250 • Surviving“Porters bow everywhere to us,” Pepys exclaimed, “and such begging of beg-
gars.” From the porch of his church, Reverend Patrick could spot Brouncker
in his twenty-hearth townhouse on the Piazza. It was a welcome sign, for the
residents of Covent Garden and elsewhere in Westminster continued to be
thin on the ground by comparison with the old city. Two days later Pepys re-
turned for good to his Seething Lane home. On the twenty-second he joined
returning friends from the Royal Society at the Crown tavern for the first in-
formal meeting since plague had set in. Pepys and Brouncker had long antic-
ipated this reunion.
At last Westminster sprang to life with the return of Charles II on Febru-
ary 1. Bonfires and bells greeted the joyous event throughout the metropolis.
The return of His Sacred Majesty signaled the end of danger from plague,
though in fact the disease was not yet spent. By mid-February only a few
shops remained closed. People eagerly prayed for renewal, a way to forget
and a way to heal. The plague death toll for the month was 222 , down from
382 in January. In March only 107 died, most of them in poor areas.
At the Royal Society’s tavern supper, Pepys pricked up his ears in antic-
ipation as Dr. Goddard addressed his fellow virtuosi. Goddard had fled from
the pestilential air and was defending his exodus and that of most of his col-
leagues in the College of Physicians. These society doctors had been “left at
liberty” after their own patients left town, Goddard explained. Pepys was not
at all convinced, recalling the death of his own doctor. And one of Samuel
Table 10.Greater London Bills of Mortality,
December 19, 1665–January 30, 1666Number of Burials
Number
Change from of Infected
Week Plague Total Previous Week Parishes
December 19–26 152 330 -192 46
December 26–January 2 70 253 -77 31
January 2–9 89 265 +18 35
January 9–16 158 375 +110 47
January 16–23 79 272 -103 30
January 23–30 56 227 -45 29