Queen Elizabeth reigned in her 5th year and the government struggled with a rapidly increasing population. Although sanitation was a constant problem, the city had gone over a dozen years without a plague epidemic and many contemporary Londoners were unconcerned about the disease. That changed in 1563 when plague suddenly erupted in Derby, Leicester, and London[5] with such virulence that sickness spread to English troops garrisoned at Havre, weakening them and causing a surrender to French forces.[6]