92 • Confusionplague, the newlywed Drydens left their rented lodgings near the Strand for
the west-country estate of Elizabeth’s father. John roamed the idyllic coun-
tryside outside Charlton, Wiltshire, and Elizabeth gave birth to their first
child. He wrote copiously and elegantly—but not about the contagion or his
flight from its path.^38
The Puritan revolutionary iconoclast John Milton, whose lodging in
Cripplegate was threatened by plague, lacked Dryden’s social connections. A
Quaker friend, Thomas Ellwood, who was preaching clandestinely in Buck-
inghamshire, rented a cottage for the blind poet and his children. By the
time the Miltons reached this temporary haven, Ellwood was in jail for
flouting the laws against dissenter worship. When Ellwood was released
from prison, Milton proudly showed him his completed work,Paradise Lost.
Surprising the author, Ellwood responded, tongue in cheek, “But what hast
thou to say of paradise found?” When the two met again after the Great Fire
of 1666 , Milton showed Ellwood his Paradise Regained,written during his
idyllic stay at the country cottage. Milton thanked Ellwood for his hospital-
ity and for suggesting the book with his query.^39
Other Londoners with material and spiritual resources vital to the city’s
functioning were also in headlong flight. Among them was the dean of Saint
Paul’s cathedral, William Sancroft. Like Symon Patrick’s early flight from
London’s plague to a fashionable Midlands spa, Sancroft’s southward jour-
ney in July to one of the king’s favorite spas was prompted by concern for his
health. His personal physician, Peter Barwick, had been urging that health
cure for some time. Sancroft had remained at the cathedral long enough to
draw up a special service book for use in the churches of London and the
surrounding countryside and to arrange a plague relief fund for the infected
and unemployed poor around the cathedral. Then he set out for Kent, reach-
ing his destination without any hostility from country persons, for who
would challenge a man of his rank on the possibility of his carrying the
deadly infection?^40
Every week Dean Sancroft received assurances from his staff that they were
managing in his absence. But they also reported appalling sickness and suffer-
ing in Saint Gregory’s parish, which served the cathedral’s neighborhood.
People were beginning to criticize the dean’s prolonged absence, they ad-
mitted. Dr. Barwick tried to quell the unrest by maintaining that he had told
his patient to go long before the plague, and it was not “in the skill of eve-
ryone” to judge the circumstances behind someone’s flight from contagion.^41
Emotions ran high as families decided whether to split up. The normal
course for a middle-income tradesman who hesitated to leave his trade but