Chapter 3. The Great Fires.

The last event to which I shall allude, before bringing this abnormally long chapter to a close, is the visitation of the plague in 1591. It is said to have been introduced by a pedlar bearing the appropriate name of Walker. At the end of the parish register (Book I.) we find written "Note, dyed in the Plague 1591 about 500 people, page 145," and on the page in question the burials are headed " I'hese same dyed of the Pestilence." To escape the disease hundreds fled the town, and as an old MS. has it " the grass grewe in the streetes and lanes."