Chapter 73

6th. Up betimes, and with Sir D. Gauden to Sir W. Coventry's chamber; where the first word he said to me was, "Good-morrow, Mr. Pepys, that must be Speaker of the Parliament-house:" and did protest I had got honour for ever in Parliament. He said that his brother, that sat by him, admires me; and another gentleman said that I could not get less than 1000l. a-year, if I would put on a gown and plead at the Chancery-bar. But, what pleases me most, he tells me that the Solicitor-generall did protest that he thought I spoke the best of any man in England. After several talks with him alone touching his own businesses, he carried me to White Hall; and there parted. And I to the Duke of York's lodgings, and find him going to the Parke, it being a very fine morning; and I after him: and as soon as he saw me, he told me with great satisfaction that I had converted a great many yesterday, and did with great praise of me go on with the discourse with me. And by and by overtaking the King, the King and Duke of York came to me both; and he [The King.] said, "Mr. Pepys, I am very glad of your success yesterday:" and fell to talk of my well speaking. And many of the Lords there. My Lord Barkeley did cry me up for what they had heard of it; and others, Parliament-men there about the King, did say that they never heard such a speech in their lives delivered in that manner. Progers of the Bedchamber swore to me afterwards before Brouncker, in the afternoon, that he did tell the King that he thought I might match the Solicitor-generall. Every body that saw me almost came to me, as Joseph Williamson and others, with such eulogys as cannot be expressed. From thence I went to Westminster Hall; where I met Mr. G. Montagu, who came to me and kissed me, and told me that he had often heretofore kissed my hands, but now he would kiss my lips; protesting that I was another Cicero, and said, all the world said the same of me. Mr. Ashburnham, and every creature I met there of the Parliament, or that knew any thing of the Parliament's actings, did salute me with this honour: Mr. Godolphin; Mr. Sands, who swore he would go twenty miles at any time to hear the like again, and that he never saw so many sit four hours together to hear any man in his life as there did to hear me, Mr. Chichly, Sir John Duncomb, and every body do say that the kingdom will ring of my abilities, and that I have done myself right for my whole life; and so Captain Cocke and others of my friends say that no man had ever such an opportunity of making his abilities known. And that I may cite all at once, Mr. Lieutenant of the Tower did tell me that Mr. Vaughan did protest to him, and that in his hearing it said so to the Duke of Albemarle, and afterwards to Sir W. Coventry, that he had sat twenty-six years in Parliament and never heard such a speech there before: for which the Lord God make me thankful; and that I may make use of it, not to pride and vain-glory, but that, now I have this esteem, I may do nothing that may lessen it! To White Hall to wait on the Duke of York; where he again and all the company magnified me, and several in the Gallery: among others, my Lord Gerard, who never knew me before nor spoke to me, desires his being better acquainted with me: and that, at table where he was, he never heard so much said of any man as of me in his whole life. So waited on the Duke of York, and thence into the Gallery, where the House of Lords waited the King's coming out of the Park; which he did by and by. And there in the Vane-roome my Lord Keeper delivered a Message to the King, the Lords being about him, wherein the Barons of England, from many good arguments very well expressed in the part he read out of, do demand precedence in England of all noblemen of either of the King's other two kingdoms, be their title what it will; and did show that they were in England reputed but as Commoners, and sat in the House of Commons and at conferences with the Lords did stand bare. It was mighty worth my hearing; but the King did say only that he would consider of it, and so dismissed them.

8th. With Sir W. Coventry, who I find full of care in his own business, how to defend himself against those that have a mind to cheque him; and though I believe not for honour and for the keeping his employment, but for safety and reputation's sake, is desirous to preserve himself free from blame.

9th. By coach to White Hall, and there met Lord Brouncker: and he and I to the Commissioners of the Treasury; where I find them mighty kind to me, more, I think, than was wont. And here I also met Colvill the goldsmith; who tells me, with great joy, how the world upon the 'Change talks of me; and how several Parliament- men, viz. Boscawen [Edward Boscawen, M.P for Truro.] and Major Walden of Huntingdon, who it seems do deal with him, do say how bravely I did speak, and that the House was ready to have given me thanks for it: but that, I think, is a vanity.

10th. With Sir D. Gauden homewards, calling at Lincolne's Inn- fields. But my Lady Jemimah was not within: and so to Newgate, where he stopped to give directions to the jaylor about a Knight, one Sir Thomas Halford, [Of Welham, Leicestershire, Baronet.] brought in yesterday for killing one Colonell Temple, falling out at a taverne. Home; and there comes Mr. Moore to me; who tells me that he fears my Lord Sandwich will meet with very great difficulties to go through about the prizes, it being found that he did give orders for more than the King's letter do justify; and then for the Act of Resumption, which he fears will go on, and is designed only to do him hurt; which troubles me much. He tells me he believes the Parliament will not be brought to do any thing in matters of religion, but will adhere to the Bishops.

11th. Meeting Mr. Colvill I walked with him to his building, where he is building a fine house, where he formerly lived, in Lumbard-street: and it will be a very fine street. So to Westminster; and there walked, till by and by comes Sir W. Coventry, and with him Mr. Chichly and Mr. Andrew Newport. I to dinner with them to Mr. Chichly's in Queens-street, in Covent Garden. A very fine house, and a man that lives in mighty great fashion, with all things in a most extraordinary manner noble and rich about him, and eats in the French fashion all; and mighty nobly served with his servants, and very civilly; that I was mighty pleased with it: and good discourse. He is a great defender of the Church of England, and against the Act for Comprehension; which is the work of this day, about which the House is like to sit till night. After dinner with them back to Westminster. Captain Cocke told me that the Speaker says he never heard such a defence made in all his life in the House, and that the Solicitor-generall do commend me even to envy.

12th. To Gresham College, there to show myself; and was there greeted by Dr. Wilkins, Whistler, and others, as the patron of the Navy-office, and one that got great fame by my late speech to the Parliament.

13th. At noon, all of us to Chatelin, the French house in Covent Garden, to dinner; Brouncker, J. Minnes, W. Pen, T. Harvey, and myself; and there had a dinner cost us 8s. 6d. a-piece, a base dinner, which did not please us at all. My head being full of to-morrow's dinner, I to my: Lord Crewe's, there to invite Sir Thomas Crewe; and there met with my Lord Hinchingbroke and his lady, the first time I spoke to her. I saluted her; and she mighty civil: and, with my Lady Jemimah, do all resolve to be very merry to-morrow at my house. My Lady Hinchingbroke I cannot say is a beauty, nor ugly; but is altogether a comely lady enough, and seems very good-humoured. Thence home; and there I find one laying of my napkins against to-morrow in figures of all sorts; which is mighty pretty, and it seems it is his trade, and he gets much money by it.

14th. Up very betimes, and with Jane to Lovett's, there to conclude upon our dinner; and thence to the pewterer's, to buy a pewter sesterne, which I have ever hitherto been without. Anon comes my company, viz, my Lord Hinchingbroke and his lady, Sir Philip Carteret and his lady, Godolphin and my cosen Roger, and Creed: and mighty merry; and by and by to dinner, which was very good and plentifull: (and I should have said, and Mr. George Montagu, who came at a very little warning, which was exceeding kind of him.) And there, among other things, my Lord had Sir Samuel Morland's late invention for casting up of sums of L. S. D.; which is very pretty, but not very useful. Most of our discourse was of my Lord Sandwich and his family, as being all of us of the family. And with extraordinary pleasure all the afternoon, thus together eating and looking over my closet; and my Lady Hinchingbroke I find a very sweet-natured and well- disposed lady, a lover of books and pictures, and, of good understanding. About five o'clock they went; and then my wife and I abroad by coach into Moore-fields, only for a little ayre.

15th. Walked with Sir W. Coventry into the Park, and there met the King and the Duke of York, and walked a good while with them: and here met Sir Jer. Smith, who tells me he is like to get the better of Holmes, and that when he is come to an end of that he will do Hollis's business for him in the House for his blasphemies; which I shall be glad of. So to White Hall, and there walked with this man and that man till chapel done and the King dined: and then Sir Thomas Clifford the Comptroller took me with him to dinner to his lodgings, where my Lord Arlington and a great deal of good and great company; where I very civilly used by them, and had a most excellent dinner. And good discourse of Spain, Mr. Godolphin being there; particularly of the removal of the bodies of all the dead kings of Spain that could be got together, and brought to the Pantheon at the Escuriall (when it was finished) and there placed before the altar, there to lie for ever: and there was a sermon made to them upon this text, "Arida ossa, audite verbum Dei;" and a most eloquent sermon, as they say.

17th. To the Excise-office, where I met Mr. Ball, and did receive my paper I went for; and there fell in talk with him, who being an old cavalier do swear and curse at the present state of things, that we should be brought to this, that we must be undone and cannot be saved; that the Parliament is sitting now, and will till midnight, to find how to raise this 300,000l. and doubts they will not do it so as to be seasonable for the King: but do cry out against all our great men at Court; how it is a fine thing for a Secretary of State to dance a jigg, and that it was not so heretofore; and, above all, do curse my Lord of Bristoll, saying the worst news that ever he heard in his life, or that the Devil could ever bring us, was this Lord's coming to prayers the other day in the House of Lords, by which he is coming about again from being a Papist, which will undo this nation; and he says he ever did say at the King's first coming in, that this nation could not be safe while that man was alive. The house, I hear, have this day concluded upon raising 100,000l. of the 300,0001. by wine, and the rest by poll, and have resolved to excuse the Church, in expectation that they will do the more of themselves at this juncture; and I do hear that Sir W. Coventry did make a speech in behalf of the clergy.

18th. To White Hall, where we and my Lord Brouncker attended the Council, to discourse about the fitness of entering of men presently for the manning of the fleet, before one ship is in condition to receive them. Sir W. Coventry did argue against it: I was wholly silent, because I saw the King upon the earnestness of the Prince was willing to it, crying very civilly, "If ever you intend to man the fleet without being cheated by the captains and pursers, you may go to bed and resolve never to have it manned." And so it was, like other things, over-ruled that all volunteers should be presently entered. Then there was another great business about our signing of certificates to the Exchequer for goods upon the 1,250,000l. Act; which the Commissioners of the Treasury did all oppose, and to the laying fault upon us. But I did then speak to the justifying what we had done even to the angering of Duncomb and Clifford; which I was vexed at: but for all that, I did set the office and myself right, and went away with the victory, my Lord Keeper saying that he would not advise the Council to order us to sign more certificates. But before I began to say any thing in this matter, the King and the Duke of York talking at the Council-table before all the Lords of the Committee of Miscarriages, how this entering of men before the ships could be ready would be reckoned a miscarriage; "Why," says the King, "it is then but Mr. Pepys making of another speech to them;" which made all the Lords (and there were by also the Atturny and Solicitor-generall) look upon me. Thence Sir W. Coventry, W. Pen, and I by hackney-coach to take a little ayre in Hyde Parke, the first time that I have been there this year; and we did meet many coaches going and coming, it being mighty pleasant weather. And so coming back again I light in the Pell Mell; and there went to see Sir H. Cholmly, who continues very ill of his cold. And there came in Sir H. Yelverton, and Sir H. Cholmly commended to me his acquaintance; which the other received, but without remembering to me, or I him, of our being school-fellows together; and I said nothing of it. But he took notice of my speech the other day at the bar of the House; and indeed I perceive he is a wise men. Here he do say that the town is full of it; that now the Parliament hath resolved upon 300,000l.; the King instead of fifty will set out but twenty-five ships, and the Dutch as many; and that Smith is to command them, who is allowed to have the better of Holmes in the late dispute, and is in good esteem in the Parliament above the other, Thence home, and there in favour to my eyes staid at home reading the ridiculous History of my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife; which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him. So to bed, my eyes being very bad; and I know not how in the world to abstain from reading.

19th. Walked all along Thames-street, which I have not done since it was burned, as far as Billingsgate; and there do see a brave street likely to be, many brave houses being built, and of them a great many by Mr. Jaggard; but the raising of the street will make it mighty fine.

20th. All the evening pricking down some things and trying some conclusions upon my viall, in order to the inventing a better theory of musique than hath yet been abroad; and I think verily I shall do it. This day at Court I do hear that Sir W. Pen do command this summer's fleet; and Mr. Progers of the Bedchamber as a secret told me that the Prince Rupert is troubled at it, and several friends of his have been with him to know the reason of it; so that he do pity Sir W. Pen, whom he hath a great kindness for, that he should not at any desire of his be put to this service, and thereby make the Prince his enemy and contract more envy from other people.

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.