How did Londoners react to this plague that devastated their lives? This meant many people lost their jobs – from servants to shoemakers to those who worked on the River Thames. There were to be no fairs or trade with other countries. The Council of Scotland declared that the border with England would be closed. Searchers looked for dead bodies and took them at night to plague pits for burial.Īll trade with London and other plague towns was stopped. Watchmen locked and kept guard over infected houses. The poorest people remained in London with the rats and those people who had the plague. The Lord Mayor and aldermen (town councillors) remained to enforce the King’s orders to try and stop the spread of the disease. Court cases were also moved from Westminster to Oxford. Parliament was postponed and had to sit in October at Oxford, the increase of the plague being so dreadful. Charles II and his courtiers left in July for Hampton Court and then Oxford. Those who could, including most doctors, lawyers and merchants, fled the city. They were attracted by city streets filled with rubbish and waste, especially in the poorest areas. Rats carried the fleas that caused the plague. The death rate began to rise during the hot summer months and peaked in September when 7,165 Londoners died in one week. The earliest cases of disease occurred in the spring of 1665 in a parish outside the city walls called St Giles-in-the-Fields. Other parts of the country also suffered.

While 68,596 deaths were recorded in the city, the true number was probably over 100,000. London lost roughly 15% of its population. This was the worst outbreak of plague in England since the black death of 1348.

Defoe diary of a plague year