“Along with imprisonment early Friends were confronted with the Great Plague as well.... Some 52 Quakers died of the plague at the New Gate prison alone.” This sentence appears in a book entitled, “The Second Period of Quakerism” written by the prominent English historian and writer William Braithwaite. The book was published in 1921, which would indicate that the author was among those who had endured the terrible worldwide Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.
The Great Plague of London of 1665-67 was the last of a 200 year onslaught of plagues throughout all of Europe. The Religious Society of Friends was founded only about 20 years earlier, but was quite well established throughout England at the time of the plague. Ironically this Great Plague was finally conquered by another disaster, the Great Fire of London.
So great was the fear of the plague that those wealthy enough to have a place to stay in the countryside fled London in great numbers. Some of the poorer people also were able to escape, but most were not because either they had no place to go or they could not get the necessary certificate of good health signed by the mayor of London, which was needed to get out of London through the guarded gates. Interestingly enough 400 years has not seemed to have changed the reactions of humans to plagues and pandemics, because news reports indicate that the richest neighborhoods of New York City emptied out to the surrounding areas as the current Coved-19 virus invaded.
Behavior of the Quaker’s to the plague in 1665 seems to have been considerably different than contemporary Quaker reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic of today. The London authorities required all church officials to report all deaths from the plague in every parish. However, those religious sects like the Quakers, Anabaptist and Jews, who were strongly opposed to the Church of England, refused to do so. Therefore the deaths within the ranks of those religious groups were not officially recorded.
William Braithwaite writes that the building for Quaker Meetings in London called the “Bull and Mouth” was boarded up and the Quakers were forced to hold their meetings, which were frequently interrupted by soldiers, in the street. It is not clear whether Quaker Meetings and other religious services were completely banned during the plague, but the British soldiers clearly did not like the Quaker gatherings. Braithwaite also speaks of many Quakers like one George Whitehead, who diligently ministered to Friends in prison and/or to those who were confined in their homes by the sickness. On First Day he like others would, “put their nightcaps in their pockets when they went to Meeting for worship expecting imprisonment and were resigned to live or die....”
The prisons then were infested with the plague just as our jails today are infested with the virus. Those prisoners (including Quakers) who became sick were hauled out and taken to a large sailing vessel named The Black Eagle, which was anchored for seven weeks at a time on the Thames River. During that time at least half of the prisoners died and were buried in the marshes surrounding the anchored boat. The forementioned good friend George Whitehead also visited the infected boat and held Meetings for worship on board. We do not know whether George Whitehead survived the plague.
One might ask, where was George Fox and what was he doing at this terrible time of great upheaval? A note recorded in his Journal states that he was confined to jail in the city of Lancaster well to the north of London. He was held there for two years (1665-67) because he had refused to take an oath of allegiance. Although British prisons were well known to be terrible filthy places, in this instance the plague had not traveled that far north in England. Friend George’s convictions about allegiances rendered him unable to be of any help to other Quakers during the plague, but it probably saved his life.
London Friends, according to William Braithwaithe, “nobly maintained their Meetings for worship though in small numbers by those who were still at liberty.” We Quakers today, during our current pandemic continue to hold our Meetings for worship as well. Thanks to modern technology and the benefit of better science we can do so without clashing with the laws requiring shutdowns and proper spacing. Toward the end of the Great Plague of London Braithwaithe recounts that,” the Meetings had become very large, of strange faces and good honest countenances, who with exceeding hungerings receive the Truth.” The word of God as proclaimed by the Quakers at that time may have been the only solace available to many of the poor in London. However, thanks to our better understanding of how these maladies spread through the masses, Quakers today are not likely to encourage large physical gatherings where the message of the Light within is shared, lest we risk destroying the body wherein that very Light dwells.