Books: The Diary of Samuel Pepys

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24th. From the Duke's chamber Sir W. Coventry and I to walk in
the Mattted Gallery; and there, among other things, he tells me
of the wicked design that now is at last contriving against him,
to get a petition presented from people, that the money they have
paid to Sir W. Coventry for their places may be repaid them back:
and that this is set on by Temple and Hollis of the Parliament,
and, among other mean people in it, by Captain Tatnell: and he
prays me that I will use some effectual way to sift Tatnell what
he do and who puts him on in this business: which I do
undertake, and will do with all my skill for his service, being
troubled that he is still under this difficulty. Thence back to
White Hall: where great talk of the tumult at the other end of
the town, about Moore-fields, among the prentices taking the
liberty of these holydays to pull down brothels. And Lord! to
see the apprehensions which this did give to all people at Court,
that presently order was given for all the soldiers, horse and
foot, to be in armes; and forthwith alarmes were beat by drum and
trumpet through Westminster and all to their colours and to
horse, as if the French were coming into the town. So Creed,
whom I met here, and I to Lincolne's Inn-fields, thinking to have
come into the fields to have seen the prentices; but here we
found these fields full of soldiers all in a body, and my Lord
Craven commanding of them, and riding up and down to give orders
like a madman. And some young men we saw brought by soldiers to
the guard at White Hall, and overheard others that stood by say
that it was only for pulling down the brothels; and none of the
bystanders finding fault with them, but rather of the soldiers
for hindering them. And we heard a Justice of Peace this morning
say to the King, that he had been endeavouring to suppress this
tumult, but could not; and that imprisoning some of them in the
new prison at Clerkenwell, the rest did come and break open the
prison and release them; and that they do give out that they are
for pulling down the brothels, which is one of the great
grievances of the nation. To which the King made a very poor,
cold, insipid answer: "Why! why do they go to them, then?"--and
that was all, and had no mind to go on with the discourse. This
evening I came home from White Hall with Sir W. Pen, who fell in
talk about his going to sea this year, and the difficulties that
arise to him by it, by giving offence to the Prince and
occasioning envy to him, and many other things that make it a bad
matter at this time of want of money and necessaries, and bad and
uneven counsels at home, for him to go abroad: and did tell me
how much with the King and Duke of York he had endeavoured to be
excused, desiring the Prince might be satisfied in it who hath a
mind to go; but he tells me they will not excuse him, and I
believe it, and truly do judge it a piece of bad fortune to W.
Pen.

25th. Up, and walked to White Hall, there to wait on the Duke of
York; which I did: and in his chamber there, first by hearing
the Duke of York call me by my name, my Lord Burlington did come
to me and with great respect take notice of me and my relation to
my Lord Sandwich, and express great kindness to me; and so to
talk of my Lord Sandwich's concernments. By and by the Duke of
York is ready; and I did wait for an opportunity of speaking my
mind to him about Sir J. Minnes, his being unable to do the King
any service. The Duke of York and all with him this morning were
full of the talk of the prentices, who are not yet, put down,
though the guards and militia of the town have been in armes all
this night and the night before; and the prentices have made
fools of them, sometimes by running from them and flinging stones
at them. Some blood hath been spilt, but a great many houses
pulled down; and, among others, the Duke of York was mighty merry
at that of Daman Page's, the great bawd of the seamen; and the
Duke of York complained merrily that he hath lost two tenants by
their houses being pulled down, who paid him for their wine-
licences 15l. a-year. But these idle fellows have had the
confidence to say that they did ill in contenting themselves in
pulling down the little brothels, and did not go and pull down
the great one at White Hall. And some of them have the last
night had a word among them, and it was "Reformation and
Reducement." This do make the courtiers ill at ease to see this
spirit among people, though they think this matter will not
come to much: but it speakes people's minds; and then they do
say that there are men of understanding among them, that have
been of Cromwell's army: but how true that is, I know not.

26th. To the Duke of York's house to see the new play, called
"The Man is the Master:" [A comedy, by Sir Wm. Davenant, taken
from Moliere's "Joddelet."] where the house was, it being not
one o'clock, very full. By and by the King came; and we sat just
under him, so that I durst not turn my back all the play. The
most of the mirth was sorry, poor stuffe, of eating of sack
posset and slabbering themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the
prologue but poor, and the epilogue little in it but the
extraordinariness of it, it being sung by Harris and another in
the form of a ballet. My wife extraordinary fine to-day in her
flower tabby suit, bought a year and more ago, before my mother's
death put her into mourning, and so not worn till this day: and
every body in love with it; and indeed she is very fine and
handsome in it. Home in a coach round by the wall; where we met
so many stops by the watches, that it cost us much time and some
trouble, and more money, to every watch to them to drink; this
being encreased by the trouble the prentices did lately give the
City, so that the militia and watches are very strict at this
time; and we had like to have met with a stop for all night at
the constable's watch at Mooregate by a pragmatical constable;
but we came well home at about two in the morning. This noon
from Mrs. Williams's my Lord Brouncker sent to Somerset House to
hear how the Duchesse of Richmond do; and word was brought him
that she is pretty well, but mighty full of the small pox, by
which all do conclude she will he wholly spoiled; which is the
greatest instance of the uncertainty of beauty that could be in
this age; but, then she hath had the benefit of it to be first
married, and to have kept it so long under the greatest
temptations in the world from a King, and yet without the least
imputation. This afternoon, at the play, Sir Fr. Hollis spoke to
me as a secret and matter of confidence in me, and friendship to
Sir W. Pen, who is now out of town, that it were well he were
made acquainted that he finds in the House of Commons, which met
this day, several motions made for the calling strictly again
upon the miscarriages, and particularly in the business of the
prizes and the not prosecuting of the first victory, only to give
an affront to Sir W. Pen, whose going to sea this year does give
them matter of great dislike.

27th. This day at noon comes Mr. Pelling to me, and shows me the
stone cut lately out of Sir Thomas Adams's (the old comely
Alderman) body; [Knight and Bart. alderman of London; ob. 1667.
He founded an Arabic Professorship at Cambridge.] which is very
large indeed, bigger I think than my fist, and weighs above
twenty-five ounces: and which is very miraculous, he never in
all his life had any fit of it, but lived to a great age without
pain, and died at last of something else, without any sense of
this in all his life. This day Creed at White Hall in discourse
told me what information he hath had from very good hands, of the
cowardize and ill-government of Sir Jer. Smith and Sir Thomas
Allen, and the repute they have both of them abroad in the
Streights, from their deportment when they did at several times
command there; and that, above all Englishmen that ever were
there, there never was any man that behaved himself like poor
Charles Wager, whom the very Moores do mention with tears
sometimes.

29th. To church; and there did first find a strange reader, who
could not find in the Service-book the place for churching women,
but was fain to change books with the clerke: and then a
stranger preached, a seeming able man; but said in his pulpit
that God did a greater work in raising of an oake-tree from an
acorn, than a man's body raising it at the last day from his dust
(showing the Possibility of the Resurrection): which was,
methought, a strange saying. Harris do so commend my wife's
picture of Mr. Hales's, that I shall have him draw Harris's head;
and he hath also persuaded me to have Cooper draw my wife's,
which though it cost 30l. yet I will have done. I do hear by
several that Sir W. Pen's going to sea do dislike the Parliament
mightily, and that they have revived the Committee of
Miscarriages to find something to prevent it; and that he being
the other day with the Duke of Albemarle to ask his opinion
touching his going to sea, the Duchesse overheard and came in to
him, and asked W. Pen how he durst have the confidence to offer
to go to sea again to the endangering the nation, when he knew
himself such a coward as he was; which, if true, is very severe.

30th. By coach to Common-garden Coffee-house, where by
appointment I was to meet Harris; which I did, and also Mr.
Cooper the great painter, and Mr. Hales. And thence presently to
Mr. Cooper's house to see some of his work; which is all in
little, but so excellent as, though I must confess I do think the
colouring of the flesh to be a little forced, yet the painting is
so extraordinary as I do never expect to see the like again.
Here I did see Mrs. Stewart's picture as when a young maid, and
now just done before her having the small-pox: and it would make
a man weep to see what she was then, and what she is like to be
by people's discourse now. Here I saw my Lord Generall's
picture, and my Lord Arlington and Ashly's, and several others:
but among the rest one Swinfen that was Secretary to my Lord
Manchester, Lord Chamberlain (with Cooling), done so admirably as
I never saw any thing: but the misery was, this fellow died in
debt and never paid Cooper for his picture; but it being seized
on by his creditors among his other goods after his death, Cooper
himself says that he did buy it and give 25l. out of his purse
for it, for what he was to have had but 30l. To White Hall and
Westminster, where I find the Parliament still bogling about the
raising of this money. And every body's mouth full now; and Mr.
Wren himself tells me that the Duke of York declares to go to sea
himself this year; and I perceive it is only on this occasion of
distaste of the Parliament against W. Pen's going, and to prevent
the Prince's: but I think it is mighty hot counsel for the Duke
of York at this time to go out of the way; but, Lord! what pass
are all our matters come to! At noon by appointment to
Cursitor's-alley in Chancery-lane, to meet Captain Cocke and some
other creditors the Navy, and their Counsel (Pemberton, North,
Offly, and Charles Porter); and there dined and talked of the
business of the assignments on the Exchequer of the 1,250,000l.
on behalf of our creditors; and there I do perceive that the
Counsel had heard of my performance in the Parliament-house
lately, and did value me and what I said accordingly. At dinner
we had a great deal of good discourse about Parliament; their
number being uncertain, and always at the will of the King to
encrease as he saw reason to erect a new borough. But all
concluded that the bane of the Parliament hath been the leaving
off the old custom of the places allowing wages to those that
served them in Parliament, by which they chose men that
understood their business and would attend it, and they could
expect an account from; which now they cannot: and so the
Parliament is become a company of men unable to give account for
the interest of the place they serve for. Thence, the meeting of
the Counsel with the King's Counsel this afternoon being put off
by reason of the death of Serjeant Maynard's lady, [John Maynard,
an eminent lawyer; made Serjeant to Cromwell in 1653, and
afterwards King's Serjeant by Charles II., who knighted him, In
1663 he was chosen Member for Berealston, and sat in every
Parliament till the Revolution. Ob. 1690, aged 88.] I to White
Hall, where the Parliament was to wait on the King; and they did:
and he did think fit to tell them that they might expect to be
adjourned at Whitsuntide, and that they might make haste to raise
their money; but this, I fear, will displease them, who did
expect to sit as long as they pleased.

APRIL 2, 1668. With Lord Brouncker to the Royall Society, where
they had just done; but there I was forced to subscribe to the
building of a college, and did give 40l.; and several others did
subscribe, some greater and some less sums; but several I saw
hang off: and I doubt it will spoil the Society, for it breeds
faction and ill-will, and becomes burdensome to some that cannot
or would not do it.

3rd. As soon as we had done with the Duke of York we did attend
the Council; and were there called in, and did hear Mr.
Sollicitor make his report to the Council in the business of a
complaint against us, for having prepared certificates on the
Exchequer for the further sum of 50,000l.; which he did in a most
excellent manner of words, but most cruelly severe against us,
and so were some of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, as
men guilty of a practice with the tradesmen, to the King's
prejudice. I was unwilling to enter into a contest with them;
but took advantage of two or three words last spoke, and brought
it to a short issue in good words, that if we had the King's
order to hold our hands, we would; which did end the matter: and
they all resolved we should have it, and so it ended. And so we
away; I vexed that I did not speak more in a cause so fit to be
spoke in, and wherein we had so much advantage; but perhaps I
might have provoked the Sollicitor and the Commissioners of the
Treasury, and therefore since I am not sorry that I forebore.
This day I hear that Prince Rupert and Holmes do go to sea: and
by this there is a seeming friendship and peace among our great
seamen; but the devil a bit there is any love among them, or can
be.

4th, I did attend the Duke of York, and he did carry us to the
King's lodgings: but he was asleep in his closet; so we stayed
in the green-roome; where the Duke of York did tell us what rules
he had of knowing the weather, and did now tell us we should have
rain before to-morrow (it having been a dry season for some
time), and so it did rain all night almost; and pretty rules he
hath, and told Brouncker and me some of them, which were such as
no reason can readily be given for them. By and by the King
comes out: and then to talk of other things; about the Quakers
not swearing, and how they do swear in the business of a late
election of a Knight of the Shire of Hartfordshire in behalf of
one they have a mind to have; and how my Lord of Pembroke says he
hath heard the Quaker at the tennis-court swear to himself when
he loses; and told us what pretty notions my Lord Pembroke hath
of the first chapter of Genesis, and a great deal of such
fooleries; which the King made mighty mockery at.

5th. I hear that eight of the ringleaders in the late tumults of
the prentices at Easter are condemned to die.

6th. The King and Duke of York themselves in my absence did call
for some of the Commissioners of the Treasury and give them
directions about the business of the certificates; which I,
despairing to do any thing on a Sunday, and not thinking that
they would think of it themselves, did rest satisfied with, and
stayed at home all yesterday, leaving it to do something in this
day: but I find that the King and Duke of York had been so
pressing in it, that my Lord Ashly was more forward with the
doing of it this day than I could have been. And so I to White
Hall with Alderman Backewell in his coach, with Mr. Blany, my
Lord's Secretary; and there did draw up a rough draught of what
order I would have, and did carry it in, and had it read twice
and approved of before my Lord Ashly and three more of the
Commissioners of the Treasury; and then went up to the Council-
chamber, where the Duke of York and Prince Rupert, and the rest
of the Committee of the Navy, were sitting: and I did get some
of them to read it there; and they would have had it passed
presently, but Sir John Nichollas desired they would first have
it approved by a full council; and therefore a Council
Extraordinary was readily summoned against the afternoon, and,
the Duke of York run presently to the King, as if now they were
really set to mind their business; which God grant! Mr. Montagu
did tell me how Mr. Vaughan in that very room did say that I was
a great man, and had great understanding, and I know not what;
which, I confess, I was a little proud of, if I may believe him.
Here I do hear as a great secret that the King, and Duke of York
and Duchesse, and my lady Castlemaine, are now all agreed in a
strict league, and all things like to go very current, and that
it is not impossible to have my Lord Clarendon in time here
again. But I do hear that my Lady Castlemaine is horribly vexed
at the late libell, the petition of the poor prostitutes about
the town whose houses were pulled down the other day. I have got
one of them; and it is not very witty, but devilish severe
against her and the King: and I wonder how it durst be printed
and spread abroad; which shows that the times are loose, and come
to a great disregard of the King, or Court, or Govermment. To
the Park; and then to the House, and there at the door eat and
drank; whither came my Lady Kerneagy [Carnegie.] of whom Creed
tells me more particulars: how her Lord, finding her and the
Duke of York at the King's first coming in, too kind, did get it
out of her that he did dishonour him; and did take the most
pernicious and full piece of revenge that ever I heard of; and he
at this day owns it with great glory, and looks upon the Duke of
York and the world with great content in the ampleness of his
revenge. [VIDE Memoires de Grammont.] This day in the
afternoon, stepping with the Duke of York into St. James's Park,
it rained; and I was forced to lend the Duke of York my cloak,
which he wore through the Park.

7th. To the King's playhouse, and there saw "The English
Monsieur" [A Comedy by James Howard.] (sitting for privacy sake
in an upper box): the play hath much mirth in it as to that
particular humour. After the play done I down to Knipp, and did
stay her undressing herself: and there saw the several players,
men and women, go by; and pretty to see how strange they are all,
one to another, after the play is done. Here I hear Sir W.
Davenant is just now dead; and so who will succeed him in the
mastership of the House is not yet known. The eldest Davenport
is, it seems, gone from this house to be kept by somebody; which
I am glad of, she being a very bad actor. Mrs. Knipp tells me
that my Lady Castlemaine is mightily in love with Hart of their
house; and he is much with her in private, and she goes to him
and do give him many presents; and that the thing is most
certain, and Beck Marshall only privy to it, and the means of
bringing them together: which is a very odd thing; and by this
means she is even with the King's love to Mrs. Davis.

8th. To Drumbleby's, and there did talk a great deal about
pipes; and did buy a recorder, which I do intend to learn to play
on, the sound of it being, of all sounds in the world, most
pleasing to me.

9th. I up and down to the Duke of York's playhouse, there to
see, which I did, Sir W. Davenant's corpse, carried out towards
Westminster, there to be buried. Here were many coaches and six
horses, and many hacknies, that made it look, methought, as if it
were the buriall of a poor poet. He seemed to have many
children, by five or six in the first mourning-coach, all boys.
To my office, where is come a packet from the Downes from my
brother Balty, who with Harman are arrived there, of which this
day comes the first news. And now the Parliament will be
satisfied, I suppose, about the business they have so long
desired between Brouncker [Henry Brouncker.] and Harman, about
not prosecuting the first victory.

16th. To Westminster Hall, where I hear W. Pen is ordered to be
impeached. There spoke with many, and particularly with G.
Montagu; and went with him and Creed to his house, where he told
how Sir W. Pen hath been severe to Lord Sandwich; but the
Coventrys both labouring to save him by laying it on Lord
Sandwich; which our friends cry out upon, and I am silent, but do
believe they did it as the only way to save him. It could not be
carried to commit him. It is thought the House do cool: Sir W.
Coventry's being for him provoked Sir R. Howard, and his party:
Court all for W. Pen.

17th. I hear that the House is upon the business of Harman, who,
they say, takes all on himself.

18th. Do hear this morning that Harman is committed by the
Parliament last night, the day he came up; which is hard: but he
took all upon himself first, and then, when a witness came in to
say otherwise, he would have retracted; and the House took it so
ill, they would commit him.

19th. Roger Pepys did tell me the whole story of Harman, how he
prevaricated, and hath undoubtedly been imposed on and wheedled;
and he is like the miller's man that in Richard the Third's time
was hanged for his master.

20th. To White Hall, and there hear how Brouncker is tied, which
I think will undo him; but what good it will do Harman I know
not, he hath so befouled himself; but it will be good sport to my
Lord Chancellor to hear how his great enemy is fain to take the
same course that he is. There met Robinson, who tells me that he
fears his master, Sir W. Coventry, will this week have his
business brought upon the stage again about selling of places;
which I shall be sorry for, though the less since I hear his
standing up for Pen the other day, to the prejudice, though not
to the ruin, of my Lord Sandwich; and yet I do think what he did,
he did out of a principle of honesty. Meeting Sir William Hooker
the Alderman, he did cry out mighty high against Sir W. Pen for
his getting such an estate and giving 15,000l. with his daughter;
which is more by half than ever he did give; but this the world
believes, and so let them.

21st. I hear how Sir W. Pen's impeachment was read and agreed to
in the House this day, and ordered to be engrossed; and he
suspended the House: Harman set at liberty; and Brouncker put
out of the House, and a writ [At Romney, which Brouncker
represented.] for a new election, and an impeachment ordered to
be brought in against him, he being fled.

22nd. To White Hall; and there we attended the Duke of York as
usual; and I did present Mrs. Pett the widow and her petition to
the Duke of York, for some relief from the King. Here was to-day
a proposition made to the Duke of York by Captain Von Hemskirke
for 20,000l. to discover an art how to make a ship go two feet
for one what any ship do now: which the King inclines to try, it
costing him nothing to try and it is referred to us to contract
with the man. Then by water from the Privy-stairs to Westminster
Hall: and taking water the King and the Duke of York were in the
new buildings; and the Duke of York called to me whither I was
going? And I answered aloud, "To wait on our masters at
Westminster;" at which he and all the company laughed: but I was
sorry and troubled for it afterwards, for fear any Parliament-man
should have been there; and it will be a caution to me for the
time to come.

24th. I did hear the Duke of York tell how Sir W. Pen's
impeachment was brought into the House of Lords to-day; and he
spoke with great kindness of him: and that the Lords would not
commit, him till they could find precedent for it, and did
incline to favour him.

25th. To Westminster Hall, and there met with Roger Pepys; and
he tells me that nothing hath lately passed about my Lord
Sandwich but only Sir Robert Carr did speak hardly of him. But
it is hoped that nothing will be done more this meeting of
Parliament, which the King did by a message yesterday declare
again should rise the 4th of May, and then only adjourne for
three months; and this message being only about an adjournment
did please them mightily, for they are desirous of their power
mightily.

27th. To Westminster Hall, and up to the Lords' House; and there
saw Sir W. Pen go into the House of Lords, where his impeachment
was read to him and he used mighty civilly, the Duke of York
being there; and two days hence, at his desire, he is to bring in
his answer, and a day then to be appointed for his being heard
with Counsel. Thence down into the Hall, and with Creed and
Godolphin walked; and do hear that to-morrow is appointed, upon a
motion on Friday last, to discourse the business of my Lord
Sandwich, moved by Sir R. Howard, that he should be sent for
home; and I fear it will be ordered. Certain news come, I hear,
this day, that the Spanish Plenipotentiary in Flanders will not
agree to the peace and terms we and the Dutch have made for him
and the King of France; and by this means the face of things may
be altered, and we forced to join with the French against Spain;
which will be an odd thing.