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Here is still greate feares of the plague
It’s May 1665 and those who can afford to are starting to pack up their worldly goods and leave London
In 1665 a family member or neighbour was duty bound to
report a death to the sexton of their parish church. He’d
arrange for the bells to be rung and the searchers to attend
the property to decide on the cause of death, which would
then be recorded in the Bills of Mortality. Clutching a
white wand, part staff of office and part warning to steer
clear, and often clutching a posy of flowers or a bottle of
vinegar the searchers were easily bribed. Paid half a groat
for each corpse examined, just tuppence, a shilling or two
would be plenty enough to bribe these mostly elderly poor
women into reporting the death as anything but the plague.
For the plague meant quarantine behind the red cross and
almost certain death for the entire household. Thus it is
that in May 1665 fewer than 50 deaths were attributed to
Plague in the Bills of Mortality.
But Londoners knew that death was gaining a foothold in
the capital. As news spread in whispers at the water pumps
and in the taverns and coffee houses May began much as
usual. The young people went
a-maying in the fields
and
the theatres, bear pits and brothels on the South Bank still
drew large crowds. Many who had come to London to
make their fortune had no permanent home, sleeping in
flimsy shacks in the shanty-towns that surrounded the
wooden buildings of Westminster, the city and its Liberties
or simply laying down to sleep in the fields themselves.
Even if you had a home and stayed in it you couldn’t avoid
contact with the outside world – it came to you. The streets
positively hummed with itinerant traders, fine Woolwich
sand to scour your pots and pans, lavender to sweeten your
cupboards and deter the moth. Also came the rag-and-bone
man and purveyors of pies, milk and quack remedies. The
latter were popular in an age when doctors were simply
the most expensive end of the quack spectrum. When the
Queen had fallen gravely ill in 1663 the most expensive
doctors in the Kingdom attended her – to shave her head
and tie pigeons to the soles of her feet.
As the plague made its from the rookeries of St Giles it
crept along Holborn and down Chancery Lane to the
parish of St Clement Danes edging towards the wealthy
houses on the Strand King Charles set up a Committee
headed by the Duke of Albemarle. No more dawdling
along to the sexton as and when. Now all deaths must be
reported within two hours. Searchers were banned from
taking any other form of employment and watchmen were
enrolled to guard houses under quarantine. Attempts were
made to discourage families from dressing their dead or
even from attending funerals but just like in Ebola hit
Africa Londoners were reluctant to abandon their customs
and traditions. In the City the Lord Mayor renewed
standing orders for each family to clean the street in front
of their house. The city fathers also decreed that no hogs,
dogs, cats, tame pigs nor conies could be kept in the city.
And with the cats out the way the rats had free run!
