Transcription
In 1665, a severe and major outbreak of the bubonic plague hit England. It was the last major epidemic to occur in the country, and specifically, it hit London with great severity. It's estimated that the Great Plague of London killed around a hundred thousand people, which was a quarter of London's population, and it lasted around 18 months.
Despite the outbreak being a lot smaller than the Black Death that hit in 1348, it still brought havoc and death onto the streets of London. Shouts of "Bring out your dead!" were heard regularly, with spades being put into the mud in the earth to dig huge plague pits to bury the dead with very little care. Today, these plague pits can still be found across the capital, and every now and then, when work occurs either to architecture or to the transport infrastructure, such as a London Underground, work is paused as a work disrupts a plague pit.
However, we recently have just been in the midst of a terrible pandemic that in the UK has killed a similar number of people. But are there any lessons that we can learn from the Great Plague of 1665? Join us today as we look at the Great Plague of London. And remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
The plague sporadically appeared in many European cities throughout the 17th century, and London was not exempt from this. In the year 1603, for example, around 30,000 people were killed because of the plague, and 35,000 were killed in 1625. However, the Great Plague was much more severe.
At the time, people still believed in supernatural causes of illness, and many believed that bouts of illness and disease were sent by God as a punishment for sinning. With previous epidemics, it was common to see monks self-flagellating publicly in the streets to apologize for their sins, and also people believed sinning was the cause of God's outrage, and for punishment, he sent great pestilence upon earth. People also believed that astrological anomalies, such as the alignment of planets, could also cause disease. In 1664, the people of London witnessed a bright comet flying across the sky, and for this, they believed something sinister was on the horizon.
At the time, the city was still surrounded by a wall, and there were a number of gates, with the River Thames crossable using London Bridge. The conditions in the city were disgusting, and in the poorer areas, there were hugely overcrowded some housing with poor sanitation and hygiene. And in the city, there was great filth, overflowing open drains, and animal waste was everywhere. Rubbish lined the streets, and Londoners threw their human waste onto the streets too, to the point where the cobbled streets became incredibly slippy, and the streets were muddy. And in the summer, were covered in rats and flies.
The worst of the mess was taken out of the city by rakers, who were employed to remove the waste. However, the smell was horrific, and people were seen wearing something that covered their mouths and noses. One such belief about illness was it was caused and linked to bad air and smells, and this was known as a miasma theory, and people did consider that bad smells caused ill health. This later became developed as time went on.
By the year 1665, the city of London had been surrounded by a number of liberties, areas inside the city walls and outside. They were granted the right to govern themselves. Famously, one of these liberties on the south bank of the River Thames, near to London Bridge, was known for its seeded behaviour, screw houses, and debauchery. This area being called the Liberty of the Clink. As all of the city's resources were brought in by bargain road, there was a huge overcrowding problem in certain spaces, and bottlenecks often occurred in crossing places, such as gates near to the city walls.
Imagine walking and waiting down a busy street with overhanging houses, people throwing their waste out onto the streets, the rain beating down, waiting behind horses and carts, with also black smoke bellowing out of houses that were creating certain goods. Shanty towns had also been made, and attempts by the government to limit these had stopped. So all of these conditions helped for disease and illness to spread, and with this, the city of London was the perfect place for a bout of a pandemic to hit and cause great problems.
Now, people did not know what caused specifically the bubonic plague. Many believed in the false causes and even considered things such as bizarre behaviour of animals or the weather. Later, in the late 19th centuries, it was discovered that the bacteria *Yersinia pestis* caused a plague, and it was transmitted by fleas living on rats. And in 2016, this was confirmed by DNA to have been the cause of the pandemic. So cleanliness and lice living on humans did play an important part in the causing of the spread in London.
The disease itself was incredibly horrific. The symptoms of the bubonic plague included delirium, vomiting, muscle cramps, throwing up blood, fever, and these awful and painful swellings that emerged on the body. These were known as buboes, which became filled with a dark black pus, which occurred in the neck, arm, and groin. Sometimes it was so large that the pus would pop, and once you had the plague, you usually died as well within a week of the first symptoms.
It's thought that the outbreak of the Great Plague emerged from the Netherlands, and it came to England from Dutch trading ships bringing cotton from Amsterdam, which previously had suffered from a devastating outbreak killing fifty thousand people two years before. The area first hit was the docks around the outskirts of London, and St. Giles. Two suspicious deaths were recorded as early as 1664 in St. Giles, and the plague could have arrived a year prior.
In April 1665, the death rate in the area of St. John's had risen significantly, and the Privy Council then began to bring in household quarantine. This forced any suspected case of the plague to be locked up in houses if it was confirmed, but the public hated this, and even a riot occurred releasing sufferers of the Great Plague. Pest houses were built in which those who were suffering with the disease were locked away in isolation in hospitals, away from others, with people who were also suffering.
As the warmer weather came in in the summer, did the disease begin to spread much quicker? The Lord Mayor ordered Londoners to clean up the streets near to their houses, and there was a great fear in the city at the time. Many left the city, including the rich, and King Charles II, along with his court and the royal family, also left. They left to avoid the plague, leaving the city to the governing of the local mayor and the councils. Businesses were shut, and merchants left, meaning supplies also became rather short.
The poor had very little hope, as they had to produce a certificate of good health before being allowed to leave the city. And those living in the areas outside London began to rage at the fort of poorer people arriving in their areas. These refugees were often then forced out and forced to go back, and many refused to do so and had to scavenge food and whatever they could find, with hundreds more dying of starvation.
During the height of the pandemic, in the last week of July 1665, there had been around 3,000 deaths. The burial grounds began to become full, and because of this, pits were dug to throw the dead bodies in. Dead carts would travel through the streets shouting, "Bringing out your dead!" taking away the dead bodies. It got to the point where there were simply too many victims and too few carts to carry the bodies away, and because of this, the pits could not be dug quick enough, leaving mounds of decaying bodies in the streets.
Plague pits often held hundreds and even thousands of corpses, and this also led to an increase in the rat population and those animals carrying the fleas and subsequent harmful bacteria. There was even a couple of cats and dogs, thinking these animals carried the plague, and fires were lit in the streets to try and drive out the bad air. Interestingly, people were encouraged to smoke and chew tobacco, as in the city, no tobacconists died from the plague.
It did not discriminate, though. The rich were killed, as were the poor. Doctors were also killed, but plague doctors were sometimes found across the city. These were men who practiced bloodletting and using other remedies, such as leeches, to rebalance the four humours, and they are famously known today for their costumes. Their mask with a huge bird-like beak often was filled with herbs and flowers to promote good air, with the costumes aimed at keeping away the disease.
Food sources dried up inside of the city, and at the peak of the epidemic, between two thousand and seven thousand people were being killed each week. It was said of the plague, "It was very dismal to behold the red crosses and reading great letters, 'Lord have mercy upon us,' on the doors. It would be endless to speak of what we've seen and heard, and swimming their frenzy, rising out of their beds and leaping about their rooms, others crying and roaring at the windows. Scarcely a day passed that I should hear of another death of someone I knew."
As winter arrived in 1665, the death toll in London began to slow, and the King returned in February 1666. Others also arrived, and Parliament eventually recovered in September 1666, with new business and trade emerging in the aftermath. The Great Plague of London was the last major outbreak of the bubonic plague in Britain, and with the population at the time being around five million, the fact that the Great Plague killed around a hundred thousand people points to around two percent of England's population being killed.
Other diseases did not help this, however. Some improvements did emerge after streets were widened with payments being made, and open sewers were also banned. However, in 1666, more bad luck for the city of London would emerge with the Great Fire of London. A greater sense of community did emerge, however, this was tested during the Great Fire.
Comparisons can be drawn with how people dealt with the Great Plague of London almost 400 years ago and how people have dealt with the modern-day pandemic. Quarantine was used to isolate cases to prevent the spread. Overcrowded areas were avoided to prevent spreading occurring. Some people did wear face coverings to stop bad air and smells coming into the human body. Also, what is interesting is the attitude of Londoners, with many resenting being locked in their homes, which is how lots of people around the world have felt recently.
Also, one of the everlasting images of the modern-day pandemic is how people were buried in huge sites, as burial grounds in the past few years had been full up. And for this, it's clear that possibly the use of plague pits could have inspired this. What is also comparable is the desperation and hopelessness that many people had about them, with many people feeling alone and confused by what was going on. Thankfully, however, people took great comfort in having their dogs and cats during lockdown.
And like during the Great Plague, when they were called the Great Plague's legacy is still found today. And if you do visit London in the future, do consider that deep beneath your feet could be thousands of bodies and the bacteria of a disease that caused so much havoc, death, and panic hundreds of years before. Once again, thanks for watching. To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe, and once again, thank you so much for watching.