instances, we have seen isolated notices of death occurring from sweating sickness. But we have no means of judging the nature of the disease referred to under that name, or of determining the credibility of the statement. One thing is certain: no large district of our island has ever been ravaged by its indigenous pestilence, since the memorable year in which the destroying angel alighted on the sedgy banks of the gentle Severn. FOOTNOTES: [A] HECKER’S Epidemics of the Middle Ages. Translated by B. G. BABINGTON, M.D. Sydenham Society Edition. London: 1844. JOHN CAIUS, M.D. A Boke or Counseill against the Sweat. London: 1552. JOHN CAIUS. De Ephemerâ Britannicâ. Reprint. London: 1721. State Papers published by Royal Commission. 1830. HALL. Vnion of the two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke. 1548. GRAFTON’S Chronicle. 1569. STOW’S Chronicle, by Howes. London: 1611. FABIAN’S Chronicle. London: 1559. HOLLINSHED’S Chronicle. London: 1587. Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London. Edited by J. G. NICHOLS. Camden Society. 1852. Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen of London. Edited by J. G. NICHOLS. Camden Society. 1848. OWEN and BLAKEWAY’S History of Shrewsbury. London: 1825. Collection of English Topographical Histories. Various.