The Plague in Print: Essential Elizabethan Sources, 1558–1603

5. Plague Bills. Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks: The Number of all those that hath died (c. 1583)

5 Plague Bills Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks: The Number of all those that hath died (c. 1583) The bills of mortality in England took form as local governments sought methods for alerting citizens to plague-time dangers and as Privy Council members looked to protect the monarch, the court, and the nation. Under King Henry VIII, for example, Thomas Cromwell required this form of record-keeping for London, but it was not until Elizabeth I’s reign that local officials across the nation were uniformly required to give written account of plague deaths. Soon after the issue of Elizabeth I’s 1578 Orders thought meet, bills were regularly printed for wider distribution. The Number of all those that hath died (STC 16738.5) is both representative and unusual. It is an annual bill for multiple parishes, and such bills would become increasingly popular by the end of the century, but the bill is rare for its time, when it was routinely the case that bills recorded deaths for single parishes and existed in manuscript form. This bill is of special value because within it the author explains the need for just such record keeping, and by way of comparing plague years, cites the number of plague dead in 1562–63, from the first Elizabethan visitation. 197 Fig. 7. The Number of all those that hath died, title page, STC 16738.5 (2nd ed.). Reproduced by permission of the Guildhall Library, City of London. Plague Bills 199 It is useful to compare this early bill with previous manuscript bills and with the numerous annual bills from the seventeenth century. See for example, Herbert Barry, “A London Plague Bill for 1592, Crich, and Goodwyffe Hurde,” English Literary Renaissance 25.1 (1995): 3–25; Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks, A generall bill for eight weeks shewing all the burials and christninges within the city of London and the liberties thereof (1603; STC 16743.1); Henry Chettle, A True bill of the whole number that hath died (1603; STC 16743.2); H.C., London’s Lord have mercy upon us (1637; STC 4273); and The mourning-cross: or, England’s Lord have mercy upon us ([1665] Wing M2991B). Due to the range of spellings used for early parish names, those listed here were cross-referenced with STC 16743.1, noted above, and with parish names supplied by John Stow in A Survey of London (1603). There is dead this year, that is to say, from the 28 of December 1581 unto the 27 of December 1582 within the City and the liberties of the same: 6930. Of the Plague 3075 Christened 3503 Parishes clear of the plague 5 Out-Parishes 430 Of the Plague 239 Here followeth the Parishes with their numbers that hath buried of the Plague. A. Allhallows Barking 60 Allhallows in Bread Street 3 Allhallows the More 30 Allhallows the Less 7 Allhallows Honey Lane 1 Allhallows Lombard Street 7 Allhallows Staining 67 200 The Plague in Print Allhallows in the Wall 13 Albons in Wood Street 16 Andrew Eastcheap1 29 Andrew Holborn 89 Andrew Wardrobe 97 Andrew Undershaft 24 Alphege at Cripplegate 7 Anne at Aldersgate2 35 Anne at Blackfriars 21 Augustine at Paul’s Gate clear Antholin at Budge Row3 clear B. Bartholomew Hospital 14 Bartholomew at the Exchange 10 Benet Finck 11 Benet Grace Church 11 Benet Paul’s Wharf4 20 Benet Sherehog 4 Bride Parish 124 Botolph Aldgate 158 Botolph Aldersgate 72 Botolph Bishopsgate 60 Botolph Billingsgate 7 C. Christ’s Church 50 Christopher at the Stocks 1 Clement by Eastcheap 3 D. Dennis Backchurch 25 Dunstan in the East 35 Dunstan in the West 47 E. Edmund in Lombard Street 6 Ethelborow in Bishopsgate Street 15 F. Faith under Paul’s 21 Foster in Foster Lane 4 G. Gabriel Fenchurch 5 Plague Bills 201 George by Pudding Lane5 2 George in Southwark 74 Giles at Cripplegate 186 Gregory by Paul’s 22 H. Helen in Bishopsgate Street 7 J. James Garlickhithe 11 John Evangelist 2 John in Walbrook 9 John Zachary 25 K. Katherine Coleman 33 Katherine Cree Church 57 L. Lawrence in the Jury 15 Lawrence Pountney 13 Leonard in Eastcheap 2 Leonard Foster Lane 54 M. Mary Aldermary 6 Mary Aldermanbury 26 Mary Abchurch 40 Mary Bow clear Mary Botolphe6 2 Mary Colechurch 1 Mary Hill 27 Mary...