by Ann Turnbull
Soon after, another visitor came: John’s wife, Rebecca, whom he had married before he joined the Friends of Truth. The two of them spoke together in low voices, the woman tearful and accusing, John trying to calm her. And although I could see that they were at odds with each other, yet I envied them their intimacy and wished I could have been married by now, as I’d intended, with a wife who cared enough to be angry with me.
When his wife had gone, John wrapped a blanket awkwardly around me to stave off the night chill, and asked me if there was anything else he could do to ease my pain. But there was nothing. The ache spread to my lower back and hips and I longed to fall to the floor and lie among the lice and cockroaches. John and Francis wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay down near me, but they were restless and I knew they slept little. When it grew late most of the candles were extinguished, but a few remained, casting shadows onto the faces of those who played dice, or drank, or talked the night away. One man, who seemed to be an idiot, sang and raved continually. Several fights broke out over sleeping places, and in the dead of night someone attacked Francis and tried to steal his blanket from under him; only the peaceful intervention of John, who had a strong, quiet presence, prevented it.
It was then, when the noise of that scuffle had died down, that I first heard screams and howling from somewhere within the building. The sounds were scarcely human. They made me shiver with fear.
Slowly a grey morning light showed in the barred openings near the ceiling. My mind was now exhausted, my eyes constantly closing and then jerking open again as the drop into sleep caused even more pain in my arms and shoulders. It became so unbearable that I groaned aloud and begged for someone to help me.
At last came the sound of keys; the jailer entered, and unlocked my manacles. I fell to the floor and crouched there, curled like a child and rubbing my bruise-blackened wrists, while tears trickled from under my closed eyelids. The numbness cleared and my blood began to flow again, but I trembled for hours. My friends comforted me and we kneeled among the lice and bugs and prayed together.
“Holy Joes!” we heard; then jeering laughter and, “You won’t find God down here!”
“We’re all going to the Devil – try praying to him!”
I shut my eyes and ignored them.
A commotion and sudden outburst of shouting startled me. At first I thought it was more mockery; then I heard a scream: “Plague! Plague!”
My eyes flew open in terror. A man had collapsed. He was sweating and groaning. A clear circle grew around him as everyone drew back.
“He has the signs!” Someone pointed. “See! In his neck!”
I saw a purplish swelling there.
People began yelling for the jailers. Two turnkeys came in, looked at the prostrate man, then seized him by the arms and feet and began to carry him away.
“His blanket!” a prisoner shouted.
No one wanted to touch the thing. It was kicked into a corner.
The weasel-faced man told me, “They have a room they take them to – the ones that get the plague.”
I remembered the screaming I had heard in the night, and now realized, with horror, its significance.
“Does anyone attend to them?” I asked.
He shrugged. “No physician or apothecary would come in here.”
I thought of those cries. I knew the sickness caused headaches so severe and prolonged that people would beat their heads against the walls. The buboes – black swellings in the neck, armpit and groin – caused still more pain. Death, when it came, must be a mercy.
When Sadler appeared in the afternoon I tried to shrink back into the crowd; I feared I would be returned to the manacles. But instead we three and several other prisoners were taken out and marched to the courthouse next door, where the mayor was to hear our cases.
I was first. The charges against me were that I had congregated with others in the street in a riotous and unlawful manner, to the terror of the people, and in so doing had incited an affray.
I denied this, and said there was no unlawful congregation; that we were walking peacefully in the street.
“In a group of twenty or more?” the mayor said.
I knew it would not advance our cause to explain why so many of us had been there, so I merely repeated the truth, that we were walking to our homes.
I was found guilty of the offence and fined five pounds, which I refused to pay, and was therefore committed once again to Newgate for two months or until I should pay.
I thought of Susanna, of our plans to marry. Had I been alone I might have been tempted to pay, and go free. But Friends never paid such fines on principle, and I knew John and Francis would be steadfast in the truth. They followed, gave similar responses, and were committed with me.
Now that he had us back in his power, Sadler continued to single the three of us out for punishment. He beat and ridiculed us, and forced us to lie in a place that was always damp from water seepage. Francis, who had never had strong health, developed a cough that he could not shake off.
Sadler took against me in particular – I think because he believed I set myself above him. James Martell would bring me in news-books with essays on philosophy and religion. On one occasion Sadler tore up one of these, declaring it to be lies and filth. I guessed he could not read and so resented me.
I was thankful, next day, that Sadler was not about when Nat came with a letter from Susanna. There was nothing I longed for more, and I snatched it from Nat in my eagerness. Later, I sat a little apart from John and Francis, and broke the seal and unfolded it. Susanna did not know where I was, or even if I was alive or dead, but she had continued to write to me all summer. Her letter reminded me that there was a happy, everyday life I might one day return to. She’d often made me laugh with tales of small disasters in the print shop, or the sayings of her friend Em; today it was the long-winded ramblings of one of our earnest Hemsbury Friends. I smiled as I read it, knowing him well.
John watched me fold the letter and tuck it inside my shirt.
“Thy girl?” he asked.
“Yes.” I sighed. “We should have been married by now.”
“This will end,” he said. “Never fear.”
Throughout our imprisonment, the bond grew between Francis, John and me. We took good care of each other. Francis was eighteen years old, one of a family who were all Friends of Truth. John had come to Friends by reason of his own inner searching and prayer. He was a strong but gentle man, who could read little but was never seen without a Bible. He was the wisest of the three of us, and knew how to reason with guards and violent prisoners without either antagonizing them or giving ground.
He took especial care of Francis, whose health had deteriorated, making sure he ate enough and was protected as much as possible from the damp. But Francis grew weaker. One day he woke restless and shivering, complaining of a fearsome headache. By evening he burned with fever.
John took me aside. “I fear it may be the plague. We must do what we can for him – and pray.”
We stayed close to Francis, caring for him, and hoping against all reason that John was wrong, until the buboes – proof of plague – were found, and the guards came to take him away. By this time the cell was in uproar and Francis was crying out in agony.
“Let us go with him!” John pleaded.
“No one except the sick is allowed in there.” They shut the door on us.
“But he’ll have no friend!” I shouted. “No one!” I beat on the door.
We never saw Francis again. Together we kneeled and prayed for him. His family came, his mother distraught and hardly able to stand, sobbing that she would go in and care for all those who were sick, his sister screaming as they refused her admission. But it was not allowed, and they left. I felt that Sadler took particular pleasure in thwarting Quakers.
Four days later we heard that Francis had died. I clung to John and sobbed. I knew Francis was now with Christ in Paradise, but that did not prevent me from
being overcome with grief; the more so when his body was removed and buried in the prison pit even before his family had been informed.
The following night I noticed on John’s forehead a film of sweat; and though it was a hot night I felt uneasy. I dared not speak to him or ask if he felt unwell, for fear of making it come true.
In the early morning I heard him shivering and groaning, and knew my fears were not unfounded.
“John,” I whispered, “art thou sick?”
He turned to look at me, and in the half-light I saw the terror in his eyes: John, who had never shown fear of any man or any punishment.
“Pray for me – and for my poor wife,” he said.
He asked me to read to him from Paul’s letter to the Romans, and by flickering candlelight (for it was not yet full day) I read aloud: “‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution…’”
There were rustlings and sighs around us. Someone snarled, “Let a man sleep, for Christ’s sake!” But I was aware that others were listening, and I continued, more strongly than before. “‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’”
John nodded, and licked his dry lips. “It is the truth,” he said.
Next morning he found the swellings in his armpit and groin, and the guards took him away from me. Later I heard, outside our door, the screams and raving of his wife when she was told, and the curses she threw upon jailers and Quakers alike.
“Fetch an apothecary!” she cried. “Mr Baynard in Coleman Street. He treated my cousin for the plague, and she lives! Fetch him!”
The sound of her cries retreated as she was hustled away. I felt shaken, and wretched. I knew she was right. At home, with her, and with the care of an apothecary, John might have a chance of recovery. Here he had none.
He died three days later. His wife shrieked as they took his body away, and I curled myself into a ball, with my hands over my ears, unable to bear it. Now I was alone, without friends in this place, overcome with grief and guilt. I blamed myself for the deaths of my two friends, believing they might never have been in Newgate if I had not spoken out that day at Blackfriars. I waited now for the sickness to claim me too, and felt sure it must.
The day John died all the bells in the city were silent. I had been scarcely aware of them, for their ringing had been an almost continuous sound with so many dying every day. It struck me strangely because of my distress, but later someone told me that an order had gone out that passing bells should no longer be tolled.
It was a week later, when my spirits were still low, that I began to feel ill. My head ached; I felt cold and shivery, then burning hot. Both Francis and John had sickened in the same way. When I saw the fear in the eyes of those around me I knew I was not imagining my illness.
I clenched my teeth against the shivering that wracked me. I knew it must be the plague. I would die, as my friends had died. I prayed to God that I would leave this earth with Christian courage and acceptance, but feared I would not; and I felt bitter self-pity that I must die without ever seeing Susanna again.
The other prisoners demanded of the jailer that I be removed. “Search him! Search for the tokens!”
An old woman was sent to look me over – a dirty hag whose breath smelled of spirits. She found no swelling in my armpits or groin, and no sign of the rash they call the tokens.
“It is a fever or ague,” she said. “Not plague.”
The other prisoners still wanted me removed, especially when I began to vomit. I was so dizzy that I was forced to crawl on hands and knees to reach the communal pisspot and puke into it. Weasel-face shoved it closer to me. My tongue felt dry, and I craved sips of beer continually, but had hardly enough strength to hold the tankard.
After a few hours the fever cooled, and sweat broke out all over my body. I felt well again, and next day was much recovered. I felt in my armpits and found no swelling; and there was no rash on my body. Perhaps the old woman was right, and it was not the plague. In my weakness and relief I wept.
The next day the sickness and fever returned, more violent than before. I guessed then that my illness was indeed an ague; I had seen boys at school suffer with it and knew that it would come and go every other day until it had run its course – or the victim died.
When Cecily Martell saw me she went home and returned soon after with a pad of linen which she laid on my burning forehead.
“It contains a spider, bruised in a cloth,” she said. “It is recommended for the ague. I have a little book of remedies I often use for the children.”
I found her attention soothing, but the spider did nothing to prevent the next onslaught of fever. Neither did the pipe of tobacco that Weasel-face gave me and which he assured me was a protection against all ills. I grew weaker with exhaustion as the days went by.
“We must get thee out of here,” said James Martell.
“No! I will not pay – nor have others pay.”
But the next day the fever returned again. I was wretched, sick, and could not stand without fainting. James and Nat came – and dimly, through my dizziness and nausea, I was aware of them talking about me.
That evening, the jailer told me I was to be released. Nat came in and helped me to my feet, and I clung to my friend and felt tears running down my cheeks. But still I protested: “I won’t have anyone pay.”
“It’s that or the burial pit in the yard, I reckon,” Nat said brutally. “Thou won’t last much longer here.”
We passed outside the gates, if not into fresh air, at least into freedom. I should have been glad, but all I could think was that Francis and John had died in that place; and guilt for their deaths weighed upon me.
In the street a carriage waited. I was astonished when my friends led me to the door.
“Who…?”
“Edmund Ramsey,” said James. “He has paid thy fine, and insists that thou go to his home where thou can be properly cared for.”
“I scarcely know him…”
I brought Edmund Ramsey to mind. He had come to the Bull and Mouth meeting occasionally, and also to James’s shop: a man about my father’s age, a merchant, well-to-do and a collector of books – noticeable at our meetings where most people are craftsmen or shopkeepers.
“He is concerned for thy plight,” said Nat.
I allowed the two of them to help me into the carriage. Nat got in with me. He’d deliver me, he said, then walk home.
I fell back against the padded seat, exhausted. I was aware of my filthy condition, but I did not ask where Edmund Ramsey lived, or who would care for me; the weakness was sweeping over me again, and by the time we arrived I was half fainting.
I remember little of my arrival, except an awareness of calm, comfortable surroundings; Nat and someone else helping me to bed; some soothing drink; clean sheets that smelled of lavender. After the endless racket of Newgate, Edmund Ramsey’s house was a well of silence, and I slipped gratefully into its depths, and slept.
When I woke the fever had broken again; I was in a sweat, and felt refreshed. I lay with my eyes closed, and heard something I had not heard since I left my father’s house: the sound of someone playing a virginal.
Susanna
To William Heywood,
at Thomas Corder’s house in Creed Lane, London.
The twenty-fifth day of September 1665.
Dear heart,
I write this in the evening, after work, and try to picture thee also in thy room in London, perhaps with Nat, eating hot pies from Pudding Lane (for I remember what thou told me of thy habits). As long as I hold thy image in my mind I can believe thee safe and in good health. I know thou dare not write to me. We receive few letters now, and there are fewer travellers on the road to bring us news; but we know the pestilence still rag
es and has begun to spread into the country.
Yesterday was first-day. We met at John Callicott’s house, and John spoke long and powerfully of London’s suffering. I thought of thee, and wanted so much to be with thee that my throat closed up and I could not speak. Mary says, “No news is good news”, and so I must trust and believe.
The weather continues warm, but the leaves are beginning to fall. I pray thou will come before winter and take me back with thee to London. I shall not fear plague or persecution if we are together.
Forgive me, love, for these sad thoughts. I shall write thee something merrier next time. I will tell thee of Em Taylor’s wedding, which is to be held on the feast day they call Michaelmas; and I may have news from Isaac in Bristol.
I have been reading John Donne, and like well his sermons and the Holy Sonnets and find much light in them. I have found also a book of his love poems, and send thee this, which comforts me:
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill,
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfil;
But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep;
They who one another keep
Alive, ne’er parted be.
Thy love,
Susanna Thorn
William
I had been at Edmund Ramsey’s house for nearly three weeks or so when Susanna’s letter arrived: a short, sad letter that made me feel desperate to get up at once and set off to comfort her and reassure her that I was alive and well. But in truth I was still far from well – unable to travel. And I dared not write; a letter must pass through many hands, and Edmund Ramsey had told me that more than eight thousand Londoners had died of the pestilence in the last week.
My recovery from the ague was slow. It seemed the fever was reluctant to loosen its grip on me and would ease for a while, only to return again as bad as ever, leaving me exhausted and in poor spirits. I remained for several weeks in my room, away from the main areas of Edmund Ramsey’s house, cared for by him and his servants. Because I had been in contact with the plague in Newgate, I was kept as secluded as possible, and my only visitor was Nat. Edmund paid Nat my share of the rent at the Corders’ so that I would be able to go back there when I was well. I was grateful that he had taken me in, and not left Nat with the burden and risk of attending to me in our lodgings; and glad to be spared Meg Corder with her well-meant but insanitary ways. Here, the Ramseys’ physician visited and prescribed soothing herbs, which the servants prepared. It was easier, in such a large house as this seemed to be, to keep the sick clean and apart. The kitchen was well stocked and the servants did not go out more than was necessary into the infected air of the streets.
