74 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 41. necessities ' lest God punish them for their unmerciful- ness ; ' she insisted with generous forethought ' that no person should have any grudge at those poor captains and soldiers because the town was rendered on con- ditions : ' * she would have it known and understood that there wanted no truth, courage, nor manhood in any of them from the highest to the lowest ; ' ' they would have withstood the French to the utmost of their lives.; but it was thought the part of Christian wisdom not to tempt the Almighty to contend with the inevitable mortal enemy of the plague/ 1 Happy would it have been had the loss of Havre ended the calamities of the summer. But the garrison, scattering to their homes, carried the infection through England. London was tainted already, and with the heat and drought of August the pestilence in town and village held on its deadly way. The eruption on the skin which was usual with the plague does not seem to have attended this visitation of it. The first symptom was violent fever, burning heat alternating with fits of shivering ; the mouth then be- came dry, the tongue parched, with a pricking sensation in the breast and loins ; headache followed and languor, with a desire to sleep, and after sleep came generally death, ' for the heart did draw the poison, and the poison by its own malice did pierce the heart/ When a man felt himself infected ' he did first commend him- self to the highest Physician and craved mercy of him.' Proclamation by the Queen, August I : Domestic MSS.
