A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA.

[Illustration: PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN. (_After the painting by

Velasquez._)

{323}

[Illustration: Headpiece]

_A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA._[1]

No dead and gone human visage looms so clearly through the mist of ages

as that strange lymphatic face of Philip IV., which the genius of

Velazquez delighted to portray from youth to age. The smooth-faced

stripling in hunting dress, with his fair pink and white complexion,

his lank yellow hair, and his great mumbling Austrian mouth, shows more

plainly on canvas than he could have done whilst alive how weak of will

and how potent of passion he was, how easily he would be led by the

overbearing Count-Duke of Olivares to sacrifice all else for splendid

shows and sensuous indulgence; how his vanity would be flattered by

poets, painters, and players, whilst the world-wide empire of his

fathers was crumbling to nothingness {324} beneath his sway, and his

vassals were being robbed of their last maravedi to pay for the frenzy

of waste and prodigality with which Charles Stuart was entertained or a

royal wedding celebrated. Thenceforward, through his fastuous prime,

stately and splendid in his black satin and gold, to the time when, old

and disappointed, with forty years of disastrous domination, the rheumy

eyes drawn and haggard, but the head still erect, haughty and

unapproachable in its reserve, the great painter tells the King's story

better than any pen could write it. There is something not unlovable

in the shy, weak, poetic face, and one can pity the lad with such a

countenance who found himself the greatest king on earth at the age of

sixteen, surrounded by fawning flatterers and greedy bloodsuckers who

plunged him into a vortex of dissipation before his father's body was

cold in the marble sarcophagus at the Escurial. The old man's face,

too, cold and repellent as it is, shocking as are the ravages that time

and self-indulgence have stamped upon it, has yet in it an almost

plaintive despair that explains those terrible broken-hearted letters

in which the King, icy and undemonstrative as he was, poured out his

agony and sorrow undisguised for years to the only person in the wide

world he trusted, the nun Maria de Agreda.

His long reign, which saw the ruin of the Spanish power, witnessed also

the most splendid epoch of Spanish art and literature, the golden age

of the Spanish stage, and a wasteful prodigality of magnificence in the

Court such as, with the exception of that displayed by Philip's

son-in-law, the Roi-soleil, the world has never seen {325} equalled.

The Elizabethan age in England may have approached it in literary

strength, although even that cannot show such a galaxy as Lope de Vega,

Calderon, Velazquez, Murillo, Tirso de Molina, Moreto, Quevedo,

Guevara, Montalvan, and their host of imitators. The history of the

reign has never yet been adequately or even fairly written. Isolated

portions and detached incidents or personalities have been dealt with,

and stray fragments now and again bring vivid pictures of the sumptuous

Court before us. Spanish writers, of late years particularly, are fond

of dwelling with microscopic minuteness on the incidents and adventures

of the time that happened at particular spots in the capital; but the

topographical-historical style, first introduced by Mesonero Romanes,

and now so popular, pleasant reading as it is, does not attempt to do

more than amuse by presenting romantic and detached pictures of a

bygone age, and all that can be claimed by the writers is that

materials are gradually being collected and brought to light by them

from contemporary sources which will be invaluable to the future

serious historian of the reign.

The British Museum contains many hundreds of unpublished manuscripts

bearing upon the subject--copies of official documents, letters, and

"relations" from Philip's Court, petitions and statements of grievance

addressed to the King, and vast collections of miscellaneous papers in

Spanish, Portuguese, and French, most of which have not yet been

consulted for historical purposes. Amongst a great mass of rather dry

official documents of the period, most of them copies, I recently {326}

came across a small, compact group of papers, all originals, telling a

curious, plaintive little story, nakedly enough, it is true, but not

without a pathos of its own. There is nothing historically important

in it, or in the fact that it discloses probably for the first time

since it happened, but a quaint side-light is thrown by some of the

documents on the way in which Court intrigue was conducted, and also,

curiously enough, on the opinion of the highest authorities of those

times as to the best way of bringing up a child, by which it will be

seen that, allowing for difference of climate and national habits, no

great change has taken place in this respect in the two centuries and a

half that have passed since the papers were penned.

Philip had succeeded to the throne on the death of his father in March,

1621. He was only sixteen, and Olivares at once plunged him into such

distractions as the then most dissolute capital in Europe could afford.

By a strange coincidence the paper in the Museum (Egerton MSS., 329)

which precedes the group of which I wish to speak is a lengthy and

solemn letter, dated only a few weeks after the young King's accession,

addressed to the Count-Duke by the Archbishop of Granada, remonstrating

with the all-powerful favourite for taking the boy-king out in the

street at night. "People," he says, "are gossiping about it all over

Madrid, and things are being said which add little to the sovereign's

credit or dignity." Madrid even now is fond of scandal, but in the

beginning of the seventeenth century, isolated from the world as was

the capital of the Spains, its one absorbing pursuit from morn till

night was tittle-tattle, and the long {327} raised walk by the side

wall of the church of St. Philip, fronting the Onate palace in the

Calle Mayor, was a recognised exchange for the scandal-mongers. The

Archbishop says, in his bold and outspoken letter, that not only have

these people begun to whisper things that were better unsaid, but the

example shown by the King and his minister in scouring the streets in

search of adventure is a bad one for the people at large, and he

reminds Olivares of the anxiety of the late King on this very account,

and his dread that his heir was already before his death being inducted

into dissipation. The answer to the bold prelate's remonstrance is

just such as might be expected from the insolent favourite. He tells

him in effect that he is an impertinent meddler, and ought to be

ashamed, with his rank, and at his age, to trouble him with the vulgar

gossip of the street. The King, he tells him, is sixteen and he

(Olivares) is thirty-four, and it is not to be expected that they are

to be kept in darkness as to what is done in the world. It is good

that the King should see all phases of life, bad as well as good. He

(Olivares) never trusts the King with any one else; and the favourite

finishes his answer by a scarcely veiled threat that if the Archbishop

does not mind his own business worse may befall him. No doubt the

prelate took the warning, for Olivares was not scrupulous, and had a

short and secret way with those who incurred his displeasure.

The small group of original papers coming after this begins with a

memorandum unsigned, but evidently written by Olivares to the King some

nine years subsequently, namely, early in the {328} summer of 1630. It

says that it is high time that measures should be taken at once to put

a boy, whose name is not given, out of the way, as he is now four years

old, and it is of great importance that he should be concealed, and all

communication broken off between him and the people with whom he has

been. The writer goes on to say that he has considered deeply how this

is to be done, and that there are objections to be found in every

solution that presents itself, but he thinks on the whole the best way

will be to entrust him secretly to the care of a gentleman of his

acquaintance named Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez, who lives at Salamanca.

He is a person of education, has travelled all over Europe, and could

bring the lad up as his own. It will be necessary to see this

gentleman first, and the writer proposes to summon him to Court without

telling him the reason, so that "Your Majesty" may see him and then

decide for the best. Across this document is written in Philip's

uncertain, poetic hand: "It appears very necessary that something

should be done in this matter and I approve of what you suggest.--P."

Presumably Ydiaquez was sent for and approved of, as the next document

in the series is of a much more formal character, being a notarial deed

drawn up by the Secretary of State, Geronimo de Villanueva as

prothonotary of the kingdom, who was, with the exception of Olivares,

the principal confidant of Philip's intrigues.[2] This deed, dated

{329} June 1, 1631, recites that his Excellency Don Caspar de Guzman,

Count of Olivares, Duke of San Lucar, Grand Councillor of the Indies,

Councillor of State, and Master of the Horse, delivers {330} a boy

named Francisco Fernando, aged over four years to Don Juan Isassi

Ydiaquez, this boy being the person referred to but not named in his

Majesty's warrant, under his sign manual, addressed to Don Juan Isassi,

and countersigned and delivered to him by the Secretary of State. The

deed directs that Don Juan is to bring up the boy and educate him in

conformity with the instructions to be given to him by the Count-Duke,

by his Majesty's orders, and Don Juan himself undertakes in the deed to

deliver up the person of the said Don Francisco Fernando when required,

and to obey implicitly in all things the directions of the Count-Duke

with regard to him. He promises to bring him up and rear him as he is

ordered to do in the royal warrant. The deed is signed by the

Count-Duke, {331} Isassi, the King's secretary Carnero, and two

servants, and is attested in notarial form by Villanueva, as

prothonotary of the kingdom.

Then comes the King's warrant, under Philip's own sign manual, in the

fine old Spanish form:--

"The King--Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez. The Count-Duke will deliver to

you a boy in whose education and virtuous bringing up you will serve me

well and with absolute secrecy, following therein all the orders given

to you by the Count-Duke. I, the King."

It is clear that this Don Francisco Fernando was no ordinary babe of

four to require the personal attention of all these high and mighty

gentlemen in sending him to school. Philip had one child by his wife

at this time, the chubby youngster Don Baltasar, who for all time will

prance on his stout bay cob on the canvas of Velazquez, and only the

year previous, in 1629, there had been born to the King, by the

beautiful actress, Maria Calderon, the idol of the Spanish stage, a boy

who in the fulness of time was to become that second great Don John of

Austria, the last virile man of his race; but Don Francisco Fernando

was the first-born, and apparently his mother was of far superior

social rank to the jaunty "Calderona," so that he was no doubt, baby as

he was, destined for great things. The instructions given by the

Count-Duke to Don Juan Isassi with regard to the care of his charge are

minute to the last degree, and reflect in every line the great

importance that is attached to the identification of the child. The

long document begins by saying that the boy delivered to Don Juan is

the illegitimate son of the King by the {332} daughter of a gentleman,

and was born in the house of his grandparents, between eleven and

twelve at night, on May 15, 1626. Don Francisco Eraso, Count of

Humanes, took the midwife, and was present at the birth; conveying the

infant as soon as it was born to the house of Don Baltasar de Alamos y

Barrientos, Councillor of the Treasury, where a nurse was awaiting him,

and the child had there remained until its delivery to Don Juan. After

impressing upon Don Juan the need for the most exquisite care to be

taken of the child's life and health, and arranging for the nurses and

doctor who have had the care of him to accompany him to Salamanca for

the first few months of the change, the Count-Duke instructs Don Juan

to seek a good doctor to be kept at hand permanently, who is not to be

told who the boy is unless his services are required, and in the

meanwhile is to receive a good salary. "His Majesty," says Olivares,

"has confided this care to me, and I depend upon you to carry out the

task."

First of all the child was to be well taught in religion and morality;

secondly, on no account was he to learn who he was, and if his

attendants have already told him incautiously he is to be allowed to

forget it, and "neither by word nor behaviour is he to be made to think

that he is not an ordinary person;" thirdly, he is to be taught polite

learning and languages, particularly Italian and French, to dance,

fence, and play tennis, and, when he is a little older, to ride. He is

to be treated familiarly and without ceremony, and, "in short, to be

educated and brought up with the virtues and nobleness of royalty, and

the study, modesty, {333} knowledge, and temperance of a private

person." Don Juan is to send a weekly report to the Count-Duke through

his secretary Carreras, but to take care that this is done with the

utmost secrecy, and on no account is the child to be shown to any one

without a written order. As secrecy is of the first importance 500

(ducats) a month only are ordered to be paid, besides the doctor's

fees, and Don Juan is to devise some means for the secret payment of

this sum. A coach is to be secretly got ready to meet the Count-Duke

and the child on the night and at the place which may be appointed for

the delivery; and then, after another urgent injunction of secrecy and

care of the child's religious instruction, and a fervent prayer that

God will give to the little one "all the happiness, spiritual and

temporal, which He will see is necessary and good for the realm," the

proud favourite signs himself simply Caspar de Guzman.

The hidalgo of Salamanca appears to have been quite overwhelmed at the

honour done him by the charge of so important a person, and his

ceremonious and verbose letter of thanks to the Count-Duke needed

hardly to be prefaced by the prayer that his patron will not attribute

his laconic speech to the proverbial taciturnity of his countrymen, but

rather to his confusion at the greatness of the honour done him by his

Majesty, for which words are inadequate to express his gratitude. His

only thanks can be his faithful fulfilment of orders. He begs that the

doctor who has had the care of the little one may be sent to Salamanca

with him in order to consult with Don Juan's doctor, and ascertain

whether he is fit to undertake so important a charge, and if {334} not

he will approach cautiously a doctor in Vitoria, named Trevino, of whom

he hears good accounts. The woman who accompanies the child shall stay

with him some short time, although the good hidalgo is evidently rather

doubtful of this arrangement, as he adds that if she should find the

horizon of their dull country life too confined for her after Madrid,

or begins to kick against the discipline, other arrangements will have

to be made. All care shall be taken to prevent the boy from learning

who he is, and if it should get wind efforts shall be made to silence

it, but the task will be a difficult one. The child shall be so

reared, please God, that he shall not become abject or servile (which

is most important to a royal personage), or licentious and headstrong;

and the good hidalgo thereupon breaks out into a mild pedantic little

joke by quoting a Latin proverb, to the effect that, to attain so great

an object as this, one must be prepared to eat salt and acrid food,

which, he says, will be easy for him to do, "as we all live on salt

bacon and hung beef in my province." This does not sound very

promising, nor does his description of the water they have to drink,

which he says is bad to drink raw, particularly in the summer, and

needs cinnamon or other spice to correct it. The doctor, he says, will

advise whether they had better boil it with mastic or some other drug.

The correspondence shall be sent weekly through "my nephew, Don Alonso

Ibarra Isassi, the eldest of the lads I took to Madrid with me. He is

a good, prudent, and modest lad, and a correspondence between us as

uncle and nephew will arouse no suspicion." As for the 500 ducats a

month payment, the {335} good hidalgo says his cheeks burn with shame

as he writes or even thinks about them; "but if your Excellency should

deign to order them to be paid to me they might be sent without

attracting notice through the treasury at Vitoria or Burgos."

So the little child is sent to Salamanca, and with him goes the

ponderously learned Dr. Cristobal Nuñez, who wraps up the simplest

facts in the most complicated and pedantic technical phraseology, and,

what is far more troublesome for the present purpose, writes a

shockingly bad hand. His first document is a microscopic report of the

constitution and temperament of the child, and the simple history of

his baby ailments. The description is most curious; and, if any doubt

existed as to his paternity, every trait indicates the character and

appearance of a son of the sovereign race of Austria. "He is," says

the learned doctor, "of melancholic, choleric temperament, wilful and

passionate, but playful when he is pleased, and respectful to those he

thinks his superiors. He is of sound constitution, being the offspring

of young and healthy parents; possesses superior intelligence for his

age; a wonderful memory, which gives great hope if he be well trained.

He is slow of speech, and expresses himself with great difficulty,

stuttering and lisping; and is so backward on his feet that he has only

just learnt to walk. His person is so perfect and beautiful, that the

mind of a sculptor never imagined anything better; he has a lovely,

fair, red and white complexion, and full grey eyes. He is grave and

thoughtful--not dull or sad, but full of childish humour; quick to

laugh and quick to cry. He is," says the doctor, "high of spirit,

courageous, and {336} pugnacious, impatient of contradiction; and, if

his speech be not at once understood, he flies into such ungovernable

rage as to make it dangerous to thwart him, and he should rather be

coaxed to obedience than forced."

Like all his forbears, he is described as a great eater, and very fond

of sweets; and it is not surprising to learn that he has all his short

life suffered from over-eating and indigestion, and for long past has

had quartan ague. The drastic remedies of the times were endured by

the child, the doctor says, "without weeping, as if he knew they were

for his good"; but the learned medico confesses that all his own

prescriptions had done the babe less good than what he describes as an

old wife's remedy of anointing the stomach and spine with ointment and

saffron.

The child's usual mode of life is carefully described. Between eight

and nine in the morning he had a fowl's liver and a little loaf, or

else some bread or cake sopped in broth, or bread and jam and a cup of

water. At twelve o'clock broth with sippets of bread or half of the

breast of a fowl, or sometimes some forcemeat balls, as he likes a

change, and demands it. When he gets tired of this he may have a

little loin of mutton or the leg of a fowl. He is also very fond of a

piece of bacon between two slices of bread, and of quince marmalade,

jams, and sweets. At five o'clock he "packs his wallet," as the doctor

calls it, by a meal of bread and jam, and a cup of water. He is put to

bed at nine o'clock, and sleeps with his nurse. The learned Don

Cristobal then enters into a most verbose disquisition as to the

fitness of the locality chosen for {337} the temperament of the child,

and arrives at the conclusion that the choice has been a wise one,

although the roundabout method of argument founded on wise talk about

blood and humours and vapours and the like seems rather beside the mark

to a modern reader. The sum of it all is, however, that Don Juan de

Isassi's house stands healthily, if somewhat bleakly, on high ground

about three bow-shots from the town, and joining the great convent of

the Suceso, the house itself being a good one, surrounded by its own

grounds.

Thus far the doctor has only spoken of the constitution and past

management of his late charge; but the next document, which bears the

same date as the preceding one (June 18, 1630), lays down an elaborate

plan for the future rearing of the child. He recommends that he should

be allowed to play after his early supper, and not be sent to sleep

before nine at night, unless he feels sleepy. He is to be woke at

eight, if he is not already awake, and is to be given his light

breakfast of a fowl's liver and cake, a rasher of bacon and bread and

broth, or a roasted egg. At eleven or twelve he is to dine on

forcemeat balls, made of two parts chicken, one part mutton, and one

part bacon, with a little pie or broth with sippets. Sometimes,

instead of force-meat balls, he may have the leg of a fowl, which, if

he likes it, will be enough for him, with a little bread soaked in

broth, or he may have a mouthful of mutton with chicken broth. It will

be well, says the courtly doctor, that the gentleman himself should be

consulted occasionally as to whether he preferred the fowl or the

sausages, or roast or boiled food. He is to sleep about an hour and a

half after dinner, {338} and play in the afternoon; but great care must

be taken to keep him out of the sun, and his early supper may be as

heretofore, only somewhat later; a biscuit or two with jam, a small

egg, such as the fowls of the province lay, or sippets in broth. A

curious and somewhat elaborate little dish is recommended for

occasional breakfast or supper. "Take," says the doctor, "a half-dozen

almonds or melon seeds, and press the juice from them, which mix with a

little barley-cream and some good broth. This must be boiled, and

sugar and sponge-cake worked into it until it is a smooth paste, which

may be served with half a beaten egg over it, and will make a nice

light supper." It will be good to excite the appetite by variety, and

as the child gets older he may sometimes be given coarser food, and

trout or other fresh fish. He must drink fresh spring water boiled

with viper-grass, or mixed with cinnamon, according to the weather. He

is always to have some fruit for dessert, unless it disagrees with him;

but much care must be taken to guard him from excess; and he is to be

specially sparing in drinking. Full common-sense directions are given

with regard to his dress, and if he needs medicine his food must be

reduced by one half, and a decoction of mallow and camomile, honey and

oil administered. Red Alexandria honey is also recommended, quinces,

oil of wormwood, and a variety of other remedies for simple ailments.

There is yet another document from the doctor giving some further

rules, apparently in answer to special questions. In it he again

learnedly describes the child's constitution, his weak stomach and

aptness to catch cold, inherited from his parents, his {339} tendency

to hydrocephalus, and his almost continuous series of ailments since he

was born, which, says the medico, would have killed him but for his

strong constitution. From seven years old he was to eat fish and other

Lenten fare, and at twelve years must be taught to fast. Above all, he

is not to be brought up delicately or coddled, but encouraged to run

and romp. Great care must be taken that he is not exposed to the cold,

but he must be well wrapped up even in summer. Drugs are to be given

sparingly, if at all: mallow, camomile, sweet almonds, black sugar or

honey if wanted; but he is not to be constantly dosed with red honey

and other things as children usually are, and if he is really ill he is

not to be lowered or bled much; by which it will be seen that Dr.

Cristobal Nuñez, pedantic as he was, differed somewhat from the usual

type of sangrados of the time. All this was between the 1st and 18th

of June, 1630, and it is to be supposed that the poor babe of the house

of Austria lived his little life in and around the "Casa Solariega" of

the Salamancan hidalgo for the next few years, although no record

remains of it here.

The next document of the series is a letter, elated nearly four years

afterwards, March 17, 1634, from the Secretary of State, Geronimo

Villanueva, to Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez, saying that his Majesty had

received with the deepest grief the news of the death of Don Francisco

Fernando, who showed such bright promise for his tender years, and his

Majesty highly appreciates all the care that has been taken of his

education. The body is to be brought with the utmost secrecy in a

coach to the royal monastery of {340} St. Lorenzo (the Escurial), where

it is to be buried, and advice is to be sent by confidential special

messenger to Madrid when the corpse should arrive, in order that one of

the King's stewards may be there to receive it. All the other

arrangements for the burial are made. The four years had apparently

not been unprofitable ones to the hidalgo, as the next time his name

appears he is a knight of Santiago and lord of the town of Ameyo, as

well as of the castles of Isassi and Orbea. The date of the document

is April 15, 1634, and again it is a notarial deed attested by the

prothonotary of the kingdom, Don Geronimo Villanueva, setting forth

that Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez delivered the body of Don Francisco

Fernando, son of his Catholic Majesty Philip IV., whom God had taken to

himself, to the Marquis of Torres, the Bishop of Avila, and other

nobles appointed by the King to receive it. The delivery was made in

the porch of the cathedral, and we are told that the corpse was dressed

in a red gown, bordered with gold, and lay in a coffin of black velvet.

The coffin, which had been borne by Don Juan Isassi and his servant to

the porch, was thence carried to the great hall of the monastery by

certain of the King's gentlemen-in-waiting, and after the religious

ceremonies had been performed, was taken to the vault by the monks of

the Order and laid to rest. And so ended a little life which, like

that of his half-brother Baltasar, if it had been spared, might have

stayed the decay of the Spanish branch of the House of Austria. It is

true that Don John of Austria survived, and for a short time snatched

his poor brother, Charles the Bewitched, from the clutches of {341} his

foolish mother and her low-born favourite, Valenzuela, but who knows

whether the strong, masterful spirit of the baby of four whom it was

dangerous to thwart might not, if he had grown to manhood, have done

more than his younger brother to keep the reins of power when once he

grasped them. Poor trembling, white-faced Charles the Bewitched, with

his leaden eyes and monstrous projecting jaw, a senile dodderer at

thirty, wanted a strong, masterful spirit like this to hold him up and

shield him from the vultures that fought over the carcase before the

poor creature was dead.

But it was not to be, and the forgotten babe of the sovereign house was

put with so many other princely corpses in that horrible "rotting place

of princes," off the black marble stair of the regal pantheon of the

Escurial, where, not so very many years ago, I saw a ghastly heap of

princely and semi-princely skulls and leg-bones gathered up as they had

fallen from the rotting coffins to the floor. There, all

undistinguished from the others, probably enough rests still, his very

name never published, and his short existence hardly known till now,

Don Francis Ferdinand of Austria, one of the last male members of the

Spanish branch of the sovereign house, which in four generations

descended from the highest pinnacle of human greatness to contempt,

disgrace, decrepitude and decay.

[1] _The Gentleman's Magazine_, September, 1892.

[2] He was with difficulty rescued from the direst vengeance of the

Inquisition a few years afterwards in consequence of his too ready

co-operation in the King's amorous tendencies. Don Geronimo was patron

of the convent of San Placido, next door to his own house in the Calle

de la Madera in Madrid, and had inflamed the King's mind with stories

of a very beautiful nun who was an inmate of the convent. Philip and

his favourite, the Count-Duke, insisted upon seeing this paragon of

loveliness, and Don Geronimo, exerting his authority as patron,

procured them entrance in disguise to the parlour, where, as was to be

expected, his Catholic Majesty fell violently in love with the

beautiful nun. The interviews in the parlour were constant but, with

the grating between the King and his flame, unsatisfactory, and, by

dint of bribes and threats, Don Geronimo managed to break a passage

from the cellars of his own house into the vaults of the convent, by

means of which, notwithstanding the prayers, the entreaties, and

appeals of the abbess, the King was introduced into the cell of the

unfortunate nun of whom he was enamoured. He found her laid out as if

she were a corpse, surrounded with lighted tapers, with a great

crucifix by her side, but not even this availed, and the sacrilegious

amours continued so long that the news reached the ever-open ears of

the Holy Office. The Grand Inquisitor, a Dominican friar called

Antonio de Sotomayor, Archbishop of Damascus, privately took the King

to task, and obtained a promise that the offence should cease. Don

Geronimo was seized by the officers of the Inquisition (August 30,

1644), and taken to Toledo, where he was accused of sacrilege and other

heinous crimes against the faith. The evidence was full and

conclusive, and Don Geronimo's life was trembling in the balance, when

the Count-Duke boldly went to the Grand Inquisitor one night with two

signed royal decrees in his hands, one giving the Archbishop 12,000

ducats a year for life on condition of his resignation of the Grand

Inquisitorship, and the other depriving him of all his temporalities,

and banishing him for ever from all the dominions of his Catholic

Majesty. The Grand Inquisitor naturally chose the former, and resigned

next morning. Pressure was put on Pope Urban VIII. by the Spanish

Ambassador, and very shortly an order arrived from Rome that the whole

of the documents and evidence in the case were to be sealed up and sent

in a box by a messenger of the Holy Office to his Holiness himself for

decision. The messenger chosen was one of the Inquisition notaries

called Alfonso Paredes. The Count-Duke, under various pretexts,

delayed this man's departure for some weeks, and in the meanwhile had

good portraits of him painted and sent by special messengers to all the

ports in Italy where he was likely to land, and orders were sent to the

Spanish agents to capture him at all risks. On the night of his

arrival at Genoa, by the connivance of the authorities, he was seized,

gagged, and carried off to Naples, where he was imprisoned for the rest

of his life, condemned to perpetual silence on pain of instant death.

The box of papers that he bore was sent privately to the King, who,

with Olivares, burnt the contents without even opening the packet. The

new Grand Inquisitor, who was a creature of the Queen, a Benedictine

monk named Diego de Arce, was not to be entirely balked, and although

no evidence now existed, he had the prothonotary Don Geronimo

Villanueva brought from his prison in Toledo, where he had languished

for two years, and placed before the tribunal of the Inquisition. He

was stripped of his arms, accoutrements, insignia of rank and outer

clothing, and sat upon a plain low wooden stool, and then, without any

evidence being given or statement of specific offence, was condemned

for irreligion, sacrilege, superstition, and other enormities, and, by

the mercy of the Holy Office, was absolved from all this on condition

that he fasted every Friday for a year, never again entered the

convent, and gave 2,000 ducats to the poor through the monks of Atocha.

{343}

_THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE._

{345}

[Illustration: Headpiece]

_THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE._[1]

In the course of a recent search amongst the Sloane MSS. at the British

Museum for a document of an entirely different character I chanced upon

a manuscript which, so far as I have been able to discover, has never

yet been described in print or received the attention it appears to

deserve. It is a long, narrow book like an account book, in the Sloane

binding, containing 244 pages of cramped and crowded little writing in

faded ink on rough paper, recording the daily--almost hourly--movements

of a man for eleven years, from the 1st of January, 1692-3, to the

middle of April, 1704. It is written in Spanish--Englishman's Spanish,

full of solecisms and English idioms, but fair and fluent Castilian for

all that, and the diarist, thinking no doubt his secrets were safe in a

language comparatively little known at the time, has set down for his

own satisfaction alone, and often in words that no amount of editing

would render fit for publication, the daily life of one of the

dissolute men about town, who roistered and ruffled in the

coffee-houses and taverns of London at the end of the seventeenth

century. Few men could hope to possess the keen {346} observation and

diverting style of Samuel Pepys, or the sober judgment and foresight of

stately John Evelyn, and this last contemporary diarist of theirs

certainly cannot lay claim to any such qualities. He rarely records an

impression or an opinion, and as a rule confines himself to a bald

statement of his own movements and the people he meets day by day; but

still, even such as it is, the diary is full of quaint and curious

suggestions of the intimate life of a London widely different from

ours. The familiar names of the streets, nay, the very signs of the

taverns, are the same now as then, but in every line of the fading

brown ink may be gathered hints of the vast chasm that separates the

busy crowded life of to-day from the loitering deliberation with which

these beaux in swords and high-piled periwigs sauntered through their

tavern-haunting existence. It strikes the imagination, too, to think

that the man who thus sets down so coarsely and frankly the acts of his

life must have listened, with however little appreciation, to the

luminous talk of wondrous John Dryden at Will's coffee-house, most

certainly knew the rising Mr. Addison, and probably met Matthew Prior

at his old home at the "Rummer" tavern, which the diarist frequented.

There is nothing in the manuscript directly to identify the writer, and

probably the indirect clues furnished by references to his relatives

have never before been followed up to prove exactly who the author was.

The task has not been an easy one, and has started me on more than one

false scent ending in a check, but at last I stumbled on evidence that

not only absolutely identified the {347} diarist, but also explained

many obscure passages in the manuscript.

From the first page to the last the writer refers to Danes Court, near

Deal, as the home of his brother, and he himself passes the intervals

of his dissolute life in London in visits to his Kentish kinsman. Now

Danes Court had been for centuries in the possession of the ancient

family of Fogge, and I at once concluded that the writer of my diary

was a younger member of the house. Indeed, encouraged therein by

Hasted, the great authority on Kentish history, I went so far as to

establish to my own entire satisfaction that the diarist was a certain

Captain Christopher Fogge, R.N., who died in 1708, and was buried in

Rochester Cathedral, and I was confirmed in this belief by the fact

that the wind and weather of each day is carefully recorded as in a

sailor's log-book. But somehow it did not fit in. Constant reference

is made to a brother Francis, and no amount of patient investigation in

county genealogies and baptismal certificates could unearth any one

named Francis Fogge. So I had to hark back and try another clue.

Brother Francis was evidently a clergyman and a graduate of King's

College, Cambridge, and towards the end of the diary the author visits

him at the village of Prescot, near Liverpool.

Sure enough the rich living of Prescot was in the gift of King's

College, Cambridge, and further inquiry soon showed that a certain

Francis Bere, M.A., was rector from 1700 until his death in 1722. This

of itself was not much, but it led to further clues which proved the

monumental Hasted {348} ("History of Kent") to be hopelessly wrong

about the Fogge pedigree and the ownership of Danes Court at the time,

and the whole question was settled more completely than I could have

hoped by the discovery, in the "Transactions of the Kent Archæological

Society for 1863," of a copy of the copious memoranda in the old family

Bible, written by the stout cavalier, Richard Fogge, and his son John,

with the notes attached thereto by Warren, the Kentish antiquary in

1711, in which the family history is made clear. This was good as far

as it went, and proved the surname and parentage of the author of the

diary, but did not identify him personally. Certain references in the

manuscript, however, sent me searching amongst the Treasury Papers in

the Record Office, and there I found a set of papers written in the

same cramped, finnicking hand as the diary, which set my mind at rest,

and proved beyond doubt or question who was the methodical rake that

indiscreetly confided the secret of his "goings on" to the incomplete

oblivion of the Spanish tongue.

The writer of the diary was one Richard Bere, whose father was rector

of Ickenham, near Uxbridge, and who was born at Cowley, near there, on

the 28th of August, 1653. His sister Elizabeth had married in 1679

John Fogge, who subsequently succeeded to the Danes Court Estate, and,

on the fly-leaf of the Fogge family Bible referred to, John Fogge, who

was evidently proud of the connection, sets forth that his wife's

grandfather had been "Receiver General of ye Low Countries; her uncles,

one of them was in a noble imploy in ye C Clarke's office, ye other

being {349} one of ye clarkes of ye signet to King Charles II., a man

acquainted with all Xtian languages. Ye other now alive is rector of

Bendropp in Gloucestershire, who has an Estate. Her mother was one of

ye family of Bland, of London, eminent merchants at Home and Abroad."

Richard Bere was born only a year after his sister, so that the

statement as to her relatives will hold good for him also. He had been

Collector of Customs at Carlisle, but apparently had allowed his

Jacobite leanings to be too evident, and had been dismissed from his

office a short time before he began the diary, leaving his accounts at

Carlisle still unbalanced and in arrear. How he learnt Spanish I do

not know, but he had evidently been in Spain before his appointment to

Carlisle, probably in the navy, or in some way connected with shipping,

as, in addition to the careful noting of the wind and weather all

through the diary, he shows great interest in the naval events of his

time. His uncle's remarkable proficiency in "all Xtian tongues" may

also perhaps partly explain his own knowledge of the Spanish language.

His family in old times had been a wealthy and powerful one, seated at

Gravesend, Dartford, and Greenhithe in Kent, but had lost its county

importance long before the date of the diary. The widow of one of his

uncles, however, still lived at Gravesend at the time he wrote, and one

of his father's sisters, who had married a man named Childs, also lived

in the neighbourhood, and on her husband's death went to live with her

niece at Danes Court.

The diary commences on the 1st of January, 1692-3, when Bere was living

at Mr. Downe's in {350} London, but the detailed entries begin on the

9th of the month, when he went by tilboat from Billingsgate to

Gravesend. Here, after visiting his aunt Bere and his kinsman Childs

at Northfleet, he slept at the inn, and started the next morning in a

coach to Canterbury. The next day he continued his journey to Danes

Court on a hired mare, and then after a few days rest, "without seeing

anybody," begins a round of visits and carouses with the neighbouring

gentry. All the squires and their families for miles round march

through the pages of the diary. Mr. Paramour, of Stratenborough; Mr.

Boys, of Betshanger, "my uncle Boys," who was probably Christopher

Boys, of Updowne, uncle by marriage to John Fogge; "my uncle Pewry,"

who was rector of Knowlton, but whose relationship with the diarist is

not clearly discoverable; Mr. Burville, rector of the Fogge Church of

Tilmanston, and a host of other neighbours come and go, dine and drink,

often staying the night, and in a day or two entertain John Fogge and

his brother-in-law in return. The latter records the fact, but

unfortunately does no more, and little is gathered of the manner of

their lives at this period of the diary, except that they did a

prodigious deal of visiting and dining at each others' houses. One of

the most constant visitors to Danes Court is the aged Lady Monins, of

Waldershare Park, the widow of the last baronet of the name, and

Richard Bere appears to be as often her guest at Waldershare. The

round of dining and visiting is broken in upon by a visit on horseback

with brother John Fogge to the assizes at Maidstone, where the latter

has a lawsuit which he loses, and Richard returns to {351} Danes Court

alone, leaving his defeated brother at Canterbury. On the 12th of

April the diarist records that he first saw the swallows, and on the

20th, as instancing the uneventful life in this remote part of the

country, it is considered worth while to register the fact that "whilst

I was digging in the garden with Carlton a man passed on horseback." A

few days afterwards neighbour Carlton's daughter is married, and then

"my nephew Richard was first sent to school at Sandwich, Timothy Thomas

being master." Richard, the heir of Danes Court, was about twelve

years old at the time, and, as we shall see later on, turned out badly

and completed the ruin of the fine old family, of which he was the last

male representative in the direct line. Timothy Thomas, who was a

distinguished scholar and M.A. of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, was

headmaster of the Sandwich Free School and brother to the rector of St.

Paul and St. Mary, Sandwich. He seems to have been always ready for a

carouse at the hostelry of the "Three Kings" at Sandwich or elsewhere

with the father or uncle of his pupil.

On the 28th of April "the fleet entered the Downs, the wind blowing a

gale at the time. A ship called the _Windsor_ was lost. I went to

Deal to see the ships, and saw five ensigns." Small details of

ablutions--rare enough they seem nowadays--bed-warming, and quaint

remedies for trifling ailments sound queerly enough to us coming

faintly across the gloom of two centuries, but in the midst of the

chronicles of this small beer of visits paid and received, of the

stomach-ache, and so on, brother John receives a writ, and we feel that

we are witnesses of the process by which all this feasting {352} and

revelry is completing the ruin of the ancient family that once owned

broad lands and far manors all over Kent, which founded hospitals and

colleges, and was closely allied to the regal Plantagenets, but whose

possessions had even now shrunken to one poor mansion house of Danes

Court and the few farms around it. John Fogge's father, Richard, whose

pompous Latin epitaph is still in Tilmanston Church, written by his

eldest son, Edward, and scoffed at in the family Bible by the

degenerate John, had been true to the King's side during the civil war.

His near neighbour, Sir John Boys of Betshanger, had hunted and harried

the cavalier and sacked his house after the mad Kentish rising in 1648,

and had frightened his favourite child to death, and for the whole of

the Commonwealth period poor Richard had been plundered and well-nigh

ruined. His sons Edward and John had been captured at sea by the

Dutch, and Christopher had been taken prisoner by the Turks, and all

three had had to be bought off with ransom. Stout old Richard Fogge

therefore had left Danes Court sadly embarrassed at his death in 1680.

His eldest son, Edward, died soon after, and John Fogge, the

brother-in-law of our diarist, was rapidly continuing the ruin at the

date of the diary. By the 30th of May Richard Bere had had enough of

Danes Court, and started to Canterbury "with my brother's horse and

servant, and so to Northfleet, where I visited my kinsman Childs." He

mounted his horse at five o'clock in the morning and arrived at

Northfleet at five in the evening, staying on the way only a short time

at Canterbury to rest and drink with friend Best, at whose house he

always alights when {353} he passes through the ancient city. The

distance by road is a good fifty-five miles, so Richard no doubt

thought he had earned his night's rest at Uncle Childs' before

starting, as he did next day, by tilboat to London. The first thing he

did when he arrived was to "drink with Higgs" and send for Benson to

meet him at Phillips' mug-house. Benson appears to have been a humble

friend or foster-brother, as Bere calls Benson's father "my father

Benson," who went on all his errands, pawned his valuables, and faced

his creditors. When Benson came they started out together and took a

room, where they both slept, "at the sign of the 'Crown,' an inn in

Holborne," and the record thereafter for some time consists mainly of

such entries as "Dined with Sindry at the 'Crown,' and drank with him

all the afternoon and evening at Phillips'. Slept at Mrs. Ward's;"

"Dined with Dr. Stockton, Haddock, and Simpson at the 'Pindar of

Wakefield';" "Dined at the sign of the 'Castle,' a tavern in Wood

Street, with many friends from the North; drank there all the

afternoon, and all night drinking with usual friends at Phillips',"

only that these daily entries usually wind up with the record of a

debauch which need not be described, but which Richard does not

hesitate to set down in such cold blood as his orgy has left him.

He appears to have had as a friend one Westmacott, who was a prison

official, and a standing amusement was apparently to go and see the

prisoners, who sometimes fall foul of Westmacott and his friend and

abuse them. Richard also has a quaint way of drawing a miniature

gallows in {354} the margin of his manuscript on the days that he

records the execution of malefactors. On the 15th of June, for

instance, after giving his usual list of friends and taverns, he

writes: "Seven men hanged to-day; fine and warm. Drinking at Phillips'

at night; Westmacott there again." A day or two afterwards the

bailiffs walk in during his dinner at the tavern and hale his boon

companion, Pearce, off to jail; but Richard thinks little of it, for he

goes off to drink straightway with Colonel Legge, and then passes a

merry evening with Dr. Stockton and Mr. Rolfe at the sign of the

"Ship," near Charing Cross.

On the 29th of June "a new sword-belt, some woollen hose, and a rosette

for my hat," were bought; and soon after he leaves his lodgings at Mrs.

Ward's, and thenceforward seems to sleep in taverns or inns for some

time, very often winding up the entries in the diary by confessing that

he was "drunk" or "very drunk."

On the 18th of July, 1693, he visits "the house of the Princess of

Denmark with Mr. Wooton," and thence goes to see a fashionable friend

of his called Captain Orfeur, who had a fine house at Spring Gardens,

where he meets his brother, and they all make a night of it at the

"Ship." By the beginning of August it is not surprising that he is

ill, and decides to visit his brother Francis in the country. On the

3rd he takes horse to Biggleswade and thence to Oundle, "where I met my

brother and Mr. Rosewell" (he was a fellow of "King's," and apparently

a great friend of Francis Bere's). "Dined at Caldwell's, and slept at

the sign of the 'Dog.'"

{355}

He stays at the "Dog" at Oundle for some days, still ill, and visits

Northampton, where he is struck with the curious church, town-hall,

prison, and courts of justice, and slept at the "George." From there

he rides to the "Angel" at Wellingboro', and so home to London by

Dunstable, where he stays at the "Saracen's Head," Watford,

Rickmansworth, and Uxbridge, where he puts up at the "Swan." Being now

well again, he recommences the old round of the "Horns," the "Red Cow,"

the "Mermaid," the "Crown," and so on, usually winding up with a

roaring carouse at Phillips', and occasionally relieved by trips to

Islington-wells to walk in the fields with friend Stourton, who lives

near there, and who later on becomes his inseparable companion. To

illustrate the methodical character of this roistering blade, it is

curious to note that, as he could not well carry his cumbrous diary

with him on his journey to Oundle, he has made his daily entries on a

small loose leaf and has afterwards carefully transcribed them in the

book, the loose leaf, however, being also bound up with the rest. On

the reverse side, in English, Richard has copied the following couplet

of Lord Thomond's, which seems to have struck him:--

"Whatever Traveller doth wicked ways intend,

The Devill entertains him at his journey's end,"

and to this he adds several little remedies which some travelling

companion seems to have told him on the road. He scrupulously records

the fact that the day is his birthday on each succeeding 28th of

August, and the occasion appears to be an excuse {356} for a burst of

deeper drinking than ever, but on this first birthday mentioned in the

diary, 1693, he is evidently getting hard up. He lodges with a man

named Nelson, who ceaselessly duns him for his rent, and we soon learn

that the faithful Benson has pawned his two rings for eighteen

shillings. On the 27th of September his friend Dr. Stockton tells him

"that Mr. Addison told him that I lost my place because I was against

the Government, and was foolish enough to talk about it, which," says

indignant Richard, "is a lie."

It sounds curious nowadays to read that he and his friends, Westmacott

and others, sometimes walk out in the fields to shoot with bows and

arrows, and usually return thence to the "Hole-in-the-Wall" to pass the

evening.

As a specimen of the entries at this period, I transcribe that for the

30th of September, 1693, at least so much of it as can well be

published. "With Metham and Stourton to the City, and dined at the

'Ship' in Birchin Lane. Vickers there, and we went together to the

Exchange and met Mr. Howard; with him to the 'Fountain,' Mr. Coxum

there. At five o'clock went to Sir James Edwards', and drank there two

flasks of wine. Then to the 'King's Head,' where I left them and went

to Mr. Pearce's house and received ten pounds. Found Stourton very

drunk. Went and paid Jackson and Squires. Slept at Pearce's--drunk

myself." With the ten pounds received from Mr. Pearce Richard seems to

have set about renewing his wardrobe, and duly records the days upon

which his various new garments are worn. On the 26th of October

"Aspin, the tailor, brought my new {357} white breeches in the morning,

and we went out to drink at the 'Bull's Head' in Mart Lane." On the

second of November he recites the names of six taverns at which he

drank during the day, namely, the "Bull's Head," the "Red Cow," the

"Ship," the "Horns," the "Cheshire Cheese," and the "Crown," and on the

7th of the same month a dreadful thing happens to him. The constables

walk off his dulcinea, Miss Nichols, to jail, and Richard is left to

seek such consolation as he can find at the "Chequers," the "Three

Cranes," and the "Sugar Loaf." The next day he seeks out his friend

Westmacott at the "King's Head," and is taken to the prison to see the

incarcerated fair one. Whilst there he "meets the man who has done the

mischief." But he winds up at the "Sugar Loaf" in Whitefriars, and

Phillips' mug-house, and is carried home thence in a coach too much

overcome by his grief and potations to walk. On the 14th, after

several more visits to the prison, he bewails that he can do nothing

for Nichols, and on visiting a Mrs. Hill, that kind matron tells him

that his great friend, Dr. Stockton, had told her that "I had

squandered all I had over a worthless wench, and thought now to live at

the expense of my friends," but the entry, unfortunately, winds up with

the words: "Borrowed two pounds of Simons on my watch."

After this Richard thinks that quiet Danes Court might suit him for a

time, and starts the next day, the 15th of November, as before to

Gravesend by the tilboat, and, after a duty visit to his relatives,

stays two nights at the sign of the "Flushing," and dines there merrily

with "a {358} clergyman named Sell and another good fellow from the

North." The same companions and others go with him in the coach to

Canterbury, where he stays at the "Fleece," gets gloriously drunk, and

is cheated out of half-a-crown, and lies in bed until mid-day next

morning, his niece, Jane Fogge, who lived with the Bests at Canterbury,

coming to visit him before he was up. In the afternoon he continues

his road more soberly to Danes Court on a hired horse, and the old

round of visiting and feasting begins afresh. On the first of December

he meets Parson Burville, of Tilmanston, and drinks Canary wine till he

is drunk. On the 12th Captain Christopher Fogge meets his brother John

at a friend's house and they quarrel; Uncle Childs dies, the cat is

drowned in the well, three East Indiamen captains dine at Danes Court,

Ruggles' wife is confined, and the daily small events of a remote

village happen and are recorded much as they might happen to-day.

Uncle Boys had a kinsman, presumably a brother, Captain Boys, R.N., who

was Constable of Walmer Castle, where he lived. and Richard and his

friends often go there to dine and visit the ships in the Downs. On

the 26th of February, 1694, they all go to dinner on board the

_Cornwall_, and "they gave us a salute of seven guns." They all went

back to the castle to sleep, and John Fogge made a bargain with his

weak-witted younger brother William about Danes Court, presumably with

regard to his reversionary interest or charge upon the property. But

whatever it was it did not matter much, for William Fogge died soon

after. On the 25th of March, after going to Betsanger church and to

the rectory to see Thomas {359} Boys, "Ruggles threw a poor boy out of

the cart and seriously injured him," and on the next day a curt entry

says: "The poor lad died at nine o'clock this morning, and was buried

in the evening," but not a word about any enquiry or the punishment of

the offending Ruggles.

But after five months Richard sighs again for the taverns of Fleet

Street, and on the 4th of April, 1694, returns to London by the usual

road by Canterbury and Gravesend, and again haunts the taverns and

night-houses of the metropolis. He tries hard to borrow money from his

friends, and is evidently getting anxious about his Customs accounts

left in arrear at Carlisle. He is a pretty constant visitor to

Whitehall about a certain petition of his, which petition, although he

often mentions it in his diary, he of course does not describe or

explain in a document written for his own eye alone. I have, however,

been fortunate enough to find the actual document itself in the

Treasury Papers at the Record Office, with all the voluminous reports

and consultations founded upon it during the seven years it lingered in

the Government offices. It appears that in August, 1689, the Earl of

Shrewsbury, Secretary of State, had addressed a letter (the original of

which is attached to Richard Bere's petition) to the Mayor or Collector

of Customs of Carlisle, directing them to provide for the maintenance

of certain "papist Irish soldier prisoners" who were to be kept in the

castle there. The mayor refused to find the money, and Richard Bere,

as Collector of Customs, had to do so, expecting to be reimbursed out

of the Secret Service Fund, as provided by the Secretary of State. The

prisoners {360} were kept at Carlisle until December, 1690, and Richard

spent £74 4s. on their maintenance. He was soon after suddenly

dismissed from his post, and was unable to balance his accounts for

want of this money, and shortly before beginning the diary had

presented his petition to the Lords of the Treasury for the

reimbursement of the sum, or at least that it should be handed to the

Receiver-General of Customs on his account. But whilst the petition

was lying in the pigeon-holes in one office, another office was only

conscious that Richard was behindhand in his accounts, and on the 11th

of May, 1694, there is an entry as follows in the diary: "Alone to dine

at the 'Spotted Bull.' Then to Phillips', where one Petitt told me

about the tolls of Carlisle, and said that the bailiffs from Appleby

had a warrant to arrest me." Richard did not wait long for the

bailiffs, and in less than a week had signed and sealed a bond,

apparently for borrowed money to settle his toll accounts, bought a

horse and a Bible, had gone to Westminster Hall "about his brother's

affairs," and started off for Carlisle. He rode through Oundle, where

the Rev. Francis Bere appeared still to be living, and so by Stamford,

Grantham, Newark, Doncaster, Ferrybridge, and Appleby to Carlisle. Two

days before he arrived at the city some choice spirits came out to meet

him, and a host of friends received him with open arms after his ten

days' ride. He dines fourteen times with Dick Jackson, drinks often

and deeply with the Mayor of Carlisle, collects money owing to him,

buys a fine new periwig of Ned Haines, and a new sword, settles up his

accounts of tolls, and begs a holiday for the schoolboys, {361} whom he

treats all round, and winds up in a burst of jubilation by receiving a

present of two kegs of brandy from his friend Bell, which had not paid

much to the King probably, and of which, no doubt, the late Collector

and his jovial companions gave a very good account. And then, after a

six weeks' stay at Carlisle, he wends his way back to London again by

the same road, his horse falling lame at Stamford, and the rider having

to post from Grantham to Ware, and thence to London by coach. He

alights at the "Bell," in Bishopsgate Street, where Benson soon seeks

him with fresh clothes and a sedan chair, and takes him to his old

quarter of London again.

But poor Richard's prosperity is of short duration. The borrowed money

soon comes to an end, with the able and constant assistance of a

certain Catherine Wilson, who has now supplanted the vanished Nichols,

and by the beginning of September, 1694, Benson is taking one article

after the other to the pawnshop, and bringing back sums which Richard

regards as very unsatisfactory in amount. On the 6th of that month he

attends what must have been rather a curious marriage at the church of

St. George's, Bloomsbury, where one of Catherine Wilson's companions,

named Early, was married "to a young man named James Carlile, between

nine and ten in the morning." The whole of the party adjourn to the

fields, and at one o'clock return to drink at the "Feathers" in

Holborn, "but the knavish constables disturbed us and we went to

Whitefriars; at two I went to seek Benson, but he could only bring me

5s. on my pistols." With this sum Richard finds his way back to

Whitefriars, where {362} he remained drinking till evening with the

"newly married pair, Catherine Wilson, a gentleman and his wife, and a

marine." He then attends a coffee-house, and winds up with a carouse

at the "Rising Sun." The unfortunate bridegroom soon disappears from

the diary, but the "bride" takes part in the drinking bouts for some

time to come. By the middle of October Richard has apparently come to

the end of his tether, and, after borrowing a halfcrown on his knives,

quarrels with and separates for a time from Catherine Wilson; but

brother Francis and sister Fogge are appealed to for money, and when it

arrives Catherine is to the fore again. A great scheme is hatched

about this time with a Captain Sales and Mr. Butler, apparently

relating to the tobacco duties, and the Commissioners of Customs and

other officials are being constantly petitioned and visited. Sometimes

the tobacco business is considered hopeful, and sometimes the contrary,

but on the 7th of January, 1695, it looks very bright when the Lords of

the Treasury and the Commissioners of Customs sitting together at

Whitehall receive Richard and his two friends, who lay the case before

them, but "Mr. Culliford spoke against us," and nothing was decided, so

the trio and others who joined them go to the "Rummer" tavern at

Charing Cross, and drink confusion to Mr. Culliford. A day or two days

after this "a knave came to betray me to the bailiffs," and poor

Richard and his friend Sales seek the shady retreat of a tavern in

Fulwood's Rents. For the next few days he dodges the bailiffs from

tavern to tavern, and sleeps at Bell Court, Whitefriars, and elsewhere.

The "knavish" bailiffs even follow friend {363} Sales in the hope of

tracking Richard. On the 14th of January the faithful Benson brings

his clothes to the new lodging in Whitefriars, and Richard ventures out

"to the 'Anchor' in Coleman Street, about the business of Andrew Lloyd

and the widow. Then the 'St. John the Baptist's Head' in Milk Street,

where I found Butler meeting the citizens about the tobacco business."

A few days after, the business of "Andrew Lloyd and the widow" is

settled somehow at the "Mermaid" in Ram Alley, and on the 26th Benson

pawns all Richard's silver for £5 7s., and Richard slips out of

Whitefriars at night, sleeps at the "Star," and escapes to the quiet of

Danes Court, where the bailiffs cease from troubling and the

spendthrift is at rest.

On the 2nd of February, 1695, scapegrace little nephew Dick Fogge comes

home with a story that the small-pox had appeared at the school at

Sandwich, "but it is all a lie," and the youngster is led back

ignominiously the next day by his father and Tim Thomas the

schoolmaster, and when John Fogge returns to Danes Court he brings news

that the French are capturing English boats in the Channel. Richard is

still uneasy in his mind, for on the 15th of February he dreams that

the bailiffs have caught him at last, and soon afterwards begins

seriously to put his Customs accounts in order. Then early in April he

starts for London again, but as soon as he was on board the tilboat at

Gravesend he caught sight of a bailiff ashore seeking him. It takes

four hours to reach London, and the city is in a turmoil, for during

the night "the mob knocked down a house in Holborn." He takes a room

at {364} the "Green Dragon" for a day or two, and the next night the

mob burn down two houses in the Coal Yard, Drury Lane. A false friend

named Fowler accompanies him in his search for lodgings, which he

eventually takes at the house of a cheese-monger named Tilley in Fetter

Lane, and also goes with him to the Custom House "about my accounts,"

and then on the 13th of April, after carousing with him half the day,

"the hound betrayed me to the bailiffs," and poor Richard is caught at

last. He is at once haled off to a spunging-house, called the "King's

Head," in Wood Street, and the first thing the prisoner does is, of

course, to send for Benson, who comes with Sales and other friends, and

they have a jovial dinner of veal with the keeper. The next day Benson

brings some money, and Richard holds a perfect levee of friends. Some

of them go off to soften the creditors, in which they fail, and other

to apply for a writ of _habeas corpus_. A good deal of dining goes on

at the spunging-house, but on the 16th the carouse is cut short by the

removal of Richard to the Fleet. He has a good deal of liberty,

however, for he still occasionally haunts the taverns in Fleet Street,

probably within the "rules" of the prison or under the ward of a

keeper. Brother Francis is appealed to daily by letter, and pending

his reply all the old boon companions come in and out of the prison,

dine there, drink there, and get drunk in the vaults, Benson and

Catherine Wilson coming every day with clothes, books, and comfort. At

the end of the month of May the parson brother, Francis, arrives, and

after a month of negotiation at the Custom House and the law courts,

and much drinking and dining as {365} usual, a bond is signed and

sealed at the "Three Tuns" tavern, "Sales standing my friend," and

Richard Bere is free again.

But imprudent Richard, after a sharp fit of the gout, soon falls into

his old habits again, and on the 6th of September confesses that he got

into a row at the "Dog" Tavern in Drury Lane "about drinking the Prince

of Wales' health," an indiscreet thing enough considering that his

Custom House accounts were still unsettled, and his own petition to the

Treasury unanswered. On the 1st of July, whilst he and his friend

Sales are dining at the "Crown," the constables walk Sales off to

prison, "and then go to the 'Globe' Tavern and arrest his landlady, and

Andrew Lloyd the author." And so the diary goes on; his accounts still

unpaid, but Richard full of the tobacco business, with petitions to the

King and interviews with Treasury officials. Then there is some great

Irish wool scheme, which necessitates much dancing attendance on the

Duke of Ormond, but does not seem to result in much. His boon

companions evidently do not think much of his chance of recovering

anything from the Treasury, for "they made me promise B. Skynner a new

wig if ever I received my £74 4s. on the King's order."

However much Richard may drink, he is frugal enough in his eating, for

from this period to the end of the diary he constantly records that for

days together he has eaten nothing but a little bread and cheese, and

the "one poor halfpennyworth of bread to all this intolerable amount of

sack" is as applicable to Richard Bere as it was to the fat knight.

And he needs to be sparing in his expenditure, for {366} he is poor

enough just now, notwithstanding his drinkings with the Duke of

Richmond's steward, with Stourton at the "Rose" in Pall Mall, and his

visits to Lord James Howard in Oxenden Street, for he is reduced to

pawning his new lace ruffles for six shillings, and Benson could borrow

nothing on his new wig, for which he had just paid (or not paid)

thirty-five shillings to Rolfe, the barber. But Benson pawns his linen

for ten shillings and brother Francis sends funds, so after borrowing

nine shillings and sixpence on "my Bezoar stone," and going to the

Temple to receive "my pension" Richard starts on the 1st of September,

1696, by hoy for Sandwich. The voyage is long and tedious, the weather

being bad, but after a day and a night at sea they drop anchor, and

Richard solaces himself with punch and good fellowship at the "Three

Kings" at Sandwich.

On his arrival at Danes Court "John gives me a bad account of my nephew

Richard, who went back to school to-day." But John certainly does not

set his son a good example, for he soon breaks out himself, and on the

21st of October, "after dining with my aunt," threatens to cut his

wife's throat. For months after this the diary constantly records that

"John came home raving drunk"; "John from Sandwich to-day, very

violent"; "John mad drunk all day"; "to Tilmaston Church twice, John

there reiving drunk," and so on. On Christmas Day, 1696, Richard, who

as befits a parson's son, is all through an indefatigable church-goer,

takes the Sacrament at Tilmanston Church, as he generally does on

special days, John through all the Christmastide remaining drunk as

usual. On {367} the 18th of January, 1697, he gives his wife a black

eye, and the next day it is Richard's turn, and he goes on a great

drinking bout with Captain Whiston, and "got drunk and lost my white

mare," whereupon the immaculate "John is very angry with me." On the

10th of February nephew Richard runs away from school again, and gets

soundly whipped by his father, who remains drunk all the month. On the

15th of March tidings comes to Danes Court that the master has been

lodged in Dover jail, and his wife and her brother start off next

morning to find him. He has escaped somehow, and gets back to Danes

Court mad drunk just as his household are returning from afternoon

service at Tilmanston Church. This goes on all March, and on the 26th

John borrows money from an attorney named Lynch, and seals a bond at

Danes Court conveying all his goods to the lender as security, "being

rabid drunk at the time." A few days afterwards "the bailiffs nearly

took John, but he escaped by the quickness of his mare." Echoes of

more important events occasionally reach Danes Court. On the 6th of

April, 1697, news comes that the French have taken Jamaica, and that

they have captured a merchant fleet and convoys off Bilbao. Soon after

we hear of "French pirates infesting the Downs, and they had taken two

of our ships," but the domestic troubles of the old Kentish manor house

occupy most of the diary at this period; incorrigible young Richard

runs away from school again and cannot be found for days; with some

difficulty drunken John's accounts with Hill and Dilnot, of Sandwich,

are arranged, but on the 24th of April he is lodged in jail at

Canterbury on {368} another suit, and is only released by more

borrowing from Lynch, and at once goes back to his drunken career

again. An entry on the 29th of April, 1697, gives another inkling of

Richard's Jacobite leanings. "Walking to Eythorne I met Petitt the

parson and Captain March. We drank together and went to Walker's,

where a Mr. Kelly defended the bad opinion that it was lawful for

people to rise against the King if he violated his coronation oath."

All through May John Fogge continued drunk, and one day falling foul of

his brother-in-law, calls him a scurvy knave, and threatens to kick him

out of his house. So Richard, having worn out his welcome at Danes

Court, starts for town again, taking with him nephew Dick, who has just

run away from school once more for the last time.

He lodges henceforward at Stokes' in Short's Gardens, and pays ten

shillings a month for his room. Every morning two or three taverns are

visited with Stourton, Churchill, and others, where unfortunately they

are sometimes imprudent enough to drink deep to the health of King

James. Metheglin and mum are occasional drinks, but brandy the most

usual, and black puddings seem a favourite dish for dinner. On the

19th of October, 1697, peace is proclaimed with France, and on the 16th

of the following month the King enters the City in state, and on the

2nd of December the peace rejoicings were crowned by a great display of

fire-works, and a banquet given by the Earl of Romney to the King.

Richard's petition after five years' waiting is favourably reported

upon by the {369} Commissioners of Customs, and during all the winter

he haunts Whitehall and the ante-room of Lord Coningsby to get the

recommendation carried out by the Treasury. But one obstacle after the

other is raised, the papers are sent backwards and forwards, and it is

fully two years longer before Richard at last receives his money. On

the 2nd of December, 1697, he records the consecration of St. Paul's,

and on the 15th of February, 1698, he attends his first service in the

Cathedral, "from thence to the Temple Church, and so to the 'Trumpet,'

where I supped on black puddings and cheese. Home at eight, when my

landlady besought me to pay the rent." On the 18th of April he sees

Prince George, and on the 16th of May visits the ship _Providence_ from

New England, and thence to the "Dolphin" tavern until three in the

morning. On the 9th of June, apparently fired by the example of some

of the wits he meets in the coffee-houses of Covent Garden, or in his

favourite promenade at Gray's Inn Gardens, he records the fact that he

wrote some satirical verses. The next day a fine new suit of clothes

comes home, and he dons them with great pride. But alas! a sad thing

happens. Drinking at the "Sun" with his friends, some of the latter

"threw some beer over my fine garments," much to Richard's disgust.

The quaint little gallowses on the margin are pretty frequent now, and

the names of the wretches who are hanged are often given. On the 29th

of June, 1698, Richard visits the Duke of Norfolk at St. James's House

with his friends Stourton and Orfeur. "Thence to St. James's Park, to

see a race between youths, where I met Churchill."

{370} Richard becomes certainly more respectable as he gets older, and

beyond a slight flirtation with his landlady, Mrs. Stokes, of Short's

Gardens, we hear little of his gallantries henceforward. He is

certainly more prosperous, too, in some mysterious way, owing to a

voyage he makes, apparently in an official capacity, from Gosport to

Flanders, for which a sum of ninety-five guineas is handed to him. He

says nothing of his adventures in Flanders, where, however, he only

lands at Ostend for a few days from his ship the _Good Hope_. The

voyage, however, is evidently an important one for him, as he has

spoken of it on and off for many months, and takes a special journey to

Cambridge to see brother Francis before setting out. On the 19th of

October, 1698, he anchors in Dover Roads on his return, and goes thence

to Danes Court, where he stays over Christmas, and returns to London in

January, 1699. His friend Churchill has now taken the Treasury matter

in hand, and after many months of hope deferred Richard Bere gets his

£74 4s. at last in October. But Churchill wanted paying, and on the

morrow of the payment "Churchill came to me drunk, and quarrelled with

me because I would not give him the money he wanted." I suspect the

money was all spent long ago, for Richard has often enough gone into

the City to borrow five or ten pounds "on the King's order." He is

very methodical about money matters, too, for all his apparent

improvidence. He has a boon companion named Henry Johnson, who during

the autumn and winter of 1699 drank mainly at his expense. Every penny

thus spent is noted against the date in the diary, and a neat account

of the whole. {371} headed "Expenditure on account of Henry Johnson,"

is bound up with the diary. From this it appears that Johnson consumed

over seven pounds' worth of brandy at various taverns with Richard in

about five months. On the 27th of January, 1700, Richard again visits

the Duke of Norfolk; but it is rather a falling off to be told that he

goes straight from the Duke's to eat black puddings at Smith's. In

July of the same year he goes to see a witch called Anna Wilkes, a

prisoner in the Marshalsea, and the same day he learns in the Tilt Yard

that his boon companion Stourton is made Deputy-Governor of Windsor.

On the 30th of July the young Duke of Gloucester dies, and one day next

week Richard, after drinking punch with Mr. Van Dyk, tries to see the

body of the young prince at the lying-in-state, but fails. His brother

Francis is in town about the firstfruits and fees of his new fat living

of Prescot, and Richard is his surety for £48 1s. 5d. to the King, and

when Francis has got comfortably settled in his new rectory in July,

1701, Richard takes the ship _Providence_ for Liverpool to visit him.

They take a fortnight to get there; and when he arrives a gentleman

comes on board and announces that brother Francis has married his (the

gentleman's) sister, whereupon Richard is much surprised, and promptly

borrows some money from his new connection. There are high jinks at

Prescot, and Richard is in his element. He dines and carouses with

everybody, from his brother's glebe-tenants to the Earl of Derby at

Knowsley, gets drunk constantly, breaks his nose, loses his horse and

money, quarrels in his cups with a good many of his friends, {372}

toasts King James III., and enjoys himself greatly. It is to be noted

that his brother's curate generally shaved him during his stay. On the

13th of June 1702, King William's death is recorded, and soon after the

diarist returns to London by road, taking up his quarters at Stokes',

Short's Gardens, again. In the autumn he goes to Danes Court, where

John Fogge is still usually drunk; and in October of that year a most

important thing happens to Richard Bere. On the 23rd of that month he

visits the aged Lady Monins at Waldershare, the next mansion to Danes

Court. His sister, Mrs. Fogge, is with him; and staying with Lady

Monins is a certain Lucy Boys, presumably a daughter of Captain Boys,

the Constable of Walmer Castle. After dinner Richard, who was then

forty-nine years of age, whispered soft words of love to this young

lady, and the next day he records the fact that he sent her a tender

love letter. The maiden, nothing loath, sends him an answer next day,

and a few days afterwards comes herself to visit Mrs. Fogge at Danes

Court. Of course Richard improves the occasion, and, as he says,

"makes love again." For the next week a lively interchange of notes

takes place between Danes Court and Waldershare; and on the 8th of

November Lucy Boys thinks it time to go home to Walmer Castle. It is

not quite in the direct road, but she called to say good-bye to Mrs.

Fogge at Danes Court, and, of course, Mr. Richard Bere thought well to

go in the coach with her to Walmer. "We pledged," he says, "to marry

each other, and solemnly promised to marry no one else." On the 16th

of December he again goes to Waldershare, and they again renew their

pledge, and Lady Monins {373} promised all her influence with her

grandson-in-law, the great Earl Poulet, to forward Richard's fortunes.

Early in January, 1703, Richard speeds to London with a letter from

Lucy Boys to Lord Poulet in his pocket. The peer welcomes him warmly,

promises him great things at the Treasury and elsewhere, and loving

letters still speed backward and forward between London and Walmer.

Richard is constant at Lord Poulet's levees, and at last, on the 25th

of March, 1703, Richard is introduced to the all-powerful Lord

Godolphin, who promises him a good office, upon strength of which he

"borrows another £5 of Gawler."

But Richard complains of lameness on the very day that he saw

Godolphin, and the next entry in the diary is carefully traced with a

trembling hand at the bottom of the page nearly three months

afterwards. Richard had fallen ill of gout, fever, and rheumatism, and

had not left the room for ten weeks, "attended by Mr. Sheppery of Drury

Lane, my surgeon Mr. Williams, and my housekeeper Mrs. Cockman." In

July he was well enough to go to Danes Court, and on the 11th of August

visited Waldershare with his sister. There, walking in the grotto, he

again pledged his troth to Lucy Boys. On the 2nd of September Lucy

Boys came to dine at Danes Court, and the vows were repeated. On this

occasion Miss Boys showed her sincerity by handing to Richard "95

guineas, one pistole, and six shillings in silver," presumably for

investment or expenditure on fitting up a home. Soon afterwards Lord

Poulet came and took his wife's grandmother away on a visit to Hinton,

where she died in six weeks. Richard {374} Bere returns to London a

happy man, but in a few weeks his lady love herself comes on a visit to

Lord Poulet, and then, on the 20th of November, a great change comes

over the tone of the entries. "The strumpet Boys came to London. I

saw her at Lord Poulet's and gave her five guineas, besides five

guineas I gave her on the 26th to go to the Exchange, five guineas more

I paid on her account at Mr. Stow's, and another ten pounds on account

of the slut." Another entry on the 30th is still more disheartening.

"I went to see the slut Boys at Lord Poulet's, and the baggage denied

ever having promised to marry me at all, and now she has gone and

married a stuttering parson called Woodward." Then Lord Poulet said he

had never promised to do anything for him, and "treated me vilely," and

the whole romance was ended.

At this time there are two entries in English as follows: "November 27,

1703. From 12 o'clock in ye morning till 7 was ye most violent storm

of wind y|t| ever was known in England, and ye damage done at land and

sea not to be estimated."

"On ye 15th, 16th, and 17th of January, 1703-4, was a very violent

storm, which forced back ye fleet bound to Lisbon w|th| ye Archduke

Charles, under Rooke, separating them, and did a great deale of damage."

In March, 1704, Richard is evidently making great preparations for

another sea voyage. He often visits Bear Quay, and is much in the

City. Trunks and new clothes seem to be brought now without much

difficulty, and Benson's services are not apparently so needful for

raising the wind. Richard's friend, old Mrs. Feltham, who keeps a

{375} shop in the Exchange, invites him to come and see her and

drink-mum, in order to ask him about making her son purser. Richard

seems also to have quite a friendly correspondence with the "stuttering

parson Woodward," and one is tempted to believe that Lord Poulet may

after all have done something for the jilted lover. Richard's

circumstances must be a good deal changed, for he can afford to leave

twenty guineas with T. Bell to keep for him when he departs for Danes

Court, after a merry dinner at the "Blue Posts" in the Haymarket (which

he quaintly translates as "los Postes ceruleos en la Feria de feno")

with Churchill and others. On the 23rd of March, 1704, he starts for

Danes Court, and there the usual life of visiting and feasting is

recommenced. On the 11th of April, 1704, there is an entry to the

effect that he went to visit Lady Barret, and wrote to Mr. Woodward,

and then the curtain drops and all is darkness, which swallows up

Richard Bere and all his friends for ever. Where he went and what

became of him I have been unable to discover, and the transient gleam

thrown across his trivial history by his own folly, in writing down his

most secret actions in a language known to many, will in all

probability be the only light ever thrown upon his life. John Fogge

died soon after, but his widow, Richard Bere's sister, lived at Danes

Court in straitened circumstances for many years after. Warren, the

antiquary, writing in 1711 (Fausett MS. Kent Archæological Society),

deplores that the once fine estate was reduced even then to about fifty

pounds a year only, and says that it was uncertain whether any male

heir was living--thus soon had scapegrace nephew Dick drifted away

{376} from his friends. Warren says that he had been last heard of at

Lisbon some years before, but on his mother's death he turned up a

common sailor, sold Danes Court to the Harveys in 1724, married a

certain Elizabeth Rickasie, a sister of St. Bartholomew's Hospital at

Sandwich, and died on board the fleet at Gibraltar in 1740, leaving,

says Hasted, an only daughter, married to a poor shepherd named Cock,

and living in a lowly hovel near the manor house of which her ancestors

had for centuries been masters.

[1] _The Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1891.

[Illustration: Tailpiece]

{377}