Carlisle suffered much from the war for a series of years. In July, 1644, it was seized for the Royalists, and was besieged by Lesley in October, the siege lasting many months. It had a garrison of about 700, including some of the townsfolk armed. About the end of February, 1645, all the corn in the town was seized to be served out on short allowance; on June 5, “hempseed, dogs and rats were eaten.” The surrender was on June 25, and the place was held by a Scots garrison until December, 1646. It was again seized for the Royalists in April, 1648, was recaptured by Cromwell in October, and held by a strong garrison of 800 foot and a regiment of horse, besides dragoons to keep the borders. All Cumberland was in such a state of destitution that the Parliament ordered a collection for its relief; numbers of the poor are said to have died in the highways, and 30,000 families were in want of bread[1101].
Plague in Scotland during the Civil Wars.
Connecting with plagues in the north of England, there was a great prevalence of the infection in Scotland. After the storming of Newcastle by the Scots Covenanters in October, 1644, the plague appeared in Edinburgh, Kelso, Borrowstownness, Perth and other places. On April 1, 1645, Kelso was burned down, the fire having originated in a house that was being “clengit” or disinfected after plague in it. At Edinburgh the plague-stricken were housed in huts in the King’s park below Salisbury Crags. Collections were made for the relief of people in Leith impoverished by the plague. The epidemic in and around Perth is said to have given rise to the story of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, who fled from the plague-tainted ground and built themselves a bower by a burn side[1102]. At Glasgow the infection was severe in the end of 1646, and did not cease entirely until the autumn of 1648. There are numerous references to it in the letters of principal Baillie of Glasgow University, of which the following are the most important[1103].
On September 5, 1645, he writes that the pest has laid Leith and Edinburgh desolate, and rages in many more places: never such a pest seen in Scotland (in his time, perhaps). About January, 1646, he writes of “the crushing of our nation by pestilence and Montrose’s victories.” At the end of that year, the plague was in Glasgow: on January 26, 1647, during winter cold, “all that may are fled out of it.” On June 2, the plague had scattered the St Andrews’ students, the principal of St Leonard’s College was dead of it, and it was killing many in the north. The same summer, principal Baillie was shut up in the town of Kilwinning, cut off, with all the inhabitants, from communication with the outer world owing to a suspicion of plague in the place. Edinburgh and Leith, which had suffered earliest, were almost free in the autumn of 1647, but “Aberdeen, Brechin and other parts of the north are miserably wasted; the schools and colleges now in all Scotland, but Edinburgh, are scattered.” Glasgow had its worst experience of plague in the summer and autumn of 1648, which were wet seasons: on August 23, “our condition for the time is sad; the plague is also in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.... At this time I grieved for the state of Glasgow.... My brother’s son’s house was infected; my brother’s house enclosed many in danger; one night near a dozen died of the sickness.... The long great rains for many weeks did prognosticate famine; but these three days past there is also a great change of weather; the Lord continue it.” The infection which began at Glasgow in January, 1647, reached Aberdeen in April, having been carried, it was said, by a woman from Brechin. It was still raging at Aberdeen in September, and there were straggling cases as late as November of the following year (1648). The deaths from plague are put down at 1600, besides 140 in the adjacent fishing villages of Futtie and Torrie on either side of the Dee mouth. This enormous mortality ensued despite the usual rigorous measures—the removal of the infected to huts on the Links and Woolmanhill, a cordon of soldiers to shut them in, a gibbet for the disobedient, and “clengers” for the infected houses[1104]. This disastrous epidemic of 1647-1648 is the last that is heard of plague in Scotland.
Plague in Chester &c. and in Ireland, 1647-1650.
The two remaining English plagues of those years were both in cities that had suffered much from plague before, and were in a constant state of turmoil during the war, namely Chester and Shrewsbury. Chester was held for the king, and surrendered to the Parliament on February 3, 1646, after a siege of twenty weeks, during the latter part of which there was famine within the walls. It was not until 1647 that plague broke out. From June 22 until April 20, 1648, the numbers that died of plague are stated in the MS. of Dr Cowper to have been 2099; all business was suspended, and cabins for the plague-stricken were built outside the town[1105].
The Shrewsbury plague of 1650, like that of Chester, is described as having been dreadful in its effects upon the town. It broke out during the occupation by the Parliament’s troops, on June 12, 1650, in a house in Frankwell, and continued until January, 1651. Only one parish, St Chad’s, appears to have kept account of the plague-deaths: in that register from June 12 to January 16, there are entered 277 burials, whereof of the plague 250, the highest monthly mortality (76) being in August, 1650. Of these 250 deaths, 123 took place in the pest-houses. A letter of August 21 says that 153 died in two months, and that there were near 3000 people in the town dependent upon common charity[1106]. On November 21, there were still 200 cases in the pest-houses, most of them being in the way to recover, as usually happened towards the end of an epidemic through the greater readiness of the buboes to suppurate.
From the small number of burials due to ordinary causes in the St Chad’s register, it would appear that many citizens had fled. The severity of incidence upon certain houses appears from the fact that five servants in Mr Rowley’s house died of it; and that 15 out of 21 burials in St Julian’s parish came from four families[1107]. These are incidents like those of the great plague of London in 1665, which is the next in time in the English annals after Shrewsbury’s visitation in 1650.
The plague in Ireland in 1649-50 was connected, directly and indirectly, with the military operations under Ireton and Cromwell. The previous year, 1648, had been one of famine: at the attack on Kildare by the rebels in the spring, both the English garrison in the town and the attacking Irish were half-starved, and there was a great mortality on both sides, as well as a murrain of cattle. On May 4, corn in all the rebel quarters is said to be at the incredible price of £8 the quarter, both men and cattle dying in large numbers[1108]. In 1649 the plague broke out in Kilkenny, obliging the supreme council of Confederate Catholics to remove to Ennis. Ireton, “thinking he ought not to meddle with what the Lord had so visibly taken into his hands, has declined taking Kilkenny into his own.” But Cromwell besieged it on March 23, 1650, by which time the garrison of 200 horse and 1,000 foot had been reduced to 300 men through the ravages of the plague, the inhabitants having also suffered heavily[1109].
The Royalist letters from the Hague speak of the plague in the summer of 1650 as disastrous in Ireland, particularly in Dublin[1110]. On August 5⁄15: “Lady Inchiquin came hither last night; those with her report that the plague will devour what the sword has not in Ireland.” On September 2⁄12: “All I hear out of Ireland is that the plague has made a horrid devastation there; 1100 in a week died in Dublin”—an improbable estimate[1111]. The ranks of the rebels were so thinned by the sword and pestilence that “not above 200 suffered by the hands of the executioner,” after trial at the high court of justice held in County Cork in 1651[1112]. The epidemic appears to have ceased in the autumn of 1650, when the Council of State, in a despatch to the Lord Deputy, take notice of the goodness of God in stopping the plague[1113].