1665 – Diary of a Plague Year

[The masquerade at Court took place on the 2nd, and is referred to by Evelyn, who was present, in his Diary. Some amusing incidents connected with the entertainment are related in the Grammont Memoirs (chapter vii.).]

before the King and Court the other day, where six women (my Lady Castlemayne and Duchess of Monmouth being two of them) and six men (the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Arran and Monsieur Blanfort, being three of them) in vizards, but most rich and antique dresses, did dance admirably and most gloriously. God give us cause to continue the mirth! So home, and after a while at my office to supper and to bed.

4th. Lay long in bed discoursing with my wife about her maids, which by Jane’s going away in discontent and against my opinion do make some trouble between my wife and me. But these are but foolish troubles and so not to be set to heart, yet it do disturb me mightily these things. To my office, and there all the morning. At noon, being invited, I to the Sun behind the ’Change, to dinner to my Lord Belasses, where a great deal of discourse with him, and some good. Among others at table he told us a very handsome passage of the King’s sending him his message about holding out the town of Newark, of which he was then governor for the King. This message he sent in a slugg [slow, heavy boat], being writ in cypher, and wrapped up in lead and swallowed. So the messenger come to my Lord and told him he had a message from the King, but it was yet in his belly; so they did give him some physic [laxative], and out it come. This was a month before the King’s flying to the Scots; and therein he told him that at such a day, being the 3rd or 6th of May, he should hear of his being come to the Scots, being assured by the King of France that in coming to them he should be used with all the liberty, honour, and safety that could be desired. And at the just day he did come to the Scots. He told us another odd passage: how the King having newly put out Prince Rupert of his generalship, upon some miscarriage at Bristol, and Sir Richard Willis

[Sir Richard Willis, the betrayer of the Royalists, was one of the “Sealed Knot.” When the Restoration had become a certainty, he wrote to Clarendon imploring him to intercede for him with the king (see Lister’s Life of Clarendon, vol. iii., p. 87).]

of his governorship of Newark, at the entreaty of the gentry of the County, and put in my Lord Bellasses, the great officers of the King’s army mutinied, and come in that manner with swords drawn, into the market-place of the town where the King was; which the King hearing, says, “I must to horse.” And there himself personally, when everybody expected they should have been opposed, the King come, and cried to the head of the mutineers, which was Prince Rupert, “Nephew, I command you to be gone.” So the Prince, in all his fury and discontent, withdrew, and his company scattered, which they say was the greatest piece of mutiny in the world. Thence after dinner home to my office, and in the evening was sent to by Jane that I would give her her wages. So I sent for my wife to my office, and told her that rather than be talked on I would give her all her wages for this Quarter coming on, though two months is behind, which vexed my wife, and we begun to be angry, but I took myself up and sent her away, but was cruelly vexed in my mind that all my trouble in this world almost should arise from my disorders in my family and the indiscretion of a wife that brings me nothing almost (besides a comely person) but only trouble and discontent. She gone I late at my business, and then home to supper and to bed.

5th (Lord’s day). Lay in bed most of the morning, then up and down to my chamber, among my new books, which is now a pleasant sight to me to see my whole study almost of one binding. So to dinner, and all the afternoon with W. Hewer at my office endorsing of papers there, my business having got before me much of late. In the evening comes to see me Mr. Sheply, lately come out of the country, who goes away again tomorrow, a good and a very kind man to me. There come also Mr. Andrews and Hill, and we sang very pleasantly; and so, they being gone, I and my wife to supper, and to prayers and bed.

6th. Up and with Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Penn to St. James’s, but the Duke is gone abroad. So to White-hall to him, and there I spoke with him, and so to Westminster, did a little business, and then home to the ’Change, where also I did some business, and went off and ended my contract with the Kingfisher I hired for Tangier, and I hope to get something by it. Thence home to dinner, and visited Sir W. Batten, who is sick again, worse than he was, and I am apt to think is very ill. So to my office, and among other things with Sir W. Warren 4 hours or more till very late, talking of one thing or another, and have concluded a firm league with him in all just ways to serve him and myself all I can, and I think he will be a most useful and thankful man to me. So home to supper and to bed. This being one of the coldest days, all say, they ever felt in England; and I this day, under great apprehensions of getting an ague from my putting a suit on that has lain by without airing a great while, and I pray God it do not do me hurt.

7th. Up and to my office, where busy all the morning, and at home to dinner. It being Shrove Tuesday, had some very good fritters. All the afternoon and evening at the office, and at night home to supper and to bed. This day, Sir W. Batten, who has been sick four or five days, is now very bad, so as people begin to fear his death; and I am at a loss whether it will be better for me to have him die, because he is a bad man, or live, for fear a worse should come.

8th. Up and by coach to my Lord Peterborough’s, where anon my Lord Ashly and Sir Thomas Ingram met, and Povy about his accounts, who is one of the most unhappy accountants that ever I knew in all my life, and one that if I were clear in reference to my bill of £117 he should be hanged before I would ever have to do with him, and as he understands nothing of his business himself, so he has not one about him that do. Here late till I was weary, having business elsewhere, and thence home by coach, and after dinner did several businesses and very late at my office, and so home to supper and to bed.

9th. Up and to my office, where all the morning very busy. At noon home to dinner, and then to my office again, where Sir William Petty came, among other things to tell me that Mr. Barlow

[Thomas Barlow, Pepys’s predecessor as Clerk of the Acts, to whom he paid part of the salary. Barlow held the office jointly with Dennis Fleeting.]

is dead; for which, God knows my heart, I could be as sorry as is possible for one to be for a stranger, by whose death he gets £100 per annum, he being a worthy, honest man; but after having considered that when I come to consider the providence of God by this means unexpectedly to give me £100 a year more in my estate, I have cause to bless God, and do it from the bottom of my heart. So home late at night, after 12 o’clock, and so to bed.

10th. Up and abroad to Paul’s Churchyard, there to see the last of my books new bound: among others, my Court of King James,

[The Court and Character of King James, written and taken by Sir Anthony Weldon, being an eye and eare witnesse was published in 1650, and reprinted in 1651 under the title of Truth brought to Light Weldon’s book was answered in a work entitled Aulicus Coquinariae. Both the original book and the answer were reprinted in The Secret History of the Court of King James, Edinburgh, 1811, two vols. (edited by Sir Walter Scott).]

and The Rise and Fall of the Family of the Stewarts; and much pleased I am now with my study; it being, methinks, a beautiful sight. Thence (in Mr. Grey’s coach, who took me up), to Westminster, where I heard that yesterday the King met the Houses to pass the great bill for the £2,500,000. After doing a little business I home, where Mr. Moore dined with me, and evened our reckonings on my Lord Sandwich’s bond to me for principal and interest. So that now on both there is remaining due to me £257/7s, and I bless God it is no more. So all the afternoon at my office, and late home to supper, prayers, and to bed.

11th. Up and to my office, where all the morning. At noon to ’Change by coach with my Lord Brunkard, and thence after doing much business home to dinner, and so to my office all the afternoon till past 12 at night very busy. So home to bed.

12th (Lord’s day). Up and to church to St. Lawrence to hear Dr. Wilkins, the great scholar, for curiosity, I having never heard him: but was not satisfied with him at all. Only a gentleman sat in the pew I by chance sat in, that sang most excellently, and afterward I found by his face that he had been a Paul’s scholar, but know not his name, and I was also well pleased with the church, it being a very fine church. So home to dinner, and then to my office all the afternoon doing of business, and in the evening comes Mr. Hill (but no Andrews) and we spent the evening very finely, singing, supping and discoursing. Then to prayers and to bed.

13th. Up and to St. James’s, did our usual business before the Duke. Thence I to Westminster and by water (taking Mr. Stapely the rope-maker by the way), to his rope-ground and to Limehouse, there to see the manner of stoves and did excellently inform myself therein, and coming home did go on board Sir W. Petty’s Experiment, which is a brave roomy vessel, and I hope may do well. So went on shore to a Dutch [house] to drink some mum [strong spiced ale], and there light upon some Dutchmen, with whom we had good discourse touching stoveing

[Stoveing, in sail-making, is the heating of the bolt-ropes, so as to make them pliable. – B.]

and making of cables. But to see how despicably they speak of us for our using so many hands more to do anything than they do, they closing a cable with 20, that we use 60 men upon. Thence home and eat something, and then to my office, where very late, and then to supper and to bed. Captain Stokes, it seems, is at last dead at Portsmouth.

14th (St. Valentine). This morning comes betimes Dicke Pen, to be my wife’s Valentine, and come to our bedside. By the same token, I had him brought to my side, thinking to have made him kiss me; but he perceived me, and would not; so went to his Valentine: a notable, stout, witty boy. I up about business, and, opening the door, there was Bagwell’s wife, with whom I talked afterwards, and she had the confidence to say she came with a hope to be time enough to be my Valentine, and so indeed she did, but my oath preserved me from losing any time with her, and so I and my boy abroad by coach to Westminster, where did two or three businesses, and then home to the ’Change, and did much business there. My Lord Sandwich is, it seems, with his fleet at Alborough Bay. So home to dinner and then to the office, where till 12 almost at night, and then home to supper and to bed.

15th. Up and to my office, where busy all the morning. At noon with Creed to dinner to Trinity-house, where a very good dinner among the old sokers, where an extraordinary discourse of the manner of the loss of the Royall Oake coming home from Bantam, upon the rocks of Scilly, many passages therein being very extraordinary, and if I can I will get it in writing. Thence with Creed to Gresham College, where I had been by Mr. Povy the last week proposed to be admitted a member;

[According to the minutes of the Royal Society for February 15th, 1664–65, “Mr. Pepys was unanimously elected and admitted.” Notes of the experiments shown by Hooke and Boyle are given in Birch’s History of the Royal Society, vol. ii., p. 15.]

and was this day admitted, by signing a book and being taken by the hand by the President, my Lord Brunkard, and some words of admittance said to me. But it is a most acceptable thing to hear their discourse, and see their experiments; which were this day upon the nature of fire, and how it goes out in a place where the air is not free, and sooner out where the air is exhausted, which they showed by an engine on purpose. After this being done, they to the Crowne Tavern, behind the ’Change, and there my Lord and most of the company to a club supper; Sir P. Neale, Sir R. Murrey, Dr. Clerke, Dr. Whistler, Dr. Goddard, and others of most eminent worth. Above all, Mr. Boyle today was at the meeting, and above him Mr. Hooke, who is the most, and promises the least, of any man in the world that ever I saw. Here excellent discourse till 10 at night, and then home, and to Sir W. Batten’s, where I hear that Sir Thomas Harvy intends to put Mr. Turner out of his house and come in himself, which will be very hard to them, and though I love him not, yet for his family’s sake I pity him. So home and to bed.

16th. Up, and with Mr. Andrews to White-hall, where a Committee of Tangier, and there I did our victuallers’ business for some more money, out of which I hope to get a little, of which I was glad; but, Lord! to see to what a degree of contempt, nay, scorn, Mr. Povy, through his prodigious folly, has brought himself in his accounts, that if he be not a man of a great interest, he will be kicked out of his employment for a fool, is very strange, and that most deservedly that ever man was; for never any man, that understands accounts so little, ever went through so much, and yet goes through it with the greatest shame and yet with confidence that ever I saw man in my life. God deliver me in my own business of my bill out of his hands, and if ever I foul my fingers with him again let me suffer for it! Back to the ’Change, and thence home to dinner, where Mrs. Hunt dined with me, and poor Mrs. Batters, who brought her little daughter with her, and a letter from her husband, wherein, as a token, the fool presents me very seriously with his daughter for me to take the charge of bringing up for him, and to make my own. But I took no notice to her at all of the substance of the letter, but fell to discourse, and so went away to the office, where all the afternoon till almost one in the morning, and then home to bed.

17th. Up, and it being bitter cold, and frost and snow, which I had thought had quite left us, I by coach to Povy’s, where he told me, as I knew already, how he was handled the other day, and is still, by my Lord Berkeley, and among other things tells me, what I did not know, how my Lord Berkeley will say openly, that he has fought more set fields – [Battles or actions] – than any man in England has done. I did my business with him, which was to get a little sum of money paid, and so home with Mr. Andrews, who met me there, and there to the office. At noon home and there found Lewellin, which vexed me out of my old jealous humour. So to my office, where till 12 at night, being only a little while at noon at Sir W. Batten’s to see him, and had some high words with Sir J. Minnes about Sir W. Warren, he calling him cheating knave, but I cooled him, and at night at Sir W. Penn’s, he being to go to Chatham tomorrow. So home to supper and to bed.

18th. Up, and to the office, where sat all the morning; at noon to the ’Change, and thence to the Royall Oake tavern in Lombard Street, where Sir William Petty and the owners of the double-bottomed boat (the Experiment) did entertain my Lord Brunkard, Sir R. Murrey, myself, and others, with marrow bones and a chine of beef of the victuals they have made for this ship; and excellent company and good discourse: but, above all, I do value Sir William Petty. Thence home; and took my Lord Sandwich’s draft of the harbour of Portsmouth down to Ratcliffe, to one Burston, to make a chart for the King, and another for the Duke, and another for himself, which will be very neat. So home, and till almost 1 o’clock in the morning at my office, and then home to supper and to bed. My Lord Sandwich, and his fleet of twenty-five ships in the Downes, returned from cruising, but could not meet with any Dutchmen.

19th. Lay in bed, it being Lord’s day, all the morning talking with my wife, sometimes pleased, sometimes displeased, and then up and to dinner. All the afternoon also at home, and Sir W. Batten’s, and in the evening comes Mr. Andrews, and we sung together, and then to supper, he not staying, and at supper hearing by accident of my maids their letting in a roguing Scotch woman that haunts the office, to help them to wash and scour in our house, and that very lately, I fell mightily out, and made my wife, to the disturbance of the house and neighbours, to beat our little girl, and then we shut her down into the cellar, and there she lay all night. So we to bed.

20th. Up, and with Sir J. Minnes to attend the Duke, and then we back again and rode into the beginning of my Lord Chancellor’s new house, near St. James’s; which common people have already called Dunkirk-house, from their opinion of his having a good bribe for the selling of that town. And very noble I believe it will be. Near that is my Lord Berkeley beginning another on one side, and Sir J. Denham on the other. Thence I to the House of Lords and spoke with my Lord Bellasses, and so to the ’Change, and there did business, and so to the Sun Tavern, having in the morning had some high words with Sir J. Lawson about his sending of some bailed goods to Tangier, wherein the truth is I did not favour him. But being conscious that some of my profits may come out by some words that fell from him, and to be quiet, I have accommodated it. Here we dined merry; but my club and the rest come to 7s/6d, which was too much. Thence to the office, and there found Bagwell’s wife, whom I directed to go home, and I would do her business, which was to write a letter to my Lord Sandwich for her husband’s advance into a better ship as there should be occasion, which I did, and by and by did go down by water to Deptford, and then down further, and so landed at the lower end of the town, and it being dark privately ‘entrer en la maison de la femme de Bagwell’, and there had ‘sa compagnie’, though with a great deal of difficulty, ‘néanmoins en fin j’avais ma volonté d’elle’. And being sated therewith, I walked home to Redriffe, it being now near 9 o’clock, and there I did drink some strong waters and eat some bread and cheese, and so home, where at my office my wife comes and tells me that she has hired a chamber maid, one of the prettiest maids that ever she saw in her life, and that she is really jealous of me for her, but has ventured to hire her from month to month, but I think she means merrily. So to supper and to bed.

21st. Up, and to the office (having a mighty pain in my forefinger of my left hand, from a strain that it received last night in struggling ‘avec la femme que je’ mentioned yesterday), where busy till noon, and then my wife being busy in going with her woman to a hot-house to bathe herself, after her long being within doors in the dirt, so that she now pretends to a resolution of being hereafter very clean. How long it will hold I can guess. I dined with Sir W. Batten and my Lady, they being nowadays very fond of me. So to the ’Change, and off of the ’Change with Mr. Wayth to a cook’s shop, and there dined again for discourse with him about Hamaccos

[Or hammock-battens: cleats or battens nailed to the sides of a vessel’s beams, from which to suspend the seamen’s hammocks.]

and the abuse now practised in tickets, and more like every day to be, also of the great profit Mr. Fenn makes of his place, he being, though he demands but ½ per cent of all he pays, and that is easily computed, but very little pleased with any man that gives him no more. So to the office, and after office my Lord Brunkard carried me to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and there I with my Lady Sandwich (good lady) talking of innocent discourse of good housewifery and husbands for her daughters, and the luxury and looseness of the times and other such things till past 10 o’clock at night, and so by coach home, where a little at my office, and so to supper and to bed. My Lady tells me how my Lord Castlemayne is coming over from France, and is believed will be made friends with his Lady again. What mad freaks the Maids of Honour at Court have: that Mrs. Jenings, one of the Duchess’s maids, the other day dressed herself like an orange-wench, and went up and down and cried oranges; till falling down, or by such accident, though in the evening, her fine shoes were discerned, and she put to a great deal of shame. That such as these tricks being ordinary and worse among them, thereby few will venture upon them for wives: my Lady Castlemayne will in merriment say that her daughter (not above a year old or two) will be the first maid in the Court that will be married. This day my Lord Sandwich wrote me word from the Downes, that he is like to be in town this week.

22nd. Lay last night alone, my wife after her bathing lying alone in another bed. So cold all night. Up and to the office, where busy all the morning. At noon at the ’Change, busy; where great talk of a Dutch ship in the North put on shore, and taken by a troop of horse. Home to dinner and Creed with me. Thence to Gresham College, where very noble discourse, and thence home busy till past 12 at night, and then home to supper and to bed. Mrs. Bland came this night to take leave of me and my wife, going to Tangier.

23rd. This day, by the blessing of Almighty God, I have lived thirty-two years in the world, and am in the best degree of health at this minute that I have been almost in my life time, and at this time in the best condition of estate that ever I was in; the Lord make me thankful. Up, and to the office, where busy all the morning. At noon to the ’Change, where I hear the most horrid and astonishing news that ever was yet told in my memory: that De Ruyter with his fleet in Guinea has proceeded to the taking of whatever we have – forts, goods, ships, and men – and tied our men back to back, and thrown them all into the sea, even women and children also. This a Swede or Hamburger is come into the River and tells that he saw the thing done.

[Similar reports of the cruelty of the English to the Dutch in Guinea were credited in Holland, and were related by Downing in a letter to Clarendon from the Hague, dated April 14th, 1665 (Lister’s Life of Clarendon, vol. iii., p. 374).]

But, Lord! to see the consternation all our merchants are in is observable, and with what fury and revenge they discourse of it. But I fear it will, like other things, in a few days cool among us. But that which I fear most is the reason why he that was so kind to our men at first should afterward, having let them go, be so cruel when he went further. What I fear is that there he was informed (which he was not before) of some of Holmes’s dealings with his countrymen, and so was moved to this fury. God grant it be not so! But a more dishonourable thing was never suffered by Englishmen, nor a more barbarous done by man, as this by them to us. Home to dinner, and then to the office, where we sat all the afternoon, and then at night to take my final leave of Mrs. Bland, who sets out tomorrow for Tangier, and then I back to my office till past 12, and so home to supper and to bed.

24th. Up, and to my office, where all the morning upon advising again with some fishermen and the water bailiff of the City, by Mr. Coventry’s direction, touching the protections which are desired for the fishermen upon the River, and I am glad of the occasion to make me understand something of it. At noon home to dinner, and all the afternoon till 9 at night in my chamber, and Mr. Hater with me (to prevent being disturbed at the office), to perfect my contract book, which, for want of time, has a long time lain without being entered in as I used to do from month to month. Then to my office, where till almost 12, and so home to bed.

25th. Up, and to the office, where all the morning. At noon to the ’Change; where just before I came, the Swede that had told the King and the Duke so boldly this great lie of the Dutch flinging our men back to back into the sea at Guinea, so particularly, and readily, and confidently, was whipped round the ’Change: he confessing it a lie, and that he did it in hopes to get something. It is said the judges, upon demand, did give it their opinion that the law would judge him to be whipped, to lose his ears, or to have his nose slit but I do not hear that anything more is to be done to him. They say he is delivered over to the Dutch Embassador to do what he pleased with him. But the world do think that there is some design on one side or other, either of the Dutch or French, for it is not likely a fellow would invent such a lie to get money whereas he might have hoped for a better reward by telling something on behalf of us to please us. Thence to the Sun Tavern, and there dined with Sir W. Warren and Mr. Gifford, the merchant: and I hear how N. Colborne, that lately lived and got a great estate there, is gone to live like a prince in the country, and that this Wadlow, that did the like at the Devil by St. Dunstan’s, did go into the country, and there spent almost all he had got, and has now choused this Colborne out of his house, that he might come to his old trade again. But, Lord! to see how full the house is, no room for any company almost to come into it. Thence home to the office, where dispatched much business; at night late home, and to clean myself with warm water; my wife will have me, because she do herself, and so to bed.