Since my last on Tuesday night I have no newes to add to the inclosed [Bill of
Mortality]; by which you will also perceive ye sickness is now againe increasing
[at] divers fresh houses since the returne of fresh persons hither.
—John Allinto Philip Fryth, December 14 , 1665Coming Home
It began as a small line of people on foot returning in early November. The
first snow had left a dusting that accented the large mounds in most church-
yards. The sight of these graveyards and empty old haunts must have been a
stark reminder of what they had escaped. Beggars and transients crouched in
the cold on householders’ doorsteps, all but ignored by the neighborhood
constables.
The influx of Londoners returning from the country added to the urgency
of the moment. Here was a new pool of potential plague victims, each lack-
ing the emotional and physical immunity that survivors had gained. Dr.
Thomson worried that an individual’s archeus might be tricked into imagin-
ing the sickness, causing him or her to come down with the real thing. Dr.
Cocke’s Rules for Returning Citizenswarned returnees to approach their
homes with a calm spirit and extreme caution (perhaps a conflicting mes-
sage). The infection might be on “cunning persons hiding their plague sores”
or dogs that had been pawing at graves. Most important of all, people were
warned not to enter a house before having it fumigated and disposing all of
the old bed linen.^1
The new lord mayor of London had been installed at the end of October
without the festive mood of other years. The streets were all but deserted, the
The Awakening
[ 244 ]13