Plague’s Progress• 129preacher’s text was from Leviticus, calling his parishioners to submit
“humbly” to God’s punishment. Samuel Pepys got up early the same day,
“being the first Wednesday of the month, for the plague,” he duly noted. Nor
was Sunday to be forgotten. In the heart of the old city, the crowds were so
great for a fiery dissenter who had taken over a vacant pulpit that people
climbed over each other’s backs to find a seat.^33
The voice was Thomas Vincent’s, ringing through the crowded sanctuary
of Saint Katharine Creechurch.^34 He knew how to set the mood in this des-
olate city. “No rattling coaches or prancing horses, no calling in customers, no
offering Wares, No London-Cryes found in the Ears,” he lamented. “If any
voice be heard it is the groans of dying persons.” He exhorted the congrega-
tion to compassion by telling them of seeing a crying woman, resting against
a wall with a little coffin wherein lay a child. He believed it was her last one,
“coffined up” by her own hands. There are others, he said, who are so frenzied
by the fever and pain of their sickness that they run near-naked in the streets,
some throwing themselves into the Thames River to cool their bodies.
Frightening images like this do not appear in Samuel Pepys’ diary. As Au-
gust unfolded Pepys’ parish reported a mercifully small number of plague
deaths, there being twenty-one listed in the bill for the full four weeks. Most
wealthy parishioners had left, including the entire family of William Penn,
navy commander and father of the founder of Pennsylvania. Yet Samuel
knew there were far more plague fatalities in many parishes than were listed
Table 5.Greater London Bills of Mortality: Plague Burials
and Total Burials, August 1–September 5, 1665Number of Burials (Plague / Total)St. Giles St. Giles St. Margaret All 130
Week in the Fields Cripplegate Westminster Parishes
August 1–8 259/290 356/691 173/199 2,815/4,031
August 8–15 242/277 521/886 228/269 3,880/5,319
August 15–22 175/204 572/874 191/220 4,237/5,568
August 22–29 148/170 605/842 309/345 6,102/7,496
Aug. 29–Sept. 5 178/202 567/690 321/348 6,988/8,252