1625

I was this year (being the first of the reign of King Charles) sent by my father to Lewes, in Sussex, to be with my grandfather, Standsfield, with whom I passed my childhood. This was the year in which the pestilence was so epidemical, that there died in London 5,000 a week, and I well remember the strict watches and examinations upon the ways as we passed; and I was shortly after so dangerously sick of a fever that (as I have heard) the physicians despaired of me.