to consider of several things, among others the sum of money fit to be
demanded ready money, to enable us to set out 27 ships, every body being
now in pain for a fleete, and everybody endeavouring to excuse themselves
for the not setting out of one, and our true excuse is lack of money. At
it all the morning, and so at noon home to dinner with my clerks, my wife
and Deb. being busy at work above in her chamber getting things ready and
fine for her going into the country a week or two hence. I away by coach
to White Hall, where we met to wait on the Duke of York, and, soon as
prayers were done, it being Good Friday, he come to us, and we did a
little business and presented him with our demand of money, and so broke
up, and I thence by coach to Kate Joyce's, being desirous and in pain to
speak with her about the business that I received a letter yesterday, but
had no opportunity of speaking with her about it, company being with her,
so I only invited her to come and dine with me on Sunday next, and so away
home, and for saving my eyes at my chamber all the evening pricking down
some things, and trying some conclusions upon my viall, in order to the
inventing a better theory of musique than hath yet been abroad; and I
think verily I shall do it. So to supper with my wife, who is in very
good humour with her working, and so am I, and so to bed. This day at
Court I do hear that Sir W. Pen do command this summer's fleete; and Mr.
Progers of the Bedchamber, as a secret, told me that the Prince Rupert is
troubled at it, and several friends of his have been with him to know the
reason of it; so that he do pity Sir W. Pen, whom he hath great kindness
for, that he should not at any desire of his be put to this service, and
thereby make the Prince his enemy, and contract more envy from other
people. But I am not a whit sorry if it should be so, first for the
King's sake, that his work will be better done by Sir W. Pen than the
Prince, and next that Pen, who is a false rogue, may be bit a little by
it.
21st. Up betimes to the office, and there we sat all the morning, at noon
home with my clerks, a good dinner, and then to the Office, and wrote my
letters, and then abroad to do several things, and pay what little scores
I had, and among others to Mrs. Martin's, and there did give 20s. to Mrs.
Cragg, her landlady, who was my Valentine in the house, as well as Doll
Lane . . . . So home and to the office, there to end my letters, and
so home, where Betty Turner was to see my wife, and she being gone I to my
chamber to read a little again, and then after supper to bed.
22nd (Easter day). I up, and walked to the Temple, and there got a coach,
and to White Hall, where spoke with several people, and find by all that
Pen is to go to sea this year with this fleete; and they excuse the
Prince's going, by saying it is not a command great enough for him. Here I
met with Brisband, and, after hearing the service at the King's chapel,
where I heard the Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Reynolds, the old presbyterian,
begin a very plain sermon, he and I to the Queen's chapel, and there did
hear the Italians sing; and indeed their musick did appear most admirable
to me, beyond anything of ours: I was never so well satisfied in my life
with it. So back to White Hall, and there met Mr. Pierce, and adjusted
together how we should spend to-morrow together, and so by coach I home to
dinner, where Kate Joyce was, as I invited her, and had a good dinner,
only she and us; and after dinner she and I alone to talk about her
business, as I designed; and I find her very discreet, and she assures me
she neither do nor will incline to the doing anything towards marriage,
without my advice, and did tell me that she had many offers, and that
Harman and his friends would fain have her; but he is poor, and hath poor
friends, and so it will not be advisable: but that there is another, a
tobacconist, one Holinshed, whom she speaks well of, to be a plain, sober
man, and in good condition, that offers her very well, and submits to me
my examining and inquiring after it, if I see good, which I do like of it,
for it will be best for her to marry, I think, as soon as she can--at
least, to be rid of this house; for the trade will not agree with a young
widow, that is a little handsome, at least ordinary people think her so.
Being well satisfied with her answer, she anon went away, and I to my
closet to make a few more experiments of my notions in musique, and so
then my wife and I to walk in the garden, and then home to supper and to
bed.
23rd. Up, and after discoursing with my wife about many things touching
this day's dinner, I abroad, and first to the taverne to pay what I owe
there, but missed of seeing the mistress of the house, and there bespoke
wine for dinner, and so away thence, and to Bishopsgate Streete, thinking
to have found a Harpsicon-maker that used to live there before the fire,
but he is gone, and I have a mind forthwith to have a little Harpsicon
made me to confirm and help me in my musique notions, which my head is
now-a-days full of, and I do believe will come to something that is very
good. Thence to White Hall, expecting to have heard the Bishop of
Lincolne, my friend, preach, for so I understood he would do yesterday,
but was mistaken, and therefore away presently back again, and there find
everything in good order against dinner, and at noon come Mr. Pierce and
she, and Mrs. Manuel, the Jew's wife, and Mrs. Corbet, and Mrs. Pierces
boy and girl. But we are defeated of Knepp, by her being forced to act
to-day, and also of Harris, which did trouble me, they being my chief
guests. However, I had an extraordinary good dinner, and the better
because dressed by my own servants, and were mighty merry; and here was
Mr. Pelling by chance come and dined with me; and after sitting long at
dinner, I had a barge ready at Tower-wharfe, to take us in, and so we
went, all of us, up as high as Barne-Elms, a very fine day, and all the
way sang; and Mrs. Manuel sings very finely, and is a mighty discreet,
sober-carriaged woman, that both my wife and I are mightily taken with
her, and sings well, and without importunity or the contrary. At
Barne-Elms we walked round, and then to the barge again, and had much
merry talk, and good singing; and come before it was dark to the New
Exchange stairs, and there landed, and walked up to Mrs. Pierces, where we
sat awhile, and then up to their dining-room. And so, having a violin and
theorbo, did fall to dance, here being also Mrs. Floyd come hither, and by
and by Mr. Harris. But there being so few of us that could dance, and my
wife not being very well, we had not much pleasure in the dancing: there
was Knepp also, by which with much pleasure we did sing a little, and so,
about ten o'clock, I took coach with my wife and Deb., and so home, and
there to bed.
24th. Up pretty betimes, and so there comes to me Mr. Shish, to desire my
appearing for him to succeed Mr. Christopher Pett, lately dead, in his
place of Master-Shipwright of Deptford and Woolwich, which I do resolve to
promote what I can. So by and by to White Hall, and there to the Duke of
York's chamber, where I understand it is already resolved by the King and
Duke of York that Shish shall have the place. From the Duke's chamber Sir
W. Coventry and I to walk in the Matted Gallery; and there, among other
things, he tells me of the wicked design that now is at last contriving
against him, to get a petition presented from people that the money they
have paid to W. Coventry for their places may be repaid them back; and
that this is set on by Temple and Hollis of the Parliament, and, among
other mean people in it, by Captain Tatnell: and he prays me that I will
use some effectual way to sift Tatnell what he do, and who puts him on in
this business, which I do undertake, and will do with all my skill for his
service, being troubled that he is still under this difficulty. Thence up
and down Westminster by Mrs. Burroughes her mother's shop, thinking to
have seen her, but could not, and therefore back to White Hall, where
great talk of the tumult at the other end of the town, about Moore-fields,
among the 'prentices, taking the liberty of these holydays to pull down
bawdy-houses.
[It was customary for the apprentices of the metropolis to avail
themselves of their holidays, especially on Shrove Tuesday, to
search after women of ill fame, and to confine them during the
season of Lent. See a "Satyre against Separatists," 1642.
"Stand forth, Shrove Tuesday, one a' the silenc'st bricklayers;
'Tis in your charge to pull down bawdy-houses."
Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, 1619,
Works, ed. Bullen, vii., 209.]
And, Lord! to see the apprehensions which this did give to all people at
Court, that presently order was given for all the soldiers, horse and
foot, to be in armes! and forthwith alarmes were beat by drum and trumpet
through Westminster, and all to their colours, and to horse, as if the
French were coming into the town! So Creed, whom I met here, and I to
Lincolne's Inn-fields, thinking to have gone into the fields to have seen
the 'prentices; but here we found these fields full of soldiers all in a
body, and my Lord Craven commanding of them, and riding up and down to
give orders, like a madman. And some young men we saw brought by soldiers
to the Guard at White Hall, and overheard others that stood by say, that
it was only for pulling down the bawdy-houses; and none of the bystanders
finding fault with them, but rather of the soldiers for hindering them.
And we heard a justice of the Peace this morning say to the King, that he
had been endeavouring to suppress this tumult, but could not; and that,
imprisoning some [of them] in the new prison at Clerkenwell, the rest did
come and break open the prison and release them; and that they do give out
that they are for pulling down the bawdy-houses, which is one of the
greatest grievances of the nation. To which the King made a very poor,
cold, insipid answer: "Why, why do they go to them, then?" and that was
all, and had no mind to go on with the discourse. Mr. Creed and I to
dinner to my Lord Crew, where little discourse, there being none but us at
the table, and my Lord and my Lady Jemimah, and so after dinner away,
Creed and I to White Hall, expecting a Committee of Tangier, but come too
late. So I to attend the Council, and by and by were called in with Lord
Brouncker and Sir W. Pen to advise how to pay away a little money to most
advantage to the men of the yards, to make them dispatch the ships going
out, and there did make a little speech, which was well liked, and after
all it was found most satisfactory to the men, and best for the king's
dispatch, that what money we had should be paid weekly to the men for
their week's work until a greater sum could be got to pay them their
arrears and then discharge them. But, Lord! to see what shifts and what
cares and thoughts there was employed in this matter how to do the King's
work and please the men and stop clamours would make a man think the King
should not eat a bit of good meat till he has got money to pay the men,
but I do not see the least print of care or thoughts in him about it at
all. Having done here, I out and there met Sir Fr. Hollis, who do still
tell me that, above all things in the world, he wishes he had my tongue in
his mouth, meaning since my speech in Parliament. He took Lord Brouncker
and me down to the guards, he and his company being upon the guards
to-day; and there he did, in a handsome room to that purpose, make us
drink, and did call for his bagpipes, which, with pipes of ebony, tipt
with silver, he did play beyond anything of that kind that ever I heard in
my life; and with great pains he must have obtained it, but with pains
that the instrument do not deserve at all; for, at the best, it is mighty
barbarous musick. So home and there to my chamber, to prick out my song,
"It is Decreed," intending to have it ready to give Mr. Harris on
Thursday, when we meet, for him to sing, believing that he will do it more
right than a woman that sings better, unless it were Knepp, which I cannot
have opportunity to teach it to. This evening I come home from White Hall
with Sir W. Pen, who fell in talk about his going to sea this year, and
the difficulties that arise to him by it, by giving offence to the Prince,
and occasioning envy to him, and many other things that make it a bad
matter, at this time of want of money and necessaries, and bad and uneven
counsels at home,--for him to go abroad: and did tell me how much with the
King and Duke of York he had endeavoured to be excused, desiring the
Prince might be satisfied in it, who hath a mind to go; but he tells me
they will not excuse him, and I believe it, and truly do judge it a piece
of bad fortune to W. Pen.
25th. Up, and walked to White Hall, there to wait on the Duke of York,
which I did: and in his chamber there, first by hearing the Duke of York
call me by my name, my Lord Burlington did come to me, and with great
respect take notice of me and my relation to my Lord Sandwich, and express
great kindness to me; and so to talk of my Lord Sandwich's concernments.
By and by the Duke of York is ready; and I did wait for an opportunity of
speaking my mind to him about Sir J. Minnes, his being unable to do the
King any service, which I think do become me to do in all respects, and
have Sir W. Coventry's concurrence therein, which I therefore will seek a
speedy opportunity to do, come what will come of it. The Duke of York and
all with him this morning were full of the talk of the 'prentices, who are
not yet [put] down, though the guards and militia of the town have been in
armes all this night, and the night before; and the 'prentices have made
fools of them, sometimes by running from them and flinging stones at them.
Some blood hath been spilt, but a great many houses pulled down; and,
among others, the Duke of York was mighty merry at that of Damaris Page's,
the great bawd of the seamen; and the Duke of York complained merrily that
he hath lost two tenants, by their houses being pulled down, who paid him
for their wine licenses L15 a year. But here it was said how these idle
fellows have had the confidence to say that they did ill in contenting
themselves in pulling down the little bawdyhouses, and did not go and pull
down the great bawdy-house at White Hall. And some of them have the last
night had a word among them, and it was "Reformation and Reducement."
This do make the courtiers ill at ease to see this spirit among people,
though they think this matter will not come to much: but it speaks
people's minds; and then they do say that there are men of understanding
among them, that have been of Cromwell's army: but how true that is, I
know not. Thence walked a little to Westminster, but met with nobody to
spend any time with, and so by coach homeward, and in Seething Lane met
young Mrs. Daniel, and I stopt, and she had been at my house, but found
nobody within, and tells me that she drew me for her Valentine this year,
so I took her into the coach, and was going to the other end of the town,
thinking to have taken her abroad, but remembering that I was to go out
with my wife this afternoon, . . . and so to a milliner at the corner
shop going into Bishopsgate and Leadenhall Street, and there did give her
eight pair of gloves, and so dismissed her, and so I home and to dinner,
and then with my wife to the King's playhouse to see "The Storme," which
we did, but without much pleasure, it being but a mean play compared with
"The Tempest," at the Duke of York's house, though Knepp did act her part
of grief very well. Thence with my wife and Deb. by coach to Islington,
to the old house, and there eat and drank till it was almost night, and
then home, being in fear of meeting the 'prentices, who are many of them
yet, they say, abroad in the fields, but we got well home, and so I to my
chamber a while, and then to supper and to bed.
26th. Up betimes to the office, where by and by my Lord Brouncker and I
met and made an end of our business betimes. So I away with him to Mrs.
Williams's, and there dined, and thence I alone to the Duke of York's
house, to see the new play, called "The Man is the Master," where the
house was, it being not above one o'clock, very full. But my wife and
Deb. being there before, with Mrs. Pierce and Corbet and Betty Turner,
whom my wife carried with her, they made me room; and there I sat, it
costing me 8s. upon them in oranges, at 6d. a-piece. By and by the King
come; and we sat just under him, so that I durst not turn my back all the
play. The play is a translation out of French, and the plot Spanish, but
not anything extraordinary at all in it, though translated by Sir W.
Davenant, and so I found the King and his company did think meanly of it,
though there was here and there something pretty: but the most of the
mirth was sorry, poor stuffe, of eating of sack posset and slabbering
themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the prologue but poor, and the
epilogue little in it but the extraordinariness of it, it being sung by
Harris and another in the form of a ballet. Thence, by agreement, we all
of us to the Blue Balls, hard by, whither Mr. Pierce also goes with us,
who met us at the play, and anon comes Manuel, and his wife, and Knepp,
and Harris, who brings with him Mr. Banister, the great master of musique;
and after much difficulty in getting of musique, we to dancing, and then
to a supper of some French dishes, which yet did not please me, and then
to dance and sing; and mighty merry we were till about eleven or twelve at
night, with mighty great content in all my company, and I did, as I love
to do, enjoy myself in my pleasure as being the height of what we take
pains for and can hope for in this world, and therefore to be enjoyed
while we are young and capable of these joys. My wife extraordinary fine
to-day, in her flower tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my
mother's death put her into mourning, and so not worn till this day: and
every body in love with it; and indeed she is very fine and handsome in
it. I having paid the reckoning, which come to almost L4., we parted: my
company and William Batelier, who was also with us, home in a coach, round
by the Wall, where we met so many stops by the Watches, that it cost us
much time and some trouble, and more money, to every Watch, to them to
drink; this being encreased by the trouble the 'prentices did lately give
the City, so that the Militia and Watches are very strict at this time;
and we had like to have met with a stop for all night at the Constable's
watch, at Mooregate, by a pragmatical Constable; but we come well home at
about two in the morning, and so to bed. This noon, from Mrs. Williams's,
my Lord Brouncker sent to Somersett House to hear how the Duchess of
Richmond do; and word was brought him that she is pretty well, but mighty
full of the smallpox, by which all do conclude she will be wholly spoiled,
which is the greatest instance of the uncertainty of beauty that could be
in this age; but then she hath had the benefit of it to be first married,
and to have kept it so long, under the greatest temptations in the world
from a King, and yet without the least imputation. This afternoon, at the
play, Sir Fr. Hollis spoke to me as a secret, and matter of confidence in
me, and friendship to Sir W. Pen, who is now out of town, that it were
well he were made acquainted that he finds in the House of Commons, which
met this day, several motions made for the calling strictly again upon the
Miscarriages, and particularly in the business of the Prises, and the not
prosecuting of the first victory, only to give an affront to Sir W. Pen,
whose going to sea this year do give them matter of great dislike. So
though I do not much trouble myself for him, yet I am sorry that he should
have this fall so unhappily without any fault, but rather merit of his own
that made him fitter for this command than any body else, and the more for
that this business of his may haply occasion their more eager pursuit
against the whole body of the office.
27th. Up, and walked to the waterside, and thence to White Hall to the
Duke of York's chamber, where he being ready he went to a Committee of
Tangier, where I first understand that my Lord Sandwich is, in his coming
back from Spayne, to step over thither, to see in what condition the place
is, which I am glad of, hoping that he will be able to do some good there,
for the good of the place, which is so much out of order. Thence to walk
a little in Westminster Hall, where the Parliament I find sitting, but
spoke with nobody to let me know what they are doing, nor did I enquire.
Thence to the Swan and drank, and did baiser Frank, and so down by water
back again, and to the Exchange a turn or two, only to show myself, and
then home to dinner, where my wife and I had a small squabble, but I first
this day tried the effect of my silence and not provoking her when she is
in an ill humour, and do find it very good, for it prevents its coming to
that height on both sides which used to exceed what was fit between us.
So she become calm by and by and fond, and so took coach, and she to the
mercer's to buy some lace, while I to White Hall, but did nothing, but
then to Westminster Hall and took a turn, and so to Mrs. Martin's, and
there did sit a little and talk and drink, and did hazer con her, and so
took coach and called my wife at Unthanke's, and so up and down to the
Nursery, where they did not act, then to the New Cockpit, and there
missed, and then to Hide Parke, where many coaches, but the dust so great,
that it was troublesome, and so by night home, where to my chamber and
finished my pricking out of my song for Mr. Harris ("It is decreed"), and
so a little supper, being very sleepy and weary since last night, and so
by to o'clock to bed and slept well all night. This day, at noon, comes
Mr. Pelling to me, and shews me the stone cut lately out of Sir Thomas
Adams' (the old comely Alderman's) body, which is very large indeed,
bigger I think than my fist, and weighs above twenty-five ounces and,
which is very miraculous, he never in all his life had any fit of it, but
lived to a great age without pain, and died at last of something else,
without any sense of this in all his life. This day Creed at White Hall
in discourse told me what information he hath had, from very good hands,
of the cowardice and ill-government of Sir Jer. Smith and Sir Thomas
Allen, and the repute they have both of them abroad in the Streights, from
their deportment when they did at several times command there; and that,
above all Englishmen that ever were there, there never was any man that
behaved himself like poor Charles Wager, whom the very Moores do mention,
with teares sometimes.
28th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning busy, and at noon home
to dinner with my clerks; and though my head full of business, yet I had a
desire to end this holyday week with a play; and so, with my wife and
Deb., to the King's house, and there saw "The Indian Emperour," a very
good play indeed, and thence directly home, and to my writing of my
letters, and so home to supper and to bed for fearing my eyes. Our
greatest business at the office to-day is our want of money for the
setting forth of these ships that are to go out, and my people at dinner
tell me that they do verily doubt that the want of men will be so great,
as we must press; and if we press, there will be mutinies in the town; for
the seamen are said already to have threatened the pulling down of the
Treasury Office; and if they do once come to that, it will not be long
before they come to ours.