With the heat of summer and the return of soldiers, a sickness popped up in several spots around London. It was nothing alarming at first, surely just a case of summer diseases awoken by the seasonal heat and humidity from the Thames. Some people did die here and there, but they were commoners, who would miss them?

But then the sickness began to spread, not at an alarming enough rate, but spread all the same. A few maids who worked at the palace caught it, but still soldiered on with their duties to feed their bellies. The Queen, swollen with child and already in delicate condition, caught a fever in the days following the reward ceremony. Her chambers were cleared and physicians summoned, but they said what many were already whispering: The Sweat had descended upon London. As soon as His Majesty heard, he fled from Hampton Court in the second week of September without a second look, taking the little princess' household with him to Windsor Castle in Berkshire.

The next day the Queen and her unborn child were dead, and in their stead, many fell ill. Some fled from London, others stayed, and some had already succumbed to the sickness. Whether the English were ready to admit it or not, the Sweat was not the only thing sweeping through the streets of London, but fear and panic as well.