Plymouth (3 page)

Beggars were driven out of Plymouth in this era. (With the kind permission of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto)

In 1254 the little village of Plymouth was finally awarded market status, which brought with it ownership of a ducking stool and a pillory, providing the people with centuries of entertainment. (Along with ‘bull baiting’ under the Hoe.) In 1498 Harry Hornebroke was paid to make a new pillory, and others paid to secure and whip the pilloried prisoners. Crowds could enjoy pelting the prisoners with rotten vegetables. The pillory was still in use as late as 1813, this time to punish a husband and his wife for offending public morals.

The laws in the new town were often cruel. Beggars and the mad were literally beaten out of Plymouth. In 1568 a man called Robert Cottell was paid good wages to do just that, while suspected whores were whipped and exiled. However, life wasn’t much better for those permitted to live in Plymouth. The busy streets were narrow and dirty, with sewage running down the open drains; many houses were over-crowded and in disrepair; and illness was rife and spread quickly.

Leprosy was commonplace, made worse by the unhealthy diet and poor hygiene of the impoverished inhabitants. The illness caused skin sores, muscle weakness and nerve damage, resulting in loss of feeling in the sufferer’s hands and feet. In the worst cases, the patient became horribly disfigured. Leper houses – or Maudlyn houses – were established in Plympton in 1307, and also in North Hill to quarantine the patients. Not all the patients actually had leprosy. Anyone with anything contagious or incurable, including mental illness, could end up in one of these leper houses, living on charity. In 1590 a man called Edwards was paid to carry a woman ‘distracted of her wits’ to the Maudlyn house at Plympton.

Then, in 1348, the Black Death arrived. The virulent bubonic plague was carried to Devon on the fleas of black rats. The plague had spread throughout Europe from Asia, and arrived in Weymouth in Dorset in May 1348, carried there by a ship from Gascony. Another ship heading from Weymouth to Bristol then transported the disease around the Devon and Cornish coasts, before it infested Bristol with an epidemic of misery, and the pestilence travelled on inland via the waterways. By August 1348 it had devastated Devon and spread to Cornwall, killing 1,900 in Exeter, 1,500 in Bodmin and half the population of Truro by mid-1349. Half Europe’s population – an estimated 25 million people – died in less than two years.

The first signs of the disease were swellings in the armpits and groin, followed by red boils that quickly turned black – the ‘buboes’ that gave the plague its name. Gangrene soon set in, affecting the lungs and causing incredible pain, often to the point of insanity – maddened victims were reported running through the streets, dispersing the disease. The victims vomited blood, passing the infection on to the next poor unfortunate. Initially the plague spread only through contact with biting fleas or infected victims, but soon it became air-born and just breathing the same air as a sufferer could pass on the horrific symptoms. Attempts were made to quarantine the sick, but many victims were simply abandoned in their homes by terrified relatives and friends. Anyone trying to treat the disease, such as physicians or the clergy, soon joined the dead. The corpses became so many that coffins were replaced by mass graves outside the towns, with parents carrying their dead children to be thrown into the pit, often just before dying themselves.

Treatment seemed impossible. Though they correctly identified that the plague was carried in the air, all they had to protect themselves was the scent of pomanders or herbs. They thought that if they couldn’t smell it, they couldn’t catch it. Of course, they were wrong. Charlatans sold ‘cures’, the wealthy buying expensive potions made from gold and pearls in a desperate effort to save themselves, but some of the treatments were as toxic as the illness itself. Many believed the plague to be the wrath of a vengeful God, blaming society’s wickedness, immodest clothing or even disobedient children for the onset of the Black Death. The apocalypse was nigh, it seemed. King Edward III pronounced to the bishops:

For we hope that if, by God’s grace, the people drive out this spiritual weakness from their hearts, the malignancy of the air and of the other elements will also depart.

It was all to no avail: the clergy themselves died in ever-increasing numbers. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury perished in 1349. Between January and September 1349, nearly 350 of the clergy in the priories and abbeys of Devon and Cornwall succumbed to the disease. The records specific to Plymouth for 1348 and 1349 have been lost, but in 1349 the Priory at Plympton made a desperate plea to the authorities to permit them to invest underage and illegitimate boys – there were just not enough men left alive in Plymouth to take on the necessary duties at the Priory.

As the Black Death spread from village to village, society fell apart. Livestock roamed free, crops went untended, and people died of starvation as well as disease. Women who survived the plague were often left barren for many years afterwards, too weak to bear children.

Just as the first wave of the epidemic abated, as the population seemed to stabilise and recover, the second and third plagues arrived, perhaps less virulent but seeming to concentrate on the young born since the first plague. In the mid-1300s, entire generations were decimated.

The plague hit Plymouth and the surrounding towns again and again over the centuries. In 1580, 26 shillings was raised in Plymouth to relieve Kingsbridge people suffering another outbreak. In 1590 four men were paid to keep watch in Plymouth, to maintain the areas of quarantine and ensure local people were kept away from the infected areas, but they seem to have failed in their task – in 1594 Roger Swinsbury, his wife and their two sons all died of the plague. In 1624 houses in Oreston and ships in the harbour were searched for another suspected outbreak, which then hit the prison – the stink of the infected was so horrendous that a man called John Page was paid to scrub the prison clean. Poor John then had the gruesome task of establishing a ‘plague house’ in the fields just outside Plymouth, to remove the plague victims from the town and into quarantine.

W
HILE PLYMOUTH WAS
suffering outbreaks of plague, it was also under attack from the French.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the English Kings still saw France as their ancestral homeland. Having inherited vast lands from the Normans, they owned more of France than the French King. However, the disastrous reign of King John lost them most of their French domain, leaving them with just a few small provinces in Gascony – just enough to cause a lot of trouble.

King Edward I of England retained the title ‘Duke of Normandy’, but as a Duke he was required to swear fealty to the French King, Philippe IV. The English King refused to bow to the French King. The French King reclaimed Gascony in retaliation. Edward I immediately stopped all passage of ships to the Continent, raising a vicious invading army of felons and criminals, asked to volunteer for paid service in Gascony.