From 1592 to 1593, London experienced its last major plague outbreak of the 16th century. During this period, at least 15,000 people died of plague within the City of London and another 4,900 died of plague in the surrounding parishes. London in 1592 London in 1592 was a partially-walled city of 150,000 people made of the City of London and its surrounding parishes, called liberties, just outside the walls. Queen Elizabeth I had ruled for 34 years and her government struggled with London's quickly growing population. Due to increasing economic and food shortages, disorder had grown among the underclasses in the city and beyond, whom moralist authorities increasingly struggled to govern. A large and impoverished population made up the surrounding liberties, which became the first communities to be hit severely by the plague. Plague activity in England Plague had been present in England since the Black Death, infecting various fauna in the countryside, and known as plague since the 15th century. Occasionally Yersinia pestis was transmitted to human society by infectious contact with the fleas of wild animals, with disastrous results for trade, farming, and social life. Increasing plague activity along England's southern and eastern coasts appeared during the late 1580s to early 90s. An outbreak at Newcastle in 1589 killed 1727 residents by January 1590, while from 1590 to 1592 Plymouth and Devon were affected with 997 plague deaths at Totnes and Tiverton. Plague spread south and north in England's countryside in the early 1590s, contaminating reservoirs of rodents around farms and towns until eventually reaching London in the summer of 1592. The plague in London 1592 London's first cases of plague were noticed in August. On 7 September, soldiers marching from England's north to embark on foreign campaigns were rerouted around the city due to concerns about infection, and by the 21st at least 35 parishes were infected with the plague. A group transporting the spoils of a Spanish carrack from Dartmouth couldn't get further than Greenwich due to the outbreak in London and news of the plague had spread regionally. London's theaters, which had been temporarily closed by city authorities since a riot in June, had their shutdown orders extended to 29 December by the government. Members of the aristocratic class sensed danger as the disease continued to spread and fled the city: "The plague is so sore that none of worth stay about these places" remarked