1485

1485 is the year the novel identifies as the arrival of sweating sickness in England, carried by the armies that brought Henry Tudor. The date links dynastic change to a recurring epidemic: the disease returns at intervals, empties London, and turns ordinary life into a precarious calculation of risk.

The epidemic’s remembered beginning

The narration places the sickness’s arrival in 1485, when it came with the forces that brought Henry Tudor. Its appearance is not treated as an isolated outbreak. The disease recurs every few years, filling graveyards and remaining part of the realm’s remembered history.

Recurrence and fear

In 1527, warm weather brings sweating sickness to London. The city begins to empty as people fall ill or fear they may be ill; shop talk turns to remedies, while friars sell holy medals. The sickness can kill within a day, making the contrast between a healthy morning and death by noon a familiar warning. Against that immediate threat, 1485 functions as a point of origin in a cycle whose return cannot be reliably predicted.

Historical and narrative significance

The date joins political upheaval to bodily vulnerability: the armies associated with the beginning of a Tudor reign also carry an illness that continues to threaten the population. Later outbreaks make the past recur not as distant history but as an active danger. In this account, 1485 therefore marks both a dynastic arrival and the remembered beginning of a recurring plague.