Fire and Plague: London in 1665 and 1666

In our previous podcast, Worst Years, we mentioned we could do a whole episode on how bad things were in London in the 1660s. Well, here that episode is! We discuss in more detail just what confluence of events struck to have 1666 be declared the year of the devil.

Cruikshank, G. for an 1876 edition of Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year, The Great Pit In Aldgate

This episode has it all! Plague:

The Great Plague In London

Two Women Lying Dead In London Street

Warfare:

Van Leyden, Jan, ca 1667-1669. The Dutch Burning English Ships during the Raid on the Medway, 20 June 1667.

Fire:

Anonymous, ca. 1670. The Great Fire of London with Ludgate and old St. Paul’s Cathedral

The Great Fire of London

And Primary Sources!

Bill of Mortality: Plague, Disease, and Casualty

Kneller, Godfrey, 1689. Portrait of Samuel Pepys, noted diarist

For more on this topic, check out these sources:

Evely, John, The Dairy of John Evelyn (Oxford University Press 1985)

Mortimer, Ian, The Time Traveler’s Guide to Restoration Britain, A Handbook for Visitors to the Seventeenth Centruy: 1660-1700 (Peagasus Books 2017)

Pepys, Samuel, The Illustrated Pepys: Extracts from the Dairy (University of California Press 1978)

Rideal, Rebecca, 1666 Plague War and Hellfire (John Murray 2017)