Are the dates correct? Gentlemen of an antiquarian turn of mind, out
in the west there, might do worse than spend some weeks in looking
into this matter.
Meanwhile, it is at this point that we get our first direct,
unquestionable proof, that the plague had reached our shores. On the
1st of January, 1349, the King wrote to the Bishop of Winchester,
informing him that although the Parliament had been summoned to meet
on the 19th of the month, yet because a _sudden visitation of
deadly pestilence had broken out at Westminster and the
neighbourhood,_ which was increasing daily, and occasioning much
apprehension for the safety of any great concourse of people, should
it assemble in that place at the time appointed; therefore it had
been determined to prorogue the Parliament to Monday, the 27th of
April.
I gather from the wording of this document that the Government did
not look upon the outbreak with any very grave apprehension, that
they did not regard it as anything more than an epidemic which would
be confined to narrow limits, and one likely to pass off after a
little time as the spring advanced; and that they can hardly as yet
have received any very disturbing intelligence of its ravages, such
as must have soon come in from all points of the compass. Two months
passed, and the situation had seriously changed.
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