Although I haven’t mentioned it in these notes before, throughout the Journal the author has praised the work of the city administration—the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, magistrates, the city council, the sheriffs, and others—for their leadership and devotion to duty in such a time. This episode highlights several of the steps taken by them to preserve civic order, from the prompt disposal of the dead and an attention to what little they knew about public health to the regulation of the markets to the administration of justice. The presence of the Lord Mayor himself on market day helped to sustain morale until that time when no such gesture could have any effect. At the end of this episode the author excerpts the Bills of Mortality to chart the progress of the disease from west to east, and from the suburban parishes to the city itself, and from there across the Thames to Southwark.
[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]
Credits:
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard.
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting. Used by permission.
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