It begins as educated Anglican clergyman the Reverend William Mompesson receives the living from his benefactors, the Saville ^[6] family. A ‘King’s Man’, he is replacing the previous Puritan incumbent, Thomas Stanley who has refused to comply with the 1662 Act of Uniformity which makes use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer compulsory.^[3]

The early part of the play establishes that the village is still divided between Royalist and Roundhead sympathisers. Meanwhile, local tailor George Vicars takes delivery of a large consignment of cloth from London. Within days the village is stricken by plague.

Families shut themselves away in their homes fearing that contact with others will invite the infection. With the onset of cold weather in autumn the number of cases falls but rises again when the warm weather comes in spring. An exodus of the village begins but Mompesson and Stanley put aside their differences to persuade the villages to stay put until the plague is over. The villagers are reminded that if they leave they will be welcome nowhere and will die as outcasts and vagrants, taking many other innocents with them. The villagers voluntarily decide to isolate themselves. Food is left for them by the county High Sheriff at stones marking the limits of the quarantine. As the play evolves the audience moves from location to location and the action intensifies as the village empties.

Some villagers build shacks in the hills, or live in caves, to be away from the infection. The deaths continue through the summer with hardly anyone left to bury the dead. Grass grows in the village streets. Both rectors have doubts at their actions but eventually the dying ceases and the survivors learn they have been successful with no other cases of plague occurring in the county.

Some humour is included by the mad orphan boy “Bedlam” who sings and dances through the worst times and the two cantankerous old yokels Unwin and Merril.