Facts are wanting to give a minute topographical or numerical account of its ravages. Baines says that it prevailed in Lancashire; but he furnishes no particulars. We can only infer from general testimony the universality and magnitude of the evil. Its disappearance may have been consummated by a violent storm of wind, which prevailed on the 1st of the following January. For twenty-one years from this date, we read no more in English annals of a return of the “fereful tyme of the sweate.”[B]
The kingdom was only recovering from the tremendous invasion of plague, which in 1499 carried off, it is said, in London alone 30,000 persons, and cessation from civil contention and foreign warfare promised increase and prosperity to her population, when, in the summer of 1506, the old enemy again started into existence. This epidemic appears generally to have been of a milder type, and deaths were in most places unfrequent. We know little as to its origin or spread. As in the close of the first epidemic, the lessened mortality was ascribed rather to the effects of treatment than to any temporary diminution in the virulence of the disorder. One record has come down to us, which is sufficient of itself to show that, under favouring circumstances, the “new acquaintance” of 1506 was capable of being developed in all its ancient severity. In the Annals of Chester (Harl. MSS. No. 2125), we are told that in 1506 there died in one day, of the sweating sickness, three score and eleven householders, of whom only four or five were women. Another account says, that in three days there died ninety-one householders, four only being widows. It matters not which is correct; either is sufficient to prove that no real change had occurred in the nature of the sweating sickness. It lingered until the autumn, and then disappeared. Lysons and Hemmingways make the outbreak at Chester to have occurred in 1507; but Pennant, more correctly, as it appears to us, follows the date of 1506, given in the Chester Annals.
Eleven years elapsed, the crafty Richmond slept the sleep of death in the “sumpteous and solempne chapell which he had caused to be buylded”, and his son reigned in his stead. Unexpectedly, in July 1517, the pestilence again raised its head. We believe that this sweat was the most fatal in its results of any of the series. The dismal scenes of the first epidemic were repeated. It “killed some within three hours”, say the chroniclers, “some within two hours, some merry at dinner and dead at supper.” “In some one town half the people died, in some other town the third part, the sweat was so fervent and the infection so great.”
We learn incidentally, from a letter written by the Cardinal du Bellay, who was ambassador from France to Henry VIII, and himself a sufferer in the next epidemic of 1528, that it was estimated that 10,000 persons died in ten or twelve days. The context warrants us in the supposition that reference is made here to the metropolis alone. Taking this as a mere approximation, we shall at once see, by comparing it with the ravages of other epidemics, how frightful the mortality whilst it lasted was. In 1854, the total number of deaths from cholera and diarrhœa in London, extending over a period of six months, with a population of 2,517,048, was 14,806. The epidemic was at its height during the first fourteen days of September, when 4,371 persons were carried off. The mortality in the epidemic of 1849 was somewhat greater, viz. 18,036, the period again extending over several months. Even in the great plague year, 1665, when 68,590 persons died in London, and the city was nearly abandoned, the mortality never rose higher than 7,165 in a week; this number being reached in the third week of September. The population of the metropolis in 1676, is estimated in Graunt’s Bills of Mortality at 384,000; consequently, in the year 1517, it must have fallen far short of 300,000. Making every allowance for exaggeration, supposing only one-half the number stated to have died in the time specified, the mortality for that time, taking into account the amount of population, must have been as great as in the worst irruption of bubo plague, and so appalling that, in the present day, we can form but a faint idea of it.
Rich and poor were equally victims. Rank claimed for its possessor no exemption; poverty was no shield. The deserted palace no longer echoed the sounds of mirth; the low wail of the mourner interrupted the silence of the streets. Henry VIII, a prince who, like Leviathan in the deep, seemed to consider the earth as merely formed to take his pastime therein, leaving the city, retreated with a few followers from place to place before the advancing waves of pestilence. His Court had been the seat of its triumphs. His private secretary, the learned Italian, Ammonius of Lucca, died a few hours after he had boasted to Sir Thomas More that by abstinence and regimen he had shielded himself and family. The Lord Grey of Wilton, the Lord Clinton, and many other of his knights, gentlemen, and officers, were no more. Michaelmas and Christmas passed without their usual festivities. No gathering of people was permitted, for fear of infection. Oxford and Cambridge, crowded with eager students, amongst whom were already germinating seeds which produced the Reformation, were again attacked, and the former was again deserted. The sweat continued until the middle of December; and its horrors were heightened by the supervention towards the winter of plague. In Chester the mortality from the combined diseases was so great, that grass grew a foot high at the town cross. England, again, with one remarkable exception, was alone the land of the shadow of death. The pestilence passed over to the town of Calais, at that period belonging to the British Crown. But here it is said to have attacked principally the English inhabitants; and we know that it not only did not spread through France, but (from a reliable source) that it did not even reach to Graveling.
It must have been during one of these earlier irruptions of the sweating disease, that a Latin prayer was composed, of which a copy has been preserved. It is addressed “ad beatum Henricum,” either Henry the Emperor, who with his wife Cunegunde, were saints of the Romish calendar, or Henry VI. of that name is intended, who was claimed as uncle by Henry VII., and who, his piety having nearly procured him canonization, was highly revered by the people. In it occurs the petition so characteristic of the period:—
“Non sudore,
Vel dolore,
Moriamur subito.”
The whole is to be found in the Gent. Mag. for 1786, p. 747.