The Black Death

The Great Plague of London (1665)

The Great Plague of 1665 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in England and one of the most extensively documented epidemics in early modern European history. The epidemic killed approximately 100,000 people — roughly a quarter of London’s population — and left a rich record in official documents, personal diaries, medical treatises, and literary works, including Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).

The Context

London in 1665 was a city of approximately 400,000 people, crowded into the medieval street plan of the City of London and the expanding suburbs to the west and south. The city had experienced recurring plague outbreaks throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with major epidemics in 1563, 1593, 1603, 1625, and 1636. The public health measures developed in response to these outbreaks — quarantine, isolation of the sick, regulation of burial, and the appointment of plague searchers — were well established by 1665.

The plague of 1665 likely entered London through the port, carried by ships from the Netherlands, where plague had been active since 1663. The disease was first detected in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields in April 1665, and it spread rapidly through the crowded, unsanitary streets of the City and the suburbs.

The Course of the Epidemic

The plague intensified through the summer of 1665, reaching its peak in September, when the weekly death toll exceeded 7,000. The disease was primarily bubonic plague, transmitted by fleas from infected rats, though some cases of pneumonic plague were also recorded.

The wealthy fled the city in large numbers. King Charles II and his court retreated to Oxford. Many merchants, lawyers, and professionals left for the countryside. The poor, who could not afford to leave, bore the brunt of the epidemic.

The public health response was coordinated by the Privy Council and the City of London authorities. Infected houses were marked with a red cross and the words “Lord have mercy upon us” and were shut up with the occupants inside — a brutal but potentially effective form of isolation. Plague searchers were appointed to identify cases and report deaths. Mass graves were dug when the churchyards overflowed.

The Death Toll

The official death toll, recorded in the Bills of Mortality, was 68,596 deaths from plague. However, modern scholars believe that the true figure was closer to 100,000, as many deaths were attributed to other causes to avoid the stigma and restrictions associated with plague. The total represented approximately a quarter of London’s population.

The mortality was not evenly distributed. The poor parishes of the City and the suburbs suffered far more heavily than the wealthy parishes of the West End. The crowded, unsanitary conditions of the poor parishes — with their dense rat and flea populations — provided ideal conditions for the spread of the disease.

Samuel Pepys and the Literary Record

The Great Plague of 1665 is one of the most extensively documented epidemics in history, thanks in part to the diary of Samuel Pepys, a naval administrator who remained in London throughout the epidemic. Pepys’s diary provides a vivid, personal account of life in plague-stricken London: the fear, the grief, the disruption of daily life, and the gradual return of normality as the epidemic subsided.

Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), a fictionalised account based on contemporary sources and possibly on the recollections of Defoe’s uncle, is one of the most widely read literary works about the plague. While not a primary source, Defoe’s account draws on authentic documents and provides a compelling narrative of the epidemic’s course and impact.

The End of the Plague

The plague subsided in the winter of 1665–1666, as the cold weather reduced flea activity and the epidemic burned itself out. The Great Fire of London in September 1666, which destroyed much of the medieval City, has sometimes been credited with ending the plague by destroying the rat-infested buildings. However, the plague had already largely subsided before the fire, and the fire did not affect the suburbs where the epidemic had been most severe.

The Great Plague of 1665 was the last major outbreak of plague in England. The reasons for the disappearance of plague from England are debated: improved quarantine measures, changes in housing and building materials (brick and stone replacing timber and thatch), the displacement of the black rat by the brown rat, and the evolution of less virulent strains of Yersinia pestis have all been proposed as explanations.