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

258 • Surviving

Sir William Turner felt grateful to be alive. A religious man, he still

marked his ledgers as he had before the Great Plague, “Praise to God.” The

row upon row of empty stalls and abandoned shops around Saint Paul’s and

the Guildhall testified mutely to the deaths of others. For a merchant guilds-

man like Turner, the bitterest pill to swallow was that he had had to survive

without the absent master merchants and professional men who were major

components of private commerce and public finances.

Reverend Patrick had much to be thankful for and expressed it fully. His

returning parishioners were “wonderfully kind to me,” he wrote. Symon ac-

cepted their thanks but did not want any special praise from court or king.

As do many who survive a tragedy, Patrick wondered why God had spared

him when others had fallen. It must have been for some purpose. Rededicat-

ing himself to a life of service, he urged his surviving parishioners to reflect

on their own blessings. They should write down the vows and promises they

had made in their time of trial and carry them out now that the shadow of

death had been removed.^37

Fig. 14 .Greater London Bills of Mortality: Total Burials and Plague Burials, De-
cember 27 , 1664 –December 26 , 1665 .London’s Dreadful Visitation; Or, a Collection of All the
Bills of Mortality( 1665 ); GL, MS 3604 / 1 / 1 Parish Clerks Company Weekly Bills of Mortality, De-
cember 1664 –October 1669

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2000

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Plague

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