The Web of Authority• 229of longtime widows on parish relief.^25 Searchers kept on searching and re-
porting to their parish clerks week after week right through the terrible days
of September.
The indispensable parish clerk was in the front ranks of the vulnerable.
Thomas Beard paused while writing in the register of Saint Martin Orgar, a
long finger of a parish leading down to the Thames near London Bridge.
Next to his handwriting was a smudge; the rest of the entry was completed
by a different hand, that of the churchwarden. Beard died that evening and
was buried the following day, August 6. Immediately John Robins was ap-
pointed to fill his place. Robins died on August 28 , and by September 9 his
wife had buried their three sons and a daughter.^26
A fallen clerk’s trained hand could be replaced by that of a churchwarden
or minister.^27 The loss of a parish’s two churchwardens, however, was nearly
a catastrophe. They were the only ones who knew its finances, recording the
income and outlays, paying out sums directly, and often taking over other
duties when no one was immediately available. Yet each parish that lost a
churchwarden managed to carry on somehow.
The crisis at Saint Bride’s by the Fleet River was extraordinary. The junior
churchwarden had vanished into the countryside at the first sign of plague.
The vestry sent him a letter requesting his endorsement of a plague-relief
loan offered by a parishioner. On arriving at the forwarding address, the
postal messenger learned that the elusive official had gone farther away and
could not be located. Henry Clarke served gamely alone as senior warden
into September, juggling accounts, getting loan money without his col-
league’s warrantee, and procuring coals for the parish fires. Then on Sep-
tember 23 , with the plague at its peak, Henry fell ill.
Mrs. Clarke turned her dying husband’s books over immediately to his
brother. The parish was fortunate: William Clarke had been one of the audi-
tors of the parish accounts. Unluckily, William lasted only two weeks before
he became sick. On October 8 , the vestry met in emergency session, and this
time made certain the parish had two churchwardens for the rest of the year.
Together they managed accounts and delayed paying bills that could be put
off. They continued supervising the digging of pits. And they sought out
women to nurse orphan girls and boys who became ill. It was hands-on work
of the sort that may have caused the deaths of their predecessors. For-
tunately, for both themselves and the financial health of the parish, the new
churchwardens closed out the fiscal year at Easter 1666 in good health. Their
books showed expenditures twice those of other years, yet they ended with a
surplus of over a hundred pounds.^28