1669] he takes no care for anything more than in the Treasury; and that, that being done, he goes to cards and other delights, as plays, and in the summer-time to bowls. But here he did show me two or three old books of the Navy, of my Lord Northumberland's times, which he hath taken many good notes out of, for justifying the Duke of York and us in many things, wherein, perhaps, precedents will be necessary to produce. Thence to Whitehall, where the Duke of York expected me; and in his He did tell me how closet Wren and I. the King hath been acquainted with the Treasurers' 2 discourse at the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury the other day, and is dissatisfied with our running him in debt, which I removed; and he did carry me to the King, and I did satisfy him also; but his satisfaction is nothing worth, it being easily got, and easily removed; but I do purpose to put in writing that which shall make the Treasurers ashamed. But the Duke of York is horrid angry against them; and he hath cause, for they do work all they can to bring dishonour upon his management, as do plainly appear in all they do. Having done with the Duke of York, who do repose all in me, I with Mr. Wren to his chamber, to talk; where he observed that these people are all of them a broken sort of people that have not much to lose, and therefore will venture all to make their fortunes better; that Sir Thomas Osborne is a beggar, having £1100 or £1200 a-year, but owes above 10,000. The Duke of Buckingham's condition is shortly this, that he hath about £19,600 a-year, of which he pays away about £7000 a-year in interest; about £2000 in fee-farm rents to the King, about £6000 in wages and pensions, and the rest to live upon, Wren says, and pay taxes for the whole. that for the Duke of York to stir in this matter, as his quality might justify, would but make all things worse, and that therefore he must bend, and suffer all, till time works it out; that he fears they will sacrifice the Church, and that the King will take anything, and so he will hold up his head a little longer, and then break in pieces. But Sir W. Coventry did to-day mightily 1 Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumber land, appointed Lord High Admiral in 1638. 2 Of the Navy. P. 730. See magnify my late Lord Treasurer,1 for a wise and solid, though infirm man; and, among other things, that when he hath said it was impossible in nature to find this or that sum of money, and my Lord Chancellor 2 hath made sport of it, and told the King that when my Lord hath said it was impossible, yet he hath made shift to find it, and that was by Sir G. Carteret's getting credit, my Lord did once in his hearing say thus, which he magnifies as a great saying-that impossible would be found impossible at last; meaning that the King would run himself out, beyond all his credit and funds, and then we should too late find it impossible; which is, he says, now come to pass. 15th. Up, and with Tom to Whitehall; and there at a Committee of Tangier, where a great instance of what a man may lose by the neglect of a friend: Povy never had such an opportunity of passing his accounts, the Duke of York being there, and everybody well disposed, and in expectation of them; but my Lord Ashly, on whom he relied, and for whose sake this day was pitched on, that he might be sure to be there, among the rest of his friends, stayed too long, till the Duke of York and his company thought unfit to stay longer; and so the day lost, and God knows when he will have so good a one again, as long as he lives; and this was the man of the whole company that he hath made the most interest to gain, and now most depended upon him. To the plasterer's, and there saw the figure of my face taken from the mould; and it is most admirably like, and I will have another made, before I take it away. To my cousin Turner's, where, having the last night been told by her that she had drawn me for her Valentine, I did this day call at the New Exchange, and bought her a pair of green silk stockings and garters and shoe-strings, and two pair of jessimy gloves,* all coming to about 28s., and did give them At the 'Change, I did to her this noon. at my bookseller's shop accidentally fall 2 Clarendon. 1 Southampton. 3 3 Pepys was perhaps induced to make this purchase for his cousin, in accordance with the taste of the Duke of York, who, in allusion to Lady Chesterfield's wearing green stockings, remarked, (Mémoires de says Hamilton-qu'il n'y avoit point de salut 4 See p. 433. pour une jambe sans bas verds.' Grammont.) [B.] into talk with Sir Samuel Tuke1 about trees, and Mr. Evelyn's garden; and I do find him, I think, a little conceited, but a man of very fine discourse as any I ever heard almost, which I was mighty glad of. After dinner my wife and I endeavoured to make a visit to Ned Pickering; but he not at home, nor his lady; and therefore back again, and took up my cousin Turner, and to my cousin Roger's lodgings, and there nd him pretty well again, and his wife mighty kind and merry, and did make mighty much of us, and I believe he is married to a very good woman. Here was also Bab. and Betty, who have not their clothes yet, and therefore cannot go out, otherwise I would have had them abroad to-morrow; but the poor girls mighty kind to us, and we must show them kindness also. In Suffolk Street lives Moll Davis; and we did see her coach come for her to her door, a mighty pretty fine coach. To Whitehall; and there, by means of Mr. Cooling, did get into the play, the only one we have seen this winter; it was The Five Hours'. Adventure; but I sat so far I could not hear well, nor was there any pretty woman that I did see, but my wife, who sat in my Lady Fox's pew with her. The house very full; and late before done, so that it was past eleven before we got home. 16th. Home, where I find some things of W. Batelier's come out of France, among which some clothes for my wife, wherein she is likely to lead me to the expense of so much money as vexed me; but I seemed so, more than I at this time was, only to prevent her taking too much. But I was mightily pleased with another picture of the King of France's head, of Nanteuil's, bigger than the other which he brought over; and so to the office, where busy all the afternoon, though my eyes mighty bad with the light of the candles last night, which was so great as to make my eyes sore all this day, and do teach me, by a manifest experiment, that it is only too much light that do make my eyes sore. Nevertheless, with the help of my tube, and being desirous of easing my mind of five or six days' journal, did venture to write it down from ever since this day se'nnight, and I think without hurting my eyes any more than they were before, which was very much, and so home to supper and to bed. 17th. The King dining yesterday at the Dutch Ambassador's, after dinner they drank, and were pretty merry; and, among the rest of the King's company, there was that worthy fellow my Lord of Rochester, and Tom Killigrew, whose mirth and raillery offended the former so much, that he did give Tom Killigrew a box on the ear in the King's presence, which do give much offence to the people here at Court, to see how cheap the King makes himself, and the more, for that the King hath not only passed by the thing, and pardoned it to Rochester already, but this very morning the King did publicly walk up and down, and Rochester I saw with him as free as ever, to the King's everlasting shame, to have so idle a rogue his companion. How Tom Killigrew takes it, I do not hear. I do also this day hear that my Lord Privy Seal do accept to go Lieutenant into Ireland; but whether it be true or not, I cannot tell. To Colonel Middleton's, to the burial of his wife, where we were all invited, and much more company, and had each of us a ring; and so towards evening to our church, where there was a sermon preached by Mills, and so home. At church there was my Lord Brouncker and Mrs. Williams in our pew, the first time they were ever there, or that I knew that either of them would go to church. Comes Castle to me, to desire me to go to Mr. Pedly this night, he being to go out of town to-morrow morning, which I therefore did by hackney-coach, first going to Whitehall to meet with Sir W. Coventry, but missed him. But here I had a pleasant rencontre of a lady in mourning, that, by the little light I had, seemed handsome. I passing by her, did observe she looked back again and again upon me, I suffering her to go before, and it being now dusk. She went into the little passage towards the Privy Water-Gate, and I followed, but missed her; but coming back again, I observed she returned, and went to go out of the Court. I followed her, and took occasion, in the new passage now built, where the walk is to be, to take her by the hand, to lead her through, which she willingly accepted, and I led her to the Great Gate, and there left her, she telling me, of her own accord, that she was going as far as Charing Cross; but my boy was at the gate, and so I durst not go out with her. So to Lincoln's Inn, where to Mr. Pedly, with whom I spoke, and did my business presently; and I find him a man of good language, and mighty civil, and I believe very upright; and so home, where W. Batelier was, and supped with us, and I did reckon this night what I owed him; and I do find that the things my wife, of her own head, hath taken, together with my own, which comes not to above £5, comes to about £22. But it is the last, and so I am the better contented; and they are things that are not trifles, but clothes, gloves, shoes, hoods, etc. So after supper to bed. 18th. Expecting to have this day seen Bab. and Betty Pepys here, but they came not; and so after dinner my wife and I to the Duke of York's house to a play, and there saw The Mad Lover, which do not please me so well as it used to do, only Betterton's part still pleases me. But here who should we have come to us but Bab. and Betty and Talbot, the first play they were yet at; and going to see us, and hearing by my boy, whom I sent to them, that we were here, they came to us hither, and happened all of us to sit by my cousin Turner and The. We carried them home first, and then took Bab. and Betty to our house, where they lay and supped, and pretty merry, and very fine with their new clothes, and good comely girls they are enough, and very glad I am of their being with us, though I would very well have been contented to be without the charge. So they to bed. 19th. Up, and after seeing the girls, who lodged in our bed, with their maid Martha, who hath been their father's maid these twenty years and more, I to the office, while the young people went to see Bedlam. This morning, among other things, talking with Sir W. Coventry, I did propose to him my putting in to serve in Parliament, if there should, as the world begins to expect, be a new one chose he likes it mightily, both for the King's and Service's sake, and the Duke of York's, and will propound it to the Duke of York; and I confess, if there be one, I would be glad to be in. 20th. After dinner with my wife and my two girls to the Duke of York's house, and there saw The Grateful Servant,1 a pretty good play, and which I have forgot that ever I did see. And thence with them to Mrs. Grotier's [? Gautier's], the Queen's tire-woman, for a pair of locks i my wife; she is an oldish Frenchwomanı, but with a pretty hand as most I have seen; and so home. 21st. (Lord's day.) With my wife and two girls to church, they very fine; and so home, where comes my cousin Roger and his wife, I having sent for them, to dine with us, and there comes in by chance also Mr. Shepley, who is come to town with my Lady Paulina, who is desperately sick, and is gone to Chelsea, to the old house where my Lord himself was once sick, where I doubt my Lord means to visit her, more for young Mrs. Beck's sake than for hers. Here we dined with W. Batelier, and W. Hewer with us, these two girls making it necessary that they be always with us, for I am not company light enough to be always merry with them; and so sat talking all the afternoon, and then Shepley went away first, and then my cousin Roger and his wife. 22nd. After dinner, with my wife, in her morning-gown, and the two girls dressed, to Unthanke's, where my wife dresses herself, having her gown this day laced, and a new petticoat; and so is indeed very fine. In the evening to Whitehall, and there did without much trouble get into the playhouse, there in a good place among the Ladies of Honour, and myself also sat in the pit; and then by and by came the King and Queen, and they began Bartholomew Fair. But I like no play here so well as at the common playhouse; besides that, my eyes being very ill since last Sunday and this day se'nnight, I was in mighty pain to defend myself now from the light of the candles. After the play done, we met with W. Batelier and W. Hewer, and Talbot Pepys, and they followed us in a hackney-coach; and we all stopped at Hercules Pillars; and there I did give 1 By James Shirley (pr. 1630). 24th. I to the office, and at night my wife sends for me to W. Hewer's lodging, where I find two best chambers of his so finely furnished, and all so rich and neat, that I was mightily pleased with him and them; and here only my wife, and I, and the two girls, and had a mighty neat dish of custards and tarts, and good drink and talk. And so away home to bed, with infinite content at this his treat; for it was mighty pretty, and everything mighty rich. them the best supper I could, and pretty the first that ever I saw; but so thin, merry; and so home between eleven and that the very breath broke one or two twelve at night. of them. Thence to Mr. Batelier's, where 23rd. Up; and to the office, where we supped, and had a good supper, and all the morning, and then home, and put here was Mr. Gumbleton [? Pembleton]; a mouthful of victuals in my mouth; and and after supper some fiddles, and so to by a hackney-coach followed my wife and dance; but my eyes were so out of order the girls, who are gone by eleven o'clock, that I had little pleasure this night at all, thinking to have seen a new play at the though I was glad to see the rest merry. Duke of York's house. But I do find them staying at my tailor's, the play not being to-day, and therefore to Westminster Abbey, and there did see all the tombs very finely, having one with us alone, there being other company this day to see the tombs, it being Shrove Tuesday; and here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois; and I had the upper par of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen, and that this was my birthday, thirty-six years old, that I did kiss a Queen. But here this man, who seems to understand well, tells me that the saying is not true that she was never buried, for she was buried; only, when Henry the Seventh built his chapel, she was taken up and laid in this wooden coffin; but I did there see that in it the body was buried in a leaden one, which remains under the body to this day. Thence to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there, finding the play begun, we homeward to the Glass House, and there showed my cousins the making of glass, and had several things made with great content; and, among others, I had one or two singing-glasses made, which make an echo to the voice, 1 She 1 Neale informs us (History of Westminster Abbey, vol. ii. p. 88) that near the south side of Henry the Fifth's tomb, there was formerly a wooden chest, or coffin, wherein part of the skeleton and parched body of Katherine de Valois, his Queen (from the waist upwards), was to be seen. was interred in January, 1457, in the Chapel of Our Lady, at the east end of this Church; but when that building was pulled down by her grandson, Henry the Seventh, her coffin was found to be decayed, and her body was taken up, and placed in a chest, near her first husband's tomb. There,' says Dart, it hath ever since continued to be seen, the bones being firmly united, and thinly clothed with flesh, like scrapings of tanned leather.' was at length removed from the public gaze, into St. Nicholas's Chapel, and finally deposited under the monument of Sir George Villiers, when the vault was made for the remains of Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, in December, 1776. [B.] 2 In Blackfriars. It 25th. To the Duke of York's house, and there before one, but the house infinite full, where, by and by, the King and Court came, it being a new play, or an old one new vamped, by Shadwell, called The Royal Shepherdess; but the silliest for words and design and everything, that ever I saw in my whole life, there being nothing in the world pleasing in it, but a good martial dance of pikemen, where Harris and another do handle their pikes in a dance to admiration; but I was never less satisfied with a play in my life. 26th. To the King's playhouse, and saw The Faithful Shepherdess. But, Lord! what an empty house, there not being, as I could tell the people, so many as to make up above 10 in the whole house! The being of a new play at the other house, I suppose, being the cause, though it be so silly a play that I wonder how there should be enough people to go thither two days together, and not leave more to fill this house. The emptiness of the house took away our pleasure a great deal, though I liked it the better; for I plainly discern the music is the better, by how much the house the emptier. Thence home, and again to W. Hewer's, and had a pretty little treat, and spent an hour or two, my voice being wholly taken away with my cold, and so home to bed. 1 A rendering by Thomas Shadwell of John Fountain's unacted play The Rewards of Virtue (1661). 2 See p. 684. 28th. (Lord's day.) Up, and got my wife to read to me a copy of what the Surveyor offered to the Duke of York on Friday, he himself putting it into my hands to read; but, Lord! it is a poor silly thing ever to think to bring it in practice in the King's Navy. It is to have the Captains to account for all stores and victuals; but upon so silly grounds, to my thinking, and ignorance of the present instructions of Officers, that I am ashamed to hear it. However, I do take a copy of it, for my future use and answering; and so to church, where, God forgive me! I did most of the time gaze on the fine milliner's wife, in Fenchurch Street, who was at our church to-day; and so home to dinner. After dinner to write down my Journal; and then abroad by coach with my cousins to their father's, where we are kindly received, but he is in great pain for his man Arthur, who, he fears, is now dead, having been desperate sick, and speaks so much of him that my cousin, his wife, and I did make mirth of it, and call him Arthur o' Bradly.1 After staying here a little, and ate and drank, and she give me some gingerbread made in cakes, like chocolate, very good, made by a friend, I carried him and her to my cousin Turner's, where we stayed, expecting her coming from church; but she coming not, I went to her husband's chamber in the Temple, and thence fetched her. After talking there a while, and agreeing to be all merry at my house on Tuesday next, I away home; and there spent the evening talking and reading with my wife and Mr. Pelling. March 1669 March Ist. I do hear that my Lady Paulina Montagu did die yesterday; at which I went to my Lord's lodgings, but he is shut up with sorrow, and so not to be spoken with; and therefore I returned, and to Westminster Hall, where I have not been, I think, in some months. And here the Hall was very full, the King 1 For the texts of ballads, etc., dealing with this popular character see Ebsworth's Choyce Drollery, and Merry Drollery. References such as that in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (II. ii.) are not infrequent. But having by Commission to some Lords this day prorogued the Parliament till the 19th of October next; at which I am glad, hoping to have time to go over to France this year. But I was most of all surprised this morning by my Lord Bellasis, who, by appointment, met me at Auditor Wood's, at the Temple, and tells me of a duel designed between the Duke of Buckingham and my Lord Halifax, or Sir W. Coventry; the challenge being carried by Harry Saville, but prevented by my Lord Arling ton, and the King told of it; and this was all the discourse at Court this day. I, meeting Sir W. Coventry in the Duke of York's chamber, he would not own it to me, but told me he was a man of too much peace to meddle with fighting, and so it rested; but the talk is full in the town of the business. Thence, having walked some turns with my cousin Pepys, and most people by their discourse believing that this Parliament will never sit more, I away to several places to look after things against to-morrow's feast, and so home to dinner; and thence, after noon, my wife and I out by hackney-coach, and spent the afternoon in several places, doing several things at the 'Change and elsewhere against to-morrow; and, among others, I did bring home a piece of my face cast in plaster, for to make a vizard upon, for my eyes. And so home, where W. Batelier came, and sat with us; and there, after many doubts, did resolve to go on with our feast and dancing to-morrow; and so, after supper, left the maids to make clean the house, and to lay the cloth, and other things against to-morrow, and so to bed. 2nd. Home, and there I find my company come, namely, Madam Turner, Dyke, The., and Betty Turner, and Mr. Bellwood, formerly their father's clerk, but now set up for himself (a conceited silly fellow, but one they make mightily of), my cousin Roger Pepys, and his wife, and two daughters. I had a noble dinner for them, as I almost ever had, and mighty merry, and particularly myself pleased with looking on Betty Turner, who is mighty pretty. After dinner we fell one to one talk, and another to another, and looking over my house, and closet, and things; and The. Turner to write a letter to a lady in the country, in which I did, now and then, put |