In late April, a church history lecture by Dr Lesley Rowe (Associate Fellow in History, University of Warwick) drew striking parallels with fearful plagues of the past.
The nations were gripped by fear and uncertainty; little wonder since the Black Death wiped out a third to a half of the population of Europe. In 1625, 38,000 died in London alone and the streets were eerily quiet. An eyewitness was struck by ‘the stillness of the city’. Many died ‘without the comfort of friends who dare not visit them’.
The ‘plague laws’ of Elizabethan England included social distancing. What can we learn from Christians in the 1600s who experienced God’s ‘grievous visitations’?
In the early summer of 1625, just after the accession of King Charles I, Leicestershire – like other counties – ‘closed its borders’, cancelling markets and fairs. If anyone was unwise enough to welcome a visitor from London, they would both be shut up indefinitely in a ‘pest-house’. Tradesmen worried about the financial implications and each town blamed another for spreading the pestilence.
Then came a proclamation from the royal palace announcing a solemn fast every Wednesday until the plague ended. All people were required to attend church, to humble themselves before God, to fast and ‘to pray with one common voice’.
The ‘Wednesday exercise’ in Ashby-de-la-Zouch was crowded with townsfolk anxious to hear 61-year-old Arthur Hildersham preaching after 12 years of silencing. Former vicar and lecturer of Ashby, he was regarded as a ringleader of Puritans in that area. Sanctioned for his nonconformity, Hildersham nevertheless supported the official fast of the established Church, and preached repentance and reconciliation with God from Psalm 51 and Psalm 35.
Despite the agonising loss of his daughter and grandchildren in 1625, Hildersham knew security, peace and hope. He preached: ‘In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence and his children shall have a place of refuge’ (Proverbs 14:26).
