The Other London
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It was a Received Notion amongst the Common People that the Plague visited
England once in Twenty Years, as if after a certain Interval, by some Necessity it
must return again... It greatly contributed both to propagate and inflame the
contagion, by the strong Impression it made upon their Minds.
—Dr. Nathaniel Hodges,Loimologia: Or, An Historical
Account of the Plague in London in 1665Life had been kind to Reverend Symon Patrick. As rector of metropolitan
London’s wealthiest congregation, he had the ear of prosperous merchants
and the personal backing of powerful patrons at the royal court and in gov-
ernment, who had made possible his meteoric rise on the ecclesiastical lad-
der. Within the enormous range of possible incomes and degrees of social
status, Reverend Patrick stood far above the “common people”—the vast
majority of Londoners.
If Patrick had been asked to explain his good fortune, he likely would have
attributed it to divine providence, for the idea that God shaped human ends
was common during his lifetime, and both of his parents believed in it
strongly. He was born into a family that lived comfortably and appreciated
both sacred and secular learning. His mother was a minister’s daughter, his
father the sixth son of a country gentleman. As a younger son, Symon’s
father had to work for a living; he did well as a mercer, and Symon, as his
father’s first son, could have continued the trade. Instead, he turned to the
world of learning. After surviving a nearly fatal childhood fever, Symon
completed grammar school and graduated from Cambridge University in
1648 as Cromwell’s Roundheads were defeating the royalist Cavaliers. A
promising scholarly career was cut short when his college passed him over