The past 50 years have been the most complacent and least fearful half-century ever experienced in Britain. People do not starve in their thousands. In the 21st century we do not have to live with the continual daily threat of plague (which killed approximately 250,000 Elizabethans) or influenza (the outbreak of which in 1557–59 killed about five per cent of England’s population – more than twice the proportion killed by the First World War and the influenza pandemic of 1918–19 combined).
Most Elizabethan people who have children will see half of them die before they reach adulthood – if the parents themselves live long enough. Smallpox, malaria, tuberculosis and innumerable other diseases are rife and uncontrollable. Every family clutches at its Bible in fear of God’s fatal judgement – all too…
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The Story of the Elizabethans (Digital) - 1 Issue, The Story of the Elizabethans 2020