6. That no Chirurgions, or barbers, which use to let blood, do cast the same into the streets or rivers.
7. That no vautes or previes be then emptied, for it is a most dangerous thing.
8. That all Inholders do every day make clean their stables, and cause the doong and filth therein to be carryed away out of the Cittie; for, by suffering it in their houses, as some do use to do, a whole week or fortnight, it doth so putrifie that when it is removed, there is such a stinking savour and unwholesome smell, as is able to infect the whole street where it is.
9. To command that no hemp or flax be kept in water neere the Cittie or towne, for that will cause a very dangerous and infectious savour.
10. To have a speciall care that good and wholesome victuals and corne be solde in the markets, and so to provide that no want thereof be in the Cittie, and for such as have not wherewithall to buy necessary food, that there to extend their charitable and goodly devotion; for there is nothing that will more encrease the plague than want and scarcity of necessary food.
11. To command that all those which do visit and attend the sick, as also all those which have the sickness on them, and do walk abroad: that they do carry something in their hands, thereby to be known from other people.
Lastly, if the infection be in but few places, there to keep all the people in their houses, all necessaries being brought to them. When the plague is staid, then to cause all the clothes, bedding, and other such things as were used about the sick to be burned, although at the charge of the rest of the inhabitants you buy them all new.”
The letters of the time give us a glimpse of this plague in London. On November 3, 1593, Richard Stapes writes to Dr Cæsar, judge of the Admiralty Court, residing at St Albans (doubtless to escape the infection): “My next door neighbour and tenant on Sunday last buried his servant of the plague, and since, on the other side of me, my son-in-law has buried his servant; but I cannot say his was the sickness because the visitors reported that the tokens did not appear on him as on the other[705].”
The epidemic of 1592-93 continued in London at a low level into the year 1594, when 421 persons died of the plague in the City and Liberties. Next year the plague-deaths had fallen to 29. Watford and Hertford, two of the most usual resorts of Londoners in a sickly season, were infected by plague from 1592 to 1594, many of the deaths being of refugees from the capital. At Watford there were 124 burials in the first eight months of 1594, a number much above the average, and many of them marked in the register as plague-deaths[706]. At Hertford plague-deaths appear in the registers of All Saints and St Andrew’s parishes in 1592 and 1594. But the greatest mortality at Hertford was in 1596; in St Andrew’s parish there were 13 burials in March, the average being one or two in the month; the mortality declined until July, in which month there were buried, among others, between the 12th and 26th, five children of one of the chief burgesses (mayor in 1603)[707]. These may or may not have been plague-deaths, the year 1596 having been unhealthy, as we shall see, with other types of sickness.
Meanwhile, in several provincial towns at a greater distance from the capital than the summer resorts in Hertfordshire, there was plague in the end of 1592, at the same time as in London, and in the following years. At Derby, “the great plague and mortality” began in All Saints parish and in St Alkmund’s, at Martinmas, 1592, and ended at Martinmas, 1593, stopping suddenly, “past all expectation of man, what time it was dispersed in every corner of this whole parish, not two houses together being free from it[708].” At Lichfield in 1593 and 1594 upwards of 1100 are said to have died of the plague[709]. At Leicester, on the 21st September, 1593, a contribution was levied for the plague-stricken[710]. At Shrewsbury in 1592-3 there was either plague itself or alarms of it[711]; in the parish of Bishop’s Castle there was the enormous mortality of 135 in July and August, 1593, and 182 burials for the year, the average being 25[712]. In the same years the infection was in Canterbury, as appears from entries of payments “to Goodman Ledes watchying at Anthony Howes dore ... when his house was first infected with the plague,” and, the year after, “to those ii pore folkes which were appointed to carry such to burial as died of the plague; and also to the woman that was appointed to sock them[713].” There are also various references to houses visited and to poor persons relieved. Nottingham and Lincoln are also mentioned as having been notoriously afflicted with plague in 1593[714].