Plague in the Provinces in 1603 and following years.
Returning now to 1603, to follow the infection into towns and villages in the provinces, we find first that the plague had been active in some provincial parts of England for several months before it broke out severely in London in 1603. At Chester the great epidemic, referred to in the sequel, began in September, 1602. At Stamford, an epidemic which eventually carried off nearly 600 is heard of first on December 2, 1602, when the corporation resolved to build a “cabbin” for the plague-stricken, and again in January, 1603, when a fourth part of a fifteenth was levied for their relief and maintenance[943].
At Oxford, which was one of the towns earliest and most severely smitten, after London, the disease was first seen in July, 1603, and was supposed to have been spread abroad by the “lewd and dissolute behaviour of some base and unruly inhabitants.” In September the colleges broke up, having made a collection for the relief of the plague-stricken town’s people before leaving. The Michaelmas term was prorogued until December 5, but very few came to the congregation, the plague not ceasing until February. Anthony Wood says:
“The truth is, the times were very sad, and nothing but lamentation and bemoanings heard in the streets. Those that had wealth retired into the country, but those that were needy were, if not taken away by death, almost starved, and so consequently ready to mutiny against their superiors for relief.” All the gates of colleges and halls were constantly kept shut day and night, a few persons being left in them to keep possession. The shops of the town were closed, none but the attendants on the sick or the collectors for them were to be seen stirring abroad, the churches were seldom or never open for divine service.
The plague having ceased in February most of the scholars came back, and in April the infection broke out again, but was prevented from spreading. The court was at Oxford in 1604, and plague broke out after it left, the infected being sent, as before, to the house in Portmead and to the cabins. Among the deaths was that of the Principal of Hart Hall, apparently in August. It broke out once more in March, 1605, but did not spread, whether owing to the measures that were taken or to natural causes may remain doubtful[944]. From that date Oxford had a twenty years’ immunity, until 1625. The Cambridge annals are less full, partly, perhaps, because none of the colleges kept a register on the plan of that of Merton College; but it appears from a letter assigned to 1608 that the Visitor of King’s College had been unable to come to the college to exercise his much-needed authority, “in regard of the infection[945].”
The severity of plague in 1603 among the provincial towns and country parishes is known accurately for only a few of them. From a considerable number more there is evidence of outbreaks of one degree or another. Thus at Canterbury, the accounts of the corporation contain entries of sums paid for watching shut-up houses, for carrying out the dead, and the like, during twenty-four weeks in 1603-4[946]. At Exeter, a pest-house had to be provided, and the fairs were not kept[947]. Similar indications of plague come from Winchester[948], Colchester[949], Ipswich[950], Norwich[951], Boston[952], and Newcastle[953]. The register of a parish in Derbyshire (Brimington) contains plague-deaths in the end of 1602[954].
For Chester there are full particulars of a great plague. It began in September, 1602, in a glover’s house in St John’s Lane, where 7 died, and kept increasing until the weekly deaths reached 60. In 1603 there died of the plague 650, and of other diseases 61. In 1604 the plague-deaths were 986, of which 55 were in one week. From October 14, 1604, to March 20, 1605, 812 died, and about 100 more until the 9th January, 1606, when the infection ceased for a time. Cabins outside the city were erected for the plague-stricken. In some houses, especially of sailors, five or six of the same family died in the course of two or three weeks[955].
It appears to have been in Nantwich and Northwych in one or more of the years 1603-1605, a rate for relief of the poor in them having been ordered on June 22, 1605. Plague-deaths occur in the registers of Macclesfield and Congleton in 1603. At Stockport 51 were buried of plague from October 9, 1605, to August 14, 1606, most of them in the latter year[956]. Straggling epidemics are also reported from Northamptonshire—31 burials from plague at Merston Trussell in 1604, and 16 at Eydon in 1605[957].
One of the severest epidemics of the period occurred at York in 1604. The markets were closed, the courts adjourned to Ripon and Durham, and the Minster and Minster-yard closely shut up. The infected were housed in booths on Hobmoor and Horsefair. The number of those who died is put down at 3512[958]. Durham also had a visitation in St Giles’s parish, but a minor one[959].
At Shrewsbury, however, the plague of 1604 was on the same disastrous scale as at Chester and York, the deaths in the five parishes from June 2, 1604, to April 6, 1605, having been 667. On October 11, 1604, a proclamation was issued against buying or receiving apparel, bedding, etc., as it was suspected that plague spread greatly in the town by such means[960]. A weekly tax was levied upon the inhabitants of Manchester, sometime previous to 1606, for the relief of the poor infected, or suspected of being infected, with the plague[961]. It was in Nottingham in 1604, and in at least one of the parishes in the county (Holme Pierrepont)[962].
There are few parts of England from which evidence of plague does not come in the years immediately following the great plague in London in 1603. To those already mentioned we have to add Cranborne, in Dorset, where 71 died of plague (in a total of 91) from June to December, 1604, six deaths having occurred in the family first infected and eight in another[963]. The parish register of Monkleigh in North Devon has the words “cessat pestis” opposite the entry of a burial on March 30, 1605[964]. In 1606 Peterborough was visited, the infection lasting “until the September following[965].” In 1606 Eton also was “visited,” as appears from payments made[966].
In the years 1606-1610, as we have seen, the plague in London occurred as a regular product of the summer and autumn seasons. The outbreak in 1608 has left several traces in the state letters[967]. On September 12, Lord Chancellor Ellesmere writes from Ashridge (Berkhamstead) to the Secretary of State that he will remain away until he is fully sure of his London house being clear of the infection. On September 20 the City ditch was being cleaned out, and Parliament was put off until February. On November 26 a letter from the court at Newmarket states that the king is angry that my Lord Chamberlain has not sent him the bill of sickness. In 1609 there were 13 plague-deaths in Enfield parish, and in 1610 some suspicious cases near Theobalds.
In the provinces there is no record of plague again until 1608: at Chester, in that year, 14 died of it “at the Talbot[968].” In 1609 the infection was at work in a number of provincial centres. On June 1 a letter from Rochester reports it prevalent in Kent, impeding the work of the Commissioners for the Aid. On June 15 the Commissioners at Hereford request farther time on account of the plague. On August 22 the king’s tenants of Long Bennington, near Grantham, are brought to great poverty by the plague[969]. These accounts relate to the counties of Hereford, Lincoln and Kent, and with the last may be taken the brief reference to plague at Sandwich[970]. Other counties affected in 1609, perhaps only at a few spots, are Derbyshire, Norfolk, Northumberland, and Leicestershire. In the first, there died at Chesterfield a few persons of the plague from March 18 until May; at Belper, 51 between May 1 and September 30; and at Holmesfield, the curate on March 12[971]. At Norwich the outbreak of 1609 was slight compared with other experiences of that city[972]. Its existence at Newcastle the same year is known only from the register of St Nicholas parish[973].
The plague in Loughborough was one of the severer kind. The first case of it appears to have been on the 24th August, 1609, in a woman who had given birth to a child on the 19th. The last plague entry in the parish register is on February 19, 1611; so that the epidemic went on for about eighteen months. During that time the whole mortality was 452, of which by far the most were plague-burials. Within a mile of Loughborough is a spot of ground, long after known as the Cabbin Lees, whereon many of the inhabitants “prudently built themselves huts and encamped to avoid the infection[974].”
In Leicester there was a slight amount of plague in 1607, and it reappeared in 1608 (payments on account of it in the former year, and an item of “30 hurdells used at the visited houses” in the accounts of 1608). A more severe outbreak occurred in 1610 and 1611, during and after the great plague at Loughborough. The streets lying towards the Castle were exempt; a pest-house was built in Belgrave Gate; the burials for 1610 were 82 in St Martin’s parish alone (more than half being from plague), and in 1611 the same parish had 128 burials[975].
In 1610 the infection was at work in one or more villages of the county of Durham; 78 deaths “of the pestilence” occur in the register of Lamesley parish, and the same year was probably one of the numerous plague seasons down to 1647 in Whickham parish, where it is said that the people, perhaps the plague-stricken, lived in huts upon Whickham Fell[976]. At Chester in 1610 “many died of the plague[977]”; and at Evesham there was a visitation which caused the wealthier inhabitants to leave the town and the authorities to effect a much-needed improvement in the cleanliness of the streets (swine found at large to be impounded, stones, timber, dunghills and carrion to be removed from the streets, and the paving in front of each house to be repaired and cleansed once a week)[978].
Between 1610 and 1625, which was an almost absolutely clear interval for London, there are few accounts of plague from the provinces. In 1611, moneys were levied for “the visited” at Sherborne[979], and there was a local rate for the same class at Canterbury in 1614-15[980]. Accounts of the same kind for Coventry probably belong to the year 1613[981]. Then, as we come near the next great plague-period, which began with the new reign in 1625, we find an entry of 26 plague-deaths at Banbury in 1623, “recorded in a part of the original register which has not been transcribed into the parchment copy[982]:” if the date be correct, Banbury was the first town to break the somewhat prolonged truce with the plague, which became broken all over the country in 1625. There appears also to have been distress in Grantham from sickness of some kind in 1623; in September of that year the corporation of Stamford made a collection “in this dangerous time of visitation,” and sent £10 of it to Grantham, the rest to go “to London or some other town as occasion offered.” But the years 1623 and 1624 were so much afflicted with fevers that the “dangerous time of visitation” may not have meant plague.