July 1st. This morning it rained so hard (though it was fair yesterday,
and we thereupon in hopes of having some fair weather, which we have
wanted these three months) that it wakened Creed, who lay with me last
night, and me, and so we up and fell to discourse of the business of
his accounts now under dispute, in which I have taken much trouble upon
myself and raised a distance between Sir G. Carteret and myself, which
troubles me, but I hope we have this morning light on an expedient that
will right all, that will answer their queries, and yet save Creed the
L500 which he did propose to make of the exchange abroad of the pieces
of eight which he disbursed. Being ready, he and I by water to White
Hall, where I left him before we came into the Court, for fear I should
be seen by Sir G. Carteret with him, which of late I have been forced
to avoid to remove suspicion. I to St. James’s, and there discoursed
a while with Mr. Coventry, between whom and myself there is very good
understanding and friendship, and so to Westminster Hall, and being
in the Parliament lobby, I there saw my Lord of Bristoll come to the
Commons House to give his answer to their question, about some words he
should tell the King that were spoke by Sir Richard Temple, a member of
their House. A chair was set at the bar of the House for him, which he
used but little, but made an harangue of half an hour bareheaded, the
House covered. His speech being done, he came out and withdrew into a
little room till the House had concluded of an answer to his speech;
which they staying long upon, I went away. And by and by out comes
Sir W. Batten; and he told me that his Lordship had made a long and a
comedian-like speech, and delivered with such action as was not becoming
his Lordship. He confesses he did tell the King such a thing of Sir
Richard Temple, but that upon his honour they were not spoke by Sir
Richard, he having taken a liberty of enlarging to the King upon the
discourse which had been between Sir Richard and himself lately; and so
took upon himself the whole blame, and desired their pardon, it being
not to do any wrong to their fellow-member, but out of zeal to the King.
He told them, among many other things, that as to his religion he was a
Roman Catholique, but such a one as thought no man to have right to the
Crown of England but the Prince that hath it; and such a one as, if the
King should desire his counsel as to his own, he would not advise him to
another religion than the old true reformed religion of this country, it
being the properest of this kingdom as it now stands; and concluded with
a submission to what the House shall do with him, saying, that whatever
they shall do, says he, “thanks be to God, this head, this heart, and
this sword (pointing to them all), will find me a being in any place in
Europe.” The House hath hereupon voted clearly Sir Richard Temple to
be free from the imputation of saying those words; but when Sir William
Batten came out, had not concluded what to say to my Lord, it being
argued that to own any satisfaction as to my Lord from his speech, would
be to lay some fault upon the King for the message he should upon no
better accounts send to the impeaching of one of their members. Walking
out, I hear that the House of Lords are offended that my Lord Digby
should come to this House and make a speech there without leave first
asked of the House of Lords. I hear also of another difficulty now upon
him; that my Lord of Sunderland (whom I do not know) was so near to
the marriage of his daughter as that the wedding-clothes were made, and
portion and every thing agreed on and ready; and the other day he goes
away nobody yet knows whither, sending her the next morning a release of
his right or claim to her, and advice to his friends not to enquire into
the reason of this doing, for he hath enough for it; but that he gives
them liberty to say and think what they will of him, so they do not
demand the reason of his leaving her, being resolved never to have her,
but the reason desires and resolves not to give. Thence by water with
Sir W. Batten to Trinity House, there to dine with him, which we did;
and after dinner we fell talking, Sir J. Minnes, Mr. Batten and I; Mr.
Batten telling us of a late triall of Sir Charles Sydly the other
day, before my Lord Chief Justice Foster and the whole bench, for his
debauchery a little while since at Oxford Kate’s,
[The details in the original are very gross. Dr. Johnson relates
the story in the “Lives of the Poets,” in his life of Sackville,
Lord Dorset “Sackville, who was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir
Charles Sedley and Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock, in Bow
Street, by Covent Garden, and going into the balcony exposed
themselves to the populace in very indecent postures. At last, as
they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, and harangued the
populace in such profane language, that the publick indignation was
awakened; the crowd attempted to force the door, and being repulsed,
drove in the performers with stones, and broke the windows of the
house. For this misdemeanour they were indicted, and Sedley was
fined five hundred pounds; what was the sentence of the others is
not known. Sedley employed [Henry] Killigrew and another to procure
a remission from the King, but (mark the friendship of the
dissolute!) they begged the fine for themselves, and exacted it to
the last groat.” The woman known as Oxford Kate appears to have
kept the notorious Cock Tavern in Bow Street at this date.]
coming in open day into the Balcone and showed his nakedness,.... and
abusing of scripture and as it were from thence preaching a mountebank
sermon from the pulpit, saying that there he had to sell such a powder
as should make all the [women] in town run after him, 1000 people
standing underneath to see and hear him, and that being done he took a
glass of wine.... and then drank it off, and then took another and drank
the King’s health. It seems my Lord and the rest of the judges did
all of them round give him a most high reproof; my Lord Chief justice
saying, that it was for him, and such wicked wretches as he was, that
God’s anger and judgments hung over us, calling him sirrah many times.
It’s said they have bound him to his good behaviour (there being no law
against him for it) in L5000. It being told that my Lord Buckhurst was
there, my Lord asked whether it was that Buckhurst that was lately tried
for robbery; and when answered Yes, he asked whether he had so soon
forgot his deliverance at that time, and that it would have more become
him to have been at his prayers begging God’s forgiveness, than now
running into such courses again.... Thence home, and my clerks being
gone by my leave to see the East India ships that are lately come home,
I staid all alone within my office all the afternoon. This day I hear at
dinner that Don John of Austria, since his flight out of Portugall, is
dead of his wounds:--[not true]--so there is a great man gone, and a
great dispute like to be ended for the crown of Spayne, if the King
should have died before him. I received this morning a letter from my
wife, brought by John Gower to town, wherein I find a sad falling out
between my wife and my father and sister and Ashwell upon my writing
to my father to advise Pall not to keep Ashwell from her mistress, or
making any difference between them. Which Pall telling to Ashwell, and
she speaking some words that her mistress heard, caused great difference
among them; all which I am sorry from my heart to hear of, and I fear
will breed ill blood not to be laid again. So that I fear my wife and I
may have some falling out about it, or at least my father and I, but I
shall endeavour to salve up all as well as I can, or send for her out
of the country before the time intended, which I would be loth to do. In
the evening by water to my coz. Roger Pepys’ chamber, where he was not
come, but I found Dr. John newly come to town, and is well again after
his sickness; but, Lord! what a simple man he is as to any public matter
of state, and talks so sillily to his brother Dr. Tom. What the matter
is I know not, but he has taken (as my father told me a good while
since) such displeasure that he hardly would touch his hat to me, and
I as little to him. By and by comes Roger, and he told us the whole
passage of my Lord Digby to-day, much as I have said here above; only
that he did say that he would draw his sword against the Pope himself,
if he should offer any thing against his Majesty, and the good of
these nations; and that he never was the man that did either look for a
Cardinal’s cap for himself, or any body else, meaning Abbot Montagu; and
the House upon the whole did vote Sir Richard Temple innocent; and that
my Lord Digby hath cleared the honour of his Majesty, and Sir Richard
Temple’s, and given perfect satisfaction of his own respects to the
House. Thence to my brother’s, and being vexed with his not minding my
father’s business here in getting his Landscape done, I went away in an
anger, and walked home, and so up to my lute and then to bed.
2d. Up betimes to my office, and there all the morning doing business,
at noon to the Change, and there met with several people, among others
Captain Cox, and with him to a Coffee [House], and drank with him and
some other merchants. Good discourse. Thence home and to dinner, and,
after a little alone at my viol, to the office, where we sat all the
afternoon, and so rose at the evening, and then home to supper and to
bed, after a little musique. My mind troubled me with the thoughts of
the difference between my wife and my father in the country. Walking in
the garden this evening with Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Minnes, Sir G.
Carteret told us with great contempt how like a stage-player my Lord
Digby spoke yesterday, pointing to his head as my Lord did, and saying,
“First, for his head,” says Sir G. Carteret, “I know what a calf’s
head would have done better by half for his heart and his sword, I have
nothing to say to them.” He told us that for certain his head cost the
late King his, for it was he that broke off the treaty at Uxbridge. He
told us also how great a man he was raised from a private gentleman in
France by Monsieur Grandmont,
[Antoine, Duc de Gramont, marshal of France, who died July 12th,
1678, aged seventy-four. His memoirs have been published.]
and afterwards by the Cardinall,--[Mazarin]--who raised him to be a
Lieutenant-generall, and then higher; and entrusted by the Cardinall,
when he was banished out of France, with great matters, and recommended
by him to the Queen as a man to be trusted and ruled by: yet when he
came to have some power over the Queen, he begun to dissuade her from
her opinion of the Cardinal; which she said nothing to till the Cardinal
was returned, and then she told him of it; who told my Lord Digby, “Eh
bien, Monsieur, vous estes un fort bon amy donc:” but presently put him
out of all; and then he was, from a certainty of coming in two or three
years’ time to be Mareschall of France (to which all strangers, even
Protestants, and those as often as French themselves, are capable of
coming, though it be one of the greatest places in France), he was
driven to go out of France into Flanders; but there was not trusted, nor
received any kindness from the Prince of Conde, as one to whom also he
had been false, as he had been to the Cardinal and Grandmont. In fine,
he told us how he is a man of excellent parts, but of no great faith nor
judgment, and one very easy to get up to great height of preferment,
but never able to hold it. So home and to my musique; and then comes Mr.
Creed to me giving me an account of his accounts, how he has now settled
them fit for perusal the most strict, at which I am glad. So he and I to
bed together.
3d. Up and he home, and I with Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten by coach
to Westminster, to St. James’s, thinking to meet Sir G. Carteret, and
to attend the Duke, but he not coming we broke up, and so to Westminster
Hall, and there meeting with Mr. Moore he tells me great news that my
Lady Castlemaine is fallen from Court, and this morning retired. He
gives me no account of the reason of it, but that it is so: for which
I am sorry: and yet if the King do it to leave off not only her but all
other mistresses, I should be heartily glad of it, that he may fall to
look after business. I hear my Lord Digby is condemned at Court for his
speech, and that my Lord Chancellor grows great again. Thence with Mr.
Creed, whom I called at his chamber, over the water to Lambeth; but
could not, it being morning, get to see the Archbishop’s hearse: so he
and I walked over the fields to Southwark, and there parted, and I spent
half an hour in Mary Overy’s Church, where are fine monuments of great
antiquity, I believe, and has been a fine church. Thence to the Change,
and meeting Sir J. Minnes there, he and I walked to look upon Backwell’s
design of making another alley from his shop through over against the
Exchange door, which will be very noble and quite put down the other
two.
So home to dinner and then to the office, and entered in my manuscript
book the Victualler’s contract, and then over the water and walked to
see Sir W. Pen, and sat with him a while, and so home late, and to my
viall. So up comes Creed again to me and stays all night, to-morrow
morning being a hearing before the Duke. So to bed full of discourse of
his business.
4th. Up by 4 o’clock and sent him to get matters ready, and I to my
office looking over papers and mending my manuscript by scraping out the
blots and other things, which is now a very fine book. So to St. James’s
by water with Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, I giving occasion to a
wager about the tide, that it did flow through bridge, by which Sir W.
Batten won 5s. of Sir J. Minnes. At St. James’s we staid while the Duke
made himself ready. Among other things Sir Allen Apsley showed the
Duke the Lisbon Gazette in Spanish, where the late victory is set down
particularly, and to the great honour of the English beyond measure.
They have since taken back Evora, which was lost to the Spaniards, the
English making the assault, and lost not more than three men. Here I
learnt that the English foot are highly esteemed all over the world, but
the horse not so much, which yet we count among ourselves the best; but
they abroad have had no great knowledge of our horse, it seems. The
Duke being ready, we retired with him, and there fell upon Mr. Creed’s
business, where the Treasurer did, like a mad coxcomb, without reason or
method run over a great many things against the account, and so did Sir
J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, which the Duke himself and Mr. Coventry
and my Lord Barkely and myself did remove, and Creed being called in did
answer all with great method and excellently to the purpose (myself I
am a little conscious did not speak so well as I purposed and do think
I used to do, that is, not so intelligibly and persuasively, as I well
hoped I should), not that what I said was not well taken, and did carry
the business with what was urged and answered by Creed and Mr. Coventry,
till the Duke himself did declare that he was satisfied, and my Lord
Barkely offered to lay L100 that the King would receive no wrong in the
account, and the two last knights held their tongues, or at least by not
understanding it did say what made for Mr. Creed, and so Sir G. Carteret
was left alone, but yet persisted to say that the account was not good,
but full of corruption and foul dealing. And so we broke up to his
shame, but I do fear to the loss of his friendship to me a good while,
which I am heartily troubled for. Thence with Creed to the King’s Head
ordinary; but, coming late, dined at the second table very well for
12d.; and a pretty gentleman in our company, who confirms my Lady
Castlemaine’s being gone from Court, but knows not the reason; he told
us of one wipe the Queen a little while ago did give her, when she came
in and found the Queen under the dresser’s hands, and had been so long:
“I wonder your Majesty,” says she, “can have the patience to sit so long
a-dressing?”--“I have so much reason to use patience,” says the Queen,
“that I can very well bear with it.” He thinks that it may be the Queen
hath commanded her to retire, though that is not likely. Thence with
Creed to hire a coach to carry us to Hide Park, to-day there being a
general muster of the King’s Guards, horse and foot: but they demand so
high, that I, spying Mr. Cutler the merchant, did take notice of him,
and he going into his coach, and telling me that he was going to shew a
couple of Swedish strangers the muster, I asked and went along with him;
where a goodly sight to see so many fine horses and officers, and the
King, Duke, and others come by a-horseback, and the two Queens in the
Queen-Mother’s coach, my Lady Castlemaine not being there. And after
long being there, I ‘light, and walked to the place where the King,
Duke, &c., did stand to see the horse and foot march by and discharge
their guns, to show a French Marquisse (for whom this muster was caused)
the goodness of our firemen; which indeed was very good, though not
without a slip now and then; and one broadside close to our coach we had
going out of the Park, even to the nearness as to be ready to burn our
hairs. Yet methought all these gay men are not the soldiers that must do
the King’s business, it being such as these that lost the old King all
he had, and were beat by the most ordinary fellows that could be. Thence
with much ado out of the Park, and I ‘lighted and through St. James’s
down the waterside over, to Lambeth, to see the Archbishop’s corps (who
is to be carried away to Oxford on Monday), but came too late, and
so walked over the fields and bridge home (calling by the way at old
George’s), but find that he is dead, and there wrote several letters,
and so home to supper and to bed. This day in the Duke’s chamber there
being a Roman story in the hangings, and upon the standards written
these four letters--S. P. Q. R., Sir G. Carteret came to me to know what
the meaning of those four letters were; which ignorance is not to be
borne in a Privy Counsellor, methinks, that a schoolboy should be whipt
for not knowing.
5th (Lord’s day). Lady Batten had sent twice to invite me to go with
them to Walthamstow to-day, Mrs. Martha’ being married already this
morning to Mr. Castle, at this parish church. I could not rise soon
enough to go with them, but got myself ready, and so to Games’s, where I
got a horse and rode thither very pleasantly, only coming to make water
I found a stopping, which makes me fearful of my old pain. Being come
thither, I was well received, and had two pair of gloves, as the rest,
and walked up and down with my Lady in the garden, she mighty kind
to me, and I have the way to please her. A good dinner and merry, but
methinks none of the kindness nor bridall respect between the bridegroom
and bride, that was between my wife and I, but as persons that marry
purely for convenience. After dinner to church by coach, and there my
Lady, Mrs. Turner, Mrs. Lemon, and I only, we, in spite to one another,
kept one another awake; and sometimes I read in my book of Latin plays,
which I took in my pocket, thinking to have walked it. An old doting
parson preached. So home again, and by and by up and homewards, calling
in our way (Sir J. Minnes and I only) at Mr. Batten’s (who with his lady
and child went in another coach by us), which is a very pretty house,
and himself in all things within and without very ingenious, and I find
a very fine study and good books. So set out, Sir J. Minnes and I in
his coach together, talking all the way of chymistry, wherein he do
know something, at least, seems so to me, that cannot correct him, Mr.
Batten’s man riding my horse, and so home and to my office a while to
read my vows, then home to prayers and to bed.
6th. Up pretty early and to my office all the morning, writing out a
list of the King’s ships in my Navy collections with great pleasure. At
noon Creed comes to me, who tells me how well he has sped with Sir G.
Carteret after all our trouble, that he had his tallys up and all the
kind words possible from him, which I believe is out of an apprehension
what a fool he has made of himself hitherto in making so great a stop
therein. But I find, and so my Lord Sandwich may, that Sir G. Carteret
had a design to do him a disgrace, if he could possibly, otherwise he
would never have carried the business so far after that manner, but
would first have consulted my Lord and given him advice what to do
therein for his own honour, which he thought endangered. Creed dined
with me and then walked a while, and so away, and I to my office at
my morning’s work till dark night, and so with good content home. To
supper, a little musique, and then to bed.
7th. Up by 4 o’clock and to my office, and there continued all the
morning upon my Navy book to my great content. At noon down by barge
with Sir J. Minnes (who is going to Chatham) to Woolwich, in our way
eating of some venison pasty in the barge, I having neither eat nor
drank to-day, which fills me full of wind. Here also in Mr. Pett’s
garden I eat some and the first cherries I have eat this year, off the
tree where the King himself had been gathering some this morning. Thence
walked alone, only part of the way Deane walked with me, complaining
of many abuses in the Yard, to Greenwich, and so by water to Deptford,
where I found Mr. Coventry, and with him up and down all the stores, to
the great trouble of the officers, and by his help I am resolved to fall
hard to work again, as I used to do. So thence he and I by water talking
of many things, and I see he puts his trust most upon me in the Navy,
and talks, as there is reason, slightly of the two old knights, and
I should be glad by any drudgery to see the King’s stores and service
looked to as they ought, but I fear I shall never understand half the
miscarriages and tricks that the King suffers by. He tells me what
Mr. Pett did to-day, that my Lord Bristoll told the King that he will
impeach the Chancellor of High Treason: but I find that my Lord
Bristoll hath undone himself already in every body’s opinion, and now
he endeavours to raise dust to put out other men’s eyes, as well as his
own; but I hope it will not take, in consideration merely that it is
hard for a Prince to spare an experienced old officer, be he never so
corrupt; though I hope this man is not so, as some report him to be. He
tells me that Don John is yet alive, and not killed, as was said, in the
great victory against the Spaniards in Portugall of late. So home,
and late at my office. Thence home and to my musique. This night Mr.
Turner’s house being to be emptied out of my cellar, and therefore I
think to sit up a little longer than ordinary. This afternoon, coming
from the waterside with Mr. Coventry, I spied my boy upon Tower Hill
playing with the rest of the boys; so I sent W. Griffin to take him, and
he did bring him to me, and so I said nothing to him, but caused him to
be stripped (for he was run away with his best suit), and so putting on
his other, I sent him going, without saying one word hard to him, though
I am troubled for the rogue, though he do not deserve it. Being come
home I find my stomach not well for want of eating to-day my dinner as
I should do, and so am become full of wind. I called late for some
victuals, and so to bed, leaving the men below in the cellar emptying
the vats up through Mr. Turner’s own house, and so with more content to
bed late.
8th. Being weary, and going to bed late last night, I slept till 7
o’clock, it raining mighty hard, and so did every minute of the day
after sadly. But I know not what will become of the corn this year, we
having had but two fair days these many months. Up and to my office,
where all the morning busy, and then at noon home to dinner alone upon
a good dish of eeles, given me by Michell, the Bewpers’ man, and then
to my viall a little, and then down into the cellar and up and down with
Mr. Turner to see where his vault may be made bigger, or another made
him, which I think may well be. And so to my office, where very busy
all day setting things in order my contract books and preparing things
against the next sitting. In the evening I received letters out of the
country, among others from my wife, who methinks writes so coldly that
I am much troubled at it, and I fear shall have much ado to bring her
to her old good temper. So home to supper and musique, which is all
the pleasure I have of late given myself, or is fit I should, others
spending too much time and money. Going in I stepped to Sir W. Batten,
and there staid and talked with him (my Lady being in the country), and
sent for some lobsters, and Mrs. Turner came in, and did bring us an
umble pie hot out of her oven, extraordinary good, and afterwards some
spirits of her making, in which she has great judgment, very good, and
so home, merry with this night’s refreshment.
9th. Up. Making water this morning, which I do every morning as soon as
I am awake, with greater plenty and freedom than I used to do, which I
think I may impute to last night’s drinking of elder spirits. Abroad, it
raining, to Blackfriars, and there went into a little alehouse and staid
while I sent to the Wardrobe, but Mr. Moore was gone out. Here I kissed
three or four times the maid of the house, who is a pretty girl, but
very modest, and, God forgive me, had a mind to something more. Thence
to my lawyer’s; up and down to the Six Clerks’ Office, where I found my
bill against Tom Trice dismissed, which troubles me, it being through my
neglect, and will put me to charges. So to Mr. Phillips, and discoursed
with him about finding me out somebody that will let me have for money
an annuity of about L100 per annum for two lives. So home, and there
put up my riding things against the evening, in case Mr. Moore should
continue his mind to go to Oxford, which I have little mind to do, the
weather continuing so bad and the waters high. Dined at home, and Mr.
Moore in the afternoon comes to me and concluded not to go. Sir W.
Batten and I sat a little this afternoon at the office, and thence I by
water to Deptford, and there mustered the Yard, purposely, God forgive
me, to find out Bagwell, a carpenter, whose wife is a pretty woman, that
I might have some occasion of knowing him and forcing her to come to the
office again, which I did so luckily that going thence he and his wife
did of themselves meet me in the way to thank me for my old kindness,
but I spoke little to her, but shall give occasion for her coming to me.
Her husband went along with me to show me Sir W. Pen’s lodging, which
I knew before, but only to have a time of speaking to him and sounding
him. So left and I went in to Sir W. Pen, who continues ill, and worse,
I think, than before. He tells me my Lady Castlemaine was at Court, for
all this talk this week, which I am glad to hear; but it seems the King
is stranger than ordinary to her. Thence walked home as I used to do,
and to bed presently, having taken great cold in my feet by walking in
the dirt this day in thin shoes or some other way, so that I begun to be
in pain, and with warm clothes made myself better by morning, but yet in
pain.
10th. Up late and by water to Westminster Hall, where I met Pierce the
chirurgeon, who tells me that for certain the King is grown colder to my
Lady Castlemaine than ordinary, and that he believes he begins to love
the Queen, and do make much of her, more than he used to do. Up to the
Lobby, and there sent out for Mr. Coventry and Sir W. Batten, and told
them if they thought convenient I would go to Chatham today, Sir John
Minnes being already there at a Pay, and I would do such and such
business there, which they thought well of, and so I went home and
prepared myself to go after, dinner with Sir W. Batten. Sir W. Batten
and Mr. Coventry tell me that my Lord Bristoll hath this day impeached
my Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords of High Treason. The chief of
the articles are these: 1st. That he should be the occasion of the peace
made with Holland lately upon such disadvantageous terms, and that he
was bribed to it. 2d. That Dunkirke was also sold by his advice chiefly,
so much to the damage of England. 3d. That he had L6000 given him for
the drawing-up or promoting of the Irish declaration lately, concerning
the division of the lands there. 4th. He did carry on the design of
the Portugall match, so much to the prejudice of the Crown of England,
notwithstanding that he knew the Queen is not capable of bearing
children. 5th. That the Duke’s marrying of his daughter was a practice
of his, thereby to raise his family; and that it was done by indirect
courses. 6th. That the breaking-off of the match with Parma, in which he
was employed at the very time when the match with Portugall was made
up here, which he took as a great slur to him, and so it was; and that,
indeed, is the chief occasion of all this fewde. 7th. That he hath
endeavoured to bring in Popery, and wrote to the Pope for a cap for a
subject of the King of England’s (my Lord Aubigny ); and some say that
he lays it to the Chancellor, that a good Protestant Secretary (Sir
Edward Nicholas) was laid aside, and a Papist, Sir H. Bennet, put in
his room: which is very strange, when the last of these two is his own
creature, and such an enemy accounted to the Chancellor, that they
never did nor do agree; and all the world did judge the Chancellor to be
falling from the time that Sir H. Bennet was brought in. Besides my Lord
Bristoll being a Catholique himself, all this is very strange. These are
the main of the Articles. Upon which my Lord Chancellor desired that the
noble Lord that brought in these Articles, would sign to them with his
hand; which my Lord Bristoll did presently. Then the House did order
that the judges should, against Monday next, bring in their opinion,
Whether these articles are treason, or no? and next, they would know,
Whether they were brought in regularly or no, without leave of the
Lords’ House? After dinner I took boat (H. Russell) and down to
Gravesend in good time, and thence with a guide post to Chatham, where I
found Sir J. Minnes and Mr. Wayth walking in the garden, whom I told all
this day’s news, which I left the town full of, and it is great news,
and will certainly be in the consequence of it. By and by to supper,
and after long discourse, Sir J. Minnes and I, he saw me to my chamber,
which not pleasing me, I sent word so to Mrs. Bradford, that I should be
crowded into such a hole, while the clerks and boarders of her own take
up the best rooms. However I lay there and slept well.
11th. Up early and to the Dock, and with the Storekeeper and other
officers all the morning from one office to another. At noon to
the Hill-house in Commissioner Pett’s coach, and after seeing the
guard-ships, to dinner, and after dining done to the Dock by coach, it
raining hard, to see “The Prince” launched, which hath lain in the Dock
in repairing these three years. I went into her and was launched in her.
Thence by boat ashore, it raining, and I went to Mr. Barrow’s, where
Sir J. Minnes and Commissioner Pett; we staid long eating sweetmeats
and drinking, and looking over some antiquities of Mr. Barrow’s, among
others an old manuscript Almanac, that I believe was made for some
monastery, in parchment, which I could spend much time upon to
understand. Here was a pretty young lady, a niece of Barrow’s, which I
took much pleasure to look on. Thence by barge to St. Mary Creek; where
Commissioner Pett (doubtful of the growing greatness of Portsmouth by
the finding of those creeks there), do design a wett dock at no great
charge, and yet no little one; he thinks towards L10,000. And the place,
indeed, is likely to be a very fit place, when the King hath money to do
it with. Thence, it raining as hard as it could pour down, home to the
Hillhouse, and anon to supper, and after supper, Sir J. Minnes and I had
great discourse with Captain Cox and Mr. Hempson about business of
the yard, and particularly of pursers’ accounts with Hempson, who is a
cunning knave in that point. So late to bed and, Mr. Wayth being gone, I
lay above in the Treasurer’s bed and slept well. About one or two in
the morning the curtains of my bed being drawn waked me, and I saw a man
stand there by the inside of my bed calling me French dogg 20 times, one
after another, and I starting, as if I would get out of the bed, he fell
a-laughing as hard as he could drive, still calling me French dogg, and
laid his hand on my shoulder. At last, whether I said anything or no I
cannot tell, but I perceived the man, after he had looked wistly upon
me, and found that I did not answer him to the names that he called me
by, which was Salmon, Sir Carteret’s clerk, and Robt. Maddox, another of
the clerks, he put off his hat on a suddaine, and forebore laughing, and
asked who I was, saying, “Are you Mr. Pepys?” I told him yes, and now
being come a little better to myself, I found him to be Tom Willson, Sir
W. Batten’s clerk, and fearing he might be in some melancholy fit, I
was at a loss what to do or say. At last I asked him what he meant. He
desired my pardon for that he was mistaken, for he thought verily,
not knowing of my coming to lie there, that it had been Salmon, the
Frenchman, with whom he intended to have made some sport. So I made
nothing of it, but bade him good night, and I, after a little pause,
to sleep again, being well pleased that it ended no worse, and being a
little the better pleased with it, because it was the Surveyor’s clerk,
which will make sport when I come to tell Sir W. Batten of it, it being
a report that old Edgeborough, the former Surveyor, who died here, do
now and then walk.
12th (Lord’s day). Up, and meeting Tom Willson he asked my pardon again,
which I easily did give him, telling him only that it was well I was
not a woman with child, for it might have made me miscarry. With Sir
J. Minnes to church, where an indifferent good sermon. Here I saw Mrs.
Becky Allen, who hath been married, and is this day churched, after her
bearing a child. She is grown tall, but looks very white and thin, and I
can find no occasion while I am here to come to have her company, which
I desire and expected in my coming, but only coming out of the church
I kissed her and her sister and mother-in-law. So to dinner, Sir J.
Minnes, Commissioner Pett, and I, &c., and after dinner walked in the
garden, it being a very fine day, the best we have had this great while,
if not this whole summer. To church again, and after that walked through
the Rope-ground to the Dock, and there over and over the Dock and
grounds about it, and storehouses, &c., with the officers of the Yard,
and then to Commissioner Pett’s and had a good sullybub and other good
things, and merry. Commissioner Pett showed me alone his bodys as a
secrett, which I found afterwards by discourse with Sir J. Minnes that
he had shown them him, wherein he seems to suppose great mystery in the
nature of Lynes to be hid, but I do not understand it at all. Thence
walked to the Hill-house, being myself much dissatisfied, and more than
I thought I should have been with Commissioner Pett, being, by what I
saw since I came hither, convinced that he is not able to exercise the
command in the Yard over the officers that he ought to do, or somebody
else, if ever the service be well looked after there. Sat up and with
Sir J. Minnes talking, and he speaking his mind in slighting of the
Commissioner, for which I wish there was not so much reason. For I do
see he is but a man of words, though indeed he is the ablest man that
we have to do service if he would or durst. Sir J. Minnes being gone
to bed, I took Mr. Whitfield, one of the clerks, and walked to the Dock
about eleven at night, and there got a boat and a crew, and rowed down
to the guard-ships, it being a most pleasant moonshine evening that ever
I saw almost. The guard-ships were very ready to hail us, being no doubt
commanded thereto by their Captain, who remembers how I surprised them
the last time I was here. However, I found him ashore, but the ship in
pretty good order, and the arms well fixed, charged, and primed. Thence
to the Soveraign, where I found no officers aboard, no arms fixed, nor
any powder to prime their few guns, which were charged, without bullet
though. So to the London, where neither officers nor any body awake; I
boarded her, and might have done what I would, and at last could find
but three little boys; and so spent the whole night in visiting all the
ships, in which I found, for the most part, neither an officer aboard,
nor any men so much as awake, which I was grieved to find, specially so
soon after a great Larum, as Commissioner Pett brought us word that he
[had] provided against, and put all in a posture of defence but a week
ago, all which I am resolved to represent to the Duke.
13th. So, it being high day, I put in to shore and to bed for two
hours just, and so up again, and with the Storekeeper and Clerk of the
Rope-yard up and down the Dock and Rope-house, and by and by mustered
the Yard, and instructed the Clerks of the Cheque in my new way of
Callbook, and that and other things done, to the Hill-house, and there
we eat something, and so by barge to Rochester, and there took coach
hired for our passage to London, and Mrs. Allen, the clerk of the
Rope-yard’s wife with us, desiring her passage, and it being a most
pleasant and warm day, we got by four o’clock home. In our way she
telling us in what condition Becky Allen is married against all
expectation a fellow that proves to be a coxcomb and worth little if
any thing at all, and yet are entered into a way of living above their
condition that will ruin them presently, for which, for the lady’s sake,
I am much troubled. Home I found all well there, and after dressing
myself, I walked to the Temple; and there, from my cozen Roger, hear
that the judges have this day brought in their answer to the Lords, That
the articles against my Lord Chancellor are not Treason; and to-morrow
they are to bring in their arguments to the House for the same. This day
also the King did send by my Lord Chamberlain to the Lords, to tell them
from him, that the most of the articles against my Lord Chancellor he
himself knows to be false. Thence by water to Whitehall, and so walked
to St. James’s, but missed Mr. Coventry. I met the Queen-Mother walking
in the Pell Mell, led by my Lord St. Alban’s. And finding many coaches
at the Gate, I found upon enquiry that the Duchess is brought to bed
of a boy; and hearing that the King and Queen are rode abroad with
the Ladies of Honour to the Park, and seeing a great crowd of gallants
staying here to see their return, I also staid walking up and down,
and among others spying a man like Mr. Pembleton (though I have little
reason to think it should be he, speaking and discoursing long with my
Lord D’Aubigne), yet how my blood did rise in my face, and I fell into a
sweat from my old jealousy and hate, which I pray God remove from me.
By and by the King and Queen, who looked in this dress (a white laced
waistcoat and a crimson short pettycoat, and her hair dressed ci la
negligence) mighty pretty; and the King rode hand in hand with her. Here
was also my Lady Castlemaine rode among the rest of the ladies; but the
King took, methought, no notice of her; nor when they ‘light did any
body press (as she seemed to expect, and staid for it) to take her
down, but was taken down by her own gentleman. She looked mighty out of
humour, and had a yellow plume in her hat (which all took notice of),
and yet is very handsome, but very melancholy: nor did any body speak
to her, or she so much as smile or speak to any body. I followed them
up into White Hall, and into the Queen’s presence, where all the ladies
walked, talking and fiddling with their hats and feathers, and changing
and trying one another’s by one another’s heads, and laughing. But it
was the finest sight to me, considering their great beautys and dress,
that ever I did see in all my life. But, above all, Mrs. Stewart in this
dress, with her hat cocked and a red plume, with her sweet eye, little
Roman nose, and excellent taille, is now the greatest beauty I ever
saw, I think, in my life; and, if ever woman can, do exceed my Lady
Castlemaine, at least in this dress nor do I wonder if the King
changes, which I verily believe is the reason of his coldness to my Lady
Castlemaine. Here late, with much ado I left to look upon them, and went
away, and by water, in a boat with other strange company, there being no
other to be had, and out of him into a sculler half to the bridge,
and so home and to Sir W. Batten, where I staid telling him and Sir J.
Minnes and Mrs. Turner, with great mirth, my being frighted at Chatham
by young Edgeborough, and so home to supper and to bed, before I sleep
fancying myself to sport with Mrs. Stewart with great pleasure.
14th. Up a little late, last night recovering my sleepiness for the
night before, which was lost, and so to my office to put papers and
things to right, and making up my journal from Wednesday last to this
day. All the morning at my office doing of business; at noon Mr. Hunt
came to me, and he and I to the Exchange, and a Coffee House, and drank
there, and thence to my house to dinner, whither my uncle Thomas came,
and he tells me that he is going down to Wisbech, there to try what he
can recover of my uncle Day’s estate, and seems to have good arguments
for what he do go about, in which I wish him good speed. I made him
almost foxed, the poor man having but a bad head, and not used I believe
nowadays to drink much wine. So after dinner, they being gone, I to my
office, and so home to bed. This day I hear the judges, according to
order yesterday, did bring into the Lords’ House their reasons of their
judgment in the business between my Lord Bristoll and the Chancellor;
and the Lords do concur with the Judges that the articles are not
treason, nor regularly brought into the House, and so voted that a
Committee should be chosen to examine them; but nothing to be done
therein till the next sitting of this Parliament (which is like to
be adjourned in a day or two), and in the mean time the two Lords to,
remain without prejudice done to either of them.
15th. Up and all the morning at the office, among other things with
Cooper the Purveyor, whose dullness in his proceeding in his work I was
vexed at, and find that though he understands it may be as much as other
men that profess skill in timber, yet I perceive that many things, they
do by rote, and very dully. Thence home to dinner, whither Captain Grove
came and dined with me, he going into the country to-day; among other
discourse he told me of discourse very much to my honour, both as to my
care and ability, happening at the Duke of Albemarle’s table the other
day, both from the Duke, and the Duchess themselves; and how I paid so
much a year to him whose place it was of right, and that Mr. Coventry
did report thus of me; which was greatly to my content, knowing how
against their minds I was brought into the Navy. Thence by water to
Westminster, and there spent a good deal of time walking in the Hall,
which is going to be repaired, and, God forgive me, had a mind to have
got Mrs. Lane abroad, or fallen in with any woman else (in that hot
humour). But it so happened she could not go out, nor I meet with any
body else, and so I walked homeward, and in my way did many and great
businesses of my own at the Temple among my lawyers and others to my
great content, thanking God that I did not fall into any company to
occasion spending time and money. To supper, and then to a little viall
and to bed, sporting in my fancy with the Queen.
16th. Up and dispatched things into the country and to my father’s, and
two keggs of Sturgeon and a dozen bottles of wine to Cambridge for my
cozen Roger Pepys, which I give him. By and by down by water on
several Deall ships, and stood upon a stage in one place seeing calkers
sheathing of a ship. Then at Wapping to my carver’s about my Viall head.
So home, and thence to my Viall maker’s in Bishops, gate Street; his
name is Wise, who is a pretty fellow at it. Thence to the Exchange, and
so home to dinner, and then to my office, where a full board, and busy
all the afternoon, and among other things made a great contract with Sir
W. Warren for 40,000 deals Swinsound, at L3 17s. od. per hundred. In
the morning before I went on the water I was at Thames Street about some
pitch, and there meeting Anthony Joyce, I took him and Mr. Stacy, the
Tarr merchant, to the tavern, where Stacy told me many old stories of my
Lady Batten’s former poor condition, and how her former husband broke,
and how she came to her state. At night, after office done, I went
to Sir W. Batten’s, where my Lady and I [had] some high words about
emptying our house of office, where I did tell her my mind, and at last
agreed that it should be done through my office, and so all well. So
home to bed.
17th. Up, and after doing some business at my office, Creed came to me,
and I took him to my viall maker’s, and there I heard the famous Mr.
Stefkins play admirably well, and yet I found it as it is always, I over
expected. I took him to the tavern and found him a temperate sober man,
at least he seems so to me. I commit the direction of my viall to him.
Thence to the Change, and so home, Creed and I to dinner, and after
dinner Sir W. Warren came to me, and he and I in my closet about his
last night’s contract, and from thence to discourse of measuring of
timber, wherein I made him see that I could understand the matter well,
and did both learn of and teach him something. Creed being gone through
my staying talking to him so long, I went alone by water down to
Redriffe, and so to sit and talk with Sir W. Pen, where I did speak very
plainly concerning my thoughts of Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Minnes. So
as it may cost me some trouble if he should tell them again, but he said
as much or more to me concerning them both, which I may remember if ever
it should come forth, and nothing but what is true and my real opinion
of them, that they neither do understand to this day Creed’s accounts,
nor do deserve to be employed in their places without better care, but
that the King had better give them greater salaries to stand still and
do nothing. Thence coming home I was saluted by Bagwell and his wife
(the woman I have a kindness for), and they would have me into their
little house, which I was willing enough to, and did salute his wife.
They had got wine for me, and I perceive live prettily, and I believe
the woman a virtuous modest woman. Her husband walked through to
Redriffe with me, telling me things that I asked of in the yard, and so
by water home, it being likely to rain again to-night, which God forbid.
To supper and to bed.
18th. Up and to my office, where all the morning, and Sir J. Minnes and
I did a little, and but a little business at the office. So I eat a
bit of victuals at home, and so abroad to several places, as my
bookseller’s, and then to Thomson the instrument maker’s to bespeak a
ruler for my pocket for timber, &c., which I believe he will do to my
mind. So to the Temple, Wardrobe, and lastly to Westminster Hall, where
I expected some bands made me by Mrs. Lane, and while she went to the
starchers for them, I staid at Mrs. Howlett’s, who with her husband were
abroad, and only their daughter (which I call my wife) was in the shop,
and I took occasion to buy a pair of gloves to talk to her, and I find
her a pretty spoken girl, and will prove a mighty handsome wench. I
could love her very well. By and by Mrs. Lane comes, and my bands not
being done she and I posted and met at the Crown in the Palace Yard,
where we eat a chicken I sent for, and drank, and were mighty merry,
and I had my full liberty of towzing her and doing what I would, but the
last thing of all.... Of which I am heartily ashamed, but I do resolve
never to do more so. But, Lord! to see what a mind she has to a husband,
and how she showed me her hands to tell her her fortune, and every
thing that she asked ended always whom and when she was to marry. And I
pleased her so well, saying as. I know she would have me, and then
she would say that she had been with all the artists in town, and they
always told her the same things, as that she should live long, and rich,
and have a good husband, but few children, and a great fit of sickness,
and 20 other things, which she says she has always been told by others.
Here I staid late before my bands were done, and then they came, and so
I by water to the Temple, and thence walked home, all in a sweat with my
tumbling of her and walking, and so a little supper and to bed, fearful
of having taken cold.
19th (Lord’s day). Lay very long in pleasant dreams till Church time,
and so up, and it being foul weather so that I cannot walk as I intended
to meet my Cozen Roger at Thomas Pepys’s house (whither he rode last
night), to Hatcham, I went to church, where a sober Doctor made a good
sermon. So home to dinner alone, and then to read a little, and so to
church again, where the Scot made an ordinary sermon, and so home to my
office, and there read over my vows and increased them by a vow against
all strong drink till November next of any sort or quantity, by which I
shall try how I can forbear it. God send it may not prejudice my health,
and then I care not. Then I fell to read over a silly play writ by a
person of honour (which is, I find, as much as to say a coxcomb), called
“Love a la Mode,”’ and that being ended, home, and played on my lute and
sung psalms till bedtime, then to prayers and to bed.
20th. Up and to my office, and then walked to Woolwich, reading Bacon’s
“Faber fortunae,”
[Pepys may here refer either to Essay XLI. (of Fortune) or to a
chapter’ in the “Advancement of Learning.” The sentence, “Faber
quisque fortunae propria,” said to be by Appius Claudian, is quoted
more than once in the “De Augmentis Scientiarum,” lib. viii., cap.
2.]
which the oftener I read the more I admire. There found Captain Cocke,
and up and down to many places to look after matters, and so walked back
again with him to his house, and there dined very finely. With much ado
obtained an excuse from drinking of wine, and did only taste a drop of
Sack which he had for his lady, who is, he fears, a little consumptive,
and her beauty begins to want its colour. It was Malago Sack, which, he
says, is certainly 30 years old, and I tasted a drop of it, and it was
excellent wine, like a spirit rather than wine. Thence by water to the
office, and taking some papers by water to White Hall and St. James’s,
but there being no meeting with the Duke to-day, I returned by water and
down to Greenwich, to look after some blocks that I saw a load carried
off by a cart from Woolwich, the King’s Yard. But I could not find them,
and so returned, and being heartily weary I made haste to bed, and being
in bed made Will read and construe three or four Latin verses in the
Bible, and chide him for forgetting his grammar. So to sleep, and sleep
ill all the night, being so weary, and feverish with it.
21st. And so lay long in the morning, till I heard people knock at my
door, and I took it to be about 8 o’clock (but afterwards found myself
a little mistaken), and so I rose and ranted at Will and the maid, and
swore I could find my heart to kick them down stairs, which the maid
mumbled at mightily. It was my brother, who staid and talked with me,
his chief business being about his going about to build his house new at
the top, which will be a great charge for him, and above his judgment.
By and by comes Mr. Deane, of Woolwich, with his draught of a ship, and
the bend and main lines in the body of a ship very finely, and which do
please me mightily, and so am resolved to study hard, and learn of him
to understand a body, and I find him a very pretty fellow in it, and
rational, but a little conceited, but that’s no matter to me. At noon,
by my Lady Batten’s desire, I went over the water to Mr. Castle’s, who
brings his wife home to his own house to-day, where I found a great many
good old women, and my Lady, Sir W. Batten, and Sir J. Minnes. A good,
handsome, plain dinner, and then walked in the garden; which is pleasant
enough, more than I expected there, and so Sir J. Minnes, Sir W. Batten,
and I by water to the office, and there sat, and then I by water to the
Temple about my law business, and back again home and wrote letters to
my father and wife about my desire that they should observe the feast
at Brampton, and have my Lady and the family, and so home to supper
and bed, my head aching all the day from my last night’s bad rest, and
yesterday’s distempering myself with over walking, and to-day knocking
my head against a low door in Mr. Castle’s house. This day the
Parliament kept a fast for the present unseasonable weather.
22nd. Up, and by and by comes my uncle Thomas, to whom I paid L10 for
his last half year’s annuity, and did get his and his son’s hand and
seal for the confirming to us Piggott’s mortgage, which was forgot to be
expressed in our late agreement with him, though intended, and therefore
they might have cavilled at it, if they would. Thence abroad calling
at several places upon some errands, among others to my brother Tom’s
barber and had my hair cut, while his boy played on the viallin, a plain
boy, but has a very good genius, and understands the book very well, but
to see what a shift he made for a string of red silk was very pleasant.
Thence to my Lord Crew’s. My Lord not being come home, I met and staid
below with Captain Ferrers, who was come to wait upon my Lady Jemimah to
St. James’s, she being one of the four ladies that hold up the mantle at
the christening this afternoon of the Duke’s child (a boy). In
discourse of the ladies at Court, Captain Ferrers tells me that my Lady
Castlemaine is now as great again as ever she was; and that her going
away was only a fit of her own upon some slighting words of the King,
so that she called for her coach at a quarter of an hour’s warning, and
went to Richmond; and the King the next morning, under pretence of going
a-hunting, went to see her and make friends, and never was a-hunting at
all. After which she came back to Court, and commands the King as much
as ever, and hath and doth what she will. No longer ago than last night,
there was a private entertainment made for the King and Queen at the
Duke of Buckingham’s, and she: was not invited: but being at my Lady
Suffolk’s, her aunt’s (where my Lady Jemimah and Lord Sandwich dined)
yesterday, she was heard to say, “Well; much good may it do them, and
for all that I will be as merry as they:” and so she went home and
caused a great supper to be prepared. And after the King had been with
the Queen at Wallingford House, he came to my Lady Castlemaine’s, and
was there all night, and my Lord Sandwich with him, which was the reason
my Lord lay in town all night, which he has not done a great while
before. He tells me he believes that, as soon as the King can get a
husband for Mrs. Stewart however, my Lady Castlemaine’s nose will be out
of joynt; for that she comes to be in great esteem, and is more handsome
than she. I found by his words that my Lord Sandwich finds some pleasure
in the country where he now is, whether he means one of the daughters of
the house or no I know not, but hope the contrary, that he thinks he is
very well pleased with staying there, but yet upon breaking up of the
Parliament, which the King by a message to-day says shall be on Monday
next, he resolves to go. Ned Pickering, the coxcomb, notwithstanding all
his hopes of my Lord’s assistance, wherein I am sorry to hear my Lord
has much concerned himself, is defeated of the place he expected under
the Queen. He came hither by and by and brought some jewells for my Lady
Jem. to put on, with which and her other clothes she looks passing well.
I staid and dined with my Lord Crew, who whether he was not so well
pleased with me as he used to be, or that his head was full of business,
as I believe it was, he hardly spoke one word to me all dinner time,
we dining alone, only young Jack Crew, Sir Thomas’s son, with us. After
dinner I bade him farewell. Sir Thomas I hear has gone this morning ill
to bed, so I had no mind to see him. Thence homewards, and in the way
first called at Wotton’s, the shoemaker’s, who tells me the reason of
Harris’s’ going from Sir Wm. Davenant’s house, that he grew very proud
and demanded L20 for himself extraordinary, more than Betterton or any
body else, upon every new play, and L10 upon every revive; which with
other things Sir W. Davenant would not give him, and so he swore he
would never act there more, in expectation of being received in the
other House; but the King will not suffer it, upon Sir W. Davenant’s
desire that he would not, for then he might shut up house, and that
is true. He tells me that his going is at present a great loss to
the House, and that he fears he hath a stipend from the other House
privately. He tells the that the fellow grew very proud of late,
the King and every body else crying him up so high, and that above
Betterton, he being a more ayery man, as he is indeed. But yet
Betterton, he says, they all say do act: some parts that none but
himself can do. Thence to my bookseller’s, and found my Waggoners done.
The very binding cost me 14s., but they are well done, and so with a
porter home with them, and so by water to Ratcliffe, and there went
to speak with Cumberford the platt-maker, and there saw his manner of
working, which is very fine and laborious. So down to Deptford, reading
Ben Jonson’s “Devil is an asse,” and so to see Sir W. Pen, who I find
walking out of doors a little, but could not stand long; but in doors
and I with him, and staid a great while talking, I taking a liberty to
tell him my thoughts in things of the office; that when he comes abroad
again, he may know what to think of me, and to value me as he ought.
Walked home as I used to do, and being weary, and after some discourse
with Mr. Barrow, who came to see and take his leave of me, he being
to-morrow to set out toward the Isle of Man, I went to bed. This day
I hear that the Moores have made some attaques upon the outworks of
Tangier; but my Lord Tiviott; with the loss of about 200 men, did beat
them off, and killed many of them. To-morrow the King and Queen for
certain go down to Tunbridge. But the King comes hack again against
Monday to raise the Parliament.
23rd. Up and to my office, and thence by information from, Mr. Ackworth
I went down to Woolwich, and mustered the three East India ships that
lie there, believing that there is great-juggling between the Pursers
and Clerks of the Cheque in cheating the King of the wages and victuals
of men that do not give attendance, and I found very few on board. So
to the yard, and there mustered the yard, and found many faults, and
discharged several fellows that were absent from their business. I staid
also at Mr. Ackworth’s desire at dinner with him and his wife, and there
was a simple fellow, a gentleman I believe of the Court, their kinsmen,
that threatened me I could have little discourse or begin, acquaintance
with Ackworth’s wife, and so after dinner away, with all haste home, and
there found Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten at the office, and by Sir
W. Batten’s testimony and Sir G. Carteret’s concurrence was forced to
consent to a business of Captain Cocke’s timber, as bad as anything we
have lately disputed about, and all through Mr. Coventry’s not being
with us. So up and to supper with Sir W. Batten upon a soused mullett,
very good meat, and so home and to bed.
24th. Up pretty early (though of late I have been faulty by an hour or
two every morning of what I should do) and by water to the Temple, and
there took leave of my cozen Roger Pepys, who goes out of town to-day.
So to Westminster Hall, and there at Mrs. Michell’s shop sent for beer
and sugar and drink, and made great cheer with it among her and Mrs.
Howlett, her neighbour, and their daughters, especially Mrs. Howlett’s
daughter, Betty, which is a pretty girl, and one I have long called
wife, being, I formerly thought, like my own wife. After this good
neighbourhood, which I do to give them occasion of speaking well and
commending me in some company that now and then I know comes to their
shop, I went to the Six clerks’ office, and there had a writ for Tom
Trice, and paid 20s. for it to Wilkinson, and so up and down to many
places, among others to the viall maker’s, and there saw the head, which
now pleases me mightily, and so home, and being sent for presently to
Mr. Bland’s, where Mr. Povy and Gauden and I were invited to dinner,
which we had very finely and great plenty, but for drink, though many
and good, I drank nothing but small beer and water, which I drank so
much that I wish it may not do me hurt. They had a kinswoman, they call
daughter, in the house, a short, ugly, red-haired slut, that plays upon
the virginalls, and sings, but after such a country manner I was weary
of it, but yet could not but commend it. So by and by after dinner comes
Monsr. Gotier, who is beginning to teach her, but, Lord! what a droll
fellow it is to make her hold open her mouth, and telling this and that
so drolly would make a man burst, but himself I perceive sings very
well. Anon we sat dawn again to a collacon of cheesecakes, tarts,
custards, and such like, very handsome, and so up and away home, where
I at the office a while, till disturbed by, Mr. Hill, of Cambridge,
with whom I walked in the garden a while, and thence home and then in
my dining room walked, talking of several matters of state till 11 at
night, giving him a glass of wine. I was not unwilling to hear him talk,
though he is full of words, yet a man of large conversation, especially
among the Presbyters and Independents; he tells me that certainly, let
the Bishops alone, and they will ruin themselves, and he is confident
that the King’s declaration about two years since will be the foundation
of the settlement of the Church some time or other, for the King will
find it hard to banish all those that will appear Nonconformists upon
this Act that is coming out against them. He being gone, I to bed.
25th. Up and to my office setting papers in order for these two or three
days, in which I have been hindered a little, and then having intended
this day to go to Banstead Downs to see a famous race, I sent Will to
get himself ready to go with me, and I also by and by home and put on my
riding suit, and being ready came to the office to Sir J. Minnes and Sir
W. Batten, and did a little of course at the office this morning, and
so by boat to White Hall, where I hear that the race is put off, because
the Lords do sit in Parliament to-day. However, having appointed Mr.
Creed to come to me to Fox Hall, I went over thither, and after some
debate, Creed and I resolved to go to Clapham, to Mr. Gauden’s, who had
sent his coach to their place for me because I was to have my horse of
him to go to the race. So I went thither by coach and my Will by horse
with me; Mr. Creed he went over back again to Westminster to fetch his
horse. When I came to Mr. Gauden’s one first thing was to show me his
house, which is almost built, wherein he and his family live. I find it
very regular and finely contrived, and the gardens and offices about it
as convenient and as full of good variety as ever I saw in my life. It
is true he hath been censured for laying out so much money; but he tells
me that he built it for his brother, who is since dead (the Bishop), who
when he should come to be Bishop of Winchester, which he was promised
(to which bishoprick at present there is no house), he did intend to
dwell here. Besides, with the good husbandry in making his bricks and
other things I do not think it costs him so much money as people think
and discourse. By and by to dinner, and in comes Mr. Creed. I saluted
Mr. Gauden’s lady, and the young ladies, he having many pretty children,
and his sister, the Bishop’s widow; who was, it seems, Sir W. Russel’s
daughter, the Treasurer of the Navy; who by her discourse at dinner I
find to be very well-bred, and a woman of excellent discourse, even so
much as to have my attention all dinner with much more pleasure than I
did give to Mr. Creed, whose discourse was mighty merry in inveighing
at Mr. Gauden’s victuals that they had at sea the last voyage that he
prosecuted, till methought the woman began to take it seriously. After
dinner by Mr. Gauden’s motion we got Mrs. Gauden and her sister to sing
to a viall, on which Mr. Gauden’s eldest son (a pretty man, but a simple
one methinks) played but very poorly, and the musique bad, but yet I
commended it. Only I do find that the ladies have been taught to sing
and do sing well now, but that the viall puts them out. I took the viall
and played some things from one of their books, Lyra lessons, which
they seemed to like well. Thus we pass an hour or two after dinner and
towards the evening we bade them Adieu! and took horse; being resolved
that, instead of the race which fails us, we would go to Epsum. So we
set out, and being gone a little way I sent home Will to look to the
house, and Creed and I rode forward; the road being full of citizens
going and coming toward Epsum, where, when we came, we could hear of no
lodging, the town so full; but which was better, I went towards Ashted,
my old place of pleasure; and there by direction of one goodman Arthur,
whom we met on the way, we went to Farmer Page’s, at which direction he
and I made good sport, and there we got a lodging in a little hole we
could not stand upright in, but rather than go further to look we staid
there, and while supper was getting ready I took him to walk up and down
behind my cozen Pepys’s house that was, which I find comes little short
of what I took it to be when I was a little boy, as things use commonly
to appear greater than then when one comes to be a man and knows more,
and so up and down in the closes, which I know so well methinks, and
account it good fortune that I lie here that I may have opportunity to
renew my old walks. It seems there is one Mr. Rouse, they call him the
Queen’s Tailor, that lives there now. So to our lodging to supper, and
among other meats had a brave dish of cream, the best I ever eat in my
life, and with which we pleased ourselves much, and by and by to bed,
where, with much ado yet good sport, we made shift to lie, but with
little ease, and a little spaniel by us, which has followed us all the
way, a pretty dogg, and we believe that follows my horse, and do belong
to Mrs. Gauden, which we, therefore, are very careful of.
26th (Lord’s-day). Up and to the Wells,
[Epsom medicinal wells were discovered about 1618, but they did not
become fashionable until the Restoration. John Toland, in his
“Description of Epsom,” says that he often counted seventy coaches in
the Ring (the present racecourse on the Downs) on a Sunday evening;
but by the end of the eighteenth century Epsom had entirely lost its
vogue.]
where great store of citizens, which was the greatest part of the
company, though there were some others of better quality. I met many
that I knew, and we drank each of us two pots and so walked away, it
being very pleasant to see how everybody turns up his tail, here one
and there another, in a bush, and the women in their quarters the like.
Thence I walked with Creed to Mr. Minnes’s house, which has now a very
good way made to it, and thence to Durdans and walked round it and
within the Court Yard and to the Bowling-green, where I have seen so
much mirth in my time; but now no family in it (my Lord Barkeley, whose
it is, being with his family at London), and so up and down by Minnes’s
wood, with great pleasure viewing my old walks, and where Mrs. Hely and
I did use to walk and talk, with whom I had the first sentiments of love
and pleasure in woman’s company, discourse, and taking her by the hand,
she being a pretty woman. So I led him to Ashted Church (by the place
where Peter, my cozen’s man, went blindfold and found a certain place
we chose for him upon a wager), where we had a dull Doctor, one Downe,
worse than I think even parson King was, of whom we made so much scorn,
and after sermon home, and staid while our dinner, a couple of large
chickens, were dressed, and a good mess of cream, which anon we had with
good content, and after dinner (we taking no notice of other lodgers in
the house, though there was one that I knew, and knew and spoke to
me, one Mr. Rider, a merchant), he and I to walk, and I led him to the
pretty little wood behind my cozens house, into which we got at last by
clambering, and our little dog with us, but when we were among the hazel
trees and bushes, Lord! what a course did we run for an hour together,
losing ourselves, and indeed I despaired I should ever come to any path,
but still from thicket to thicket, a thing I could hardly have believed
a man could have been lost so long in so small a room. At last I found
out a delicate walk in the middle that goes quite through the wood, and
then went out of the wood, and holloed Mr. Creed, and made him hunt me
from place to place, and at last went in and called him into my fine
walk, the little dog still hunting with us through the wood. In this
walk being all bewildered and weary and sweating, Creed he lay down upon
the ground, which I did a little, but I durst not long, but walked from
him in the fine green walk, which is half a mile long, there reading
my vows as I used to on Sundays. And after that was done, and going and
lying by Creed an hour, he and I rose and went to our lodging and paid
our reckoning, and so mounted, whether to go toward London home or to
find a new lodging, and so rode through Epsum, the whole town over,
seeing the various companys that were there walking; which was very
pleasant to see how they are there without knowing almost what to do,
but only in the morning to drink waters. But, Lord! to see how many I
met there of citizens, that I could not have thought to have seen
there, or that they had ever had it in their heads or purses to go down
thither. We rode out of the town through Yowell beyond Nonesuch House a
mile, and there our little dogg, as he used to do, fell a-running after
a flock of sheep feeding on the common, till he was out of sight, and
then endeavoured to come back again, and went to the last gate that he
parted with us at, and there the poor thing mistakes our scent, instead
of coming forward he hunts us backward, and runs as hard as he could
drive back towards Nonesuch, Creed and I after him, and being by many
told of his going that way and the haste he made, we rode still and
passed him through Yowell, and there we lost any further information of
him. However, we went as far as Epsum almost, hearing nothing of him,
we went back to Yowell, and there was told that he did pass through
the town. We rode back to Nonesuch to see whether he might be gone back
again, but hearing nothing we with great trouble and discontent for the
loss of our dogg came back once more to Yowell, and there set up our
horses and selves for all night, employing people to look for the dogg
in the town, but can hear nothing of him. However, we gave order for
supper, and while that was dressing walked out through Nonesuch Park
to the house, and there viewed as much as we could of the outside, and
looked through the great gates, and found a noble court; and altogether
believe it to have been a very noble house, and a delicate park about
it, where just now there was a doe killed, for the King to carry up to
Court. So walked back again, and by and by our supper being ready, a
good leg of mutton boiled, we supped and to bed, upon two beds in the
same room, wherein we slept most excellently all night.
27th. Up in the morning about 7 o’clock, and after a little study,
resolved of riding to the Wells to look for our dogg, which we did, but
could hear nothing; but it being much a warmer day than yesterday
there was great store of gallant company, more than then, to my greater
pleasure. There was at a distance, under one of the trees on the common,
a company got together that sung. I, at the distance, and so all the
rest being a quarter of a mile off, took them for the Waytes, so I rode
up to them, and found them only voices, some citizens met by chance,
that sung four or five parts excellently. I have not been more pleased
with a snapp of musique, considering the circumstances of the time and
place, in all my life anything so pleasant. We drank each of us, three
cupps, and so, after riding up to the horsemen upon the hill, where
they were making of matches to run, we went away and to Yowell, where we
found our breakfast, the remains of our supper last night hashed, and
by and by, after the smith had set on two new shoes to Creed’s horse, we
mounted, and with little discourse, I being intent upon getting home in
time, we rode hard home, observing Mr. Gauden’s house, but not calling
there (it being too late for me to stay, and wanting their dog too). The
house stands very finely, and has a graceful view to the highway. Set
up our horses at Fox Hall, and I by water (observing the King’s barge
attending his going to the House this day) home, it being about one
o’clock. So got myself ready and shifting myself, and so by water to
Westminster, and there came most luckily to the Lords’ House as the
House of Commons were going into the Lord’s House, and there I crowded
in along with the Speaker, and got to stand close behind him, where he
made his speech to the King (who sat with his crown on and robes, and so
all the Lords in their robes, a fine sight); wherein he told his Majesty
what they have done this Parliament, and now offered for his royall
consent. The greatest matters were a bill for the Lord’s day (which it
seems the Lords have lost, and so cannot be passed, at which the Commons
are displeased); the bills against Conventicles and Papists (but it
seems the Lords have not passed them), and giving his Majesty four
entire subsidys; which last, with about twenty smaller Acts, were passed
with this form: The Clerk of the House reads the title of the bill, and
then looks at the end and there finds (writ by the King I suppose) “Le
Roy le veult,” and that he reads. And to others he reads, “Soit fait
comme vous desirez.” And to the Subsidys, as well that for the
Commons, I mean the layety, as for the Clergy, the King writes, “Le Roy
remerciant les Seigneurs, &c., Prelats, &c., accepte leur benevolences.”
The Speaker’s speech was far from any oratory, but was as plain (though
good matter) as any thing could be, and void of elocution. After the
bills passed, the King, sitting on his throne, with his speech writ in a
paper which he held in his lap, and scarce looked off of it, I thought,
all the time he made his speech to them, giving them thanks for their
subsidys, of which, had he not need, he would not have asked or received
them; and that need, not from any extravagancys of his, he was sure,
in any thing, but the disorders of the times compelling him to be at
greater charge than he hoped for the future, by their care in their
country, he should be: and that for his family expenses and others, he
would labour however to retrench in many things convenient, and would
have all others to do so too. He desired that nothing of old faults
should be remembered, or severity for the same used to any in the
country, it being his desire to have all forgot as well as forgiven.
But, however, to use all care in suppressing any tumults, &c.; assuring
them that the restless spirits of his and their adversaries have great
expectations of something to be done this summer. And promised that
though the Acts about Conventicles and Papists were not ripe for passing
this Session, yet he would take care himself that neither of them should
in this intervall be encouraged to the endangering of the peace; and
that at their next meeting he would himself prepare two bills for them
concerning them. So he concluded, that for the better proceeding of
justice he did think fit to make this a Session, and to prorogue them
to the 16th of March next. His speech was very plain, nothing at all
of spirit in it, nor spoke with any; but rather on the contrary
imperfectly, repeating many times his words though he read all which I
was sorry to see, it having not been hard for him to have got all the
speech without book. So they all went away, the King out of the House at
the upper end, he being by and by to go to Tunbridge to the Queen; and I
in the Painted Chamber spoke with my Lord Sandwich while he was putting
off his robes, who tells me he will now hasten down into the country,
as soon as he can get some money settled on the Wardrobe. Here meeting
Creed, he and I down to the Hall, and I having at Michell’s shop wrote
a little letter to Mr. Gauden, to go with his horse, and excusing my not
taking leave or so much as asking after the old lady the widow when we
came away the other day from them, he and I over the water to Fox Hall,
and there sent away the horse with my letter, and then to the new Spring
Garden, walking up and down, but things being dear and little attendance
to be had we went away, leaving much brave company there, and so to a
less house hard by, where we liked very well their Codlin tarts, having
not time, as we intended, to stay the getting ready of a dish of pease.
And there came to us an idle boy to show us some tumbling tricks, which
he did very well, and the greatest bending of his body that ever I
observed in my life. Thence by water to White Hall, and walked over the
Park to St. James’s; but missed Mr. Coventry, he not being within; and
so out again, and there the Duke was coming along the Pell-Mell. It
being a little darkish, I staid not to take notice of him, but we went
directly back again. And in our walk over the Park, one of the Duke’s
footmen came running behind us, and came looking just in our faces to
see who we were, and went back again. What his meaning is I know not,
but was fearful that I might not go far enough with my hat off, though
methinks that should not be it, besides, there were others covered
nearer than myself was, but only it was my fear. So to White Hall and by
water to the Bridge, and so home to bed, weary and well pleased with my
journey in all respects. Only it cost me about 20s., but it was for my
health, and I hope will prove so, only I do find by my riding a little
swelling to rise just by my anus. I had the same the last time I rode,
and then it fell again, and now it is up again about the bigness of the
bag of a silkworm, makes me fearful of a rupture. But I will speak to
Mr. Hollyard about it, and I am glad to find it now, that I may prevent
it before it goes too far.
28th. Up after sleeping very well, and so to my office setting down the
Journall of this last three days, and so settled to business again, I
hope with greater cheerfulness and success by this refreshment. At the
office all the morning, and at noon to Wise’s about my viall that is
a-doing, and so home to dinner and then to the office, where we sat all
the afternoon till night, and I late at it till after the office was
risen. Late came my Jane and her brother Will: to entreat for my taking
of the boy again, but I will not hear her, though I would yet be glad to
do anything for her sake to the boy, but receive him again I will not,
nor give him anything. She would have me send him to sea; which if I
could I would do, but there is no ship going out. The poor girl cried
all the time she was with me, and would not go from me, staying about
two hours with me till 10 or 11 o’clock, expecting that she might obtain
something of me, but receive him I will not. So the poor girl was fain
to go away crying and saying little. So from thence home, where my
house of office was emptying, and I find they will do, it with much more
cleanness than I expected. I went up and down among them a good while,
but knowing that Mr. Coventry was to call me in the morning, I went to
bed and left them to look after the people. So to bed.
29th. Up about 6 o’clock, and found the people to have just done,
and Hannah not gone to bed yet, but was making clean of the yard and
kitchen. Will newly gone to bed. So I to my office, and having given
some order to Tom Hater, to whom I gave leave for his recreation to go
down to Portsmouth this Pay, I went down to Wapping to Sir W. Warren,
and there staid an hour or two discoursing of some of his goods and then
things in general relating to this office, &c., and so home, and there
going to Sir William Batten (having no stomach to dine at home, it being
yet hardly clean of last night’s [mess])and there I dined with my Lady
and her daughter and son Castle, and mighty kind she is and I kind to
her, but, Lord! how freely and plainly she rails against Commissioner
Pett, calling him rogue, and wondering that the King keeps such a fellow
in the Navy. Thence by and by walked to see Sir W. Pen at Deptford,
reading by the way a most ridiculous play, a new one, called “The
Politician Cheated.” After a little sitting with him I walked to the
yard a little and so home again, my Will with me, whom I bade to stay in
the yard for me, and so to bed. This morning my brother Tom was with me,
and we had some discourse again concerning his country mistress, but I
believe the most that is fit for us to condescend to, will not content
her friends.
30th. Up and to the office to get business ready for our sitting, this
being the first day of altering it from afternoon during the Parliament
sitting to the fore-noon again. By and by Mr. Coventry only came (Sir
John Minnes and Sir William Batten being gone this morning to Portsmouth
to pay some ships and the yard there), and after doing a little business
he and I down to Woolwich, and there up and down the yard, and by and by
came Sir G. Carteret and we all looked into matters, and then by water
back to Deptford, where we dined with him at his house, a very good
dinner and mightily tempted with wines of all sorts and brave French
Syder, but I drunk none. But that which is a great wonder I find his
little daughter Betty, that was in hanging sleeves but a month or two
ago, and is a very little young child; married, and to whom, but to
young Scott, son to Madam Catharine Scott, that was so long in law,
and at whose triall I was with her husband; he pleading that it was
unlawfully got and would not own it, she, it seems, being brought to
bed of it, if not got by somebody else at Oxford, but it seems a little
before his death he did own the child, and hath left him his estate, not
long since. So Sir G. Carteret hath struck up of a sudden a match with
him for his little daughter. He hath about L2000 per annum; and it seems
Sir G. Carteret hath by this means over-reached Sir H. Bennet, who did
endeavour to get this gentleman for a sister of his, but Sir G. Carteret
I say has over-reached him. By this means Sir G. Carteret hath married
two daughters this year both very well. After dinner into Deptford yard,
but our bellies being full we could do no great business, and so parted,
and Mr. Coventry and I to White Hall by water, where we also parted, and
I to several places about business, and so calling for my five books of
the Variorum print bound according to my common binding instead of the
other which is more gaudy I went home. The town talk this day is of
nothing but the great foot-race run this day on Banstead Downes, between
Lee, the Duke of Richmond’s footman, and a tyler, a famous runner. And
Lee hath beat him; though the King and Duke of York and all men almost
did bet three or four to one upon the tyler’s head.
31st. Up early to my accounts this month, and I find myself worth clear
L730, the most I ever had yet, which contents me though I encrease but
very little. Thence to my office doing business, and at noon to my
viall maker’s, who has begun it and has a good appearance, and so to the
Exchange, where I met Dr. Pierce, who tells me of his good luck to
get to be groom of the Privy-Chamber to the Queen, and without my Lord
Sandwich’s help; but only by his good fortune, meeting a man that hath
let him have his right for a small matter, about L60, for which he can
every day have L400. But he tells me my Lord hath lost much honour in
standing so long and so much for that coxcomb Pickering, and at last not
carrying it for him; but hath his name struck out by the King and Queen
themselves after he had been in ever since the Queen’s coming. But he
tells me he believes that either Sir H. Bennet, my Lady Castlemaine, or
Sir Charles Barkeley had received some money for the place, and so the
King could not disappoint them, but was forced to put out this fool
rather than a better man. And I am sorry to hear what he tells me that
Sir Charles Barkeley hath still such power over the King, as to be
able to fetch him from the Council-table to my Lady Castlemaine when he
pleases. He tells me also, as a friend, the great injury that he
thinks I do myself by being so severe in the Yards, and contracting the
ill-will of the whole Navy for those offices, singly upon myself. Now I
discharge a good conscience therein, and I tell him that no man can (nor
do he say any say it) charge me with doing wrong; but rather do as many
good offices as any man. They think, he says, that I have a mind to get
a good name with the King and Duke, who he tells me do not consider any
such thing; but I shall have as good thanks to let all alone, and do as
the rest. But I believe the contrary; and yet I told him I never go to
the Duke alone, as others do, to talk of my own services. However, I
will make use of his council, and take some course to prevent having the
single ill-will of the office. Before I went to the office I went to
the Coffee House, where Sir J. Cutler and Mr. Grant were, and there Mr.
Grant showed me letters of Sir William Petty’s, wherein he says, that
his vessel which he hath built upon two keeles (a modell whereof,
built for the King, he showed me) hath this month won a wager of L50
in sailing between Dublin and Holyhead with the pacquett-boat, the best
ship or vessel the King hath there; and he offers to lay with any vessel
in the world. It is about thirty ton in burden, and carries thirty men,
with good accommodation, (as much more as any ship of her burden,)
and so any vessel of this figure shall carry more men, with better
accommodation by half, than any other ship. This carries also ten guns,
of about five tons weight. In their coming back from Holyhead they
started together, and this vessel came to Dublin by five at night, and
the pacquett-boat not before eight the next morning; and when they came
they did believe that, this vessel had been drowned, or at least behind,
not thinking she could have lived in that sea. Strange things are told
of this vessel, and he concludes his letter with this position, “I only
affirm that the perfection of sayling lies in my principle, finde it
out who can.” Thence home, in my way meeting Mr. Rawlinson, who tells me
that my uncle Wight is off of his Hampshire purchase and likes less of
the Wights, and would have me to be kind and study to please him, which
I am resolved to do. Being at home he sent for me to dinner to meet Mr.
Moore, so I went thither and dined well, but it was strange for me to
refuse, and yet I did without any reluctancy to drink wine in a tavern,
where nothing else almost was drunk, and that excellent good. Thence
with Mr. Moore to the Wardrobe, and there sat while my Lord was private
with Mr. Townsend about his accounts an hour or two, we reading of a
merry book against the Presbyters called Cabbala, extraordinary witty.
Thence walked home and to my office, setting papers of all sorts and
writing letters and putting myself into a condition to go to Chatham
with Mr. Coventry to-morrow. So, at almost 12 o’clock, and my eyes tired
with seeing to write, I went home and to bed. Ending the month with
pretty good content of mind, my wife in the country and myself in good
esteem, and likely by pains to become considerable, I think, with God’s
blessing upon my diligence.