Part 2

The whole is to be found in the Gent. Mag. for 1786, p. 747.

1528. We have now arrived at the fourth irruption of the disease, and fortunately can present a more detailed account of the historical facts connected with it, than we have been enabled to do whilst glancing at the three former epidemics. In this we shall necessarily correct a slight error into which Professor Hecker, from the paucity of his materials, has fallen. Although the mortality was not equal in magnitude to that of 1517, yet the influence was widely felt, the disease was distinguished by the same characteristics, and the deaths were quite numerous enough to be placed in comparison with those occurring in ordinary epidemic visitations. From the circumstance that the disease was again particularly rife in the Court, we have found many references to it in letters published under the Royal Commission in the “State Papers,” and in similar collections. We propose illustrating our account with such extracts from these as may serve to bring before the reader a more definite picture of the prevailing state of things.

Hecker, following Grafton, states that the disease first appeared towards the end of May, in the most populous part of the city of London. This was not the case. Before its influence was felt in the capital, which was not until the 14th of June, it had been rife in the north. For Sir William Parre, writing to Wolsey, on the 31st of May, informs him that the Duke of Richmond had on account of its prevalence removed to Ledeston, in Yorkshire, three miles from Pontefract. It was brought out of Sussex into London, as we learn incidentally from an unpublished letter in the Cottonian Collection. We may therefore conclude that it had widely spread in the country districts during the latter part of May and the first weeks of June. Oxford, as usual, suffered severely. The rapidity with which it flew from district to district, and from town to town, obtained for it in 1551 the quaint name of the “posting sweat.” A most graphic picture of the commencement of the epidemic in the metropolis, is given by the Cardinal du Bellay. We are indebted to Mr. Halliwell for the publication of this most interesting document, which forms part of the treasures contained in the Imperial Library of Paris. From it we shall now give our readers some extracts. The Cardinal’s letter is dated London, June 18, 1528; he writes:--

“One of the filles de chambre of Mademoiselle de Boulen was attacked on Tuesday by the sweating sickness. The king left in great haste, and went a dozen miles off: but it is denied that the lady Anne Boleyn was sent away as suspected, to her brother the Viscount, who is in Kent. This disease, which broke out here four days ago, is the easiest in the world to die of. You have a slight pain in the head, and at the heart; all at once you begin to sweat. There is no need for a physician; for if you uncover yourself the least in the world, or cover yourself a little too much, you are taken off without languishing, as those dreadful fevers make you do. But it is no great thing, for during the time specified, about two thousand only have been attacked by it in London. Yesterday, having gone to swear the truce, they might be seen, as thick as flies, hurrying out of the streets and the shops into the houses, to take the sweat the instant they were seized by the distemper. I found the ambassador of Milan leaving his quarters in great haste, because two or three had been attacked by it.”

* * * * *

“But to return to London. I assure you that the priests there have a better time of it than the physicians, except that there is not enough of them to bury the dead. If the thing lasts, corn will be cheap. Twelve years ago, when the same thing happened, 10,000 persons died in ten or twelve days, it is said, but it was not so sharp as it is now beginning to be. M. the legate (Cardinal Wolsey), had come for the term; but he soon had his horses saddled again, and there will be neither assignation nor term. Everybody is terribly alarmed.” This is confirmed by Stow. The term was adjourned to Michaelmas.

From this account we see that at its first onset in London it seemed probable that the epidemic would be as fatal as its predecessor. This expectation was not realized. The mortality seems to have been unequal at different times during the same visitation. It did not gradually increase, as in the plague, to its maximum, and then as gradually diminish, but probably was never more fatal than at its first onset.

Henry’s first retreat was Waltham in Essex, from which however he was speedily driven, by the seizure of the treasurer, two of the court ushers, and two of his valets de chambre. He immediately retired to Hunsdon in Hertfordshire, where he arrived on the 21st of June. News here reached him that Anne Boleyn, who had already become the object of his passion, was attacked by the disease. The occasion of this illness produced one of that remarkable series of love-letters, which have since become so celebrated, and the originals of which are preserved at Rome. In it he deplores her illness, states he would gladly bear half of it to have her cured, and regrets that he cannot send her his first physician, who was absent, but that in default of him he sends the second, “and the only one left, praying God that he may soon make you well, and then I shall love him more than ever.” Happy indeed would it have been for the ill-fated Anne had the dart penetrated more deeply. The scene enacted in the “doleful prison in the Tower”, on the 19th of May, 1536, would not then have disgraced the history of the English monarchy, and the escutcheon of the Tudor would have been spared one of its deepest stains!

The next document of any importance, in which we find reference to our subject, is a letter written by Brian (afterwards Sir Brian Tuke) to Cardinal Wolsey; and, risking the charge of prolixity, we cannot refrain from extracting from it a passage or two, as it exhibited bluff King Hal in the novel character of a medical adviser. Tuke dates from Hunsdon, June 23rd, 1528; and, in relating to Wolsey the particulars of a private interview he had with the King, respecting a letter he had received from the Cardinal, he thus writes:--“I red forthe til it camme to the latter ende, mencionyng Your Graces good comfort and counsail geven to His Highnes, for avoiding this infeccion, for the whiche the same, with a most cordial maner, thanked Your Grace: and shewing me, firste, a great proces of the maner of that infeccion; howe folkes wer taken; howe litel dangeir was in it, if good ordre be observed; howe fewe wer ded of it; howe Mastres Anne, and my Lorde of Rocheforde, bothe have had it; what jeopardie they have ben in, by retournyng in of the swet bifore the tyme; of the endevour of Mr. Buttes who hathe ben with them, and is retourned; with many other thinges touching those matiers, and finally of their perfite recovery; His Highnes willed me to write unto Your Grace, most hertily desiring the same, above al other thinges, to kepe Your Grace oute of al ayre, where any of that infeccion is, and that if, in on place any on fal sike thereof, that Your Grace incontinently do remove to a clene place; and so, in like cace, from that place to an other, and with a small and clene company: saying, that this is the thing, whereby His Highnes hathe pourged his house, having the same nowe, thanked be God, clene. And over that, His Highnes desireth Your Grace to use smal sowpers, and to drink litel wyne, namely that is big, and ons in the weke to use the pilles of Rasis; and if it comme in any wise, to swete moderately the ful tyme, without suffering it to renne in; whiche by Your Graces phisicians, with a possetale, having certein herbes clarified in it, shal facilly, if nede be, be provoked and contynued; with more good holsom counsail by His Highnes in most tender and loving maner geven to Your Grace, then my symple wit can suffise to reherse; whiche his gracious commaundement, I said, I wolde accomplish accordingly.”

In the after part of his letter he informs the Cardinal that news had just arrived that Mr. Cary, whom he had shortly before met on his way to hunt, was “ded of the swet.” “Our Lorde have mercy on his soule, and holde his hande over us.” Proposing to join Wolsey, he tells him he dare not come through London, “wherfore I wol cost to the water side, and comme the rest by water, thorough London Bridge; though I promyse Your Grace there is non erthely riches shoulde cause me to travaile muche nowe, considering that the phisicians tel me ther is nothing, that more stirreth the mater and cause of the swet then moche traveil, and likewise commyng in the son.”

In the city the ancient solemnity of the procession of the watch, on Midsummer eve, was discontinued, for fear of adding fuel to the spreading flame by collecting the populace: whilst the King removed to Hertford, at which place he was “moche troubled,” for on the night of the 26th, there fell sick the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset, Sir Thomas Cheney, Mistress Croke, Master Norris, and Master Wallop; who all, however, recovered; and Sir Francis Poyntz, who, says the writer of the letter we are quoting, “is departed, whiche Jhesu pardon.” On these occurrences taking place, the King fled to Bishop’s Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

On the 29th, we find Wolsey removing to Hampton Court, on account of the “vehement infection and sykenes, that ys fallen amonges his Graces folkes.” Du Bellay’s next letter, we shall see, gives a rather ludicrous account of the precipitate retreat of the “great child of honour,” who, as all know from Cavendish, was dreadfully afraid of contagion, and used to carry with him an orange, stuffed with sponge steeped in vinegar and confections, against pestilent airs, the which he commonly held to his nose when he came to the presses, or when he was pestered with many suitors.

On the 30th the King had reached Tittenhanger in Hertfordshire, and here received news of the death of Sir William Compton, who was reported to be “lost by neclygens, in lettyng hym slepe in the begynnyng of his swete.” No more on that day had been attacked in the Court, and those who had sickened on the 28th were recovered.

Grafton tells us that during the stay at Tittenhanger the place was daily purged with fires and other preservatives. An odd remedy against a sweating sickness at Midsummer!

The second letter of the Cardinal du Bellay is of this date; after recounting the names of nine courtiers who had been attacked, and of three who were dead, he says--“but when all is said, those who do not expose themselves to the air rarely die; so that out of more than 45,000 who have been attacked in London, not 2000 have died, whatever people may say. It is true that if you merely put your hand out of bed during the twenty-four hours, you instantly become stiff as a peacock. P.S. Since writing my letters, I have been informed that a brother of the Earl of Derby’s, and a son-in-law of the Duke of Norfolk’s, have died suddenly at the legate’s (Wolsey), who slipped out at the back door with a few servants, and would not let any body know whither he was going, that he might not be followed. The king at last stopped about twenty miles hence, at a house which M. the legate has had built, and I have it from good authority, that he has made his will and taken the sacrament, for fear of sudden seizure. Nothing ails him, thank God!”

We shall hereafter see that the ambassador was inclined to think more seriously of it, when he had himself been a sufferer, and was the only survivor of nineteen who were attacked. However, in the absence of other evidence, we are bound to receive his statement as correct, in reference to the amount of mortality. And even this must have been proportionally as great as in our last epidemic of cholera and diarrhœa. It is calculated, in the Report of the Scientific Committee, published by the Board of Health, that seventy-one deaths in each 10,000 of the population of London took place, and that in this number there were 3473 cases of all forms of cholera and diarrhœa; in other words, that there was one death to every forty-eight attacks. But Du Bellay’s statement gives an average of two deaths in forty-five seizures; or more than double the proportion. Again, it must be remembered that these occurred in the space of sixteen days, whereas the cholera epidemic lasted six months. We do not wish to be supposed to insist on this calculation; in either case it can merely be an approximation, and we advance it here only to show that even a mild epidemic of the sweating sickness was no slight pestilence.

On the first of July, we are informed that two cases had occurred at Tittenhanger; one being that of a gentleman’s servant, the other, one of the King’s wardrobe. On this day the King sends to Wolsey for “the byll that Mr. Fynche made, for the remedy of all suche as have fallyn syke in youre howse; for as His Hynes ys enformyd, he haythe doyne very well, boythe to bryng them to there swheyte ageine, when they fall owte, and allso to swayge the grete hete and burnyng.”

On the 5th, we find the King again despatching to Wolsey to delay visiting him “untill the tyme be more propiciouse.” In a former letter we learn that flying tales had reached Tittenhanger, that many of his Grace’s folks were sick, and divers departed. Henry was as much frightened as the Cardinal, although on St. Thomas’s day he sends him a message, in a letter written by Dr. Bell, to put away fear and fantasies, to commit all to God, and expresses a wish that “Your Grace’s harte weer as gode as hys is.” Both king and minister made their wills, and each took care that the assurance was conveyed to the other that he was not forgotten in the testament. In the letter of the 5th, the Cardinal is desired to “cawse generall processions to be made, unyversally thorough the realme, aswell for the good wetheringes, to thencrease of corne and fruyte, as also for the plage that now reignethe.”

On the 9th, we find Henry preparing to remove from Tittenhanger to Ampthill in Bedfordshire, in consequence of the seizure of the “Lady Marques of Exeter,” and commanding that all such as were with the Marquis and Marchioness should “departe in severall parcells, and so not contynue together.”

On the 10th, the king had postponed his departure until the 11th; but, in the meantime, eight or nine had fallen sick, although none had been in jeopardy. The unpublished letter in the Cottonian Collection, before alluded to, bears date July the 14th. It is from Brian Tuke to Sir Peter Vannes. The disease had broken out in Tuke’s house; and he says, “I write this at my waking after mydnyt, fearing to lye stil for the swet, with an aking and troubled hed.” His wife had passed the paroxysm, but “veray weke,” “and also sore broken oute about her mowthe and other places.” His letter is principally filled with his opinion as to the causes and mode of spread of the epidemic. He allows that there is an infection, but believes that the disease is chiefly “provoked of disposicion of the tyme.” He thinks that many frighten themselves into it. (How commonly we heard this in the late epidemics!) He flatters himself that he has obtained protection by the nightly use of a certain means; which, however he does not specify. The context would lead us to suppose that it was the application of cold in some form; for he says--“It wer to long a worke to declare unto you by what and howe I nyghtly put away the swet from me, and by what reason I dare do the same, when al other men take that so doing they kil them self.” The chief facts of interest we learn from this letter are, that the sweat did not spread from Calais to Graveling, although there was constant intercourse between the two places, and that it was brought from Sussex into London. We may form some idea of his pathology by the following: “It is not so moch to be doubted to put away the swet in the begynnyng, and bifore a man’s grese be well hote, keping molten, as it is taken. For though surely after the grese so heted it is no lesse but rather more danger for a man to take colde then it wer for an horse that in like case is destroyed.”

On the 18th, the Abbess of Wilton in Wiltshire writes to Wolsey, that “it pleasithe Almyghty God to visite nowe the monastery with this greate plage of swetyng.”

The French ambassador’s third letter bears date the 21st, and from it we shall make our last extracts in reference to this visitation. He says: “As to the danger which is in this country, it begins to diminish hereabouts, but increases in parts where it had not been. In Kent it is rife at this moment.” * * “The day that I had it at M. de Canterbury’s (the archbishop), eighteen died of it in four hours; scarcely any escaped that day but myself, and I am not yet stout. The king has removed further than he was, and hopes that he shall not have the complaint. Still he keeps upon his guard, confesses every day, receives the sacrament on all holidays; and likewise the queen, who is with him. M. the legate does the same. The notaries have a fine time of it here: I believe there have been made a hundred thousand wills off hand, because those who died all went mad the instant the disorder became severe. The astrologers say this will turn to the Plague, but I think they rave.”

The epidemic spread throughout the country, and in consequence of it the circuits of assize were adjourned. Ireland also now unquestionably felt its influence. In Cork it was very fatal; and in Dublin, in the month of August, the archbishop and many of the citizens fell victims. It continued in some parts of England until the autumn; for Magnus, writing to Wolsey from Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, on the 7th of October, says that in consequence of the “pestiferous and ragious swete,” the Duke of Richmond has remained until now in a private place, with few attendants.

We must apologize to our readers for these lengthy details; but it is in descending to particulars we frequently can obtain that vivid impression of bygone events, which a mere general statement so often fails to convey.

In the following year, 1529, the sweating fever appeared at Hamburg, and spread throughout Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It is not within the limits of a historical paper, which is confined to an account of the sweating sickness in England, to trace the march of the pestilence. This has been most ably performed by Hecker. Wherever it appeared it was accompanied, as usual, by dread, death, and desolation. We cannot, however, agree with the German professor in his view of the production of the epidemic. We are inclined to avow ourselves contagionists, in a modified sense of the word. It is beyond doubt that the disease did not appear at Hamburg until, on the 25th of July, a ship arrived from England, commanded by a Captain Hermann Evers, on board which, several cases of sweating sickness had occurred. On the night of their landing four persons were attacked and died. It is true that the conflagration no longer spread widely in England, but it had not died out in the earlier part of the preceding winter, and we cannot but believe that its flickering embers still existed. Sporadic cases doubtless occurred, and even isolated outbreaks of the disease. At least, we have strong proof of one such taking place at Chester, in 1550, a year before the last great epidemic. Hecker seems to think that the passengers on board Captain Evers’s ship, acquired the sweat in the fogs of the German Ocean. But other ships must have been exposed to the same influence, and this was an isolated case. When, we would inquire, did a similar epidemic commence among the colliers of the Tyne, or the fishers of the Forth? The argument that he adduces from the fact that no sooner did report of the disease reach a place, than cases immediately occurred; and that, therefore, it spread more rapidly than by contagion, is the same advanced by our old friend, Brian Tuke, who says--“For when an hole man hath comen from London, and shewed of the swet, the same nygt al the toun, where the knowlege was, fal of it, and thus it spredeth yet as the fame roneth.” What better proof of the intervention of human intercourse can we have than is given in this sentence? The solution of the problem lies in the “whole man who came from London.” Evidently the rumour and the reality flew along the same conducting wire.

Yet we would not insist too much on what after all must be matter of opinion. When we find the medical world of our own day so divided on the subjects of the spread of cholera and yellow fever, the facts of which appeal to their immediate observation, how can we hope to draw conclusions with certainty from the scant records of 300 years ago--at the best, but a faint glimmer to direct us through the darkness which surrounds the past? That an outbreak of the sweat occurred at Chester in the year 1550, is affirmed by all the local historians. The year seems fixed by the fact that the mayor, Edmund Gee, died of it. We have examined several lists of the mayors and sheriffs, both manuscript and printed; and they each place his mayoralty and death in the year 1550. The Chester Chronicles in the Harleian Collection, state that in the morning he left the pentice (a local court) in good health, and that he died before night. Forty persons are said to have been carried off in twenty-four hours. Of course we cannot positively declare that there has been no confusion of dates here; we only lay before our readers the unanimous testimony of the Chester authorities.

We have now arrived at the fifth and last act of the tragedy. The final irruption of the sweating sickness commenced at Shrewsbury, in the year 1551, the fifth of the short but eventful reign of Edward VI. Caius and Stow name the 15th of April as the day of its first appearance, but a manuscript chronicle of the town dates its commencement from the 22nd of March. Local tradition yet points to the White Horse Shut, Frankwell, as the focus from which the malady spread. Hecker, without sufficient ground, places the amount of mortality at 960. But Caius, whom he follows, merely states that in one city (unâ civitate) that number died. We are inclined to doubt, with the authors of the History of Shrewsbury, whether, as has been generally affirmed, Caius was present in that town at all. When he says, “Ipse dum hæc tragedia agebatur, præsens spectator interfui,” he only states that he was an eye-witness of the dreary spectacle; and there are reasons which render it more probable that he observed it in London than at Shrewsbury. However this may be, we have his testimony that it spread from its place of origin to Ludlow, Presteign, and other places in Wales, thence to Westchester, Coventry, Drenfoorde (?), and the south, before it came to London, which it reached on the 7th of July, three months after its first appearance. He gives a most vivid description of the consternation, horror, and desolation that reigned. Business was at an end; citizens fled to the country; peasants thronged the towns; many sought an asylum in foreign lands. The shrieks of women, rushing half naked from their habitations, mingled with the groans of the dying, and the deep clang of the funeral bell, booming through the misty air from every tower and steeple, deafened the ear, and struck terror to the heart of the passer. The epidemic was at its height in the capital from the 9th to the 19th of July, and it lingered until the 30th. In this time, at the lowest computation, nearly a thousand people perished. The exact number is somewhat differently stated, Stow says 960 died, of whom 800 in the first week. Caius (English treatise) reports that 761 died from the 9th to the 16th, besides those on the 7th and 8th, of whom no register was kept, and 142 from the 16th to the 30th. Machyn, a citizen resident in London, says that 872 were certified by the chancellor to have perished from the 8th to the 19th; whilst, in a manuscript in the Harleian Collection, we are told that 938 persons were carried off between the 7th and 20th. These numbers render it probable that when Caius, in his Latin treatise, written some time after, speaks of 960 dying in one city, his statement refers to the metropolis. One testimony, however, places the mortality much higher. Christopher Froschover, in a letter, dated London, August the 12th, affirms that 2,000 had died in the city, and 200 at Cambridge. The short space of time occupied by the pestilence, with the awfully abrupt seizure, and speedy termination of the fatal cases, rendered the destruction so appalling. It was the “sudden death,” with battle and murder equally dreaded.

Again the palace was attacked. A celebrated lawyer, Sir Thomas Speke, was seized there, and had only time to reach his house in Chancery Lane, before he breathed his last. There were some dancing in the Court at nine o’clock, who were dead at eleven, says a sermon of the period. There died in London, writes Machyn, “mony marchants and grett ryche men and women, and yonge men.” Howes, in his continuation of Stow, relates that “seven honest householders did sup together, and before eight of the clock the next morning six of them were dead.” The young king fled to Hampton Court, whence he addressed a letter to the bishops, inciting them to persuade the people to prayer, and to see God better served. There are several references to the malady in the preaching of Bradford and Hooper: the latter made it the subject of a pastoral charge and homily.