The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete. Samuel Pepys

to buy a petticoat against the Queen’s coming for my Lady, of plain satin, and other things; and being come back again, we there met Mr. Nathaniel Crew

      [Nathaniel Crew, born 1633, fifth son of John, first Lord Crew; he

       himself became third Lord Crew in 1697. Sub-Rector of Lincoln

       College, Oxford, 1659. Took orders in 1664, and was Rector of

       Lincoln College in 1668; Dean of Chichester, 1669; Bishop of Oxford,

       1671; Bishop of Durham, 1674; sworn of the Privy Council in 1676.

       He was very subservient to James II., and at the Revolution was

       excepted from the general pardon of May, 1690, but he was allowed to

       keep possession of the bishopric of Durham.]

      at the Wardrobe with a young gentleman, a friend and fellow student of his, and of a good family, Mr. Knightly, and known to the Crews, of whom my Lady privately told me she hath some thoughts of a match for my Lady Jemimah. I like the person very well, and he hath £2000 per annum. Thence to the office, and there we sat, and thence after writing letters to all my friends with my Lord at Portsmouth, I walked to my brother Tom’s to see a velvet cloak, which I buy of Mr. Moore. It will cost me £8 10s.; he bought it for £6 10s., but it is worth my money. So home and find all things made clean against to-morrow, which pleases me well. So to bed.

      18th (Whitsunday). By water to White Hall, and thereto chappell in my pew belonging to me as Clerk of the Privy Seal; and there I heard a most excellent sermon of Dr. Hacket, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, upon these words: “He that drinketh this water shall never thirst.” We had an excellent anthem, sung by Captain Cooke and another, and brave musique. And then the King came down and offered, and took the sacrament upon his knees; a sight very well worth seeing. Hence with Sir G. Carteret to his lodging to dinner with his Lady and one Mr. Brevin, a French Divine, we were very merry, and good discourse, and I had much talk with my Lady. After dinner, and so to chappell again; and there had another good anthem of Captain Cooke’s. Thence to the Councell-chamber; where the King and Councell sat till almost eleven o’clock at night, and I forced to walk up and down the gallerys till that time of night. They were reading all the bills over that are to pass to-morrow at the House, before the King’s going out of town and proroguing the House. At last the Councell risen, and Sir G. Carteret telling me what the Councell hath ordered about the ships designed to carry horse from Ireland to Portugall, which is now altered. I got a coach and so home, sending the boat away without me. At home I found my wife discontented at my being abroad, but I pleased her. She was in her new suit of black sarcenet and yellow petticoat very pretty. So to bed.

      19th. Long in bed, sometimes scolding with my wife, and then pleased again, and at last up, and put on my riding cloth suit, and a camelott coat new, which pleases me well enough. To the Temple about my replication, and so to my brother Tom’s, and there hear that my father will be in town this week. So home, the shops being but some shut and some open. I hear that the House of Commons do think much that they should be forced to huddle over business this morning against the afternoon, for the King to pass their Acts, that he may go out of town.

      [To ears accustomed to the official words of speeches from the

       throne at the present day, the familiar tone of the following

       extracts from Charles’s speech to the Commons, on the 1st of March;

       will be amusing: “I will conclude with putting you in mind of the

       season of the year, and the convenience of your being in the

       country, in many respects, for the good and welfare of it; for you

       will find much tares have been sowed there in your absence. The

       arrival of my wife, who I expect some time this month, and the

       necessity of my own being out of town to meet her, and to stay some

       time before she comes hither, makes it very necessary that the

       Parliament be adjourned before Easter, to meet again in the winter.

      . … The mention of my wife’s arrival puts me in mind to

       desire you to put that compliment upon her, that her entrance into

       the town may be with more decency than the ways will now suffer it

       to be; and, to that purpose, I pray you would quickly pass such laws

       as are before you, in order to the amending those ways, and that she

       may not find Whitehall surrounded with water.” Such a bill passed

       the Commons on the 24th June. From Charles’s Speech, March 1st,

       1662.—B.]

      But he, I hear since, was forced to stay till almost nine o’clock at night before he could have done, and then he prorogued them; and so to Gilford, and lay there. Home, and Mr. Hunt dined with me, and were merry. After dinner Sir W. Pen and his daughter, and I and my wife by coach to the Theatre, and there in a box saw “The Little Thief” well done. Thence to Moorefields, and walked and eat some cheesecake and gammon of bacon, but when I was come home I was sick, forced to vomit it up again. So my wife walking and singing upon the leads till very late, it being pleasant and moonshine, and so to bed.

      10th. Sir W. Pen and I did a little business at the office, and so home again. Then comes Dean Fuller after we had dined, but I got something for him, and very merry we were for an hour or two, and I am most pleased with his company and goodness. At last parted, and my wife and I by coach to the Opera, and there saw the 2nd part of “The Siege of Rhodes,” but it is not so well done as when Roxalana was there, who, it is said, is now owned by my Lord of Oxford.

      [For note on Mrs. Davenport, who was deceived by a pretended

       marriage with the Earl of Oxford, see ante. Lord Oxford’s first

       wife died in 1659. He married, in 1672, his second wife, Diana

       Kirke, of whom nothing more need be said than that she bore an

       inappropriate Christian name.]

      Thence to Tower-wharf, and there took boat, and we all walked to Halfeway House, and there eat and drank, and were pleasant, and so finally home again in the evening, end so good night, this being a very pleasant life that we now lead, and have long done; the Lord be blessed, and make us thankful. But, though I am much against too much spending, yet I do think it best to enjoy some degree of pleasure now that we have health, money, and opportunity, rather than to leave pleasures to old age or poverty, when we cannot have them so properly.

      21st. My wife and I by water to Westminster, and after she had seen her father (of whom lately I have heard nothing at all what he does or her mother), she comes to me to my Lord’s lodgings, where she and I staid walking in White Hall garden. And in the Privy-garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine’s, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and did me good to look upon them. So to Wilkinson’s, she and I and Sarah to dinner, where I had a good quarter of lamb and a salat. Here Sarah told me how the King dined at my Lady Castlemaine’s, and supped, every day and night the last week; and that the night that the bonfires were made for joy of the Queen’s arrivall, the King was there; but there was no fire at her door, though at all the rest of the doors almost in the street; which was much observed: and that the King and she did send for a pair of scales and weighed one another; and she, being with child, was said to be heaviest. But she is now a most disconsolate creature, and comes not out of doors, since the King’s going. But we went to the Theatre to “The French Dancing Master,” and there with much pleasure gazed upon her (Lady Castlemaine); but it troubles us to see her look dejectedly and slighted by people already. The play pleased us very well; but Lacy’s part, the Dancing Master, the best in the world. Thence to my brother Tom’s, in expectation to have met my father to-night come out of the country, but he is not yet come, but here we found my uncle Fenner and his old wife, whom I had not seen since the wedding dinner, nor care to see her. They being gone, my wife and I went and saw Mrs. Turner, whom we found not well, and her two boys Charles and