"Little is known about John Sheppard. He was a member of the Chapel Royal, the household choir of the English monarchs. He was buried in Westminster on Dec. 21, 1558. We know that he likely died of the “new ague,” a strain of pandemic influenza that swept England in 1557, then returned the following year in a murderous second wave. Perhaps one in 10 Londoners died in 1558, a carnage that claimed Sheppard just after it took Reginald Pole, the archbishop of Canterbury, and probably the queen as well."
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