Reign Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Reign Wiki
Events History Season 1 Season 2

The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that spread through Europe and Asia in the mid-1300, claiming the lives of millions of people in its wake.

In Reign[]

Season 1[]

Nostradamus has a vision of a lifeless Olivia D'Amencourt lying in a heap of courtiers afflicted by the plague. He believes that it signals that Queen Catherine will kill Olivia if they try to run away together, thus he sends her away on her own. [1]

Slaughter Of Innocence 49 - Queen Catherine n Mary Stuart n

Dun dun dun!

A few months later, when Queen Mary goes to Nostradamus and Catherine to ask for a midwife for Lola, they apprise her of the plague's existence in France. Just as Catherine tells her that no one is to leave or enter the castle, Mary realizes that she sent Francis away to be with Lola. [2]

Mary gets to him in time, though, and begs him to stay at the castle. He can't risk being infected now that he is the King of France. However, Francis is too set on finding Lola and their child to have a change of heart. He rides away and while Mary orders the gate closed, Francis stops and the two gaze at each other helplessly. [2]

Season 2[]

The Plague - Promotional image I

Surrounded herself with fire to purify the air from infection

Queen Mary informs the French Court that The Black Death has returned to France, so no one will be allowed to leave or enter the castle. Under any circumstances. However, the Plague finds it's way in when a man sleep with a prostitute from outside the castle. King Francis is trapped outside the castle somewhere, as it is to dangerous to return home, or to any of the cities, as all have been infected. [3]

Weeks pass and more and more people are dying inside the castle. Those who are sick are sent to the dungeon, or locked inside their rooms to die. The people who are not infected are begining to starve to death as no grain has arrived in weeks. Eduard Narcisse promising to being grain, but only if he is allowed to kill a man who allegedly slept with his wife. Queen Catherine who has been guiding Mary in her first time as acting Queen urges her to allow this, even offering to kill the man herself, so as not to stain Mary's hands. People are dying and the grain is desperately needed. [3]

In the meantime, Sebastian and Kenna have been separated, and Pascal has died from infection with Kenna trapped inside with him, and another infected man. Lola, King Francis and Louis Condé all wait out The Plague in the forest, far from civilization. Meanwhile Eduard Narcisse finds a way to poison The Purvilon Family through their drinking water, and Lady Yvette Castleroy dies with them in the mix up. Mary tricks Eduard into sending the grain and then locked him up the dungeon to die with the infected. [3]

The Plague - John Philip 2

On the move

Lola and Francis make it back to court with their son John Philip. Months have passed since the initial outbreak, and locked rooms are slowly being opened to bring out the dead bodies. Bash insists they are all burned, along with all their clothes and belongings. Lord Narcisse finds his dead son Eduard, and is informed he was sent to the dungeon to die. Nostradamus is soon held responsible, and he, along with the guards that sent his son are sent to the dungeon themselves, so be drawn and quartered the next day. Francis and Mary find a way to stop this, but Francis has to give him land, he had previously given to Leith Bayard. [4]

Lord Narcisse, is drawing out bring grain to France to punish Mary for her role in his son's death. He is even approached by Catherine herself, but she soon decided to get her grain elsewhere. [5]

In History[]

The plague arrived in Europe in October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina. People who gathered on the docks were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, while the ones still alive were covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus.

Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of "death ships" out of the harbor, but it was already too late. Over the next two months, the disease spread through Genoa and Venice, but it wasn't until it arrived in Pisa that it gained an entry point into the whole of Italy.

From Italy, the Black Death spread to the port of Marseilles in France and the port of Tunis in North Africa. Then it reached Rome and Florence, two cities at the center of an elaborate web of trade routes. By the middle of 1348, the pestilence had struck Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and London.

The plague repeatedly returned to Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the 14th to 17th centuries. The plague is believed to have been present somewhere in Europe every year between 1346 and 1671.

The most general outbreaks in Tudor and Stuart England seem to have begun in 1498, 1535, 1543, 1563, 1589, 1603, 1625, and 1636, and ended with the Great Plague of London in 1665.

Europe - Old Map

Trivia[]

  • The plague enters the castle thought a man who decided to sleep with a prostitute from outside the castle.
  • There were no outbreaks in Europe in 1558, the closes dates to that time frame were the outbreaks in 1544–1548 and 1563–1566.

Notes[]

  • The plague killed 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia during it's time.
  • France alone lost almost a million people to the plague in the epidemic of 1628–1631
  • During the 16th and 17th centuries, the plague was present in Paris around 30% of the time.

Death Toll[]

Related Pages[]


Advertisement