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

This is the terrible enemy of mankind, that sends its arrows abroad by day, and

walks all stained with slaughter by night; that turns the vital into noxious air, that

poisons the blood and kills us by our breath... Before it are beautiful gardens,

crowded habitations and populous cities; behind it, unfruitful emptiness and

howling desolation.

—The City Remembrancer, Being Historical Narratives of the Great Plague

In a remote, squalid section of Saint Giles in the Fields, outside London’s
wall, on Christmas Eve in 1664 , the parish’s “searchers”—old women paid to

determine the cause of death—pronounced that Goodwoman Phillips had
died of the plague. The searchers were paid two pence for their efforts, the
house was locked up, and “Lord Have Mercy on Us” was written on the door
in red paint. The parish quickly saw to the needs of the bereaved family; on

December 30 the sum of five shillings was paid to “Goodman Phillips and
his children being shutt upp and visited.”^1 With a shilling worth twelve
pence ( 12 d.), or one-twentieth of a pound (£), this poor family of three or
four persons had been given enough money to get them through a week, per-

haps more, assuming that the guard at their door was paid by the parish and
the food he passed through a window was cheap. Three pennies would buy
them a penny loaf of wheat bread, a pound of cheap cheese, and three her-
rings. For a few more pennies, they could strengthen their bodies and spirits

with some sausage or a chicken plus some beer.^2 The parish had undoubtedly
paid for a cheap wooden coffin for the children’s mother; if anyone else came
down sick, a poor neighbor woman might be paid to live in as a nurse until
the last survivor recovered or died.

Winter, 1664 –1665

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