The Black Death

There were two major plague epidemics in this country – the Great Plague of the 1600s, and The Black Death of the 1300s. Today we will be looking at the latter.

The less than cheery title is more than apt for this dreadful happening. So what is the Black Death? A horrible illness, similar in symptoms to those I described in my last blog post, the Black Death is thought to have originated in Egypt. There
was also a major epidemic in China, which spread throughout Asia, Europe and then to Britain. The Black Plague in Europe began around 1347 and killed over a quarter of the population. One year later it had reached England.

One of the theories of how the plague spread points to the Mongol Empire. Rulers, who had been in battles across Asia and Europe, would settle in various places across the continents for trade. Italian merchants would come for silks and spices, which had a very high value in Europe. However, the traders brought with them Asian black rats, which were carrying the fleas which had been infected by the plague. The rats made their way into the traders’ supplies. By the time the supplies had arrived back in Italy, half the supply ships’ crews had already died or were dying of the plague. It did not take long for the disease to spread throughout Europe.

So victims of the plague were dropping dead everywhere. The disease was fast-moving and ruthless, and could spread around an entire town within weeks. Death became so commonplace that people of the Middle Ages thought that the world was going through an apocalypse. Of course, poor sanitation and a lack of scientific and medical knowledge certainly didn’t help matters.

From large towns to small villages, people prayed fervently to God but their prayers went unanswered. And for those struck down, even their religion held little comfort. Not all the sick could be given religious last rights because there simply were not enough clergymen to deal with the rapidly dying population. Worse still, some men of the church simply refused to provide these blessings for fear of catching the plague themselves.

When God wouldn’t answer their prayers, a group of people decided to go to extreme measures to make God listen. They were the Flagellants. They would gather around in towns and beat themselves to atone for their sins. This group had been in existence before this time, but their extreme nature, and the fact that the traditional church was not helping out as much as people would have liked during this terrible time, meant that more and more people joined them.

A famous Italian writer, Giovanni Boccaccio, wrote his book The Decameron during the time of the plague. This tells us a lot about how the plague spread and affected people. He said: “The years of the beatific incarnation of the Son of God had reached the tale of one thousand three hundred and forty eight when in the that deadly pestilence, which, whether disseminated by the influence of the celestial bodies, or sent upon us mortals by God in His just wrath by way of retribution for our iniquities [sins] had had its origin some years before in the East.” (page 26 of the link)

“The evil went yet further for not merely by speech or association with the sick was the malady communicated to the healthy with consequent peril of common death; but any that touched the cloth of the sick or aught else that had been touched or used by them seemed thereby to contract the disease.” (27)

“Many died daily or nightly in the public streets; of many others, who died at home, the departure was hardly observed by their neighbours until the stench of their putrefying bodies carried the tidings; and what with their corpses and the corpses of others who died on every hand the whole place was a sepulchre” (31-32)

All in all, a grim time, and what’s worst, it wasn’t the last the people of England, and in particular London, had seen of the plague.

NEXT TIME: THE GREAT PLAGUE OF THE 1600s

And finally
Here is an interview I did last week at The Sweet Bookshelf

The carriage passes what looks like Westminster Palace (minus Big Ben) and eventually turns into a narrow street

I used this quote before when I did my post on London Bridge. Today we will look at Westminster Palace. Or as you know it – The Houses of Parliament.

The Palace of Westminster began as a church, and was built in the eighth century - dedicated to St Peter. The name West Minster came from the phrase meaning west monastery. In the tenth century, after being converted into an abbey, it was adopted as a royal church. It was then that the idea of having a Palace of Westminster was born.

The Palace of Westminster was inherited by William the Conqueror after the great battles of 1066. In 1097, his son William II began to use Westminster Hall to hold grand banquets and it was becoming known as the “ceremonial centre of the Kingdom”. At this time the capital of England was actually Winchester, as this was where the Royals spent most of their time.

Over the next century, Westminster was gradually becoming the centre of the country. This was especially so under the rule of Henry II’s son, King John, when the Exchequer moved to Westminster.

It took 400 years, but finally, in 1512, the Palace of Westminster to become the permanent home of Parliament.


The Clock Tower that we call Big Ben, on the other hand, wasn’t completed until 1859, but this wasn’t the first of its kind. In fact, during Amelia’s time England was up to its second clock, which was built in 1367 but by 1707 it had fallen into disrepair and was replaced with a sundial. After a fire in 1834, which burnt down most of the Palace of Westminster, building work began on a new palace.

Like all political centres, there have been some great historic moments in the Palace of Westminster. Let’s look at our favourite period – the 1600s:

In 1605 Guy Fawkes and 12 others tried to blow up the House of Lords in the infamous Gunpowder Plot. They were prosecuted in 1606.

In 1649, King Charles I was sentenced to death after the Civil Wars between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. In 1653, Oliver Cromwell was instated as the Lord Protector, and England became a Republic. After his death in 1658, he was succeeded by his son, Richard. However the people of England called for Charles II to come back and England had a monarchy again in 1660. In autumn of that year, it was ordered that Cromwell and two others be exhumed (i.e. have their bodies dug up after death), and executed for regicide (or murder of royalty). On the 30th January 1661 (twelve years after the death of Charles I), they were hanged and then decapitated. Their heads were put on display on poles above Westminster Hall.

In 1688, seven bishops were tried because they objected to the Declaration of Indulgence, which stated that people did not have to declare their oath to the church in public and were free to worship as they wished in the privacy of their own homes. It was the first step towards religious freedom, but the objection from the bishops resulted in a trial for seditious libel. They were found not guilty.

“Oh, my dear, my darling Elizabeth has the smallpox.”


The Dresskeeper tries to highlight some of the problems people faced during the 17th century, and disease was an issue than affected everyone – rich or poor.

So what is smallpox? Well, it’s a virus, which according to the World Health Organisation, starts off with symptoms a lot like the flu, but is then followed by a rash and blisters (or pustules). These start on the face and quickly spread everywhere else. Smallpox still is one of the most dangerous and feared diseases in the world, but a few hundred years ago, the disease killed around 30% of those infected. If you didn’t die you would probably end up with scars - almost 80% who survived sported them. And if the scars weren’t enough, you might also be blinded.

In 1967 the World Health Organisation began a programme to eradicate Smallpox completely around the globe and by 1980, they had managed it.

However, during Amelia’s time, and in the case of her poor friend Elizabeth, smallpox was impossible to treat, and there were no vaccinations or preventative medicines. The worst part of it was that a person could be infected for many days and not even realise it. It was easy to see how it spread. That fever could last for around 10 days and by the time the worst of the symptoms would become visible – the pox – that person could have infected so many others. And in a crowded city like London, the virus spread like wildfire.

Finally, in the 1700s, medical professionals began to consider immunization after noticing that a person who had survived smallpox could not be re-infected.

Interestingly, the idea of immunisation was controversial. An article written in 1750 for Gentlemen’s Magazine highlights the arguments against inoculation. For example, it was supposedly against God, as he is the “sovereign of life, and he can preserve us”. A trust in God was considered enough in the fight against the disease. Another argument against immunisation was that giving a child a jab took away their free will in some way, because they were those “who cannot judge for themselves.” And yet another argument was that it was unlawful because “it may bring danger without their knowledge”. In other words, if a person was infected with smallpox for medical purposes, they couldn’t be sure if they carried the disease, and therefore it they might infect others.

Luckily, this article was written by a man named David Some, who was in favour of the jabs. In his view, there were two options – stay out of everyone’s way all the time (obviously impractical) or immunise. He successfully argued immunisation was the safest way to save lives.

Then, in the latter half of the 18th century Edward Jenner noticed that people like milkmaids did not seem to get smallpox - instead they were only infected by the much milder cow pox. He carried out an experiment on an eight-year-old boy named James Phippes. In a gross but necessary act, he took pus out of the pustule from a cowpox sufferer and rubbed it into a cut on the boy’s arm. The boy did not get smallpox.

Unfortunately, not everyone believed in his experiment and the claim that the boy would never get smallpox, so more proof was needed. Jenner continued to try his experiments on other children, which didn’t go down too well with 18th century ‘do-gooders’. Nevertheless, Jenner eventually convinced the powers that be in the benefits of his work, and a vaccine against smallpox was introduced.

Everyone in Europe is flocking here apparently. I look for evidence of it – but everyone looks the same.’

Immigration. A hot topic in this country but it has been going on for so long it would not be surprising to find that every one of us has some trace of non-English blood within us. Even just a little bit from hundreds of years ago.

During this period, the largest wave of immigration into the U.K was from the French. Protestant French to be precise, also known as Huguenots.

In England there has always been a conflict between the Catholic and Protestant church and the ones who got the better treatment was dependent on the religion of the king or queen. During the Tudor times for example, the three children of Henry VIII were of different religions and that had a huge impact on domestic politics. Edward VI was Protestant so continued work of The Reformation. His eldest sister was Mary I, daughter of King Henry’s first wife Catherine of Aragon, was a Catholic and did everything she could to undo all of her brother’s work as well as burning hundreds of Protestants. And finally, Elizabeth I was Protestant although she was interested in finding a middle ground.

Now, back to France. In 1598 the Edict of Nantes was passed by King Henry IV to restore peace in the country. There were conflicts, just like in England, between the two religions which culminated finally in 1572 with a massacre on St Bartholomew’s Day. According to a website titled Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, “nearly 3,000 Protestants were slain in Paris in five days, from the night of August 23-24 to August 29, 1572.”* It was during this time that the first wave of French migrants began to move to England.

The Edict of Nantes was created to give more civil rights to French Protestants, for example allowing them to worship in public, except of course in Paris. The King insisted that the country would remain Catholic, and Protestants must abide by Catholic laws. The Edict was not popular and there was a growing resentment between both sides. The King was assassinated by a fanatic Catholic in 1610.

The Edict was revoked in 1685 when King Louis XIV decided to take away all of the rights that were previously awarded to the Huguenots. Once again a wave of French Catholic immigrants entered England, bringing tailors, watchmakers, jewellers and silk weavers. According to the French Protestant Church of London, by the end of the seventeenth century around 50,000 Huguenots were seeking refuge.

* David El Kenz, Massacres during the Wars of Religion, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, [online], published on 3 November 2007, accessed 1 February 2010, URL : http://www.massviolence.org/Massacres-during-the-Wars-of-Religion, ISSN 1961-9898