Let all who tread the green fields of Eyam, remember, with feelings of awe and veneration that beneath their feet repose the ashes of those moral heroes, who, with a sublime heroic, and an unparalleled resolution gave up their lives-yea! doomed themselves to pestilential death, to save the surrounding country. The immortal victors of Thermopylae and Marathon, who fought so bravely in liberty's holy cause, have no greater, no stronger claim to the admiration of succeeding generations , than the humble villagers of Eyam in the year 1666. Their magnanimous self-sacrifice, in confining themselves within a prescribed boundary during the terrible pestilence, is unequalled in the annals of the world. The plague, which would undoubtedly have spread from place to place through the neighbouring counties, and which eventually carried off five-sixths of their number , was, in the following forcible language of a celebrated writer, "here hemmed in, and, in a dreadful and desolating struggle, destroyed and buried with its victims". How exalted the sense of duty, how glorious the conduct of these children of nature who , for the salvation of the country, heroically braved the horrors of certain, immediate, and pestilential death! Tread softly, then, on the fields where their ashes are laid; let the wild flowers bloom on their wide-scattered graves. Let the ground round the village be honoured and hallowed; for there,

For some years prior to this calamity, the plague had been known to have existed, in some degree, in several adjoining places, but generally in an eastwardly direction from Eyam; at Almonbury near Huddersfield in 1363; at Rotherham in 1570; at Doncaster in 1585; at Chesterfield in 1586-7; and at Brimington, when W. Townsend, Curate of Holmsfield, died in 1609.

In the year 1625, a whole family at Bradley, in the parish of Malpas, Cheshire, were carried off by the plague, under circumstances (at least in one or two instances) without any recorded parallel. The following are extracts from the Register of that year, place and subject:-^[1]

The death and burial of Richard Dawson, as given in the above extracts, is of a character dreadfully interesting, history not furnishing a similar instance of an individual under the agony of an intense malady, digging his own grave, lying down therein and dying, lest his mortal remains should remain uninterred after death!^[2]

The small village of Curbar, about three miles south-east of Eyam, was visited by the plague in 1632, when several families of the names of Cooke, Clarke and probably a few others were all but entirely swept away. They were buried partly in what is now known as “Elliott's Piece”, and other places within the precincts of the hamlet or village.

The desolation of Eyam by the plague in 1666, is marked by two peculiar circumstances; one that it was the last time the plague, properly so called, visited this island; the other, that this, its last visitation, was attended with a virulence - with a destructive and desolating effect, never before witnessed and recorded (the population of Eyam considered) in the annals of human desolation. From the latter end of 1664, to December 1665, about one-sixth of the population of London fell victim to this appalling pestilence; but at Eyam, nearly five-sixths were carried off in a few months of the summer of 1666, excepting a few who died at the close of 1665.

Though the mortality of the metropolis was very great and horrible, yet there the populace were not restrained as to flight; there, they could easily obtain medical aid; there, neighbour knew not neighbour; there, thousands might die without being intimately known to each other. But in Eyam, a little sequestered village, containing about three hundred and fifty stationary inhabitants, the death of every one would be a neighbour, if not a relative.

In Eyam, then, the plague was the concentration of all the most dreadful features of that visitation in London without its palliatives. Indeed, it seems exceedingly strange, that Eyam, a little mountain city, an isolated Zoar, secluded among the Peak mountains, and one hundred and fifty miles distant from London, should have been visited by a pestilential disease, which had scarcely ever occurred in any very destructive form, only in great and populous cities. It is, however, most positively stated, that this terrible disease was brought from London to Eyam in a box of old clothes, and some tailor's patterns in cloth, or other materials belonging to a tailor.

The plague generally manifested itself by the febrile symptoms of shivering, nausea, headache and delirium. In some, these affections were so mild as to be taken for slight indisposition. The victim in this case generally attended his avocation until a sudden faintness came on, when the macula, or plague spot, the fatal token, would soon appear on his breast, indicative of immediate death. But in most cases the pain and delirium left no room for doubt: on the second or third day, buboes, or carbuncles, arose about the groin and elsewhere; and if they could be made to suppurate, recovery was probable, but if they resisted the efforts of nature, and the skill of the physician, death was inevitable.

During the dreadful ravages of the plagues in London, it is very probable that the then inhabitants of Eyam would hear but very little concerning that calamity. Confined to their secluded village, which is surrounded by towering heath-clad hills, they were simply debarred from hearing at every turn that kind of intelligence which casts a gloom over the mind, or shocks the feelings. They were in a great measure unknown; and until the arrival of the fatal box, nothing had occurred to disturb “the even tenor of their way”. Ah! up to this awful period they had lived in security and peace : attended by all the blessings of village life.

Before the arrival in Eyam of the fatal box, containing the imprisoned seeds of the plague, it may be interesting to know that the Eyam wakes of that year (1665) had only transpired a few days previously to that event: and, it is said, that this wakes was peculiarly marked by an unusual number of visitors, who were in a great degree relatives to the villagers of Eyam, had been involuntarily moved to come and take a last farewell of those who were, so very soon after, destined to be swept away by the plague. It is also said that the amusements on this occasion were more numerous and entertaining; but in what respect is not now known. Most probably, however, they would be of the usual and following character: relations and friends would assemble at the village alehouses, wishing each other, as they raised the sparkling glasses to their lips, many happy returns of the festive time; the young men and maidens would dance upon the spacious village green; and numberless other innocent and social amusements would close each gladsome merry day.^[3]

It is singular that nearly all who have hitherto written on this direful calamity, have invariably represented the plague as breaking out in Eyam in the spring of 1666. This, however, was not the case, though by far the greater part of the number of the victims died in July, August and September 1666. The box, containing the tailor's patterns in cloth, and it is said some old clothes, or other materials, was sent, according to traditionary accounts, from London to a tailor who resided in a small house at the east of the Hall garden, and near the west end of the Churchyard.^[4] The kitchen of the old house in its original state, the house-place only has been renewed.

Whether the patterns and clothes were bought in London for the tailor at Eyam, or sent as a present, cannot now be ascertained. Some, however, have stated that it was a relative of the tailor at Eyam who sent them, he having procured them in London, where he resided, for a small sum, in consequence of the plague, which was then raging there at its maximum.

Before the details of the commencement of the plague, it may be well to notice a few particulars seemingly at variance with what, among the villagers of Eyam, is and always has been, patent tradition; namely that the box, containing the tailor's patterns, old clothes, or some other materials, came to a tailor, who resided in the house before described. Dr. Mead, who published his treatise on the plague, about 1721, seems to have been the first to notice, since the plague, any particulars of its occurrence at Eyam; he writes, “the plague was likewise at Eham, in the Peak of Derbyshire; being brought thither, by means of a box sent from London to a taylor in that village containing some materials relating to his trade. A servant who opened the aforesaid box complaining that the goods were damp, was ordered to dry them by the fire; but in so doing it was seized with the plague and died; the same misfortune extended itself to the rest of the family, except the taylor's wife, who alone survived. From hence the distemper spread about, and destroyed in that village and the rest of the parish, though a small one, between two and three hundred persons. But notwithstanding this so great violence of the disease, it was restrained from reaching beyond that parish by the care of the Rector; from whose son, and another worthy gentleman, I have the relation. The clergyman advised that the sick should be removed into huts or barracks, built upon the common; and procuring, by the interest of the then Earl of Devonshire, that the people should be well furnished with provisions, he took effectual care that no one should go out of the parish, and by this means he protected his neighbourhood from infection with complete success”. (‘Mead's Medical Works’, Vol 1, p.290)

According to Dr. Mead's account, the box containing the infected materials came from London to a tailor at Eyam; and this is corroborated by the concurrent statement of the villagers of Eyam ever since the plague; and it must be observed that Mead had his relation, in part, from Mompesson's son George, who, when very young, was sent away from Eyam during the plague, and who, without doubt, had heard his father relate many times the sad particulars of the direful occurrence.

The people of Eyam have, ever since the time of pestilence, uniformly and pertinaciously insisted that the fatal box came to, and the disease broke out in, the house beforementioned, known and particularized for a long time after as “The Plague House”. That the box came to the house in question, and that a tailor resided, as owner or tenant, in the said house at that time, cannot be quite satisfactorily substantiated: for from documents in the possession of the present owner of the house, it appears that an Edward Cooper purchased the house in 1662; and that he died, according to the probate of his will, in 1664. In both documents the same Edward Cooper is described as a miner. In his will he leaves his property to his two sons, Jonathan and Edward; his widow, however, having a life interest therein, for the better ordering and bringing up of the said Jonathan and Edward. The Register makes the first victim of the plague to be George Vicars, the second Edward Cooper, son of Edward Cooper, defunct; and some time after there is the burial of a Jonathan Cooper, supposed to be the eldest son of Edward Cooper, although the Register only says, “Bur. Oct. 28, 1665, Jonathan Cooper”. Mead states that the first who died was a servant; but, if we can suppose a lodger was meant, it would remove the seeming perplexity. George Vicars might be a tailor, lodging and boarding with the widow of Edward Cooper; and, as the name Vicars does not occur again in the lists of those who died of the plague, he might have been a sort of stranger in Eyam. In Mead's relation,it is said that the whole of the family, where the box came to, died, except the mother; and, we find from documents connected with the said Coopers and the said house, that the widow, Mary Cooper, survived the plague, and was married a second time to a John Coe. This construction of Mead's statement, and the unvarying assertions of the inhabitants of Eyam ever since the fatal time, would reconcile all seeming disagreements as to the persons, place, and other circumstances in connection with the commencement of the plague at Eyam. It may be still further observed that all the family died except one (the mother) where the plague commenced; and this circumstance agrees with all that has ever been said or written on the subject; but as George Vicars was buried September 7, and Jonathan Cooper, October 28, 1665, it might appear that the plague, if confined solely that time in Cooper's house where it commenced, was not very malignant and destructive at first. This, however, was not the case, for between the death of George Vicars and Jonathan Cooper, the distemper had spread and carried off in the interim twenty-six other persons.

In all probability then, George Vicars opened the terrible box. In removing the contents he observed, in a sort of exclamation, how very damp they were; and he therefore hung them to the fire to dry. While Vicars was superintending them, he was seized with violent symptoms of a disease which greatly alarmed the family and neighbourhood. During his (no doubt) short illness what was afterwards considered the fatal token, a round purple place - the plague spot - appeared on his breast; he died, and was buried in the Churchyard, September the seventh 1665. Thus began in Eyam the plague - the most awful of diseases, which, after being in some measure checked, as supposed, by the following winter, spread amazingly, and eventually left the village nearly desolate.

It has been generally believed that the plague carried off its first victims very quickly; such, however, is a mistake, for Edward Cooper, the second who died, was buried September the twenty-second, an interval from the interment of George Vicars of fifteen days.

OCTOBER commenced with two deaths, and on the third two more, and to the end of the month, sometimes one and two in a day; and it was at this juncture that the terrified villagers ascertained the fatal disease to be the plague. Then!

In NOVEMBER, the pest visited five fresh families, and the distress of the inhabitants began to assume an aggravated form and aspect; few would visit the families infected; they were avoided in the street; they were glanced at with fearful apprehension; and their consequent privations cannot be described.

DECEMBER witnessed the still wide-spreading disease; fresh habitations poured forth lamentations.

Some idea may be formed of the extreme virulence of the plague at Eyam, even at its commencement, by observing that even in large cities the plague has been known to cease in winter. In the first summer of the great plague at Genoa, 10,000 died, in the winter scarcely any; but in the following summer, 60,000. The great plague in London appeared in the latter end of 1664, but was checked by winter until the ensuing spring; while at Eyam, where the effects of winter would be considerably greater than in cities, the plague continued its ravages without ceasing. Still it did not attain the height of its destruction and malignancy until the summer of 1666.

During the last four months the sufferings of the villagers were truly dreadful; and though they had become familiar with death, yet they were doomed, in the following summer, to behold the pest assume a far more deadly and fatal aspect. Though the survivors had seen, in the above time, forty-five of their relatives and friends snatched from among them by the terrific hand of pestilential death, yet some few of them were destined to see near double that number swept away in the short space of one month. Fated beings! Shall not “The bard preserve your names and send them down to future times?” - OSSIAN.

JANUARY exhibited, to the great joy of the villagers, some slight apparent abatement of the malignant disease.

FEBRUARY cast a saddening gloom around the hearts of the now terror-stricken inhabitants, the number of deaths increased, and their cup of hope was now dashed to the ground.

It may be necessary, in this place, to notice some few particulars respecting the two unrivalled characters, who may be justly said to have been by their joint exertions, the principal instruments by which Derbyshire and the neighbouring counties were delivered from the desolating plague - The Rev. Thomas Stanley^[6] and the Rev. William Mompesson.

It will be manifest that at the time of the greatest fury of the plague, the salvation of the surrounding country originated in the wisdom of these two worthy divines.

Their magnanimous conduct on this awful occasion can only be exceeded by the obedience of the sufferers over whom they exercised such heavenly influence.

The Rev. Thomas Stanley was born at Duckmanton, near Chesterfield. His public ministry was exercised at Handsworth, Dore, and eight years at Ashford, whence, by those in power, he was translated in 1644, to the Rectory of Eyam, where he continued to reside, respected and esteemed until Bartholomew-day 1662. He continued to preach, however, in private houses at Eyam, Hazleford, and other places, until his death in 1670. This very worthy man was succeeded by his predecessor, the Rev. Shoreland Adams, who died in 1644.^[7]

The successor of this litigious divine was the Rev. William Mompesson, chaplain to Sir George Saville. Before his coming to Eyam in April 1664, he had married a beautiful young lady, Catherine, the daughter of Ralph Carr, Esq., of Cocken in the County of Durham. She was young, and possessed good parts, with exquisitely tender feelings. These two illustrious characters (Stanley and Mompesson) throughout the fury of the pestilence, as we shall see hereafter, forsook not their flocks, but visited, counselled, and exhorted them in their sufferings; alleviated their miseries; and held fast to their duties, on the very threshold of death.

MARCH commenced, and the pestilence still alarmingly prevailed in various parts of the village, although the number of deaths did not reach that of the preceding month.

APRIL, with its increasing number of victims, threw a deep and sorrowful gloom over the heart-sickened villagers.

MAY brought forth a cheering relaxation in the chilly touch of this insatiable messenger of death.

JUNE awoke the deadly monster from his seeming slumber in the preceding month, and with desolating steps he stalked forth from house to house, breathing on the trembling inhabitants the vapour of death. The irresistible rage of the pest filled the hearts of all with dreadful forebodings: despair seized every soul; loud and bitter lamentations burst forth from every infected house! Fear and apprehension prevented ingress to these abodes of distress. Horror and dismay enveloped the village; and many persons were led to practise numerous weak and absurd expedients to prevent infection. Numberless were the imagined omens and presages which the terrified inhabitants could now call to mind of their dreadful calamities. Some said that the desolation of the village had been at various times prognosticated. Many could recollect having seen the white cricket, and heard it sound the death-knell on their hearths. Others remembered having heard for three successive nights the invisible “death-watch” in the dead of night. And some called to mind how often, during a few preceding winters, they had listened to the doleful howlings of the Gabriel-hounds.^[8]

These, with numerous other fanciful tokens of death, the simple and horrified villagers imagined, at this awful time, they had seen and heard. Would it, indeed, have been marvellous, had they fancied they had seen, with Ossian's Melilcoma, “the awful faces of other times looking from the clouds?”

As June advanced, the pestilence spread from house to house with dreadful rapidity:

The unexampled mortality of the plague during the summer of 1666, is, as stated before, unequalled in history. Some have supposed that this destructive scourge was aggravated to its unparalleled fury at Eyam by the ignorance and destitution of the inhabitants, and their consequent maltreatment of the distemper. But the proximate cause of this unheard of mortality was undoubtedly the courageous determination of the villagers to confine themselves within a certain boundary; for if those who fell a sacrifice in July, August, September and October, had fled in the spring, they would most probably have escaped; but then there was this danger - the infected would have fled with the non-infected and thereby have carried desolation wherever they went. Hence may be traced the principal and evident cause of that dreadful mortality among the meritorious villagers of Eyam.

Up to the beginning of June seventy-seven had perished from the commencement of the pest; this number of deaths, from a population of three hundred and fifty, was very great in so short a time; but how incomparable to the dreadful havoc of the ensuing months of June, July, August, September and October! It was,however, about the middle of June that the plague began to assume so terrible an aspect. Terror overwhelmed the hearts of the villagers. Mrs. Mompesson threw herself and two children, George and Elizabeth (said to have been about three and four years old ) at the feet of her husband, imploring their immediate departure from the devoted place! Her entreaties and tears sensibly moved the feelings of her husband, whose eyes were suffused with tears at this energetic and truly pathetic appeal. He raised her from his feet, and in the most affectionate manner told her that his duty to his suffering and diminishing flock- that the indelible stain that would rest on his memory by deserting them in the hour of danger - and that the awful responsibility to his Maker for the charge he had undertaken, were considerations with him of more weight and importance than life itself! He then again, in the most persuasive manner, endeavoured to prevail on his weeping partner to take their two lovely children, and flee to some place of refuge till the plague was stayed. She, however, steadfastly resisted his entreaties and emphatically declared her determination that nothing should induce her to leave him amidst that destructive and terrible whirlpool of death! This affecting contest ended in their mutual consent to send all the children away to a relative in Yorkshire (supposed to be J. Bielby, Esq.), until the pestilence ceased. Imagination may paint the mournful parting of the children and parents on this occasion. Mompesson would call them aside, and, suppressing the bitterness of his feelings, give them a parting kiss, and fervently admonish them to be obedient and good! Their tender and loving mother would clasp each in her arms, and, in the intervals of heart-bursting sighs, kiss them again and again! When they departed she would haste to the highest window of their dwelling and watch them leave the village. As she caught the last glance of them, a sudden and startling thought would cross her mind that she would behold them no more. She might utter a shrill and piercing scream! Mompesson would be by her side and endeavour to console her in the most soothing language imaginable! In the first paroxysm of her grief she would intently gaze towards the spot where they last met her view, and refuse to be removed from the place, until the streaming tears “Rush from her clouded brain, Like mountain mists at length dissolved to rain”. - BYRON

Alas! Alas! her forebodings were realised: in this world she beheld her children no more: she took the infection, and died, as will be hereafter seen, blessing her children with her last parting breath.

It was at this period of the calamity, that the inhabitants began to think of escaping from death by flight. Indeed, the most wealthy of them, who were but few in number, fled early in the spring with the greatest precipitation. Some few others, having means, fled to the neighbouring hills and dells, and there erected huts, where they remained until the approach of winter. But it was the visible manifestation of a determination in the whole mass to flee, that aroused Mompesson: he energetically remonstrated with them on the danger of flight; he told them of fearful consequences that would ensue; that the safety of the surrounding country was in their hands; that it was impossible for them to escape death by flight; that many of them were infected; that the invisible seeds of the disease lay concealed in their clothing and other articles which they were preparing to take with them; and that, if they would relinquish their fatal and terrible purpose, he would write to all the influential persons in the vicinity for aid; he would, by every possible means in his power, endeavour to alleviate their sufferings; and he would remain with them, and sacrifice his life rather than be instrumental in desolating the surrounding country. Thus spoke this wonderful man!

The inhabitants, with a superhuman courage, gave up all thoughts of flight. Mompesson immediately wrote to the Earl of Devonshire, then at Chatsworth, a few miles from Eyam, stating the particulars of the calamity, and adding that he was certain that he could prevail on his suffering and hourly diminishing flock to confine themselves within the precincts of the village, if they could be supplied with victuals and other necessary articles, and thereby prevent the pestilence from spreading. The noble Earl expressed in his answer deep commiseration for the sufferers; and he further assured Mompesson that nothing should be spared on his part to mitigate the calamitous sufferings of the inhabitants - provided they kept themselves within a specified bound. This worthy nobleman generously ordered the sufferers to be supplied with all kinds of necessaries, agreeably to the following plan:-

A kind of circle was drawn round the village, marked by particular and well-known stones and hills; beyond which it was solemnly agreed that no one of the villagers should proceed, whether infected or not. This circle extended about half-a-mile around the village; and to two or three places or points on this boundary provisions were brought. A well, or rivulet, northward of Eyam, called to this day “Mompesson's Well”, or “Mompesson's Brook”, was one of the places where articles were deposited. These articles were brought very early in the morning, by persons from the adjoining villages, who, when they had delivered them beside the well, fled with the precipitation of panic. Individuals appointed by Mompesson and Stanley fetched the articles left; and when they took money it was placed in the well or certain stone troughs to be purified, thus preventing contagion by passing from hand to hand. The persons who brought the articles were careful to wash the money well before they took it away. When money was sent, it was only for some extra or particular articles: the provisions and many other necessaries were supplied, it is supposed, by the Earl of Devonshire. The Cliffe, between Stoney Middleton and Eyam , was another place on the circle appointed for this purpose. A large stone trough stood there, in which money and other things were deposited for purification. There are other places pointed out, but these were the principal.^[9]

It is said that no-one ever crossed this cordon sanitaire from within or without, during the awful calamity: this, however, is not precisely correct. One person, as will be hereafter seen, crossed it from without at the almost sacrifice of life; and, in a subsequent part, some interesting particulars will be given of one or two who crossed it from within. It must be admitted that it was to the prescribing of this boundary, and other precautions attendant thereon, that the country around was saved from the pestilence. The wisdom of Mompesson, who is said to have originated the plan, can only be surpassed in degree by the courage of the inhabitants in not trespassing beyond the bounds marked out, whom as Miss Seward justly observes, “a cordon of soldiers could not have prevented against their will, much less could any watch which might have been set by the neighbourhood have effected that important purpose”. The annals of mankind afford no instance of such magnanimous conduct in a joint number of persons; and ages pass away without being honoured by such an immortal character as Mompesson, who, while the black sword of pestilence was dealing death around him, voluntarily “put his life in his hand”, from an exalted sense of duty, for the salvation of the country.Towards the middle and latter end of June, the plague began to rage more fearfully. Nothing but lamentations were heard in the village. The passing-bell ceased, the Churchyard was no longer resorted to for interment, and the Church door closed.

At this period, Mompesson, deeming it dangerous to assemble in the Church during the hot weather, proposed to meet his daily diminishing flock in the Delf, a secluded dingle, a little south of Eyam, and there read prayers twice a week, and deliver his customary sermons on the Sabbath, from a perforated arch in an ivy-mantled rock.

The ghastly hearers seated themselves at some distance from each other, on the grassy slope opposite the rocky pulpit. Thither they repaired one by one on these awful occasions, leaving at their mournful homes, some a father, some a mother, some a brother, and some a child, struggling with death. They glanced at each other with looks of unetterable woe, asking in silence “whom Fate would next demand”. Mompesson, standing on the verge of the arch, lifted up his voice to heaven and called aloud on the God of mercy to stay the deadly pest, while the fervent responses of the shuddering hearers dolefully echoed from the caverns around. Thus they assembled in the sacred dell, while each succeeding Sabbath told the tale of death. “Do you see”, says Miss Seward, “this dauntless minister of God stretching forth his hand from the rock, instructing and consoling his distressed flock in that little wilderness? How solemn, how affecting, must have been the pious exhortations of these terrible hours!” Rhodes observes, “That Paul preaching at Athens, or John the Baptist in the wilderness, scarcely excites a more powerful and solemn interest than this minister of God, this ‘legate of the skies’, when contemplated on this trying occasion, 'when he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed. ” This romantic arch has, from that terrible time, been invariably designated “Cucklett Church”^[10].

How insensible to the awfulness of that horrible season must he be who can tread this hallowed dell and not hear

During June, and more especially the three following months, the terrific suffering of the inhabitants almost defy description. Parents beheld their children fall in direful succession by the hand of the insatiable and purple-visaged pest. Children turned aside with fearful dread at the distorted features of their parents in death. Every family, while any survived, buried its own dead; and one hapless woman, in the space of a few days, as we shall afterwards see, dug the graves for, and buried with her own hands, her husband and six children. Appalling as such a circumstance must be, it is, however, only one out of very many of that eventful time.

It was during the latter part of June, or the beginning of July, that the Churchyard closed its gates against the dead. Funeral rites were no longer read; coffins and shrouds no longer thought of; an old door or chair was the bier on which the dead were borne; and a shallow grave or hole, hastily dug in the fields or gardens round the cottages, received each putrid corpse ere life was scarce extinct. This was more particularly the case in the two following months, July and August.

JULY saw the rage of the pest in a form really terrific. Dreadful wailings burst forth from every side; and the countenances of the few who ventured abroad were deeply impressed with the visible signs of inward horror.The village was unfrequented; it stood, as it were, out of the world; none came to sympathise with its suffering inhabitants: no traveller passed through the lonely street during that awful time! It was regarded and avoided as the valley of death! Horror and destruction rode and marked the boundary of the dreadful place. On the clouds that hung gloomily over the village, imagination might see written “Pestilence and Death”; at which terrific inscription the approaching stranger turned aside and precipitately fled. Thus, helpless and alone, perished the villagers of Eyam.

It is impossible for pen to describe, or imagination to conceive, the unspeakable distress of those who resided in that part of the village, and in those houses, where the plague raged with the greatest violence. Some dwellings, in July, and especially in August, contained at the same moment both the dying and the dead. In one house a victim was struggling with death, while they were hurrying another therefrom to a grave in the fields. In the next a few were anxiously watching for the last convulsive gasp, that the body might be instantly interred, and that “so much of the disease might be buried and its influence destroyed”. The open day witnessed the putrid bodies of the victims pass along the street; and sable night was startled at the frequent footsteps of the buriers of the dead. The horrid symptom of the last stage of the disease in almost every victim, was the signal for digging a grave, or rather hole, to which the deceased, placed on the first thing at hand, or more frequently dragged along the ground, was speedily hurried and buried with inconceivable precipitation; “even while the limbs were yet warm, and almost palpitating with life”. So anxious were they for immediate interment, that some were buried close by their cottage doors, and it is said, some close behind the very houses in which they died. In this state of things passed day after day, and week after week.The terrified villagers had for some time past forsaken their wonted occupations; the untended cattle lowed mournfully on the neighbouring hills; the fields and gardens became a wilderness; and family feuds and personal animosities sank into oblivion!

Every family up to July, or perhaps the latter end of June, had been, from dire necessity, compelled to bury its own dead; for no one would touch or even glance at a corpse that did not belong to his own house or family. But when, as was now frequently the case, the last of a family died, or when one died in a house and others were dying, some person was necessitated, however dangerous the task, to undertake the removal of the unsightly corpse, and immediately bury it. For this hazardous but necessary purpose, the All-wise Providence had endowed with sufficient nerve, hardihood and indifference, the person of Marshall Howe, a native of the village, a man of gigantic stature, and of the most undaunted courage. The daring conduct of this individual, in that terrible time, has rendered his name familiar with the villagers of Eyam to the present day. During the greatest fury of the plague, he filled the fearful office of burier of the dead. It appears, however, that he took the distemper nearly at the time of its first appearance, but recovered; and to the belief that a person was never attacked twice, much of his intrepidity may be ascribed. Covetousness or avarice seems to have instigated him, in part, to undertake his perilous vocation. When he learnt that a person was dying without relatives to take charge of interment, he immediately proceeded to a garden or adjoining field, and opened a grave; then hastened to the house where the victim lay, perhaps warm with life, and tying one end of a cord round the neck or feet of the corpse, he dragged the body to the grave, and with “an unhallowed haste” lightly covering it with earth. The money, furniture, clothes,and other effects of the deceased were his unenviable remuneration. For nearly three months he was thus employed. Through burying the last victims of the pest-houses, he claimed and took whatever he found therein; and, in alluding to the quantity of small clothes he had thus obtained, he jocularly observed that “he had pinners and napkins sufficient to kindle his pipe with while he lived”. Such was the awful occupation of Marshall Howe, during the most horrible ravages of the plague; he, however, tasted the bitter draught by burying, with his own hands, his wife, on the twenty-seventh, and his son on the thirtieth of August of the fatal 1666. For a generation or two after the plague, parents in Eyam endeavoured to bring their children to rule and obedience by telling them that they would send for Marshall Howe.

AUGUST, however, was the month in which the pest bared his arm for the most deadly slaughter. Distraction overwhelmed the hourly diminishing villagers; some lay in a death-like stupor, anticipating their doom; others ran about the streets in a state of madness, until they suddenly dropped down dead. From every house that was not empty, loud and dismal cries issued forth, mixed with violent exclamations of pain; and, as Ossian sings, “the groan of the people spread over the hills”. The swellings in the neck and groin of the patient became insufferable when they would not burst, and the torment was unspeakably excruciating. All now expected death; no one cherished a hope of escape; and a mournful gloom settled on the features of the few who ventured to pace the lonely street. Those who fetched the victuals and other articles from the stated places, were marked on the brow by sullen despair; and even

As this fatal month advanced, the mortality increased with inconceivable violence. The wakes,or feast came on again, but alas! alas! how awful the change! The remaining few thought not of their wonted joy; they breathed not its name, for all their thoughts were full of death! The festive Sunday passed away, with all the stillness of the grave; none watched for the arrival of relations and friends; no village choristers assembled at the Church; nor did the cheerful bells call aloud to the hills to be merry and glad. Nearly all who had danced upon the village-green at the last anniversary of this, till then, happy time, were now laid, uncoffined, in their graves.

Towards the latter end of August, near four-fifths of the inhabitants had been swept away. Mompesson, during the whole time, unremittingly went from house to house, comforting, as much as possible, his dying flock. He, however, was an “ailing man”, and had an issue in his leg. One day his beloved wife observed a green ichor issuing from the wound, which she conceived to be the result of his having taken the distemper, and its having found vent that way. Great was her joy on this occasion; and although Mompesson thought she was mistaken, yet he, as we shall see in his letter to his children, fully and duly appreciated her extreme anxiety for his welfare. This admirable and worthy man was now destined to drink deep of the sickening cup which had been passing round the village. Catherine, his beloved partner, had for some time shown symptoms of pulmonary consumption. She is represented to have been exceedingly beautiful, though very delicate. There is a very current tradition in the village, that on, or a little before the twenty-second of August, 1666, Mompesson and his wife were walking arm-in-arm in the fields adjoining the Rectory, as had been their custom in the morning during some months in the spring, hoping that the air would restore her to convalescence. During this walk she had been dwelling on her usual theme - their absent children, when, just as they were leaving the last field for their habitation, she suddenly exclaimed: “Oh! Mompesson! the air! how sweet it smells!”^[11] These words went through the very soul of Mompesson, and his heart sank within him. He made some evasive reply, and they entered their dwelling. The lapse of a few hours confirmed his fearful anticipation from her remark in the fields : she had taken the distemper.

Mompesson seemed for awhile unable to stand the terrible shock; he stood at her bedside a statue of despair. He, however, after the first paroxysm of grief was past, began with a fortitude unexampled, to use every means imaginable to arrest the progress of the disease. Cordials and chemical antidotes were administered by his own hand; but alas! in vain. She struggled with the invincible pest for a few days, when her spirit took its flight to the regions of bliss. Mompesson cast himself beside her putrid corpse; and in the agony of despair bathed her cold and pallid face with burning tears. The domestics came and led him faltering away; yet, ere he left the room he turned, and, sobbing, cried “Farewell! farewell! all happy days!” He repaired to his closet, and on his bended knees lifted up his voice to heaven; while

She, who a few days past had been so lovely and beautiful, was now a livid corpse; she, who had been the object of every attention, now lay lone and still, guarded from every eye by dreadful apprehension.

Thus, this lovely and amiable woman fell a victim to the plague, in the twenty-seventh year of her age. Her resolution to abide with her husband in defiance of death, is a striking instance of the strength and purity of female affection. She was interred August the twenty-fifth, 1666, in the Churchyard at Eyam. Over her ashes her loving and truly affectionate husband erected a splendid tomb, which, with its inscription and devices, will be hereafter described.

Great as was the calamity that had visited and was still visiting almost every family in the fated village- terrible as was the devastation of the pestilence in August - yet the very few inhabitants who were left nearly forgot their own sufferings and distress in the death of Mrs. Mompesson. They had witnessed in her worthy husband so much sympathy and benevolence, so much attention and humane feeling, that they regarded him as their counsellor, physician and friend; and hence their participation in his sorrow for the loss of his lovely and amiable wife. The trying situation, the lacerated feelings of this incomparable man, will be best shown by the two following letters, written with his own hand, a few days after the interment of his affectionate spouse.

To his dear children he thus announces the death of their mother:-

Is there not in this truly pathetic letter, the visible manifestation of a truly Christian spirit - the bright effulgence of a heavenly mind, which ought to command the admiration of succeeding generations to the end of time? On the same melancholy event, the following letter was written by Mompesson, to his friend and patron, Sir George Saville:-

“In the whole range of literature”, say William and Mary Howitt, “we know of nothing more pathetic than these letters”; alluding to another, besides these two, dated Eyam, Nov. 20, 1666, which will be found hereafter.

It is singular indeed, that Mompesson enjoyed such remarkably good health during the whole time of the calamitous visitation; he, in the language of the poet,

From house to house he went and prayed with the dying victims:-

From the interment of Mrs. Mompesson (August the twenty-fifth) to the end of the month, although four-fifths of the population were swept away, the pestilence raged with unabated fury. On the twenty-sixth of this terrible month, Marshall Howe, who had been daily employed in hurrying the dead to their unhallowed graves, was doomed to experience a loss equal, in his own estimation, to that of his pastor. Joan, his wife, who had often remonstrated with him to desist from his perilous avocation, was seized with the distemper: and the virulence of the attack threatened almost immediate dissolution. Though he had been, for full two months, moving in the whirlwind of death, yet up to this time he had deemed himself invulnerable to the pest; but the infection of his wife brought conviction to his mind that he had been the means of bringing the disease across his own threshold; and he wept bitterly. The direful symptom appeared on the sun-browned bosom of his beloved Joan; and early on the morning of the twenty-seventh, she breathed her last. Marshall wept aloud over the stiffening limbs; but ere the sun had tipped with gold the orient hills of Eyam, he had wound her up, and carried her in his brawny arms to a neighbouring field, where he dug a grave and buried her silently therein. A sullen sadness overspread his mien, while over her remains he patted the earth with an unusual and unconscious circumspection. Filled with gloomy sensations he returned to his home, but alas! there he found his only son William, struggling with the pest. Despair “whirled his brain to madness”; he cast himself on a couch and uttered doleful lamentations. William, his beloved son, who had inherited something of his father's iron constitution, wrestled with the horrid and deadly disease until the morning of the third day of his sickness, when he yielded to his direful and mortal antagonist. His disconsolate father bore his warm but lifeless corpse to the grave of his wife, beside which he buried it, while floods of tears bespoke his inconceivable agony. Marshall Howe, however, continued his unenviable office; but the recklessness and levity with which he had exhibited were no longer observable after the bereavement of his wife and son. The terrified and fast dwindling villagers were no longer startled, when he returned from the interment of a victim in the Cussy-dell, by the following observations, which on these occasions he sometimes made:- “Ah! I saw Old Nick grinning on the ivied rock as I dragged such-a-one along the dell!” Marshall Howe was buried April 20th, 1698.

The sixth, twenty-sixth, and the last day of August, were the only days in that awful month, on which no one died: while the whole number who perished in the other twenty-eight days was seventy-seven. This number of deaths must be considered really appalling, especially when it is taken into estimation that the population of the village on the first of August was considerably under two hundred. The havoc in this month was dreadful beyond all description. The houses eastward, from the middle of the village, were nearly all empty. The inhabitants of the extreme western part of the village, who were at that time very few, shut themselves close up in their houses; nor would they, on any occasion whatever, cross a small rivulet eastward, which runs under the street in that part of Eyam. That portion of the street which crosses this small stream is called to this day “Fiddler's Bridge”; and it is very commonly asserted that the plague never crossed it westward. This assertion is not correct; but as there were but very few inhabitants in that direction, not many deaths could occur. Indeed, those who fled at the breaking out of the disease, were principally, if not exclusively, inhabitants of that part, and consequently, there would be but few left. One man, however, is said to have taken the distemper by intending to visit his sister, a widow, who dwelt in the Lydgate, or to the eastern part of Eyam, whom he found dead and her habitation empty. Thus, like leaves in Autumn, fell the villagers of Eyam, in that terrible and fatal month, August 1666.

SEPTEMBER came with little abatement of the destructiveness of the horrid malady. A dreamy stillness reigned around the nearly desolate village; it was canopied by a dark and deepening gloom, which fancy might imagine to have been formed by the incessant accumulation of sorrowful respirations. The last day of September was one of the few days during that month unattended by death. Although the inhabitants, at the beginning of September, were reduced to a very few, still the insatiated pest carried away, as hereafter shown, twenty-four during that month.

OCTOBER came, the month in which the plague ceased; yet, up to the eleventh, it still carried on the work of destruction, with but little relaxation of fury. On the eleventh of October, 1666, this awful minister of death, after having from the first day of the same month destroyed fourteen out of about forty-five - and having carried away full five-sixths of the inhabitants of the village - was exhausted with excessive slaughter, and in its last conflict, worsted and destroyed.

The winter which succeeded the cessation of the pestilence, was, by the very few who were left, wholly spent in burning the furniture of the pest-houses, and likewise nearly all the bedding and clothing found in the village: reserving scarcely anything to cover their nakedness. The necessary articles of apparel were fumigated and purified; and every means that could be suggested were taken to prevent the resurrection of the horrid pest. But, the awful dread of this deadly monster, the condition of the village at the termination of its ravages, will be best shown by giving, after the following letter of Mompesson, a few very popular and authentic traditions of that unspeakable and agonizing time.

Thus wrote this affectionate spirit - thus he describes the sufferings of his flock, which sufferings, however, will be further and more fully detailed in the following section:

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