Master John
The central character of the book is the parish priest of Walsham, Master John. As the author explains in the preface, this position would have obviously been of supreme significance, but there was just one problem in telling his story: nothing of substance could be found during the author’s research. Therefore, Master John is an example of a common tool in such dramatic retellings of actual events. He is a composite character who is a fictional construct serving the purpose of a real historical person, but made up of aspects taken from several others examples.
John and Agnes Chapman
John and Agnes Chapman are a married couple leaving to the far eastern point of the parish. They situated as being very close to patient zero for the county if not quite actually the very first. As the author puts it, the cottage was among the very first targets of the pestilence as it slithered its way through the local populace with John falling ill—somewhat ironically—on Easter Day.
William Wodebite
Wodebite is one of the more prosperous residents of the parish and surprisingly old: thought to be at least sixty when death finally came his way. Such was the standing of Wodebite that his death was treated with great ceremony as a significant loss to the village at large. However, that very same occasion of his death also increased the tension and heat of the already simmering feuding among his children concerning the inheritance of his estate. One of those children was a young daughter named Agnes who married an older man named John Chapman.
Olivia and Hilary Cranmer
One of the aspects of the plague which the story examines and which is not often considered is the impact so much death had on the passage of estates from generation to the next. While Agnes Chapman had to deal with the obstruction of brothers standing between her and the Wodebite wealth, the Cranmer sisters actually become examples of how the arrival of a pestilence had what can only be a termed a positive outcome. Standing in the way of their means to the enjoying the benefits of inheritance were two brothers, Robert and William. When both succumbed to the ravages of the Black Death, the two sisters were able to enjoy the fly-invested fruits of their new circumstances.
