one contemporary. In November, London's College of Physicians convened a meeting to discuss the "insolent and illicit practice" of London's unlicensed medical physicians with the intention to "summon them all" before the college for quackery. Queen Elizabeth's royal court also decided not to host the annual Accession Day tilt celebrations for the month due to the possibility of contagion at the royal court. Some records of the plague were copied by John Stow during his own research in the 17th century and have survived time despite the original documents being lost. Around 2,000 Londoners died of plague between August 1592 and January 1593. The Company of Parish Clerks began regularly keeping and publishing records of plague mortality on 21 December 1592. Government orders forbidding performances at theaters were again extended, into 1593. 1593 Death and infection rates rose steadily during the winter months, even though low temperatures often slow down flea activity during plague epidemics. This was seen as ominous by Londoners observing the epidemic. More resourceful, upper-class individuals continued fleeing during 1593 as the government's countermeasures proved ineffective due to the disease-harboring conditions in some areas of London. Poorer, unsanitary parishes and neighborhoods were located near the city wall and River Thames while the Fleet Ditch area of London, around Fleet Prison, became the most heavily infected part of the city. A prisoner named William Cecil (not to be confused with Lord Burghley), kept in Fleet Prison by Queen Elizabeth's command, wrote that by 6 April 1593 "The place where [William] lies is a congregation of the unwholesome smells of the town, and the season contagious, so many have died of the plague." Government letters indicated that the plague was "very hot" in London by 12 June and that the queen's royal court "was out in places, and a great part of the household is cut off." By August Queen Elizabeth's royal court had evacuated to Windsor Castle in order to escape the increasingly dangerous outbreak in London. The city's sugar refineries continued their business unabated even though public houses and theaters remained closed on government orders to halt the spread of infection. Alarm was raised at Windsor by the death of Queen Elizabeth's chambermaid Lady Scrope from plague on the 21 August within the castle, which almost sent the royal court fleeing a second time. But the government remained at Windsor Castle through November where Queen Elizabeth hosted