Exam Tips for the Great Plague of 1665
Part of The Plague of 1665 — GCSE History
This exam tips covers Exam Tips for the Great Plague of 1665 within The Plague of 1665 for GCSE History. Revise The Plague of 1665 in Restoration England 1660-1685 for GCSE History with 8 exam-style questions and 4 flashcards. This is a high-frequency topic, so it is worth revising until the explanation feels precise and repeatable. It is section 15 of 16 in this topic. Treat this as a marking guide for what examiners are looking for, not just a fact list.
Topic position
Section 15 of 16
Practice
8 questions
Recall
4 flashcards
💡 Exam Tips for the Great Plague of 1665
🎯 Question Types for This Topic:
- "Describe two features of the Great Plague of 1665" (4 marks, ~8 minutes) — Two distinct features each with specific evidence. "Many people died" is not a feature — it is the definition of a plague. Features could be: the government's response (shutting up houses, Bills of Mortality), the social impact (rich fled, poor died), or beliefs about causes (miasma theory, God's punishment). Each feature needs precise supporting detail to reach Level 2.
- "Explain why so many Londoners died in the Great Plague of 1665" (8 marks, ~15 minutes) — Develop at least two reasons with causal language. Show how causes connected: overcrowding made transmission easy; miasma theory led to wrong responses; shutting up houses trapped the healthy with the sick; removing dogs and cats removed natural rat predators. Aim to show that the death toll was not inevitable but resulted from specific, identifiable failures.
- "How far do you agree that the government's response to the Great Plague was effective?" (12+4 SPaG marks, ~25 minutes) — For (some measures were sensible given 17th-century knowledge: pest houses, Bills of Mortality for tracking, some quarantine logic); Against (most measures were useless or counterproductive; Charles fled; killing cats/dogs was actively harmful; death toll of 100,000 = 25% of population shows failure). Make a clear judgement and use specific evidence.
📈 How to Move Up Levels — This Topic Specifically:
- Level 1: "The plague killed many people because it was very contagious and people didn't know how to stop it." — No specific knowledge.
- Level 2: "The plague spread because London was overcrowded and dirty. The government tried to stop it by shutting up houses and burning bonfires. Doctors thought it was caused by bad air." — Specific facts but causes not explained, no evidence of why measures failed.
- Level 3: "The plague spread rapidly because London's overcrowded, rat-infested conditions were ideal for transmission, while miasma theory — the belief that bad air caused disease — led to responses that were useless or harmful. Shutting up houses (sealing infected families inside for 40 days) trapped healthy people with dying relatives, worsening transmission within households. The order to kill 40,000 London dogs removed natural rat predators, allowing the actual carriers to multiply." — Shows mechanism, explains why measures failed, uses specific evidence.
- Level 4: Weighs factors and makes judgement: "The death toll of approximately 100,000 — a quarter of London's population — reflects above all the failure of medical knowledge rather than government incompetence. Given that nobody in 1665 understood germ theory (not developed until the 1860s), the responses that seem absurd in hindsight (miasma theory, killing dogs) were rational deductions from the best available knowledge. The real failure was structural — London's overcrowding, poor sanitation, and rat infestation created conditions that made epidemic almost inevitable, and neither government nor medicine had the capacity to address root causes. However, Charles's flight to Oxford, contrasting with his personal engagement during the Great Fire, suggests a failure of political will as well as medical knowledge."
⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid:
- Treating Defoe's Journal as a primary source. It is fiction written 57 years later. Always use Pepys for eyewitness evidence. Defoe can be cited as a later reconstruction but not as contemporary testimony.
- Writing that the Great Fire ended the plague. The plague was already declining by winter 1665-66 before the fire. The connection is plausible for long-term rat habitat reduction but the fire did not directly cause the plague's end.
- Not explaining WHY measures failed. "The government killed dogs but this didn't work" is Level 2. "Killing dogs removed natural predators of rats — the actual carriers of the flea that transmitted plague — so the measure directly worsened the conditions it was meant to address" is Level 3.
- Ignoring social divisions. The plague was not experienced equally. The rich fled; the poor died. Charles went to Oxford; ordinary Londoners were trapped. Always include social inequality as a factor in your analysis.
- Forgetting the Pepys connection. Samuel Pepys's diary is the key primary source. Always name him and note his significance (government official, stayed in London, wrote detailed daily accounts).
Quick Check: Why did the government's order to kill 40,000 London dogs actually make the plague worse?
The government ordered the killing of dogs and cats because people believed (wrongly, based on miasma theory) that animals spread disease through bad air or physical contact. In reality, the plague was caused by Yersinia pestis bacteria carried by fleas living on rats. Dogs and especially cats were natural predators of rats — by killing them, the government removed the main check on London's rat population. With fewer predators, rat numbers increased, which meant more rats carrying plague-infected fleas, which meant more transmission to humans. The measure therefore directly worsened the epidemic it was intended to control. This is a classic example of how wrong medical theory (miasma) led to wrong and harmful policy — a key theme for "explain why" and "how effective" questions.
Quick Check: What were the Bills of Mortality, and why were they unreliable?
The Bills of Mortality were weekly printed reports listing deaths in each London parish, separating plague deaths from other causes. They were compiled by parish clerks using reports from "searchers of the dead" — usually elderly poor women with no medical training. They were unreliable for several reasons: (1) the searchers often misidentified causes of death; (2) families deliberately concealed plague cases to avoid being "shut up" (sealed inside their house for 40 days), so many plague deaths were recorded as other causes; (3) the very poor and homeless were often not counted at all. The Bills therefore systematically under-reported plague mortality — the real death toll of approximately 100,000 was higher than official records suggested. Despite their limitations, they remain a key primary source and Samuel Pepys cited them repeatedly in his diary.