# Life During the Great Plague of London

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 13 Oct 2026, 1 h 30 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75561417/life_during_the_great_plague_of_london_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3



## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The year is 1665. The place is London, and it
[0:07] Speaker 1: is a hot summer day. Once a bustling metropolis, normally
[0:12] Speaker 1: alive with street vendors and the chatter of merchants, has
[0:17] Speaker 1: now fallen eerily silent. Many shops are boarded up, marked
[0:24] Speaker 1: by red crosses on the doors, with the desperate plea, Lord,
[0:30] Speaker 1: Have mercy upon us. The few people left out on
[0:34] Speaker 1: the streets are those poor wretches who had nowhere else
[0:38] Speaker 1: to go. An unnatural quiet pervades the air, broken only
[0:43] Speaker 1: by the mournful toll of church bells in the distance.
[0:49] Speaker 1: The Thames River, usually crowded with boats, lies empty and still.
[0:55] Speaker 1: In some places, grass even grows untrodden, under the once
[1:00] Speaker 1: crowded courtyards of Whitehall. This was the scene of London
[1:06] Speaker 1: during the great plague of 1665 to 1666, a city
[1:11] Speaker 1: gripped with fear and death, yet also exhibiting resilience and
[1:17] Speaker 1: duty amid catastrophe. Why don't we go back there, and
[1:23] Speaker 1: peek into the daily life in plague-stricken London, growing on
[1:28] Speaker 1: vivid first-hand accounts, like Samuel Peep's diary and Daniel Defoe's
[1:34] Speaker 1: A Journal of the Plague Year. Together we'll explore how
[1:39] Speaker 1: Londoners of different classes experienced the plague, how the government
[1:43] Speaker 1: responded with its own drastic measures, and how physicians and
[1:48] Speaker 1: quacks applied all manner of remedies to the desperate people.
[1:53] Speaker 1: but we'll also examine how the social and economic factors
[1:58] Speaker 1: played out, the religious fervour and superstition that the crisis provoked,
[2:04] Speaker 1: and of course the immense psychological toll on a population
[2:08] Speaker 1: living in constant peril. All the events described, regardless of
[2:14] Speaker 1: how shocking, have their basis in real contemporary sources, and
[2:19] Speaker 1: we'll be citing all of them as we go through.
[2:22] Speaker 1: By the end, you should have a rich understanding of
[2:26] Speaker 1: not only what happened during the Great Plague of London,
[2:30] Speaker 1: but what it felt to live through it, albeit from
[2:34] Speaker 1: a safe distance this time. So allow yourself to get comfortable.
[2:39] Speaker 1: It's going to be a long video. But where are
[2:43] Speaker 1: my manners? I will first welcome you to the channel.
[2:47] Speaker 1: If you've seen my other plague videos, well, it's good
[2:50] Speaker 1: to have you back here. But if you're a newcomer,
[2:53] Speaker 1: How about you hit the subscribe button right up there
[2:56] Speaker 1: next to the like button and leave your thoughts in
[2:59] Speaker 1: the comments. Tell me, where you're listening from, what time
[3:03] Speaker 1: it is in your part of the world. It's always
[3:06] Speaker 1: interesting to see the breadth of the viewership. And thank
[3:09] Speaker 1: you to those who supported on the Patreon, keeping everything ad-free,
[3:13] Speaker 1: and those who checked out the merch store. You have
[3:16] Speaker 1: my thanks. Now, with all the customary welcomes out of
[3:20] Speaker 1: the way, let's... Go to the misery of 17th century London. Now,
[3:30] Speaker 1: we must say that epidemic plague was a familiar horror
[3:34] Speaker 1: in London's past. It wasn't a new thing out of
[3:38] Speaker 1: the blue. But by the 1660s, they'd had an entire
[3:43] Speaker 1: generation that were very fortunate not to have to deal
[3:47] Speaker 1: with it. Of course, that changed in 1665. Rumours of
[3:53] Speaker 1: disease had been circulating for months now. Pepys noted concerns
[3:58] Speaker 1: as early as 1663 when plague raged in Holland, fearing
[4:02] Speaker 1: it could jump over to England. His fears proved correct.
[4:09] Speaker 1: The first signs of trouble came in the overcrowded parish
[4:12] Speaker 1: of St Giles-in-the-Fields in the spring of 1665. By late
[4:17] Speaker 1: May and June, deaths in the city were rising beyond
[4:20] Speaker 1: the normal. and the people began to speak of the sickness.
[4:26] Speaker 1: They just weren't exactly sure of what it was. But
[4:30] Speaker 1: on June 7th, 1665, Pepys wrote, To my great trouble,
[4:37] Speaker 1: I hear that the plague has come into the city. Still,
[4:43] Speaker 1: at first the authorities were slow to react. Early cases
[4:46] Speaker 1: were often kept quiet. Households would up any sudden fevers
[4:51] Speaker 1: or tell-tale buboes, those swollen lymph nodes, to avoid being
[4:57] Speaker 1: shunned or sealed up in their homes. London in 1665
[5:03] Speaker 1: was England's largest city. It had perhaps 400,000 inhabitants. The
[5:09] Speaker 1: disease that now stalked its streets was bubonic plague, bacterial infection,
[5:15] Speaker 1: though of course No one back then knew about bacteria
[5:19] Speaker 1: or germ theory. It was all spread primarily by flea-infested rats.
[5:27] Speaker 1: Victims initially felt feverish and delirious, and then developed agonizing,
[5:33] Speaker 1: egg-sized swellings in the groin, armpits, or neck. In many cases,
[5:38] Speaker 1: internal bleeding would cause purple blotches, and some victims coughed
[5:43] Speaker 1: up blood. The one respite was that death usually came swiftly,
[5:51] Speaker 1: often within a week of first symptoms. There wasn't much
[5:56] Speaker 1: hope for a cure, I'm afraid. All of this was
[6:00] Speaker 1: well known to seventeenth-century Londoners from past outbreaks. What they
[6:05] Speaker 1: did not know was the true cause. Yersinia, pestis, bacteria
[6:11] Speaker 1: that was transmitted by the fleas— Instead, most people blamed miasma,
[6:17] Speaker 1: or bad air, the same thing they used to blame
[6:21] Speaker 1: it on in earlier plague outbreaks. The foul smells of
[6:25] Speaker 1: garbage and excrements in the streets, and even astrological forces.
[6:32] Speaker 1: One chronicler noted, many pointed to the alignment of the planets,
[6:36] Speaker 1: or the ominous appearance of a comet in December of 1664,
[6:41] Speaker 1: as explanations for the coming calamity. And indeed, a bright
[6:46] Speaker 1: comet had hung in the sky in late 1664. Both
[6:51] Speaker 1: Pepys and Defoe recalled that some viewed it as a
[6:54] Speaker 1: portent of God's wrath, a sign that plague and other
[6:58] Speaker 1: disasters would soon follow. And so, by early summer of 1665,
[7:06] Speaker 1: the reality could no longer be ignored. The weekly bills
[7:10] Speaker 1: of mortality increased. basically obituaries, official tallies of burials by parish,
[7:17] Speaker 1: showed a steady rise in plague as the cause of death.
[7:22] Speaker 1: Londoners followed these statistics closely, much as we might today
[7:26] Speaker 1: track rising infection curves. Pepys writes of sending his manservant
[7:31] Speaker 1: weekly to fetch the latest mortality bill and returning with
[7:34] Speaker 1: alarm as the plague death count climbed from a few
[7:38] Speaker 1: hundred to over a few thousand per week Things were
[7:43] Speaker 1: certainly going to get worse before they got better. In mid-July,
[7:49] Speaker 1: fatalities spiked above 1,000 per week, and by August, the
[7:53] Speaker 1: city was losing over 6,000 a week to the plague.
[7:58] Speaker 1: But the worst week came in early September, when one
[8:01] Speaker 1: report recorded 7,165 plague deaths in a seven-day period. Peeves
[8:04] Speaker 1: later recalled this grim week. writing in the letter that
[8:14] Speaker 1: he had stayed in the city, quote, till above 7,400
[8:17] Speaker 1: died in one week, and of them, above 6,000 of
[8:21] Speaker 1: the plague. This was a catastrophe on a scale not
[8:25] Speaker 1: seen in London since the Black Death of the 14th century.
[8:29] Speaker 1: Those horrible times, that only existed now in nightmares and
[8:33] Speaker 1: history books, seemed to be well and truly back upon them.
[8:39] Speaker 1: One could only imagine the fear, As the reality set in,
[8:44] Speaker 1: panic and flight ensued among those who had the means.
[8:47] Speaker 1: The rich fled. The poor, well... The court of King
[8:54] Speaker 1: Charles II, nobility, and many merchants and professionals all scrambled
[9:00] Speaker 1: to escape the city, caused with pockets full of coins
[9:04] Speaker 1: and valuables one can imagine. The king himself, along with
[9:08] Speaker 1: his family and courtiers, hastily departed London. first to the
[9:13] Speaker 1: cleaner air of Hampton Court Palace, and then further out
[9:17] Speaker 1: to Oxford, the law courts and inns of court that
[9:21] Speaker 1: his training colleges for lawyers emptied out. Even many physicians
[9:27] Speaker 1: and surgeons, those who were most needed, fled to the countryside.
[9:32] Speaker 1: They wanted to save their lives as much as anybody else.
[9:36] Speaker 1: Pepys rightly noted that some members of the Royal College
[9:40] Speaker 1: of Physicians, after decamping to safety, were still writing learned
[9:45] Speaker 1: papers about the plague from afar, despite pointedly avoiding the
[9:50] Speaker 1: actual epidemic. A large portion of clergy also abandoned the city.
[9:56] Speaker 1: Most Church of England parish priests took off to safer towns,
[9:59] Speaker 1: leaving their parishioners with little spiritual leadership at first. This
[10:04] Speaker 1: exodus of elites and professionals would have profound effects on
[10:09] Speaker 1: daily lives for those left behind, and daily life is
[10:13] Speaker 1: where we turn to now. While all the rich people
[10:21] Speaker 1: had gone away as much as they could, but for
[10:24] Speaker 1: the tens of thousands of ordinary Londoners who remained, either
[10:29] Speaker 1: by choice or necessity, daily life under plague conditions was
[10:33] Speaker 1: a strange and terrifying new normal. Contemporary descriptions consistently paint
[10:42] Speaker 1: a picture of a city completely transformed. streets that had
[10:46] Speaker 1: teemed with the horse-drawn coaches, peddlers and pedestrians, now looked
[10:53] Speaker 1: deserted at midday.' But, Lord, what a sad time it
[10:59] Speaker 1: is to see no boats upon the river!' Phoebs exclaimed,
[11:03] Speaker 1: observing the empty Thames. He went on to say,' Grouse
[11:07] Speaker 1: grows all up down the Whitehall Court, and nobody but
[11:11] Speaker 1: poor wretches in the streets.' this evocative image of grass
[11:16] Speaker 1: sprouting in Whitehall, that being the political heart of the city,
[11:19] Speaker 1: was no exaggeration. With the court and upper classes gone,
[11:24] Speaker 1: that district fell truly silent. Shops in commercial areas were closed,
[11:31] Speaker 1: either because the proprietors had fled, or because there was
[11:35] Speaker 1: simply no one around to give them any business. In
[11:40] Speaker 1: some parts of the town, entire families had died, or
[11:44] Speaker 1: just abandoned their homes, and their houses stood quiet, with
[11:48] Speaker 1: doors nailed shut. The sounds, smells, and sights of daily
[11:54] Speaker 1: life all began to change. Instead of the din of commerce,
[12:00] Speaker 1: Londoners now heard the near-constant ringing of church bells, signalling
[12:04] Speaker 1: yet another funeral. So many, that eventually the authorities ordered
[12:11] Speaker 1: the bells to be silenced. to avoid further panic. Bonfires
[12:17] Speaker 1: and barrels of pitch burned in the streets at night,
[12:21] Speaker 1: set alight in the belief that smoke and flames would
[12:23] Speaker 1: cleanse the poisoned air. Pepys mentions fires burning in the
[12:27] Speaker 1: street as a common sight during the height of the plague.
[12:31] Speaker 1: The usual smells of the city, the food markets, rivers, tanneries,
[12:37] Speaker 1: were overpowered by the stench of burning tar. Spices and
[12:41] Speaker 1: herbs intended to ward off miasma. But inevitably, all of
[12:48] Speaker 1: those were overpowered by the stench of death. On some mornings,
[12:54] Speaker 1: residents would open their windows to a dreadful stillness, only
[12:59] Speaker 1: to have it broken by the rattle of cart wheels
[13:02] Speaker 1: and the call of,' Bring out your dead,' as corpse
[13:06] Speaker 1: collectors made their rounds after midnight and at first light.
[13:11] Speaker 1: It was said that the dead guards creaked through the
[13:14] Speaker 1: dark streets like ghostly processions, taking bodies to the ever-expanding
[13:20] Speaker 1: plague pits for burial. Ugh, plague pit. Now, though, that
[13:27] Speaker 1: little word combination, it certainly summons an image up in
[13:32] Speaker 1: your mind, doesn't it? So, life for the poor and
[13:38] Speaker 1: the labouring classers. Was especially harrowing. They had the fewest
[13:44] Speaker 1: resources to cope. And they couldn't just easily pick up
[13:48] Speaker 1: and flee. Many continued to work. As long as they
[13:52] Speaker 1: were able. Brewers kept brewing. Bakers kept baking. But business
[14:00] Speaker 1: was slow. Fraught with danger. Those who made their living
[14:05] Speaker 1: in public spaces. As porters. market sellers, watermen on the Thames,
[14:12] Speaker 1: found customers scarce, or, if there were customers around, they
[14:16] Speaker 1: were too fearful to come near. Peeps noted, nobody but
[14:20] Speaker 1: poor wretches were in the streets, because anyone of means
[14:24] Speaker 1: was indoors or gone. In poorer parishes, people continued to
[14:30] Speaker 1: crowd into ill-ventilated tenements and alley dwellings, which became deadly
[14:35] Speaker 1: hothouses of infection. An anonymous eyewitness quoted by Defoe described
[14:40] Speaker 1: the whole alleyways desolate, doors marked with red crosses, occupants
[14:46] Speaker 1: either dead or too sick to care for themselves. For
[14:50] Speaker 1: those unfortunate souls, daily life might mean being essentially trapped
[14:56] Speaker 1: in one plague-infested room, with family members falling ill, one
[15:01] Speaker 1: by one. Life for the wealthy and middle class, who
[15:06] Speaker 1: stayed poor, with a life behind closed doors. Some gentry
[15:11] Speaker 1: and merchants chose to isolate in their country homes, if
[15:15] Speaker 1: they had them. But not everybody is lucky enough to
[15:20] Speaker 1: have a second home out in the countryside. Others, like
[15:25] Speaker 1: peeps and a handful of officials, remained in London out
[15:29] Speaker 1: of duty or necessity, but often sent their families away
[15:33] Speaker 1: to safer locales, Beeps, for instance, sent his wife Elizabeth
[15:37] Speaker 1: to stay outside the city for a time, and later
[15:40] Speaker 1: noted the great expense he incurred by keeping his family
[15:44] Speaker 1: long at Woolwick. Those well off, enough, might stockpile provisions
[15:52] Speaker 1: and literally barricade themselves inside their houses for weeks on end,
[15:57] Speaker 1: admitting no visitors, visitors, excuse me. One contemporary wrote of
[16:03] Speaker 1: people who shut themselves up and kept their own society
[16:07] Speaker 1: until the plague had passed. A 17th century version of
[16:12] Speaker 1: quarantine bubbles, I suppose. The streets of prosperous neighbourhoods like
[16:17] Speaker 1: Covent Garden and Strand were largely empty. Behind many a
[16:22] Speaker 1: shuttered window were families anxiously sitting together in prayer that
[16:27] Speaker 1: the contagion would not breach the door. Community and class
[16:33] Speaker 1: distinctions in some ways began to blur as plague worsened.
[16:39] Speaker 1: All were equal in the face of the disease, and
[16:42] Speaker 1: death is always the great equalizer. Peeps, a high-ranking naval administrator,
[16:49] Speaker 1: still traveled across the city for work and was struck
[16:52] Speaker 1: by the atmosphere of universal devastation. Quote, whole families, ten
[16:58] Speaker 1: and twelve together, have been swept away. and even survivors
[17:02] Speaker 1: grew desensitized to the mounting casualties. The usual social activities,
[17:09] Speaker 1: coffee houses, gatherings, theatre performances, fairs, they had all vanished.
[17:16] Speaker 1: The government had closed plays, bear baitings, games and feasts
[17:20] Speaker 1: by official order. London had become a patchwork of haunted neighbourhoods.
[17:27] Speaker 1: In some you might still find a tavern quietly operating,
[17:31] Speaker 1: or a few market stalls open. But in many others,
[17:35] Speaker 1: not a single shop nor public house welcomed customers for months.
[17:41] Speaker 1: Daily life, for those who could afford it, shifted to
[17:44] Speaker 1: an indoor existence of waiting, watching, and worrying. Yet, even
[17:54] Speaker 1: amid the dread, certain routines continued. Essential food supplies were
[18:01] Speaker 1: maintained to prevent starvation. Markets adapted by spacing out stalls
[18:06] Speaker 1: and cellars. At some exchanges, buyers left coins submerged in
[18:10] Speaker 1: bowls of vinegar to disinfect them when paying for goods.
[18:15] Speaker 1: A precaution recorded in the letters of the time. The
[18:19] Speaker 1: roots of germ theory and bacterial knowledge coming in. They
[18:24] Speaker 1: just didn't quite know it yet. Watermen on the Thames.
[18:28] Speaker 1: though greatly reduced in number, still ferried a few passengers.
[18:34] Speaker 1: Peeps actually often used a boat to get from Greenwich,
[18:38] Speaker 1: where he lodged during part of the plague back to
[18:40] Speaker 1: his office in the seething lane. The mail still went
[18:45] Speaker 1: out too, although letters were variously scraped, heated, soaked, aired,
[18:51] Speaker 1: and pressed flat to eliminate any pestilential matter before people
[18:56] Speaker 1: even dared to read them. Now, all these little details
[19:01] Speaker 1: show that while normal life was upended, Londoners tried to
[19:06] Speaker 1: devise ways to keep basic commerce and communication alive, albeit
[19:12] Speaker 1: with the novel safety measures for the 1660s, doing their
[19:17] Speaker 1: best with the knowledge they have. We must give them
[19:21] Speaker 1: a little bit of credit. But what about the other
[19:26] Speaker 1: side of society? The government? What were they doing? As
[19:32] Speaker 1: the plague spread, the authorities in London, primarily the Lord
[19:36] Speaker 1: Mayor and the Aldermen of the City of London, implemented
[19:39] Speaker 1: a series of stringent measures to contain the outbreak. Many
[19:43] Speaker 1: of these were codified in the official Plague Orders of 1665,
[19:46] Speaker 1: which built upon earlier plague regulations from the time of
[19:51] Speaker 1: James I. These orders essentially created a framework for quarantine
[19:57] Speaker 1: and public health control, in an era before germs were
[20:01] Speaker 1: completely understood. They were kind of onto something with miasma.
[20:08] Speaker 1: Filth and dirt were I suppose it was the roots
[20:12] Speaker 1: of it, just not quite there yet. Well, the rules
[20:18] Speaker 1: were strict, and often draconian, but they reflected desperation of
[20:23] Speaker 1: officials who had little else in their arsenal. Key measures included, one,
[20:30] Speaker 1: shutting up the infected in their houses. You see, if
[20:34] Speaker 1: a person was found to have the plague, he or
[20:36] Speaker 1: she was sequestered in the same house immediately. and the
[20:40] Speaker 1: entire household was locked in with them. It's all beginning
[20:45] Speaker 1: to sound a little bit familiar, isn't it? Well, the
[20:49] Speaker 1: order was to keep the house shut up for a month,
[20:52] Speaker 1: about twenty-eight days, after the patient either recovered or died,
[20:59] Speaker 1: whichever one came first, I suppose. A large red cross,
[21:03] Speaker 1: at least a foot long, was to be painted on
[21:05] Speaker 1: the door, along with the words, Lord have mercy upon us.
[21:10] Speaker 1: which warned others that the occupants inside were infected. Watchmen
[21:16] Speaker 1: were posted outside day and night to ensure that nobody
[21:19] Speaker 1: went in or out. The sight of these marked houses
[21:24] Speaker 1: became one of the most emblematic images of the plague
[21:27] Speaker 1: in London. Peeps described seeing two or three houses marked
[21:32] Speaker 1: with the red cross upon the doors and the Lord
[21:34] Speaker 1: have mercy upon us writ there as a sad sight.
[21:40] Speaker 1: and then of course we had household examiners and searchers
[21:44] Speaker 1: you see every parish appointed examiners to find out which
[21:48] Speaker 1: houses had sick people and women searchers usually older women
[21:55] Speaker 1: who had survived past plagues to inspect the bodies of
[21:59] Speaker 1: the dead and certify the cause of death these searchers
[22:04] Speaker 1: were supposed to be of good reputation and were sworn
[22:07] Speaker 1: to report truthfully if a death was due to the plague.
[22:11] Speaker 1: They worked alongside the appointed surgeons to avoid false reporting.
[22:19] Speaker 1: This was important because some families, fearing the dreaded lockdown,
[22:25] Speaker 1: would try to hide plague deaths or claim a different cause.
[22:30] Speaker 1: Misreporting was seen as a major danger that could further
[22:34] Speaker 1: the spread of the infection so orders required surgeons to
[22:38] Speaker 1: double-check the searchers' verdicts. The searchers and other officials who
[22:44] Speaker 1: had to enter infected homes were required to carry white
[22:47] Speaker 1: or red rods, about three feet long when walking in
[22:50] Speaker 1: the streets, to signal their occupation so the duthers could
[22:53] Speaker 1: avoid touching or approaching them. One can imagine the wide
[22:59] Speaker 1: berth the people would give them upon seeing that figure
[23:02] Speaker 1: carrying the plague staff. But then we had burial regulations,
[23:09] Speaker 1: and this was very important, because the dead were to
[23:13] Speaker 1: be buried quickly and with minimal ceremony. The orders insisted
[23:20] Speaker 1: that burials take place before sunrise, or at least after sunset,
[23:25] Speaker 1: at night or very early in the morning. This was
[23:28] Speaker 1: mainly to avoid public gatherings. and family and friends were
[23:33] Speaker 1: not allowed to accompany the coffin to the graveyard or
[23:37] Speaker 1: hold the traditional funeral gatherings on pain of their own
[23:40] Speaker 1: house being shut up or even being thrown in prison.
[23:46] Speaker 1: Churches were forbidden from bringing plague corpses inside during services,
[23:51] Speaker 1: and children were not to come near graves or coffins
[23:53] Speaker 1: at burials. Every grave had to be at least six
[23:57] Speaker 1: feet deep, These rules aimed to prevent contagion at funerals,
[24:02] Speaker 1: and to ensure the bodies, which they thought might exhale
[24:06] Speaker 1: poisonous vapors, were well covered with earth. Despite such measures,
[24:13] Speaker 1: by August, the number of deaths was so overwhelming that
[24:17] Speaker 1: nightly mass burials had become routine. Pepys wrote in mid-August that, quote,
[24:24] Speaker 1: the people die so fast. that even night-time burials could
[24:28] Speaker 1: not keep up. The nights, though much lengthened, are grown
[24:32] Speaker 1: too short to conceal the burials of those that died
[24:35] Speaker 1: the day before. Ultimately, huge plague-bits were dug, the most
[24:42] Speaker 1: infamous being in Oldgate, and another in Finsbury Fields, where
[24:47] Speaker 1: thousands of bodies were just thrown in. Grizzly rumours circulated
[24:53] Speaker 1: that some desperate or grief-maddened individuals threw themselves into the
[24:58] Speaker 1: pits while still alive. Though such tales, mentioned later by Defoe,
[25:04] Speaker 1: may have been apocryphal. It's still pretty horrifying, though. Then,
[25:11] Speaker 1: of course, the theme of familiarity continues. We have restrictions
[25:18] Speaker 1: on movement. To slow the spread, the City of London
[25:21] Speaker 1: imposed controls on travel and mingling. As early as June,
[25:26] Speaker 1: with crowds of people trying to flee, the Lord Mayor
[25:29] Speaker 1: ordered the city gates shut to those without a certificate
[25:32] Speaker 1: of health. Such health certificates, essentially letters testifying that the
[25:37] Speaker 1: bearer came from an uninfected house, became precious documents, reportedly
[25:43] Speaker 1: more valuable than gold. And a black market in forgery
[25:49] Speaker 1: sprung up Inside the city, if someone from an infected
[25:53] Speaker 1: house managed to escape and sneak into another house, the
[25:57] Speaker 1: orders stipulated that the fugitive be captured and returned by night,
[26:03] Speaker 1: and the house that harboured them be shut up as well.
[26:08] Speaker 1: Highway checkpoints were set up outside London to turn back
[26:12] Speaker 1: travellers from the plague zones. Other towns and villages often
[26:16] Speaker 1: refused to let Londoners in. sometimes brutally so. Defoe relates
[26:23] Speaker 1: how country people would block roads, or even threatened to
[26:27] Speaker 1: shoot approaching Londoners, fearing they carried the infection. Next we
[26:34] Speaker 1: had closure of public spaces. All public entertainments and gatherings
[26:39] Speaker 1: were banned. Playhouses and theatres had already been closed by
[26:42] Speaker 1: royal order. In fact, they never opened at all in
[26:46] Speaker 1: 1665 once the plague numbers grew. Music houses, dancing schools,
[26:52] Speaker 1: gambling houses and bear-baiting pits were likewise shut. Large assemblies,
[26:59] Speaker 1: such as fairs, markets or large church congregations, were discouraged
[27:04] Speaker 1: or even outright prohibited. There is also evidence that even
[27:09] Speaker 1: the traditional practice of church bells ringing for each dead
[27:13] Speaker 1: had to be halted because the continuous dirges were unnerving
[27:17] Speaker 1: the populace. and possibly even drawing crowds. Peeps notes that
[27:23] Speaker 1: at one point, the silence of the normally clamorous city,
[27:26] Speaker 1: except for the bell tolls, made the disaster even more palpable.
[27:33] Speaker 1: You think about it. Everything is gone. All the workers.
[27:40] Speaker 1: All the life. The only thing that remains is that
[27:44] Speaker 1: damned bell sound. That reminder of death. Enough to drive
[27:51] Speaker 1: anybody crazy. That's for sure. Well, lastly, we have sanitation efforts.
[28:00] Speaker 1: The government, recognizing the filth and bad smells, seemed to
[28:04] Speaker 1: be linked to the plague. Of course, they were right
[28:06] Speaker 1: that sanitation matters, but somewhat wrong about the mechanism. The
[28:11] Speaker 1: authorities ordered intensive street cleanings. Householders were required to sweep
[28:16] Speaker 1: the street in front of their door every day. Teams
[28:20] Speaker 1: of rakers collected refuse daily, announced by the blowing of
[28:26] Speaker 1: a horn so people knew to bring out their garbage. Blastalls,
[28:30] Speaker 1: that is, garbage dumping sites, were moved far off from
[28:34] Speaker 1: the city. They also strictly forbade anybody from selling rotten
[28:39] Speaker 1: food anywhere. Quote, no stinking fish or unwholesome flesh or
[28:44] Speaker 1: musty corn could be sold, and taverns, beer casks had
[28:49] Speaker 1: to be checked for spoilage. Perhaps the most drastic measure.
[28:55] Speaker 1: At the start of the plague, the city outright banned
[28:58] Speaker 1: domestic animals in the city, believing cats and dogs might
[29:02] Speaker 1: spread the plague. The Lord Mayor ordered a mass cull
[29:05] Speaker 1: of stray animals. It is recorded, that over 4,000 dogs
[29:10] Speaker 1: were destroyed by the official dog killers in London. According
[29:15] Speaker 1: to Defoe's later account, the total butcher's bill was even higher.
[29:20] Speaker 1: He estimated roughly 40,000 dogs and 200,000 cats were killed
[29:26] Speaker 1: across the city. Now, I'm sure you're thinking that the cats...
[29:33] Speaker 1: What do cats usually do in a city? What is
[29:37] Speaker 1: their job? In the neck. part of it? The policy
[29:44] Speaker 1: was going to do more harm than good, since those
[29:47] Speaker 1: animals would have helped control the rats that were the
[29:51] Speaker 1: real culprits. So of course, with their predators gone, the
[29:56] Speaker 1: rat population and their plague-carrying fleas likely increased. But of course,
[30:03] Speaker 1: at the time, they did not know that. The measure
[30:07] Speaker 1: was all seen as necessary, and one can imagine how
[30:10] Speaker 1: unsettling the sight of heaps of dogs and cat carcasses,
[30:15] Speaker 1: another grim new normal for London's residents in 1665, doesn't
[30:22] Speaker 1: help the bios of dead dogs and cats, but all
[30:26] Speaker 1: of the new living rats. Not a good sight at all.
[30:35] Speaker 1: But what about enforcing the measures? Well, that was an
[30:39] Speaker 1: enormous challenge. The city appointed hundreds of watchmen to guard
[30:44] Speaker 1: quarantine homes and nurse keepers to tend the sick. But
[30:50] Speaker 1: many were subject to corruption or simply too scared to
[30:54] Speaker 1: do the job properly. Some watchmen, often poor men doing
[30:58] Speaker 1: an awful job for low pay, could be bribed with
[31:02] Speaker 1: money or drink to let people slip out of shut-up
[31:05] Speaker 1: houses at night. There were instances of outright violence as well.
[31:11] Speaker 1: Contemporary reports, and later Defoe, mentioned that some desperate inmates
[31:17] Speaker 1: attacked their guards. In fact, it was said that 18
[31:21] Speaker 1: or 20 watchmen were murdered over the course of the
[31:23] Speaker 1: epidemic by people trying to break free. One notorious anecdote
[31:28] Speaker 1: described a family lowering a rope or noose from an
[31:32] Speaker 1: upper window to strangle the watchman's stranding guard below, carefully
[31:37] Speaker 1: drawing a noose over the guard's head from an attic
[31:40] Speaker 1: window and hanging him so they could get away. Some
[31:45] Speaker 1: kind of grim claw machine game. While such extremes were
[31:51] Speaker 1: not everyday occurrences, they underscore the fact that that the
[31:55] Speaker 1: enforcement was often haphazard. Certainly not a popular job, enforcing
[32:01] Speaker 1: those rules. Once again, well, it's all quite familiar, isn't it?
[32:09] Speaker 1: The threat of being sealed in a house that had
[32:11] Speaker 1: become a death trap understandably drove people to some extreme measures.
[32:21] Speaker 1: so the government's response was not limited to physical containment.
[32:26] Speaker 1: There were also attempts at economic and social relief. Parishers
[32:30] Speaker 1: collected alms to support the sick and the unemployed. The
[32:34] Speaker 1: Lord Mayor's office coordinated deliveries of food to the shut-up houses, well,
[32:39] Speaker 1: at least in theory, so that those confined would not starve.
[32:43] Speaker 1: But I'm sure hierarchies were existent in there too. Now,
[32:47] Speaker 1: if the occupants could pay, they paid for their own supplies.
[32:52] Speaker 1: If they were too poor, the, quote, common charge of
[32:56] Speaker 1: the parish would step in and cover it. This was
[33:00] Speaker 1: an early form of relief funding, and many wealthier citizens
[33:04] Speaker 1: donated to parish funds for this very purpose. Nevertheless, distribution
[33:11] Speaker 1: was uneven. We read of tragic cases where locked-in families
[33:17] Speaker 1: ran out of food or water. Those left behind... by
[33:22] Speaker 1: poor paperwork. One reason people dreaded the quarantine was the
[33:26] Speaker 1: fear of dying of neglect or hunger if the watchmen
[33:31] Speaker 1: failed to bring necessities. Scream out as much as you want,
[33:36] Speaker 1: bang on those doors, but if you've got a big
[33:39] Speaker 1: red cross on your house, people might just be too
[33:43] Speaker 1: far away to hear you. Another aspect of the government's
[33:49] Speaker 1: reaction was to seek expert advice. King Charles II, before
[33:55] Speaker 1: he left the capital, commissioned the College of Physicians to
[33:59] Speaker 1: publish official guidelines on plague prevention and treatment. The college
[34:05] Speaker 1: dutifully issued the certain necessary directions for the cure of
[34:09] Speaker 1: the plague and for the preventing of infection in 1665.
[34:13] Speaker 1: This pamphlet contained recommendations on everything from airing out bedding
[34:19] Speaker 1: and burning perfume in rooms, to recipes for preventative plague
[34:25] Speaker 1: water and therapeutic potions. It reinforced many of the city's measures,
[34:33] Speaker 1: that is, isolate the sick, fumigate houses, carry aromatic herbs
[34:38] Speaker 1: while going out, and I suppose it provided a sort
[34:41] Speaker 1: of medical imprimatur to the fight against the plague. We
[34:48] Speaker 1: will discuss a few of those ideas in the next section,
[34:51] Speaker 1: but it's worth noting that even the learned doctors were
[34:55] Speaker 1: essentially stabbing in the dark. Without knowledge of bacteria, their
[35:01] Speaker 1: advice was essentially a mix of reasonably good hygiene and
[35:05] Speaker 1: typical Galenic medicine or folk medicine. Now, Galenic, of course,
[35:10] Speaker 1: going back to the old Greek traditions of the Dr. Galen,
[35:15] Speaker 1: hadn't changed for quite a long time. Still, having the
[35:21] Speaker 1: King's support for public health measures helped encourage compliance. And so,
[35:27] Speaker 1: by the autumn of 1665, the city administration was exhausted
[35:31] Speaker 1: and overwhelmed. Yet their efforts likely did have some effect
[35:35] Speaker 1: in slowing the spread, at least within certain neighbourhoods. It
[35:40] Speaker 1: was an imperfect quarantine, porous, and often violated. they're probably
[35:47] Speaker 1: better than no measures at all. Notably, while London's plague
[35:52] Speaker 1: was raging, other English cities such as Oxford, Cambridge and
[35:56] Speaker 1: Bristol largely kept the plague out, and this was in
[36:01] Speaker 1: part by quarantining travellers and goods that came from London.
[36:07] Speaker 1: There are records of London merchandise being smoked or left
[36:11] Speaker 1: to air for weeks before being sold elsewhere. and of
[36:15] Speaker 1: ships from London being held in quarantine at port. London
[36:20] Speaker 1: essentially sacrificed itself by sealing itself off as much as possible.
[36:25] Speaker 1: And when the cold weather came in late 1665, nature
[36:29] Speaker 1: itself aided, where humanity's policies failed. The rat fleas became
[36:36] Speaker 1: less active, transmission slowed, and the worst seemed to have passed.
[36:45] Speaker 1: but the government measures, with all their flaws, provided a
[36:48] Speaker 1: kind of framework that Londoners could adapt to, altering daily
[36:53] Speaker 1: routines around the strictures of quarantine and the curfew. The
[36:58] Speaker 1: plague orders remained in force until the spring of 1666, until, finally,
[37:04] Speaker 1: the epidemic had waned and they could be lifted. In 1665,
[37:12] Speaker 1: Professional medicine was limited in its ability to treat or
[37:16] Speaker 1: prevent the plague. But don't get me wrong, the city
[37:21] Speaker 1: did have physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and of course informal healers,
[37:28] Speaker 1: all attempting to save lives or at least make money
[37:32] Speaker 1: amid the crisis. Opportunity, always in the crisis. Well, the
[37:39] Speaker 1: approaches ranged from learned medical regiments to downright bizarre folk remedies.
[37:46] Speaker 1: So let's have a look at a few of the
[37:49] Speaker 1: methods people used to try and cope medically with the disease. Now, first,
[37:55] Speaker 1: it really must be said that many licensed doctors had
[37:58] Speaker 1: already fled the city when the plague worsened, which of
[38:01] Speaker 1: course made the problem even worse in itself. Those who
[38:05] Speaker 1: catered to wealthy clientele often left with those clients. but
[38:11] Speaker 1: a few brave or perhaps duty-bound physicians stayed. The most
[38:16] Speaker 1: famous was Dr. Nathaniel Hodges, a Cambridge-educated physician who resolutely
[38:23] Speaker 1: remained in London treating plague victims. Dr. Hodges later wrote
[38:28] Speaker 1: an account of his experiences, that is, Leumologia, in 1672,
[38:35] Speaker 1: which gives us a window into the medical practice at
[38:37] Speaker 1: the time. According to his account, Hodges would rise early
[38:42] Speaker 1: each day, fortify himself by swallowing a dose of anti-pestilential electuary,
[38:49] Speaker 1: the size of a nutmeg, the kind of medicinal paste
[38:53] Speaker 1: of herbs and drugs thought to prevent plague, then open
[38:58] Speaker 1: his consulting rooms to throngs of patients each morning. After
[39:02] Speaker 1: seeing the sick at his home, he made house calls
[39:05] Speaker 1: around the city. burning a disinfectant of herbs and vinegar
[39:10] Speaker 1: on hot coals upon entering each home, and keeping a
[39:14] Speaker 1: lozenge or sponge soaked in aromatics at his mouth while
[39:17] Speaker 1: examining the patients. He would take a midday break to
[39:22] Speaker 1: drink a glass of sack, that is, wine, have a meal,
[39:26] Speaker 1: often spiced with pickles or strong flavour, as people believed
[39:31] Speaker 1: foods like this could ward off illness, and then continue
[39:35] Speaker 1: visiting the afflicted until nightfall. In the evenings, Hodges admitted
[39:41] Speaker 1: he would drink old wine until he felt thoroughly cheerful,
[39:47] Speaker 1: perhaps a way to cope with the stress, and likely
[39:50] Speaker 1: also an attempt to keep his humours balanced by warmth,
[39:54] Speaker 1: according to the medical theory of the day. While remarkably,
[39:59] Speaker 1: Hodges actually survived uninfected. He believed the wine and careful
[40:04] Speaker 1: regimen saved him, and was even rewarded by the city
[40:08] Speaker 1: for his service, and quite rightly so. But it wasn't
[40:13] Speaker 1: just him. There were other physicians who stayed, including Dr.
[40:18] Speaker 1: George Thompson, a rival of the college physicians who promoted
[40:22] Speaker 1: aggressive treatments like bleeding and perching, and several unsung local doctors. Moreover,
[40:30] Speaker 1: city authorities hired a number of plague doctors or pest
[40:35] Speaker 1: houses physicians to attend the poor. The term plague doctor
[40:40] Speaker 1: often conjures the image of the beaked mask and head-to-toe
[40:44] Speaker 1: leather outfit. And indeed, at least on the continent, in
[40:48] Speaker 1: cities like Rome or Paris, some doctors donned that famous costume,
[40:54] Speaker 1: complete with a bird-like mask stuffed with protective herbs. But
[40:59] Speaker 1: in London, the scant evidence that the beaked masks were
[41:04] Speaker 1: commonly used. Doctors more likely wore long waxed coats, gloves,
[41:11] Speaker 1: and carried the aforementioned aromatic sponges or popanders for safety.
[41:18] Speaker 1: We know plague nurses and examiners in London carried long staffs,
[41:23] Speaker 1: and sometimes wore waxed cloaks to avoid the effluvia. Even
[41:28] Speaker 1: without a standardized uniform, the idea was pretty much the same,
[41:32] Speaker 1: to shield from contagion by covering the body and filtering
[41:38] Speaker 1: the air through sweet-smelling herbs, which they of course believed
[41:43] Speaker 1: at the time would purify the poisonous miasma. Whether it
[41:48] Speaker 1: truly helped, well, that's doubtful. Some doctors still caught the plague,
[41:54] Speaker 1: like Peep's personal physician, Dr. Burnett, whom Peep's mournfully notes,
[42:00] Speaker 1: is this morning dead of the plague, poor unfortunate man.
[42:06] Speaker 1: Those physicians who did tend the sick tried a variety
[42:10] Speaker 1: of treatments, none of which could actually kill the plague bacteria.
[42:16] Speaker 1: But a few might have marginally helped. Now, in terms
[42:19] Speaker 1: of common treatments, we have a few of them that
[42:22] Speaker 1: you might be pretty familiar with. The first we have
[42:25] Speaker 1: is bloodletting or purging. Doctors would cut a patient to
[42:30] Speaker 1: let blood flow or apply leeches, thinking to rebalance the humors.
[42:37] Speaker 1: Others gave strong laxatives or emetics to purge poisons from
[42:41] Speaker 1: the body. These methods often weakened patients further, and, well,
[42:47] Speaker 1: they're now seen as quite harmful, but at the time
[42:50] Speaker 1: they were standard practice for many illnesses. Then we have
[42:55] Speaker 1: plasters and lancing, a more localized treatment, for the signature
[43:00] Speaker 1: boo-bones was to lance the swelling, that is, cut it open,
[43:05] Speaker 1: or to draw it to a head with a poultice.
[43:09] Speaker 1: One recipe was to apply a warm plaster of figs
[43:12] Speaker 1: and onions to ripen the bubo and then lance it
[43:15] Speaker 1: to drain out the pus. Sorry if you're having your
[43:18] Speaker 1: dinner while you're listening to this. Well, this occasionally relieved pain.
[43:25] Speaker 1: And if the patient's immune system was strong, they might recover.
[43:29] Speaker 1: Though not really because of the lancing per se. Transference
[43:36] Speaker 1: cures were also around. Folk tradition held that you could
[43:39] Speaker 1: draw out the plague poison by transferring it to something else,
[43:44] Speaker 1: a little less scientific. People tried placing live frogs or
[43:49] Speaker 1: toads on buboes, hoping that the creature would swell and burst,
[43:54] Speaker 1: taking the disease with it. In some cases, dried toad
[43:59] Speaker 1: powders were made into amulets or potions for the same purpose.
[44:04] Speaker 1: In fact, Dr. Hodges actually tested dried toads as well
[44:08] Speaker 1: as the famed panaceas, like bezoar stones, that is, gallstones
[44:13] Speaker 1: from animals, and powdered unicorn's horn. But he found them
[44:18] Speaker 1: to be useless. These were expensive remedies, sold by quacks
[44:26] Speaker 1: to people who were quite gullible. But perhaps some of
[44:30] Speaker 1: those doctors were just trying to do the best they
[44:32] Speaker 1: could as well. I mean, it wasn't like the medical
[44:35] Speaker 1: science of the time was really giving them much luck. So,
[44:40] Speaker 1: after the plague anyway, Hodges bluntly concluded that these transference
[44:45] Speaker 1: cures had very little effect, which is quite a valuable
[44:49] Speaker 1: contemporary debunking of such cures. Then we have herbal concoctions.
[44:57] Speaker 1: Both learned physicians and traditional healers relied heavily on these.
[45:02] Speaker 1: Plague water. was a common tonic, essentially a strong herbal liquor.
[45:08] Speaker 1: One popular version, Matthias's Plague Water, mixed exotic ingredients like
[45:14] Speaker 1: candied angelica, myrrh and nutmeg in a distilled spirit. Another
[45:20] Speaker 1: famous remedy was Theriac or Venice Triacol. It was a
[45:26] Speaker 1: complex concoction, containing dozens of ingredients, all the way from
[45:31] Speaker 1: opium and wine. to snake flesh in some recipes. The
[45:39] Speaker 1: potions were meant to be taken in small doses, to
[45:42] Speaker 1: prevent plague, or in larger doses to treat it. How
[45:47] Speaker 1: effective were they? Likely they did very little, except perhaps
[45:52] Speaker 1: have a psychological effect of calming a panicked patient. Of course,
[45:58] Speaker 1: opium can certainly do that. or perhaps provide hydration and
[46:03] Speaker 1: a tiny bit of nutrition. Some plate waters were basically
[46:07] Speaker 1: strong alcohol with herbs. At least, they made you drunk
[46:11] Speaker 1: enough to forget about your problems. Still, the College of
[46:15] Speaker 1: Physicians' official advice recommended various inward medicines, and even provided
[46:22] Speaker 1: cheaper versions for the poor. But then we have aromatics
[46:27] Speaker 1: and smoke. Because, quote, bad air, that is miasma, was
[46:33] Speaker 1: thought to carry plague, fling one's nose with good smells
[46:37] Speaker 1: with a protective tactic. Poses of flowers and herbs became ubiquitous.
[46:44] Speaker 1: People would carry small bouquets of rue, rosemary, lavender, or
[46:49] Speaker 1: what not to sniff as they walked around, attempting to
[46:53] Speaker 1: block out any miasma. Beeps himself followed the crowd in this,
[46:58] Speaker 1: He writes of buying a, quote, roll of tobacco to
[47:02] Speaker 1: smell and chew, because tobacco smoke was believed to ward
[47:06] Speaker 1: off infection. Indeed, tobacco was so highly regarded as a
[47:12] Speaker 1: plague prophylactic that schoolboys at Eton were reportedly made to
[47:18] Speaker 1: smoke a pipe of tobacco a day. How things have changed. Similarly,
[47:26] Speaker 1: Fires and incense were lit in rooms to correct the air.
[47:32] Speaker 1: One proposal even suggested floating a shipload of burning onions
[47:36] Speaker 1: on the Thames to absorb the plague vapors. It's unclear
[47:41] Speaker 1: if that onion barge scheme was ever attempted, but it
[47:45] Speaker 1: does show the creative, if futile, lengths that people went to. Well,
[47:54] Speaker 1: in a crisis, unscrupulous businessmen, if we can call them that,
[47:59] Speaker 1: always appear. 1665 London saw a boom in snake oil sales.
[48:06] Speaker 1: Street peddlers sold infallible plague pills. Golden amulets and charms
[48:11] Speaker 1: with mystical inscriptions. One popular charm was printed abracadabra, triangle
[48:18] Speaker 1: on paper. People hung this around their neck, believing the
[48:22] Speaker 1: word's gradual disappearance. as letters are removed line by line
[48:27] Speaker 1: in the triangle, would diminish the disease. Others paid for
[48:32] Speaker 1: astrologers' horoscopes to know if they or their family would
[48:36] Speaker 1: be spared. The College of Physicians decried these charlatans, but
[48:42] Speaker 1: the public, in fear, often turned to any hope. One
[48:47] Speaker 1: eyewitness wrote that, quote, every idle rumor of a cure
[48:51] Speaker 1: or prevention found believers eager to try it. Unsurprisingly, many
[48:57] Speaker 1: of these purported cures did nothing, or were just outright harmful.
[49:05] Speaker 1: And so, despite the myriad treatments, the brutal truth was
[49:09] Speaker 1: that if you caught a serious case of the buonic
[49:12] Speaker 1: plague in 1665, you were pretty much done for. Perhaps
[49:18] Speaker 1: 20-30% more. might survive if they only had buboes. Some
[49:23] Speaker 1: lived after the swelling burst and drained naturally. But if
[49:28] Speaker 1: the infection became pneumonic, that is, in the lungs, or septicemic,
[49:34] Speaker 1: in the bloodstream, you were pretty much going to die.
[49:38] Speaker 1: There was nothing they could do for you Doctors and
[49:41] Speaker 1: lay healers alike were essentially providing comfort, not cures. Yet
[49:47] Speaker 1: people desperately clung to these measures for a sense of control,
[49:51] Speaker 1: psychological benefit of doing something, whether swallowing a potion or
[49:57] Speaker 1: lighting a fire probably helped maintain some hope. It's important
[50:02] Speaker 1: to note that nursing and care could make a difference.
[50:07] Speaker 1: Some survived the plague due to good nursing. rest, hydration,
[50:11] Speaker 1: keeping clean, things understood in a basic way even then.
[50:16] Speaker 1: The unsung heroes, of course, were the nurses, often poor
[50:21] Speaker 1: women who risked their lives tending to the sick. The
[50:25] Speaker 1: city's orders even mention rules for nurses, such as not
[50:29] Speaker 1: moving to a new house too soon after tending a
[50:32] Speaker 1: plague patient, lest they spread it. Many nurses surely died
[50:37] Speaker 1: in the process, but others developed immunity if they had
[50:41] Speaker 1: a mild exposure. But finally, the plague did spur some
[50:48] Speaker 1: medical insight. Remember Dr. Hodges? Well, he, for example, observed
[50:54] Speaker 1: and later wrote what worked and what didn't. He dismissed
[51:00] Speaker 1: old superstitions like the dried toads, but praised simpler remedies
[51:06] Speaker 1: like serpentry root, a kind of Virginia snake root, which
[51:10] Speaker 1: he found promoted sweating, that is fever relief, and spirit
[51:16] Speaker 1: of heart shorn, that is ammonia from deer horn, as
[51:20] Speaker 1: a stimulant for collapsing patients. These observations, though not revolutionary
[51:26] Speaker 1: in any sense, move medicine slightly forward. Unfortunately, it takes
[51:33] Speaker 1: catastrophes like this for any real progress to happen. But
[51:38] Speaker 1: there was another physician, Dr. Richard Mead, that is after
[51:43] Speaker 1: the plague in 1720, who analysed the 1665 outbreak and
[51:48] Speaker 1: urged for quarantine and cleaning methods that were frankly quite
[51:52] Speaker 1: ahead of its time. And so while 17th century medicine
[51:56] Speaker 1: was tragically unable to halt the plague, London's experience did
[52:02] Speaker 1: contribute to a growing body of knowledge on epidemic management.
[52:06] Speaker 1: Knowledge that slowly but surely would improve responses in the future. Albeit,
[52:14] Speaker 1: it's never going to be perfect. But of course, the
[52:21] Speaker 1: Great Plague didn't just kill people. It also dislocated the
[52:27] Speaker 1: entire economic and social life of the city. London in
[52:32] Speaker 1: 1665 was the commercial engine of England. But as the
[52:36] Speaker 1: plague peaked, commerce ground to a near halt. The Royal Exchange,
[52:43] Speaker 1: the centre of trade, was largely empty, and all those
[52:46] Speaker 1: shops and businesses were shuttered up for months. Merchants either
[52:51] Speaker 1: fled or stayed home, taking an extended vacation. Unwilling to
[52:58] Speaker 1: risk or face dealings, Well, international trade suffered as foreign
[53:05] Speaker 1: ports barred ships from London for fear of contagions. It's
[53:09] Speaker 1: all pretty understandable. For instance, English trade with the Dutch
[53:14] Speaker 1: and other Europeans had already been curtailed by war and
[53:17] Speaker 1: was further hampered by quarantine measures. English exports had to
[53:21] Speaker 1: carry certificates of health, and some goods were burned or
[53:25] Speaker 1: fumigated on arrival in foreign ports. The port of London
[53:30] Speaker 1: saw greatly reduced traffic, Insurance records and correspondence from 1665
[53:35] Speaker 1: indicate that many merchant ships simply delayed voyages or diverted
[53:41] Speaker 1: to other ports. Within the city, certain trades were hit
[53:46] Speaker 1: particularly hard. Shopkeepers and artisans in plague-infested neighbourhoods lost their clientele. Blacksmiths, cobblers,
[53:55] Speaker 1: cloth merchants all saw businesses completely dry up. and there's
[54:01] Speaker 1: a telling diary entry by Pepys, in which he notes
[54:04] Speaker 1: with surprise that some tradesmen, despite the plague, inflated their prices,
[54:11] Speaker 1: or took advantage of scarcities. For example, he had trouble
[54:15] Speaker 1: finding someone to make a coffin for a departed colleague,
[54:19] Speaker 1: because carpenters were overwhelmed and charging high fees. The disruption
[54:24] Speaker 1: of supply lines also led to shortages of some goods.
[54:28] Speaker 1: The city government tried to ensure that staples like bread,
[54:32] Speaker 1: beer and coal for fuel remained available. Indeed, bakers and
[54:39] Speaker 1: brewers were among those expected to keep working. The baker's
[54:43] Speaker 1: company and brewer's company took steps to protect their workers
[54:47] Speaker 1: and keep production going, sometimes isolating workers on site to
[54:53] Speaker 1: avoid infection. The labour market also shifted dramatically. in a
[54:59] Speaker 1: strange way. With so many dead or gone, certain services
[55:04] Speaker 1: were in high demand. Coffin makers, grave diggers, or rakers
[55:09] Speaker 1: for pits. And watchmen, for example. Just a few of
[55:14] Speaker 1: the new trades that had quite a few openings available.
[55:19] Speaker 1: They could command higher wages, due to the mortal risk involved, too. Conversely,
[55:26] Speaker 1: Thousands of servants, apprentices and day labourers were thrown out
[55:31] Speaker 1: of work, either because their employers left town or business paused.
[55:37] Speaker 1: These unemployed masses depended on charity or stipends. Parish records
[55:42] Speaker 1: show increased poor relief payments during the plague months, and
[55:46] Speaker 1: the fear was that desperation would lead to unrest or looting. Though, interestingly,
[55:54] Speaker 1: there were relatively few reports of large-scale disorder. People were
[55:59] Speaker 1: likely too fearful of the disease to roam around stealing. Also,
[56:04] Speaker 1: many houses still had somebody inside, even if they were sick,
[56:08] Speaker 1: so it wasn't as if the entire city was empty
[56:11] Speaker 1: at one time, ripe for the picking. One significant economic
[56:16] Speaker 1: effect was on rent and property. As death emptied homes,
[56:22] Speaker 1: many landlords lost tenants. without hope of replacement during the plague. Oh,
[56:28] Speaker 1: the poor landlords! Rental income plummeted. Conversely, some people could
[56:34] Speaker 1: suddenly afford a better lodging because rates fell. One could
[56:38] Speaker 1: rent a larger house for a song if the previous
[56:41] Speaker 1: occupants had died there, though one had to be brave
[56:44] Speaker 1: enough to move into the recently plague-stricken house. By late 1666,
[56:52] Speaker 1: Property transactions show an unusual churn. Heirs selling off houses
[56:58] Speaker 1: of diseased relatives, opportunistic buyers snapping up cheap real estate, etc.
[57:05] Speaker 1: After the plague, real estate prices in London actually dipped.
[57:11] Speaker 1: Then were upended again by the Great Fire in 1666.
[57:17] Speaker 1: Not a good time to be in London at all.
[57:19] Speaker 1: Not a good time. So the plague year was economically
[57:24] Speaker 1: chaotic too, followed by the rebuilding after the fire, making
[57:29] Speaker 1: it hard to isolate the plague's economic impact alone. What
[57:34] Speaker 1: they were left with, was it that situation because of
[57:37] Speaker 1: the plague, or because of the fire? Perhaps everything just
[57:43] Speaker 1: came at once. Wages for those in essential services did
[57:48] Speaker 1: apparently rise, There are notes of sailors and dock workers
[57:51] Speaker 1: being paid extra to stay near London. You see, the
[57:55] Speaker 1: Navy needed to keep functioning for the war against the Dutch.
[57:59] Speaker 1: Plague or no plague. Peeps, working in naval administration, kept
[58:06] Speaker 1: Navy business going as best as he could, and mentions
[58:10] Speaker 1: having to navigate many colleagues' absences. For example, in July
[58:15] Speaker 1: of 1665, he notes that the Navy office clerks were
[58:19] Speaker 1: thin on the ground, because some have fled for fear
[58:23] Speaker 1: of the sickness. You also had to arrange for victuals,
[58:27] Speaker 1: that is, food supplies for ships, without using the city
[58:30] Speaker 1: contractors who were out of commission. Another subtle impact was
[58:35] Speaker 1: on the social fabric and class relations. The plague in
[58:40] Speaker 1: some ways levelled society out. You see, both rich and
[58:44] Speaker 1: poor could die, though the poor, of course, in greater
[58:48] Speaker 1: numbers and in more miserable circumstance. Pepys observed with a
[58:54] Speaker 1: mix of concern and curiosity how even wealth offered only
[58:59] Speaker 1: so much protection. You weren't going to buy yourself out
[59:03] Speaker 1: of the Bubos, that's for sure. One day he might
[59:07] Speaker 1: hear of a nobleman's coachman dying. another day that a
[59:12] Speaker 1: countess had succumbed after fleeing to the countryside. However, the
[59:19] Speaker 1: poor of London still bore the brunt. Estimates suggest that
[59:24] Speaker 1: the poorest district, like St. Giles, Whitechapel and Cripplegate, had
[59:29] Speaker 1: mortality rates far higher than the richer areas that were
[59:33] Speaker 1: more sparsely populated, or where residents could escape. The communal
[59:40] Speaker 1: life of the poor, so centred on crowded markets and
[59:44] Speaker 1: parish gatherings, was shattered, and this could breed resentment. Some
[59:50] Speaker 1: pamphlets after 1666 accused the wealthy of abandoning the poor
[59:55] Speaker 1: in time of need. Others pointed out that many Wealthy
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: citizens donated large sums to help the stricken city. For instance,
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: rich merchants gave money to their home parishes for plague relief.
[1:00:10] Speaker 1: And even King Charles II, from his safe remove in Oxford,
[1:00:15] Speaker 1: of course, sent funds to aid London's poor doing the plague.
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: I'm sure it was cold comfort, no? Now there is
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: one interesting social shift that we should mention. And that
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: is the religious shift. Since many official Church of England
[1:00:33] Speaker 1: clergy left, unofficial preachers, often Puritan dissenters, stepped in now
[1:00:40] Speaker 1: to fill that spiritual void. In the absence of their
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: regular rectors, people in London's worst-hit areas often welcomed back
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: ejected Puritan ministers who had been banned. that is, by
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: the 1662 Act of Uniformity, but who courageously stayed during
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: the plague. Men like Thomas Vincent, a nonconformist preacher, held
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: outdoor sermons and prayer meetings. Vincent later wrote about the plague,
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: vividly describing the repentance and cries to God he witnessed
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: in the streets. This phenomenon continued. Temporarily softened social barriers
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: between conformist and non-conformist. At least it did for a time.
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: Common suffering allowed some communal religious expression that crossed the
[1:01:36] Speaker 1: usual lines. And socially, people adapted their interactions. If you
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: had to meet someone, you would do it at a distance.
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: Diaries mention that friends shouted greetings from across the road,
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: or relatives left baskets of food at a doorstep and
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: backed away quickly. The custom of shaking hands was largely
[1:02:02] Speaker 1: abandoned during the plague. A polite bow or a wave
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: had to suffice. One could say, I suppose, that social
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: distancing was practiced in ad hoc ways. So, whenever societies
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: face deadly epidemics, they often turn to religion and superstition
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: for answers and comfort. The Great Plague of London was
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: certainly no exception. It triggered intense religious responses and a
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: surge in superstitious practice, as people struggled to find meaning
[1:02:41] Speaker 1: or protection in the midst of the horror. Many contemporaries
[1:02:45] Speaker 1: interpreted the plague as the wrath of God, visited upon
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: a sinful city. This was a common theological explanation for
[1:02:54] Speaker 1: the plague, dating back to the Black Death, and in
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: 1665 it was reinforced by recent events. You see, just
[1:03:03] Speaker 1: five years earlier, in 1660, the monarchy had been restored
[1:03:09] Speaker 1: after the Puritan Commonwealth, bringing what conservative Puritans saw as
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: a resurgence of courtly immorality and laxity in religion. To
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: some devout folks, the plague looked like divine punishment for
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: England's sins. Debauchery at the king's court, the neglect of
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: true piety, and the licentious behaviour of the citizens. Preachers
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: thundered that the city must repent. Days of public fasting
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: and prayer were proclaimed. Notably, even as the official Church
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: of England leadership scattered, some ministers stayed, and others stepped in.
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: Sermons were delivered in the open air, because churches were
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: deemed too risky in closed spaces, urging people to confess
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: and reform. And there is one famous account by Reverend
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: Thomas Vincent, that is a Puritan who stayed in London
[1:04:10] Speaker 1: during the plague. It describes how people would stand, quote,
[1:04:14] Speaker 1: weeping at the corners of streets, or kneel to pray
[1:04:20] Speaker 1: outside the shuttered churches. Vincent wrote that during the worst months,
[1:04:26] Speaker 1: there was such a cry to heaven for mercy, like
[1:04:30] Speaker 1: he had never heard, with prayer meetings in many homes
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: and psalms sung from windows by the quarantined faithful. This
[1:04:39] Speaker 1: period temporarily relaxed some religious restrictions. Gatherings led by non-Anglican ministers,
[1:04:47] Speaker 1: which would have been illegal under normal laws, were tolerated,
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: because official structures were in disarray, and the people had
[1:04:56] Speaker 1: to have some spiritual solace wherever they could find it. Conversely,
[1:05:03] Speaker 1: some Londoners were terrified and convinced of impending doom. indulged
[1:05:09] Speaker 1: in hedonism, or even occultism. The logic was pretty grim.
[1:05:15] Speaker 1: If it's God's will, nothing can stop the plague. So
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: you may as well drink and be merry, because we're
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: going to die anyway. Peep's records, instances of reckless behaviour,
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: like a group of friends continuing to meet for social dinners,
[1:05:35] Speaker 1: even as the death toll rose, trying to maintain a
[1:05:39] Speaker 1: facade of normalcy kind of like the band playing as
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: the Titanic begins to fill with water and sink drifting
[1:05:49] Speaker 1: to one side he also notes his own inner conflict
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: he occasionally went to the tavern or sought entertainment cautiously
[1:05:59] Speaker 1: during 1665 then would feel guilty or frightened afterwards it
[1:06:07] Speaker 1: was a seesaw between pious fear and worldly temptation. Very real.
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: Very human. And of course, superstition would fill the gaps
[1:06:20] Speaker 1: where science and orthodox religion failed to provide those concrete
[1:06:24] Speaker 1: answers that everyone was seeking. Aside from the quack remedies
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: we've already talked about, there were many omens and charms
[1:06:33] Speaker 1: that people turned to. The appearance of the comet in 1664...
[1:06:39] Speaker 1: had been taken as an omen of war and plague. Later,
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: in 1666, another comet appeared, feeding a frenzy of apocalyptic predictions.
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: 1666 was feared to be the year of the beast,
[1:06:55] Speaker 1: you see. You know, 666. And indeed, London saw plague
[1:07:01] Speaker 1: and fires in those years. Astrologers like William Lilly were
[1:07:06] Speaker 1: in high demand, Lee even published a pamphlet in 1665
[1:07:12] Speaker 1: with astrological observances about the plague's course. People eagerly sought
[1:07:17] Speaker 1: horoscopes or almanacs to tell them when the pestilence might end.
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: Personal talismans also proliferated. One widely used was the magical
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: word square, the abracadabra triangle that we mentioned earlier. But
[1:07:34] Speaker 1: there was another, Another charm was to carry a packet
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: of arsenic trioxide, a poison. Just put it in your pocket. Bizarrely,
[1:07:45] Speaker 1: it was thought that since arsenic was poisonous, it might
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: attract the plague poison and keep it away from your body.
[1:07:54] Speaker 1: Witchcraft accusations did not become a major feature of the
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: Great Plague in London, unlike some earlier plagues in rural
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: areas where witches were blamed. In the metropolis, blame tended
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: to be more diffuse. Bad air. God's will. Foreigners. Things
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: like that. Rather than pointing the finger at witches. It
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: might surprise you that the witches got off pretty much
[1:08:23] Speaker 1: unscathed in this plague. Well, still, some individuals likely practiced
[1:08:29] Speaker 1: folk magic quietly at home, reciting incantations, using protective sigils.
[1:08:36] Speaker 1: or seeking out a cunning man or wise woman to
[1:08:40] Speaker 1: provide charms. So in a broad sense, morality and charity
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: were tested. Some accounts praised those who showed Christian charity,
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: neighbors leaving food for sick families, priests like Vincent ministering
[1:08:56] Speaker 1: without concern for themselves, physicians who gave free treatment to
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: the poor. Others note the moral failures, nurses or watchmen
[1:09:06] Speaker 1: who stole from the house as they attended, healthy citizens
[1:09:11] Speaker 1: who refused to help even their kin for fear of infection.
[1:09:16] Speaker 1: The plague magnified both selflessness and and selfishness in society.
[1:09:22] Speaker 1: As Pepys wrote, it brought forth great fears, the greatest
[1:09:27] Speaker 1: examples of piety and vice, all mixed together. Superstition also
[1:09:36] Speaker 1: left its mark in more benign ways. The children's rhyme,
[1:09:39] Speaker 1: like Ringer Ringer Rosie's, had been popularly, though perhaps inaccurately,
[1:09:45] Speaker 1: linked to the plague. The posies referencing the herbs carried
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: off to ward off disease and we all fall down
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: signifying death. Well, whether or not the rhyme truly originated
[1:09:57] Speaker 1: in 1665 as scholars date it, it does show how
[1:10:01] Speaker 1: cultural memory of the plague entered folklore. But on a
[1:10:06] Speaker 1: communal level, once the plague began to ebb in late
[1:10:10] Speaker 1: 1665 and into 1666, there was a collective sense of Relief.
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: Churches held services of thanksgiving, but there was also soul-searching.
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: Did London truly reform its ways after this divine chastisement?
[1:10:33] Speaker 1: Some preachers lamented that once the immediate danger was over,
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: people swiftly returned to their old sins and vanities. Defoe's
[1:10:43] Speaker 1: fictional narrator, looking back, comments that the extraordinary religious fervor
[1:10:48] Speaker 1: of the plague months loudly faded away afterwards. As he
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: puts it, the devil returned to reclaim his ground once
[1:10:56] Speaker 1: the angel with the sword left. Still, for those who
[1:11:01] Speaker 1: lived through it, the plague must have left a lasting
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: spiritual impression. Many survivors doubtless felt that they had been
[1:11:10] Speaker 1: spared for a reason, or that they had witnessed a
[1:11:14] Speaker 1: biblical-level event. Really, you can't separate the psychology of coping
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: from the religious and superstitious context. Believing in a higher
[1:11:27] Speaker 1: purpose or in lucky charms gave people something to cling to,
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: besides pure fear. Whether it was a heartfelt prayer or
[1:11:38] Speaker 1: a pouch of wormwood around the neck, these little actions
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: could steady a person's mind amid all the chaos. So
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: let's talk more about the psychological toll and the coping mechanisms.
[1:11:56] Speaker 1: You see, living through the Great Plague was imaginably an
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: emotionally scarring experience for the people in London. The ever-present
[1:12:07] Speaker 1: spectre of death, breakdown of normal life, and the isolation.
[1:12:13] Speaker 1: Add to that the uncertainty. It's all a Pretty potent
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: recipe for a psychological toll. Contemporary diaries and letters allow
[1:12:23] Speaker 1: us to glimpse how people felt and coped or failed
[1:12:28] Speaker 1: to cope during this time. Fear. The dominant emotion in
[1:12:34] Speaker 1: the early stages. Fear of catching the disease. Fear of
[1:12:38] Speaker 1: losing your loved ones. Fear of what happens after. As
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: the death cult rose exponentially, many people experienced an acute
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: sense of dread each day. One did not know where
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: the invisible poison might be lurking, in the breath of
[1:12:57] Speaker 1: a neighbour on a piece of cloth, or just floating
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: around in the air. Peeps in June described the great
[1:13:05] Speaker 1: fears of sickness here in the city, and by July,
[1:13:09] Speaker 1: when the plague hit its own parish in St. Olav's,
[1:13:13] Speaker 1: he wrote of his apprehensions. noting he was so alarmed
[1:13:18] Speaker 1: that he put his affairs in order, updating his will
[1:13:21] Speaker 1: and organising his important papers. A pretty common reaction among
[1:13:27] Speaker 1: the better-off, making will-settling accounts as a precaution. But imagine
[1:13:33] Speaker 1: the psychology there, essentially acknowledging that you might be dead
[1:13:39] Speaker 1: next week. Well, for those trapped in quarantined houses or
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: in plague-ravaged neighbourhoods, the fear could tip into complete despair.
[1:13:51] Speaker 1: The 17th century writer Henry Faux, the uncle of Daniel Defoe,
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: reportedly recounted families where, after multiple members died, the survivors
[1:14:01] Speaker 1: fell into a kind of stupor or madness. Defoe's novel
[1:14:08] Speaker 1: contains one heartbreaking vignette, likely based on real anecdotes. A
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: grieving mother, having lost all her children, wandering the streets
[1:14:18] Speaker 1: at night wailing, and eventually throwing herself into a mass grave. Well,
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: we have to be a little bit cautious about the
[1:14:27] Speaker 1: literal truth of such stories, but they can still reflect
[1:14:30] Speaker 1: an emotional truth. Many people were pushed to the brink
[1:14:35] Speaker 1: of sanity by stress and grief. People were said to
[1:14:41] Speaker 1: be taking their own lives at greater rates, though the
[1:14:44] Speaker 1: exact numbers are unknown. Some might have been recorded as
[1:14:48] Speaker 1: plague deaths. One psychological phenomenon noted by Pepys and others
[1:14:54] Speaker 1: was a sort of numbness or desensitization that set in
[1:14:59] Speaker 1: over time. Pepys admitted in September that after months of
[1:15:04] Speaker 1: daily exposure to death, quote, I am come almost to
[1:15:10] Speaker 1: think nothing of it. This numb acceptance was perhaps a
[1:15:15] Speaker 1: kind of coping mechanism, the human mind's way of surviving
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: an unbearable reality. When you see dead bodies that frequently,
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: and every single day brings news of another acquaintance lost,
[1:15:31] Speaker 1: all that horror can become quite routine. Of course, people
[1:15:35] Speaker 1: still felt sadness, but it was as if a collective
[1:15:39] Speaker 1: stoicism or perhaps fatalism had descended. Defoe's character, H.F., observes that,
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: by the height of the plague, many who remained were
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: strangely calm. Having witnessed so much tragedy, they resigned themselves
[1:15:56] Speaker 1: to fate. Some contemporary letters describe how even children became
[1:16:02] Speaker 1: used to the sight of coffins being carried away through
[1:16:05] Speaker 1: the streets at night. Whereas, at the beginning of the outbreak,
[1:16:10] Speaker 1: such a scene would have caused panic. That said, not
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: everybody adapted peacefully. Anxiety disorders, although they wouldn't have used
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: that term, were surely widespread. We hear of individuals who
[1:16:27] Speaker 1: became hypochondriacs. Every small ache or heat rash of the
[1:16:32] Speaker 1: skin triggered a panic that it was the plague token.
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: People in isolation sometimes hallucinated or imagined symptoms. The term
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: Plague fright was used to describe somebody who was so
[1:16:48] Speaker 1: afraid that they fell ill from fear itself. Indeed, Defoe
[1:16:54] Speaker 1: notes that many experienced what we might term psychosomatic illness.
[1:17:00] Speaker 1: They got fevers and bubo-like swellings that were not actually
[1:17:04] Speaker 1: the plague, but stress-induced. And they often recovered, once assured
[1:17:11] Speaker 1: that they were not truly infected. So how did they cope? Well,
[1:17:18] Speaker 1: different people had different strategies. As discussed, turning to prayer, scripture,
[1:17:24] Speaker 1: and a belief in God's providence was a major coping strategy.
[1:17:28] Speaker 1: It gave a framework that, quote, this life is not all,
[1:17:33] Speaker 1: and death might be deliverance, alleviating some terror. Congregational singing
[1:17:39] Speaker 1: of psalms, even from windows or at a distance, also
[1:17:43] Speaker 1: created a sense of solidarity and emotional release. We then
[1:17:49] Speaker 1: had community support, uplifting accounts of neighbours banding together. In
[1:17:54] Speaker 1: some parishes, those who were healthy organised to help deliver
[1:17:58] Speaker 1: food to the sick, or watched over orphaned children of
[1:18:01] Speaker 1: plague victims. Knowing that someone would help your family if
[1:18:05] Speaker 1: you fell ill was a comfort to many. It's not
[1:18:09] Speaker 1: coincidence that we have detailed diaries from this time either.
[1:18:14] Speaker 1: Peep's and also smaller journals by others. Writing was a
[1:18:19] Speaker 1: therapeutic outlet. Peep's diary, although often focusing on his personal life,
[1:18:25] Speaker 1: gives him space to confide his fears, sorrows and even
[1:18:30] Speaker 1: guilty reliefs. Like when he notes being thankful still to
[1:18:34] Speaker 1: be alive while others perish. But there's also evidence that
[1:18:40] Speaker 1: some Londoners coped by making grim jokes or understatements. Peeps
[1:18:46] Speaker 1: at one point, after describing horrible scenes... would suddenly shift
[1:18:51] Speaker 1: to a trivial matter, like being annoyed about a lost
[1:18:54] Speaker 1: shirt sleeve, as if to normalise things. There's a dry
[1:18:59] Speaker 1: wit in such letters, like a merchant writing to a
[1:19:03] Speaker 1: colleague in one says, London is much altered, only the
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: rats and gravediggers have prospered. We others keep chiefly to
[1:19:11] Speaker 1: our homes and prayers. The kind of dark humour, though subtle,
[1:19:17] Speaker 1: can be a way to mentally manage fear by laughing
[1:19:20] Speaker 1: in its face. And it is quintessentially British, I suppose.
[1:19:27] Speaker 1: But then some also coped by just drinking heavily and
[1:19:32] Speaker 1: relying on other vices. Taverns were technically supposed to curtail operations.
[1:19:39] Speaker 1: but plenty of drinking went on privately. Pepys mentions having
[1:19:44] Speaker 1: wine or taking strong waters, that is, spirits, on anxious
[1:19:49] Speaker 1: days to settle his nerves. One advice was to drink
[1:19:53] Speaker 1: fine wines as prevention. Many likely took that advice liberally. Finally,
[1:20:02] Speaker 1: we should mention the aftermath psychologically. Those who survived experienced
[1:20:08] Speaker 1: something akin to what we'd call survivor's guilt or PTSD. Peeps,
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: for instance, after the plague had ebbed, visited a churchyard
[1:20:17] Speaker 1: in January and the following year. I was shaken by
[1:20:21] Speaker 1: the sight of piled graves. Quote, It frightened me to
[1:20:27] Speaker 1: see so many graves lie so high. I was less
[1:20:30] Speaker 1: afraid when snow covered them. He had been relatively composed
[1:20:36] Speaker 1: during the crisis, but afterwards the full weight hit him
[1:20:40] Speaker 1: emotionally when seeing the physical aftermath. Many survivors likely carried
[1:20:45] Speaker 1: the trauma of that year for the rest of their lives.
[1:20:48] Speaker 1: There was probably a heightened appreciation for life's fragility. Pepys
[1:20:53] Speaker 1: famously celebrated when the plague was officially declared over, feasting
[1:20:58] Speaker 1: and rejoicing that the plague, thank God, is decreased to
[1:21:03] Speaker 1: very little. in the bills by February 1666. Yet as
[1:21:09] Speaker 1: fate would have it, some of those same Londoners faced
[1:21:12] Speaker 1: the great fire months later, compounding their trauma. Of course,
[1:21:18] Speaker 1: imagine surviving the plague, only to have your house burned
[1:21:21] Speaker 1: down later on. And so the psychological journey of 1665
[1:21:28] Speaker 1: was one from mounting fear to shock and horror at
[1:21:32] Speaker 1: the peak. to a kind of numb endurance, and finally, relief,
[1:21:38] Speaker 1: tinged with sorrow. Londoners cope through faith, community, routine, sometimes
[1:21:45] Speaker 1: denial or distraction. Their writings convey both the individual and
[1:21:51] Speaker 1: mental battles, such as peeps chewing tobacco nervously while resolving
[1:21:56] Speaker 1: not to panic, and the collective emotional atmosphere that hung
[1:22:00] Speaker 1: over the city like a fog. It was a trial
[1:22:04] Speaker 1: of the mind and the spirit as much as it
[1:22:07] Speaker 1: was of the body. And so, what really emerges is
[1:22:14] Speaker 1: a portrait of a city that, while devastated, did not
[1:22:18] Speaker 1: descend into complete chaos. Social order bent, did not break.
[1:22:26] Speaker 1: Essential services continued at a basic level. People, by and large,
[1:22:31] Speaker 1: helped one another, or at least refrained from harming one another.
[1:22:36] Speaker 1: The rule of law persisted. Courts might have been closed,
[1:22:40] Speaker 1: but the Lord Mayor's edicts were largely obeyed. In many respects,
[1:22:45] Speaker 1: the plague in London foreshadowed how societies handle pandemics even today.
[1:22:50] Speaker 1: Quarantine rules, travel restrictions, reliance on health care experts, misinformation challenges,
[1:22:59] Speaker 1: economic pain, and a profound mix of fear and hope
[1:23:04] Speaker 1: And so the Great Plague of London stands out as
[1:23:07] Speaker 1: one of history's stark reminders, not just of human vulnerability,
[1:23:13] Speaker 1: but also of human resilience. And that's where we end
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: off today. Bit of a longer video today on that,
[1:23:22] Speaker 1: but it's a topic that demands a little bit more explanation.
[1:23:26] Speaker 1: I know you like the plague videos. If you've made
[1:23:29] Speaker 1: it all the way to the end, give me a
[1:23:31] Speaker 1: comment and tell me what you thought about all this.
[1:23:34] Speaker 1: Did you find any parallels to our modern day? I'm
[1:23:38] Speaker 1: sure you did. Now allow me to thank the top
[1:23:41] Speaker 1: dear patrons and supporters, keeping the channel going very graciously. Dark, Kimberly, Christine, Sally, Amber, Susan, Cameron, Legitmus, Gary, Charlene, Lynn, Therese, Katiana, Nicholas, Wolfineer, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. Neuronerd, Aaron, Jaden, Jim, Jeffrey, Jessica, Madeline, Melissa,
[1:24:03] Speaker 1: Orthodox Review, Scott, Stark Factory, Phil, Wendy, Josie, Sarah, Ryan, Thor, Cameron, Stefan, Kevin, HMSHH, Crystal, Dowry, Anthony, Lucy, Brandon,
[1:24:19] Speaker 1: and Gugu Bubonic. Well, Bubonic, thank you for supporting this
[1:24:24] Speaker 1: plague video. What a coincidence. Well, and thank you too
[1:24:29] Speaker 1: for listening all this way. Now, remember, drink lots of water.
[1:24:34] Speaker 1: Keep the house clean. Open the windows. And as always,
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: lots of love to you all. Good night, everybody. Wish
[1:24:43] Speaker 1: you the best of health.

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