place on October 12th, and was known as the Farneley Wood Plot. The
rising was easily put down, and several prisoners were taken. A
special commission of oyer and terminer was sent down to York to try
the prisoners in January, 1663-64, when twenty-one were convicted
and executed. (See Whitaker's "Loidis and Elmete," 1816.)]
25th (Lord's day). Up, and my wife and I to church, where it is strange
to see how the use and seeing Pembleton come with his wife thither to
church, I begin now to make too great matter of it, which before was so
terrible to me. Dined at home, my wife and I alone, a good dinner, and so
in the afternoon to church again, where the Scot preached, and I slept
most of the afternoon. So home, and my wife and I together all the
evening discoursing, and then after reading my vowes to myself, and my
wife with her mayds (who are mighty busy to get it dispatched because of
their mistress's promise, that when it is done they shall have leave all
to go see their friends at Westminster, whither my wife will carry them)
preparing for their washing to-morrow, we hastened to supper and to bed.
26th. Waked about one o'clock in the morning . . . . My wife being
waked rung her bell, and the mayds rose and went to washing, we to sleep
again till 7 o'clock, and then up, and I abroad to look out Dr. Williams,
but being gone out I went to Westminster, and there seeing my Lord
Sandwich's footman knew he was come to town, and so I went in and saw him,
and received a kind salute from him, but hear that my father is very ill
still. Thence to Westminster Hall with Creed, and spent the morning
walking there, where, it being Terme time, I met several persons, and
talked with them, among others Dr. Pierce, who tells me that the Queen is
in a way to be pretty well again, but that her delirium in her head
continues still; that she talks idle, not by fits, but always, which in
some lasts a week after so high a fever, in some more, and in some for
ever; that this morning she talked mightily that she was brought to bed,
and that she wondered that she should be delivered without pain and
without spueing or being sicke, and that she was troubled that her boy was
but an ugly boy. But the King being by, said, "No, it is a very pretty
boy."--"Nay," says she, "if it be like you it is a fine boy indeed, and I
would be very well pleased with it." The other day she talked mightily of
Sir H. Wood's lady's great belly, and said if she should miscarry he would
never get another, and that she never saw such a man as this Sir H. Wood
in her life, and seeing of Dr. Pridgeon, she said, "Nay, Doctor, you need
not scratch your head, there is hair little enough already in the place."
But methinks it was not handsome for the weaknesses of Princes to be
talked of thus. Thence Creed and I to the King's Head ordinary, where
much and very good company, among others one very talking man, but a
scholler, that would needs put in his discourse and philosophy upon every
occasion, and though he did well enough, yet his readiness to speak spoilt
all. Here they say that the Turkes go on apace, and that my Lord
Castlehaven is going to raise 10,000 men here for to go against him; that
the King of France do offer to assist the Empire upon condition that he
may be their Generalissimo, and the Dolphin chosen King of the Romans: and
it is said that the King of France do occasion this difference among the
Christian Princes of the Empire, which gives the Turke such advantages.
They say also that the King of Spayne is making all imaginable force
against Portugall again. Thence Creed and I to one or two periwigg shops
about the Temple, having been very much displeased with one that we saw, a
head of greasy and old woman's haire, at Jervas's in the morning; and
there I think I shall fit myself of one very handsomely made. Thence by
coach, my mind being troubled for not meeting with Dr. Williams, to St.
Catharine's to look at a Dutch ship or two for some good handsome maps,
but met none, and so back to Cornhill to Moxon's, but it being dark we
staid not to see any, then to coach again, and presently spying Sir W.
Batten; I 'light and took him in and to the Globe in Fleete Streete, by
appointment, where by and by he and I with our solicitor to Sir F. Turner
about Field's business, and back to the Globe, and thither I sent for Dr.
Williams, and he is willing to swear in my behalf against T. Trice, viz.,
that at T. Trice's desire we have met to treat about our business. Thence
(I drinking no wine) after an hour's stay Sir W. Batten and another, and
he drinking, we home by coach, and so to my office and set down my
Journall, and then home to supper and to bed, my washing being in a good
condition over. I did give Dr. Williams 20s. tonight, but it was after he
had answered me well to what I had to ask him about this business, and it
was only what I had long ago in my petty bag book allotted for him besides
the bill of near L4 which I paid him a good while since by my brother Tom
for physique for my wife, without any consideration to this business that
he is to do for me, as God shall save me. Among the rest, talking of the
Emperor at table to-day one young gentleman, a pretty man, and it seems a
Parliament man, did say that he was a sot;
[Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor, was born June 9th, 1640. He
became King of Hungary in 1655, and King of Bohemia in 1658, in
which year he received the imperial crown. The Princes of the
German Empire watched for some time the progress of his struggle
with the Turks with indifference, but in 1663 they were induced to
grant aid to Leopold after he had made a personal appeal to them in
the diet at Ratisbon.]
for he minded nothing of the Government, but was led by the Jesuites.
Several at table took him up, some for saying that he was a sot in being
led by the Jesuites, [who] are the best counsel he can take. Another
commander, a Scott[ish] Collonell, who I believe had several under him,
that he was a man that had thus long kept out the Turke till now, and did
many other great things, and lastly Mr. Progers, one of our courtiers, who
told him that it was not a thing to be said of any Soveraigne Prince, be
his weaknesses what they will, to be called a sot, which methinks was very
prettily said.
27th. Up, and my uncle Thomas and his scrivener bringing me a bond and
affidavit to my mind, I paid him his L20 for his daughter's legacy, and L5
more for a Quarter's annuity, in the manner expressed in each acquittance,
to which I must be referred on any future occasion, and to the bond and
affidavit. Thence to the office and there sat till noon, and then home to
dinner, and after dinner (it being a foul house to-day among my maids,
making up their clothes) abroad with my Will with me by coach to Dr,
Williams, and with him to the Six Clerks's office, and there, by advice of
his acquaintance, I find that my case, through my neglect and the neglect
of my lawyers, is come to be very bad, so as that it will be very hard to
get my bill retayned again. However, I got him to sign and swear an
affidavit that there was treaties between T. Trice and me with as much
advantage as I could for me, but I will say that for him he was most exact
as ever I saw man in my life, word by word what it was that he swore to,
and though, God forgive me, I could have been almost naturally willing to
have let him ignorantly have sworn to something that was not of itself
very certain, either or no, yet out of his own conscience and care he
altered the words himself so as to make them very safe for him to swear.
This I carrying to my clerk Wilkinson, and telling him how I heard matters
to stand, he, like a conceited fellow, made nothing of it but advised me
to offer Trice's clerks the cost of the dismission, viz., 46s. 8d., which
I did, but they would not take it without his client. Immediately
thereupon we parted, and met T. Trice coming into the room, and he came to
me and served me with a subpoena for these very costs, so I paid it him,
but Lord! to see his resolution, and indeed discretion, in the wording of
his receipt, he would have it most express to my greatest disadvantage
that could be, yet so as I could not deny to give it him. That being
paid, my clerke, and then his began to ask why we could not think, being
friends, of referring it, or stating it, first ourselves, and then put it
to some good lawyer to judge in it. From one word to more we were
resolved to try, and to that end to step to the Pope's Head Taverne, and
there he and his Clerke and Attorney and I and my Clerke, and sent for Mr.
Smallwood, and by and by comes Mr. Clerke, my Solicitor, and after I had
privately discoursed with my men and seen how doubtfully they talked, and
what future certain charge and trouble it would be, with a doubtful
victory, I resolved to condescend very low, and after some talke all
together Trice and I retired, and he came to L150 the lowest, and I bid
him L80. So broke off and then went to our company, and they putting us
to a second private discourse, at last I was contented to give him L100,
he to spend 40s. of it among this good company that was with us. So we
went to our company, both seeming well pleased that we were come to an
end, and indeed I am in the respects above said, though it be a great sum
for us to part with. I am to pay him by giving him leave to buy about L40
worth of Piggott's land and to strike off so much of Piggott's debt, and
the other to give him bond to pay him in 12 months after without interest,
only giving him a power to buy more land of Piggott and paying him that
way as he did for the other, which I am well enough contented with, or at
least to take the land at that price and give him the money. This last I
did not tell him, but I shall order it so. Having agreed upon to-morrow
come se'nnight for the spending of the 40s. at Mr. Rawlinson's, we parted,
and I set T. Trice down in Paul's Churchyard and I by coach home and to my
office, and there set down this day's passages, and so home to supper and
to bed. Mr. Coventry tells me to-day that the Queen had a very good night
last night; but yet it is strange that still she raves and talks of little
more than of her having of children, and fancys now that she hath three
children, and that the girle is very like the King. And this morning
about five o'clock waked (the physician feeling her pulse, thinking to be
better able to judge, she being still and asleep, waked her) and the first
word she said was, "How do the children?"
28th. Up and at my office all the morning, and at noon Mr. Creed came to
me and dined with me, and after dinner Murford came to me and he and I
discoursed wholly upon his breach of contract with us. After that Mr.
Creed and I abroad, I doing several errands, and with him at last to the
great coffee-house, and there after some common discourse we parted and I
home, paying what I owed at the Mitre in my way, and at home Sympson the
joyner coming he set up my press for my cloaks and other small things, and
so to my office a little, and to supper, and to bed. This morning Mr.
Blackburne came to me, and telling me what complaints Will made of the
usage he had from my wife and other discouragements, and, I seeing him,
instead of advising, rather favouring his kinsman, I told him freely my
mind, but friendlily, and so we have concluded to have him have a lodging
elsewhere, and that I will spare him L15 of his salary, and if I do not
need to keep another L20.
29th. Up, it being my Lord Mayor's day, Sir Anthony Bateman. This
morning was brought home my new velvet cloake, that is, lined with velvet,
a good cloth the outside, the first that ever I had in my life, and I pray
God it may not be too soon now that I begin to wear it. I had it this day
brought, thinking to have worn it to dinner, but I thought it would be
better to go without it because of the crowde, and so I did not wear it.
We met a little at the office, and then home again and got me ready to go
forth, my wife being gone forth by my consent before to see her father and
mother, and taken her cooke mayde and little girle to Westminster with her
for them to see their friends. This morning in dressing myself and
wanting a band,
[The band succeeded the ruff as the ordinary civil costume. The
lawyers, who now retain bands, and the clergy, who have only lately
left them off, formerly wore ruffs.]
I found all my bands that were newly made clean so ill smoothed that I
crumpled them, and flung them all on the ground, and was angry with Jane,
which made the poor girle mighty sad, so that I were troubled for it
afterwards. At noon I went forth, and by coach to Guild Hall (by the way
calling at Mr. Rawlinson's), and there was admitted, and meeting with Mr.
Proby (Sir R. Ford's son), and Lieutenant-Colonel Baron, a City commander,
we went up and down to see the tables; where under every salt there was a
bill of fare, and at the end of the table the persons proper for the
table. Many were the tables, but none in the Hall but the Mayor's and the
Lords of the Privy Council that had napkins
[As the practice of eating with forks gradually was introduced from
Italy into England, napkins were not so generally used, but
considered more as an ornament than a necessary.
"The laudable use of forks,
Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy,
To the sparing of napkins."
Ben Jonson, The Devil is an Ass, act v., sc. 3.
The guests probably brought their own knife and fork with them in a
case.--M.B.]
or knives, which was very strange. We went into the Buttry, and there
stayed and talked, and then into the Hall again: and there wine was
offered and they drunk, I only drinking some hypocras, which do not break
my vowe, it being, to the best of my present judgement, only a mixed
compound drink, and not any wine.
[A drink, composed usually of red wine, but sometimes of white, with
the addition of sugar and spices. Sir Walter Scott ("Quarterly
Review," vol. xxxiii.) says, after quoting this passage of Pepys,
"Assuredly his pieces of bacchanalian casuistry can only be matched
by that of Fielding's chaplain of Newgate, who preferred punch to
wine, because the former was a liquor nowhere spoken against in
Scripture."]
If I am mistaken, God forgive me! but I hope and do think I am not. By
and by met with Creed; and we, with the others, went within the several
Courts, and there saw the tables prepared for the Ladies and Judges and
Bishopps: all great sign of a great dinner to come. By and by about one
o'clock, before the Lord Mayor came, come into the Hall, from the room
where they were first led into, the Lord Chancellor (Archbishopp before
him), with the Lords of the Council, and other Bishopps, and they to
dinner. Anon comes the Lord Mayor, who went up to the lords, and then to
the other tables to bid wellcome; and so all to dinner. I sat near Proby,
Baron, and Creed at the Merchant Strangers' table; where ten good dishes
to a messe, with plenty of wine of all sorts, of which I drunk none; but
it was very unpleasing that we had no napkins nor change of trenchers, and
drunk out of earthen pitchers and wooden dishes.--[The City plate was
probably melted during the Civil War.-M.B.]--It happened that after the
lords had half dined, came the French Embassador, up to the lords' table,
where he was to have sat; but finding the table set, he would not sit down
nor dine with the Lord Mayor, who was not yet come, nor have a table to
himself, which was offered; but in a discontent went away again. After I
had dined, I and Creed rose and went up and down the house, and up to the
lady's room, and there stayed gazing upon them. But though there were
many and fine, both young and old, yet I could not discern one handsome
face there; which was very strange, nor did I find the lady that young
Dawes married so pretty as I took her for, I having here an opportunity of
looking much upon her very near. I expected musique, but there was none
but only trumpets and drums, which displeased me. The dinner, it seems,
is made by the Mayor and two Sheriffs for the time being, the Lord Mayor
paying one half, and they the other. And the whole, Proby says, is
reckoned to come to about 7 or L800 at most. Being wearied with looking
upon a company of ugly women, Creed and I went away, and took coach and
through Cheapside, and there saw the pageants, which were very silly, and
thence to the Temple, where meeting Greatorex, he and we to Hercules
Pillars, there to show me the manner of his going about of draining of
fenns, which I desired much to know, but it did not appear very
satisfactory to me, as he discoursed it, and I doubt he will faile in it.
Thence I by coach home, and there found my wife come home, and by and by
came my brother Tom, with whom I was very angry for not sending me a bill
with my things, so as that I think never to have more work done by him if
ever he serves me so again, and so I told him. The consideration of
laying out L32 12s. this very month in his very work troubles me also, and
one thing more, that is to say, that Will having been at home all the day,
I doubt is the occasion that Jane has spoken to her mistress tonight that
she sees she cannot please us and will look out to provide herself
elsewhere, which do trouble both of us, and we wonder also at her, but yet
when the rogue is gone I do not fear but the wench will do well. To the
office a little, to set down my Journall, and so home late to supper and
to bed. The Queen mends apace, they say; but yet talks idle still.
30th. Lay long in bed with my wife, and then up and a while at my office,
and so to the Change, and so [home] again, and there I found my wife in a
great passion with her mayds. I upstairs to set some things in order in
our chamber and wardrobe, and so to dinner upon a good dish of stewed
beef, then up again about my business. Then by coach with my wife to the
New Exchange, and there bought and paid for several things, and then back,
calling at my periwigg-makers, and there showed my wife the periwigg made
for me, and she likes it very well, and so to my brother's, and to buy a
pair of boddice for her, and so home, and to my office late, and then home
to my wife, purposing to go on to a new lesson in arithmetique with her.
So to supper and to bed. The Queen mends apace, but her head still light.
My mind very heavy thinking of my great layings out lately, and what they
must still be for clothes, but I hope it is in order to getting of
something the more by it, for I perceive how I have hitherto suffered for
lack of going as becomes my place. After a little discourse with my wife
upon arithmetique, to bed.
31st. Up and to the office, where we sat all the morning, and at noon
home to dinner, where Creed came and dined with me, and after dinner he
and I upstairs, and I showed him my velvet cloake and other things of
clothes, that I have lately bought, which he likes very well, and I took
his opinion as to some things of clothes, which I purpose to wear, being
resolved to go a little handsomer than I have hitherto. Thence to the
office; where busy till night, and then to prepare my monthly account,
about which I staid till 10 or 11 o'clock at night, and to my great sorrow
find myself L43 worse than I was the last month, which was then L760, and
now it is but L717. But it hath chiefly arisen from my layings-out in
clothes for myself and wife; viz., for her about L12, and for myself L55,
or thereabouts; having made myself a velvet cloake, two new cloth suits,
black, plain both; a new shagg
[Shag was a stuff similar to plush. In 1703 a youth who was missing
is described in an advertisement as wearing "red shag breeches,
striped with black stripes." (Planche's "Cyclopxdia of Costume ").]
gowne, trimmed with gold buttons and twist, with a new hat, and, silk tops
for my legs, and many other things, being resolved henceforward to go like
myself. And also two perriwiggs, one whereof costs me L3, and the other
40s.--I have worn neither yet, but will begin next week, God willing. So
that I hope I shall not need now to lay out more money a great while, I
having laid out in clothes for myself and wife, and for her closett and
other things without, these two months, this and the last, besides
household expenses of victuals, &c., above L110. But I hope I shall with
more comfort labour to get more, and with better successe than when, for
want of clothes, I was forced to sneake like a beggar. Having done this I
went home, and after supper to bed, my mind being eased in knowing my
condition, though troubled to think that I have been forced to spend so
much.
Thus I end this month worth L717, or thereabouts, with a good deal of good
goods more than I had, and a great deal of new and good clothes. My
greatest trouble and my wife's is our family, mighty out of order by this
fellow Will's corrupting the mayds by his idle talke and carriage, which
we are going to remove by hastening him out of the house, which his uncle
Blackburne is upon doing, and I am to give him L20 per annum toward his
maintenance. The Queene continues lightheaded, but in hopes to recover.
The plague is much in Amsterdam, and we in fears of it here, which God
defend.
[Defend is used in the sense of forbid. It is a Gallicism from the
French "defendre."]
The Turke goes on mightily in the Emperor's dominions, and the Princes
cannot agree among themselves how to go against him. Myself in pretty
good health now, after being ill this month for a week together, but
cannot yet come to . . . . well, being so costive, but for this month
almost I have not had a good natural stool, but to this hour am forced to
take physic every night, which brings me neither but one stool, and that
in the morning as soon as I am up, all the rest of the day very costive.
My father has been very ill in the country, but I hope better again now. I
am lately come to a conclusion with Tom Trice to pay him L100, which is a
great deale of money, but I hope it will save a great deale more. But
thus everything lessens, which I have and am like to have, and therefore I
must look about me to get something more than just my salary, or else I
may resolve to live well and die a beggar.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
And so to sleep till the morning, but was bit cruelly
And there, did what I would with her
Content as to be at our own home, after being abroad awhile
Found guilty, and likely will be hanged (for stealing spoons)
Half a pint of Rhenish wine at the Still-yard, mixed with beer
His readiness to speak spoilt all
No more matter being made of the death of one than another
Out of an itch to look upon the sluts there
Plague is much in Amsterdam, and we in fears of it here
Pride himself too much in it
Reckon nothing money but when it is in the bank
Resolve to live well and die a beggar
Scholler, that would needs put in his discourse (every occasion)
She was so ill as to be shaved and pidgeons put to her feet
The plague is got to Amsterdam, brought by a ship from Argier
We having no luck in maids now-a-days
Who is over head and eares in getting her house up