There is not enough left of the introduction to these old manuscript abstracts of weekly births and deaths to show how many parishes they relate to, or what is the proportion for each division of the capital. But, as the earlier series of bills of mortality from 1563 to 1566 included the City, the Liberties and the out-parishes, it is probable that the series from 1578 to 1582 had done the same. The crowding of the Liberties with a poor class of tenements, and the extension of the out-parishes, are otherwise known from the preamble to the proclamation of 1580, which prohibited all building on new sites within three miles of the City wall. The next figures are for the years 1593, 1594, and 1595, which show a population increased to about 152,000.
From the figures of the plague-year, 1593, it appears that the mortality within the walls, both from plague and from ordinary causes, had now become the smaller half, or somewhat less than that “without the walls and in the Liberties,”—a phrase which is used loosely, even in some official bills, for both Liberties and suburbs. In 1604 we have the exact proportions of deaths in the City, in the Liberties and in the out-parishes respectively:
| 96 parishes within walls | 16 parishes in Liberties | 8 parishes out of the Freedom | Total | |
| All deaths | 1798 | 2465 | 956 | 5219 |
| Plague deaths | 280 | 368 | 248 | 896 |
| Christenings | — | — | — | 5458 |
The sixteen parishes of the Liberties are now decidedly ahead of the ninety-six old City parishes, while the eight out-parishes have some 18 per cent. of the whole mortality. The population is best reckoned from the 6504 baptisms of the year after, 1605, by which time the disturbance of the enormous mortality in 1603 had ceased to be felt; at a birth-rate of 29 per 1000, the population would be some 224,275. The proportions in 1605, from the bills of mortality for the year, are 33·8 per cent. in the City, 50 per cent. in the Liberties, and 16·2 per cent. in the out-parishes; so that the City would have contained in that year about 76,000, the Liberties about 114,000, and the out-parishes about 37,000. To those numbers we should have to add some 20,000 or 30,000 for Westminster, Stepney, Lambeth, Newington, etc.
According to Graunt’s contemporary estimate for 1662, the population had grown to 460,000, or to rather more than double that of 1605; and whereas the proportion in 1605 was two-sixths in the City, three-sixths in the Liberties and one-sixth in the out-parishes, he makes it in 1662 to have been one-fifth in the City, three-fifths in the Liberties (including Southwark) and the out-parishes nearest to the Bars, and one-fifth in the out-parishes of Stepney, Redriff, Newington, Lambeth, Islington and Hackney, with the city of Westminster. Thus, whereas in 1535 the City had two-thirds of the whole estimated population, in 1662 it had one-fifth; but with its one-fifth in 1662 it was twice as crowded as with its two-thirds in 1535, the comparatively open appearance given to it by gardens in various localities, as on Tower Hill, having entirely gone.
As early as the plague of 1563, the Liberties were observed to be first infected, and to retain the infection longest; that is alleged of St Sepulchre’s parish by Dr John Jones, from personal knowledge. The history of the plague of 1593 is imperfectly known; but it is clear from Stow’s summation of the deaths during the year, that more died of plague in the Liberties and suburbs than in the City. Of the next plague, that of 1603, we know that it did begin in the Liberties and was prevalent in those skirts of the City for some time before it entered the gates. “Death,” says The Wonderfull Yeare, “had pitcht his tents in the sinfully polluted suburbs ... the skirts of London were pitifully pared off by little and little; which they within the gates perceiving,” etc. Then the plague, represented as an invading force, “entered within the walls and marched through Cheapside,” the wealthier inhabitants having escaped meanwhile.
The London Plague of 1603.
The most useful document for the London plague of 1603 is a printed Bill of Mortality which is in the Guildhall Library. The bill, which is in the form of a broadside, is for the week 13-20 October, and purports to be a true copy, according to the report made to the king by the Company of Parish Clerks, and printed by John Winder, printer to the honourable City of London[920]. It is necessary to be thus particular, because the clerk of the Company of Parish Clerks in the end of 1665 (between the Plague and the Fire) published an account of all the statistics of former plagues preserved in his office, and emphatically denied that the Parish Clerks gave in an accompt for the year 1603; they did not resume their series after 1595, he says, until 29th December, 1603. But the clerk was mistaken, as even the most prim of officials will sometimes be. The printed bill which has come down to us gives the usual weekly return of deaths from all causes in one column and those from plague in another, for each of the 96 parishes within their walls, each of the 16 parishes in the Liberties and each of 8 out-parishes. On the right hand margin it gives also a summary statement of the deaths in “the first great plague in our memory” that of 1563, which is the same as in Stow’s Annales, and of the deaths in the next great plague, that of 1593, which differs considerably from Stow’s. It then goes on to give the sum of the figures of the year 1603 from 17th December, 1602, and carries the deaths per week from 21st July down to date, the 20th of October, adding some information for the parishes which kept separate bills, namely, Westminster, the Savoy, Stepney, Newington Butts, Islington, Lambeth and Hackney. This extant weekly bill was probably one of a series; for Graunt, in his book of 1662, cites various figures of weekly baptisms throughout the year 1603 which would appear to have been taken from the bills for the respective weeks. But the returns had not been made regularly from all the parishes within the Bills from the beginning of the year 1603. The reason why the weekly figures are not recapitulated farther back than the week ending July 21, is that the outparishes had not sent in their returns until that week. From another source, we know the figures for the City and Liberties from March 10 to July 14, and from the same source we obtain the totals for all parishes within the Bills from October 19 to the end of the year. By putting these figures into one table, we may represent the mortality of 1603, not indeed completely, as follows:
Weekly Mortalities in London during the plague of 1603.
| Week ending | City and Liberties. | Out parishes. | Totals. | ||||
| All causes. | Plague. | All causes. | Plague. | All causes. | Plague. | ||
| March | 17 | 108 | 3 | ||||
| 24 | 60 | 2 | |||||
| 31 | 78 | 6 | |||||
| April | 7 | 66 | 4 | ||||
| 14 | 79 | 4 | |||||
| 21 | 98 | 8 | |||||
| 28 | 109 | 10 | |||||
| May | 5 | 90 | 11 | ||||
| 12 | 112 | 18 | |||||
| 19 | 122 | 22 | |||||
| 26 | 112 | 30 | |||||
| June | 2 | 114 | 30 | ||||
| 9 | 134 | 43 | |||||
| 15 | 144 | 59 | |||||
| 23 | 182 | 72 | |||||
| 30 | 267 | 158 | |||||
| July | 7 | 445 | 263 | ||||
| 14 | 612 | 424 | |||||
| 21 | 867 | 646 | 319 | 271 | 1186 | 917 | |
| 28 | 1312 | 1025 | 398 | 354 | 1710 | 1379 | |
| Aug. | 4 | 1700 | 1439 | 537 | 464 | 2237 | 1901 |
| 11 | 1655 | 1372 | 410 | 361 | 2065 | 1733 | |
| 18 | 2486 | 2199 | 568 | 514 | 3054 | 2713 | |
| 25 | 2343 | 2091 | 510 | 448 | 2853 | 2539 | |
| Sept. | 1 | 2798 | 2495 | 587 | 542 | 3385 | 3037 |
| 8 | 2583 | 2283 | 495 | 441 | 3078 | 2724 | |
| 15 | 2676 | 2411 | 433 | 407 | 3109 | 2818 | |
| 22 | 2080 | 1851 | 376 | 344 | 2456 | 2195 | |
| 29 | 1666 | 1478 | 295 | 254 | 1961 | 1732 | |
| Oct. | 6 | 1528 | 1367 | 306 | 274 | 1834 | 1641 |
| 13 | 1109 | 962 | 203 | 184 | 1312 | 1146 | |
| 20 | 647 | 546 | 119 | 96 | 766 | 642 | |
| 27 | 625 | 508 | |||||
| Nov. | 3 | 737 | 594 | ||||
| 10 | 545 | 442 | |||||
| 17 | 384 | 257 | |||||
| 24 | 198 | 105 | |||||
| Dec. | 1 | 223 | 102 | ||||
| 8 | 163 | 55 | |||||
| 15 | 200 | 96 | |||||
| 22 | 168 | 74 | |||||