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

Plague’s Progress• 131

them 6102 of plague, but it is feared that the true number of the dead this
week is near 10 , 000 , partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of

through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and
others that will not have any bell ring for them.”^38 The poor who were found
dead in the street were surely not listed in the death counts. Dr. Hodges and
the duke of Albemarle estimated that unreported deaths might have in-

creased the actual death count by 25 percent. Among the dead were vict-
ualers, brewers, neighborhood bakers, and wealthy tradesmen and financiers
on Lombard Street. Others had quietly closed their businesses and joined
those fleeing London. The thinning of their ranks finally drove even the

devil-may-care Pepys out of his city in search of navy suppliers who had
moved farther away.
Ten long weeks had passed since Pepys had seen privileged citizens hur-
tling through the Cripplegate exit, too frightened to think of the laboring

people they were passing by. Pepys remained determined to keep in contact
with his banker-goldsmiths who were still holding out in Cheapside and
with Albemarle at the Cockpit. There had been only one meeting of the

mayor and aldermen this month; Mayor Lawrence and Alderman Turner
were working quietly to keep emergency services in operation. “The sick-
nesse encreaseth and the towne is empty,” Sir William lamented.^39
The greatest crisis remained in the suburbs. A remark in a private news-
letter early in August gives an inkling of the depth of this catastrophe. “The

total of ye Burials this week according to ye Bill is 3014 ,” the report began.
“In St. Giles Criplegate alone dyed 554 .” But the real toll could not be meas-
ured. The Guildhall was still managing to shut up homes in the portion of
this parish under its jurisdiction, but “the infected of the outer parts go about

at their pleasure.”^40

The Crisis at Cripplegate

Ye miserable condicion of St. Giles Cripplegate, which is one of your peculiars, is

more to be pittied than any parish in or about London, where all have liberty least

the sick and poore should be famished within dores, the parish not being able to

relieve their necessityes.

—John Tillisonto Dean Sancroft, August 15 , 1665

Outside the ancient “cripple gate” at a bend in the northern wall sat the plain
church of Saint Giles. Red Cross Street, built over the old Roman road out