Though severe earthquakes in the north of France and Britain are rare, the 1580 Dover
Straits earthquake appears to have been one of the largest in the recorded history of
England, Flanders or northern France.
Its effects started to be felt in London at around six o'clock in the evening of 6 April
1580, being Wednesday in the Easter week.
== Location and magnitude == A study undertaken during the design of the
Channel Tunnel estimated the magnitude of the 1580 quake at 5.3–5.9 ML and its focal
depth at 20–30 km, in the lower crust.
Being relatively deep, the quake was felt over a large area and it is not certain where
the epicentre was located.
The Channel Tunnel study proposed three possible locations, two south of Calais and one offshore.
The barycentre of the isoseismals with intensities IV to VII lies in the Boulonnais, 10 km east
of Desvres, the barycentre of the VII isoseismal lies about 1 km northeast of Ardres, and the
barycentre of the only pleistoseismal zone lies in the English Channel.The British Geological
Survey estimates the magnitude to be 5.7–5.8 ML.
== Records == The earthquake is well recorded in contemporary
documents, including the "earthquake letter" from Gabriel Harvey to Edmund Spenser mocking
popular and academic methods of accounting for the tremors.
It fell during Easter week, an omen-filled connection that was not lost on the servant-poet
James Yates, who wrote ten stanzas on the topic:
Oh sudden motion, and shaking of the earth, No blustering blastes, the weather calme and
milde: Good Lord the sudden rarenesse of the thing
A sudden feare did bring, to man and childe, They verely thought, as well in field as Towne,
The earth should sinke, and the houses all fall downe.Well let vs print this present
in our heartes, And call to God, for neuer neede we more:
Crauing of him mercy for our misdeedes, Our sinfull liues from heart for to deplore,
For let vs thinke this token doth portend, If scourge nere hand, if we do still offend.Yates'
poem was printed in 1582 in The Castell of Courtesy.English writer Thomas Churchyard,
then aged 60, was in London when the quake struck and he drafted an immediate account
which was published two days later.
In his 2007 biography of Richard Hakluyt, historian Peter C. Mancall provides extensive
extracts from Churchyard's 8 April 1580 pamphlet, A Warning to the Wyse, a Feare to the Fond,
a Bridle to the Lewde, and a Glasse to the Good; written of the late Earthquake chanced
in London and other places, the 6th of April, 1580, for the Glory of God and benefit of
men, that warely can walk, and wisely judge.
Set forth in verse and prose, by Thomas Churchyard, gentleman.
Mancall notes that Churchyard's pamphlet provides a sense of immediacy so often lacking in retrospective
writing.
According to Churchyard, the quake could be felt across the city and well into the suburbs,
as "a wonderful motion and trembling of the earth" shook London and "Churches, Pallaces,
houses, and other buildings did so quiver and shake, that such as were then present
in the same were toosed too and fro as they stoode, and others, as they sate on seates,
driven off their places."
The English public was so eager to read about the quake that a few months later, Abraham
Fleming was able to publish a collection of reports of the Easter Earthquake, including
those written by Thomas Churchyard, Richard Tarlton (described as the writing clown of
Shakespeare’s day), Francis Schackleton, Arthur Golding, Thomas Twine, John Philippes,
Robert Gittins, and John Grafton, as well as Fleming’s own account.
Published by Henry Denham on 27 June 1580, Fleming's pamphlet was titled: A Bright Burning
Beacon, forewarning all wise Virgins to trim their lampes against the coming of the Bridegroome.
Conteining A generall doctrine of sundrie signes and wonders, specially Earthquakes
both particular and generall: A discourse of the end of this world: A commemoration
of our late Earthquake, the 6 of April, about 6 of the clocke in the evening 1580.
And a praier for the appeasing of Gods wrath and indignation.
Newly translated and collected by Abraham Fleming.
== Impact == Further from the coast, furniture danced on
the floors and wine casks rolled off their stands.
The belfry of Notre Dame de Lorette and several buildings at Lille collapsed.
Stones fell from buildings in Arras, Douai, Béthune and Rouen.
Windows cracked in the cathedral of Notre Dame at Pontoise, and blocks of stone dropped
ominously from the vaulting.
At Beauvais, the bells rang as though sounding the tocsin.
Many deaths were reported from Saint-Amand-les-Eaux.In Flanders, chimneys fell and cracks opened
in the walls of Ghent and Oudenarde, killing several people.
Peasants in the fields reported a low rumble and saw the ground roll in waves.
On the English coast, sections of wall fell in Dover and a landslip opened a raw new piece
of the White Cliffs.
At Sandwich a loud noise emanated from the Channel, as church arches cracked and the
gable end of a transept fell at St Peter's Church.
Near Hythe, Kent, Saltwood Castle—made famous as the site where the plot was hatched in
December 1170 to assassinate Thomas Becket — was rendered uninhabitable until it was
repaired in the 19th century.
In London, half a dozen chimney stacks and a pinnacle on Westminster Abbey came down;
two children were killed by stones falling from the roof of Christ's Church Hospital.
Indeed, many Puritans blamed the emerging theatre scene of the time in London, which
was seen as the work of the Devil, as a cause of the quake.
There was damage far inland, in Cambridgeshire, where stones fell from Ely Cathedral.
Part of Stratford Castle in Essex collapsed.
In Scotland, a local report of the quake disturbed the adolescent James VI, who was informed
that it was the work of the Devil.There were aftershocks.
Before dawn the next morning, between 4 and 5 o'clock, further houses collapsed near Dover
due to aftershocks, and a spate of further aftershocks was noticed in east Kent on 1–2
May.
== Other earthquakes in the Dover Straits ==
198 years earlier there was a very similar event, the magnitude 5.8-6.0 1382 Dover Straits
earthquake, with an estimated epicentre not far from that estimated for the 1580 event.
Two later quakes in the Dover Strait, in 1776 and 1950, both thought to be around magnitude
4, were noted in the 1984 compilation by R.M.W.
Musson, G. Neilson and P.W.
Burton.
None in this study occurred before 1727, but the same team devoted an article to the 1580
earthquake that year, the classic study.
Some scientists have suggested that the 1580, 1776 and 1950 quakes are all linked to periodic
tectonic activity that results in a tremor occurring in the Dover Straits approximately
every 200 years.
The 2007 Kent earthquake was initially thought to have occurred in the Dover Straits, but
later analysis showed it to have occurred directly under the town of Folkestone in Kent.
== See also == Geology of the United Kingdom
List of earthquakes in the United Kingdom
== Notes and references ==
== External links ==
Shaksper: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List, 2002 archives Friday, 26 April 2002,
and following messages, which, taken together, compile references used to write this article.
Geology shop: UK Earthquakes.
Source for much detail in this article.
European Historical Earthquakes Archive: the 1580 Dover Straits earthquake.
Historical earthquakes studies on the earthquake with maps and macroseismic intensities.