88 • Confusionexclaimed as he looked out the tavern windows, “the coaches and wagons be-
ing all full of people going into the country.” Pepys lingered with the tapster’s
wife, spent time at his office, and went home for dinner and sleep.
But sleep he could not. His mother was balking at going back to the bor-
ing country. On the twenty-second he finally persuaded her to go, pointing
out that the sickness was worsening, Elizabeth was about to leave, and there
would be no female company left for Margaret. It was left to Elizabeth to see
that her mother-in-law did not change her mind again. But Margaret Pepys
put off her departure until the carriage was full of passengers and she had to
ride in a wagon hitched to the back of the coach.
Seven or eight houses were now infected near the Guildhall. It was ru-
mored that several aldermen had fled to the country. Ever the optimist,
Pepys stopped at Saint Paul’s churchyard to order some new books. Out in
Westminster he came across shut-up residences, some on King Street and
one “great house” right on the Piazza. At Whitehall he found the court “full
of wagons and people ready to go out of town.” He sought to quiet his nerves
but found his favorite west-end mistress, the newly married linen draper
Mrs. Betty Martin, gone from Westminster Hall to the country with her
husband. Pepys had to settle for idle chat with Mary at the Harp and Ball by
Charing Cross.^24
The city and suburbs suffered another demoralizing loss on July 6 , the day
after Elizabeth Pepys departed to Woolwich. King Charles sent last-minute
instructions to the mayor and aldermen to stay at their posts and then took a
boat upstream to Hampton Court with Queen Catherine and the duke and
duchess of York. The privy councilors followed, except for the duke of Albe-
marle, captain general and admiral of the kingdom, and his assistant, the earl
of Craven. They were entrusted with keeping an eye on the mansions of
royal Westminster and preventing disorder in the poorer suburbs. The lord
mayor, Sir John Lawrence, assumed full control of security for the merchant
community and sustenance for the poor throughout the city and its liberties
beyond the wall.
Twenty-three Londoners dead of the plague were buried in the city’s
churchyards during the king’s last week in his capital. Another 438 plague
corpses entered suburban churchyards. Five others died at the city pesthouse,
and four at the facility in Westminster. These were the official figures in the
bill for June 27 –July 4.