4 • The Great Plaguestream Thames River port of Deptford. The cultured life to which his city
friend Pepys aspired was Evelyn’s by birth and education.
Reverend Symon Patrick, too, had country associations. His father had
been a country mercer, and Symon’s first parish across the Thames River
from Westminster had led to the closest of friendships with the Gaudens.
Denis Gauden was the Navy Victualer and superior of Pepys, with a manor
in the country and an apartment near the navy office in London. Symon Pa-
trick and Denis Gauden shared a common interest in the welfare of the An-
glican Church, the only recognized denomination at the time. With Denis’s
wife, Elizabeth, Symon’s bond was more emotional and personal, though the
two often debated serious points of theology and discussed the careers of
clergy friends. When they were apart they corresponded regularly, once a
week or more often when under stress.
A half-day’s gallop to the northeast of London via the old Roman Road
through the rich farmland of Essex lay the village of Earls Colne, where the
local vicar and farmer, Reverend Ralph Josselin, could be seen ministering to
the needs of his parish and tending his fields. Josselin’s diary recorded his
blessings and fears along with news of events in the capital and the local
market town of Colchester.^4
Farther away to the north of the capital, at the expansive manor of Don-
nington Park in the Midlands county of Leicestershire, resided a middle-
aged, widowed noblewoman, Lucy Hastings, countess of Huntingdon.
Lucy’s closest relatives were currently at their London residences. Lucy had
also sent a trusted agent, Gervase Jacques, to the capital to look into her le-
gal affairs and make purchases for her and her children. The countess was re-
lying on Jacques to relay any troublesome news about her city-dwelling rel-
atives that they might not reveal in their letters to her.^5
One other person in our story, John Allin, linked the country with the cap-
ital through a continuous correspondence via the public post. In 1662 , Allin
had been forced out of his pulpit at Rye on the English Channel when the
newly restored monarchy ejected all clergy from the Puritan Era who would
not subscribe to the Anglican Church’s articles of faith. Widowed and with
three young children, John relocated in a Southwark suburb across London
Bridge from the walled city. Although he had the means to live and could add
to his savings with clandestine preaching in private homes and by practicing
medicine in his new neighborhood (quietly, and without a license), his was
not an easy life. He had been compelled to leave his own children in the care
of others in his old country parish; he depended on two close friends in Rye
to keep an eye on them and on his wife’s brother to help with their expenses.