Students will witness through hands-on documents and Broadsheets two calamitous events in the middle of the 17th century — the Plague in 1665 and the Great fire in 1666 — which changed the City of London more rapidly than at any other period in history. This Jackdaw recalls the horror and calamity of those years, with eye-witness accounts and an examination of the legends that grew out of the turmoil. Historian: John Langdon-Davies. The contents of this Jackdaw feature:

• The Plague Hits Old London
• How They Fought the Plague
• Fleas and Plague
• Pepys and the Plague
• The Fire Begins
• The End of It All

• A letter from a Cambridge undergraduate, July 18, 1665, describing London during the Plague.
• A Bill of Mortality.
• A page in code from Pepys’s diary and an explanation of the code.
• Wenceslaus Hollar’s picture of London before and after the Fire.
• The Orders conceived and published by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, concerning the Infection of the Plague.
• Portrait of Samuel Pepys by John Hayls — it is referred to in Pepys’s diary.