The Black Death, also known as the Bubonic Plague, ravaged Europe between 1346 and 1352, decimating almost half of the continent’s population. This pestilence, which we now know was carried by fleas, spread like wildfire across Europe in the mid-14th century. However, there were several resurgences of this disease in the centuries that followed. This article will look specifically at the London Plague of 1563 and conclude whether the Black Death did indeed happen during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
The Black Death in 14th Century Europe
When the bubonic plague (Yersinia Pestis) ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century, most people thought that the world was going to end. A biblical disease, the plague had claimed thousands of lives after it arrived at the European port of Kaffa in 1346 from trading ships. It was through these trading ships that the plague spread.
People began to flee from the port cities due to the plague, but many of the people fleeing had already become infected. Quarantines—not too dissimilar to those seen during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020—did help a little, but it was generally too little too late. As the infected fled, they passed on the disease to non-infected people, and as a result, entire communities were just about wiped out.
In the end, the plague passed by the mid-1350s, but the economy had taken a hammering, and the world was changed forever. Popular revolts such as the Jacquerie in France and the Peasants’ Revolt in England can be traced back to economic hardships suffered as a result of the Black Death, but this did not mean that plague was never going to return.
The plague had to be managed somehow. Quarantining was the primary way in which it was managed, but other alternatives had yet to be discovered, as hygiene practiced during the Middle Ages was notoriously poor.
Unfortunately, by the time Elizabeth I came to the English throne in 1558, this had not yet been discovered. It would be four years into the Virgin Queen’s reign that a bout of plague would erupt again, this time much closer to home—the Great Plague of London in 1563-64.
16th-Century London
Some background context needs to be provided to establish how the plague spread so quickly throughout London.
Much as it is now, London was a compact city. It was built very close to the banks of the River Thames, and had extended gradually as the demand for housing increased, and more and more people moved to the capital in a bid to improve their life and their livelihood, or simply to find work in the city’s many inns, trading vessels or even, if they were lucky, the queen’s household.
London itself, though, was a stinking cesspit in the 16th century. Poor hygiene practices, such as no proper sewage systems, meant that people threw their waste out of windows, which covered the street below. The streets, particularly in the poorer areas of the city, were coated in a mixture of human and animal excrement, and germs and disease were rife.
To add to the calamity, Queen Elizabeth I was only five years into her reign and had to deal with an ever-expanding population. More and more people moving into an already crowded capital city meant that the spread of disease was inevitable.
However, the city had not had a plague outbreak for some twelve years, so many citizens were unconcerned about another bout of plague or a new disease epidemic. When news reached London that plague had erupted in the East Midlands, notably the cities of Derby and Leicester, many remained unconcerned.
The Arrival of the Plague Into London
Unsurprisingly, it was during the summer that the plague began to appear in London in 1563. The stifling heat of the city combined with the shocking sanitary conditions meant that it was a hotbed for infectious disease—so when the first cases of plague were recorded in June 1563, it was not long before it began to spread.
Where this plague came from is unclear. As mentioned earlier, outbreaks in Derby and Leicester in the Midlands could well have been the cause, particularly with merchants travelling down to London, but it could also have come from anywhere across the continent, especially if their vessel docked in the River Thames and it began to spread that way.
Responses to the Elizabethan Plague
The response was fairly mixed from Elizabeth and her government and can be seen as a combination of learning from history and attempting to curb the spread.
The bills of mortality for 1563 show that the week commencing on June 12 saw 17 plague deaths, so this is generally considered the start of the plague. The deaths were enough to spur the authorities into action, suggesting that they had learned from previous outbreaks. Nobody wanted a repeat of the 14th century Black Death.
Elizabeth herself headed the plague response, communicating orders to her people through the Church—the majority of Londoners were regular churchgoers at the time, so this was the quickest way to spread news in the city.
Churchwardens were instructed to tell any sick parishioners to stay home until they were better for fear of spreading the disease and not to come to the church until a few weeks after they felt better.
Again, this seems to be a development in plague response—the idea that a few weeks after they have recovered would make them sufficiently better, not as soon as the symptoms had disappeared.
Other local government responses involved a cull of all stray cats and dogs—again, by the Elizabethan Era, it was realized that the plague was spread through animals, though many people were not aware that it was by fleas on these animals. Nevertheless, the culling of stray cats and dogs likely prevented the plague from spreading as far as it could have done. These stray animals were also under strict orders to be buried, which again likely stopped the spread from rotten animal corpses.
The houses of known infected victims were painted with a blue cross so that people knew to stay away from them and so that victims were less inclined to leave their homes for fear of being discovered by a neighbor. This, again, was likely a positive measure and a good response from the government.
The Height of the Epidemic
Many contemporaries at the time still believed the theories that had been around during the 14th-century pandemic, citing “miasma” or “bad air” as being the primary cause of the plague. This meant that many people lit bonfires to clear the air, when in reality, they were simply adding to the stifling heat of the city in the middle of the summer and not helping the situation.
However, this initiative was also picked up by Elizabeth’s government, who quickly issued a decree that all households should light bonfires at seven in the evening to clear the air.
The facts are that this did nothing, and the plague continued to spread. In July, deaths were recorded at 131 for the week ending July 3, and as the summer wore on, they continued to increase even further—hundreds per week were being recorded by the end of July.
Some of the hardest hit areas of London were sadly the most deprived areas, such as Seacoal Lane and Saint Poulkar’s Parish, which was the worst affected parish. This is because Saint Poulkar’s had lots of fruit merchants coming to trade in the area, and lots of fruit attracted lots of rats, which in turn attracted lots of fleas, and these transferred to people, infecting hundreds in the area.
Even Elizabeth and her court had begun to seriously worry that they might be affected as the plague raged on throughout the streets of London.
In late August, reports of 1,000 Londoners per week dying of the plague, the peak of the epidemic, and London was experiencing a widespread plague-induced panic and frenzy. It was around this time that Elizabeth ordered the removal of Lady Katherine Grey (sister of Lady Jane Grey) and her husband, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, from the Tower of London for fear that they would become infected with the plague and bring it into the Elizabethan court.
Elizabeth and her Royal Council also made the conscious decision to avoid the City of London entirely, and Elizabeth even moved the Royal Court to Windsor to escape the plague-ridden capital.
To make sure that nobody followed them to Windsor, Elizabeth had a gallows erected in the town square to serve as a reminder of what would happen to people who followed the royal entourage out of London.
It is also evident from Elizabeth’s own writings that she was afraid that she might catch the plague, as she is recorded writing to Thomas Young, the Archbishop of York, in either August or September 1563 saying that she recommended universal prayer and fasting for quickening up the process of curing the plague in her realm.
The Decline of the Plague
After the plague reached its peak number of deaths in late September 1563, with 1,828 deaths in one week, Elizabeth and her government made the decision on September 30 that all houses with infected members must be boarded up, and nobody was allowed to leave for 40 days.
Drastic as it was, this response seems to have worked almost immediately, with plague deaths dropping 30% in the space of just one week.
Over the remaining autumn months and into the winter, the plague deaths began to steadily decrease. This was largely due to the cold weather forcing the rats out of the city to find shelter in the countryside or simply unable to survive the elements and perishing along with their fleas, which no longer had a live host to infect.
By late January 1564, the plague had all but disappeared from London, and normal service was resumed.
The Plague Under Elizabeth I: In Conclusion
So, did the Black Death happen during Queen Elizabeth’s reign? The answer is both yes and no.
Yes, because Yersinia Pestis did, in fact, occur in London during Elizabeth I’s reign, and thousands of Londoners lost their lives in the plague of 1563-64.
However, the Black Death primarily refers to the 14th-century pandemic rather than this epidemic, which mainly just affected London.
