The Great Plague. The Story of London\'s Most Deadly Year

Fleeing or Staying? • 85

torches of mounted guards at the four bridges of Oxford, keeping watch

against the entry of unwelcome Londoners.^18 Who could blame this self-

protective behavior? Fear and suspicion of Londoners gripped townspeople

in the heart of the interior. Along the coastline, ports from Bristol to New-

castle turned away ships from the capital.

Fig. 4 .Frontispiece of A Rod for Run-awayes, Gods Tokens of his feareful Judgements.
This woodcut from the Great Plague of 1625 features God’s Destroying Angel as an
arrow-wielding skeleton pursuing fleers from London who fall exhausted and die in
the fields on the left and are held back by armed country people on the right. The
caption warns of death to “both young and old, within this City, and the Suburbs, in
the Fields, and open Streets” and tells Londoners fated to die “to be ready when God
Almighty shall be pleased to call them.”The Wellcome Library, London