The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

in 1643. He was chosen Speaker of Cromwell’s second parliament in 1654. Cromwell made him one of his Lords, but when the Long Parliament resumed its sittings, he was induced again to take his seat as Speaker. He was three times Keeper of the Great Seal for short periods of time. After the Restoration he was in fear for his safety, but eventually he obtained the royal pardon, and died September 3rd, 1662. ↩

Dr. Robert Mossum (afterwards Bishop of Derry). See January 8th, 1659⁠–⁠60. His name is sometimes written Mossum and sometimes Messum in the Diary. ↩

Dr. Ralph Widdrington, Lady Margaret’s Professor and Public Orator, having been ejected from his fellowship by the Master and Fellows of Christ’s College, Cambridge, October 28th, 1661, sued out a mandamus to be restored to it; and the matter being referred to commissioners⁠—“The Bishop of London, the Lord Chancellor, and some of the judges”⁠—he obtained restitution. —⁠Kennett’s Register, p. 552 ↩

John Herring, a Presbyterian minister, who was afterwards ejected from St. Bride’s, Fleet Street. His farewell sermon is described in the Diary under date August 17th, 1662. ↩

Probably the Axe on the west side of King Street, Westminster, from the predecessor of which tavern Axe Yard, where Pepys lived, took its name. ↩

Anne, daughter of John, first Lord Crew, married to Sir Harry Wright, Bart., M.P. She was sister to Lady Montagu. Lived till 1708. ↩

Mrs. Michell, to whose shop in the Hall Pepys was a frequent visitor. ↩

The Stone Gallery was a long passage between the Privy Garden and the river. It led from the Bowling Green to the Court of the Palace. ↩

The scramble for ribbons, here mentioned by Pepys in connection with weddings (see also January 26th, 1660⁠–⁠61, and February 8th, 1662⁠–⁠63), doubtless formed part of the ceremony of undressing the bridegroom, which, as the age became more refined, fell into disuse. All the old plays are silent on the custom; the earliest notice of which occurs in the old ballad of the wedding of Arthur O’Bradley, printed in the Appendix to Robin Hood, 1795, where we read⁠—

“Then got they his points and his garters,
And cut them in pieces like martyrs;
And then they all did play
For the honour of Arthur O’Bradley.”

Sir Winston Churchill also observes (Divi Britannici, p. 340) that James I was no more troubled at his querulous countrymen robbing him than a bridegroom at the losing of his points and garters. Lady Fanshawe, in her “Memoirs,” says, that at the nuptials of Charles II and the Infanta, “the Bishop of London declared them married in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and then they caused the ribbons her Majesty wore to be cut in little pieces; and as far as they would go, everyone had some.” The practice still survives in the form of wedding favours.

A similar custom is still of every day’s occurrence at Dieppe. Upon the morrow after their marriage, the bride and bridegroom perambulate the streets, followed by a numerous cortege, the guests at the wedding festival, two and two; each individual wearing two bits of narrow ribbon, about two inches in length, of different colours, which are pinned crossways upon the breast. These morsels of ribbons originally formed the garters of the bride and bridegroom, which had been divided amidst boisterous mirth among the assembled company, the moment the happy pair had been formally installed in the bridal bed.⁠—Ex. inf. Mr. William Hughes, Belvedere, Jersey. —⁠B. ↩

Robert Blackburne was Secretary to the Admiralty, with a salary of £250 a year, until the appointment of the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral in July, 1660. James Southerne, his clerk (afterwards clerk to Sir William Coventry), was Clerk of the Acts from 1677 till 1690, when he was appointed Secretary to the Admiralty. ↩

Lieutenant Lambert was appointed captain of the Norwich in June, 1661. His death is mentioned by Pepys under date September 14th, 1665. ↩

Samuel Cromleholme (or Crumlum), born in Wiltshire in 1618; Surmaster of St. Paul’s School, 1647; Head Master in 1657. He was a good scholar, and lost a valuable library when the school was burnt in the Great Fire. Died July 21st, 1672. ↩

Tom Pepys the turner was son of Thomas Pepys, the elder brother of Samuel’s father. He had a shop in Bartholomew Fair in 1667. ↩

Pepys’s uncle and aunt Wight are frequently mentioned in the Diary. ↩

John Hewson, who, from a low origin, became a colonel in the Parliament army, and sat in judgment on the King: he escaped hanging by flight, and died in 1662, at Amsterdam. A curious notice of Hewson occurs in Rugge’s Diurnal, December 5th, 1659, which states that “he was a cobbler by trade, but a very stout man, and a very good commander; but in regard of his former employment, they [the city apprentices] threw at him old shoes, and slippers, and turniptops, and brickbats, stones, and tiles.”⁠ ⁠… “At this time [January, 1659⁠–⁠60] there came forth, almost every day, jeering books: one was called Colonel Hewson’s Confession; or, a Parley with Pluto, about his going into London, and taking down the gates of Temple-Bar.” He had but one eye, which did not escape the notice of his enemies. —⁠B. ↩

Johannis Buxtorfii Thesaurus Grammaticus Linguæ Sanctæ Hebrææ, 1651, is in the Pepysian Library. ↩

“Address to the King by his loyal subjects of the County of Northampton, 20 June, 1660.” Declarations came in from the nobility, knights, and gentry of the several counties, and most of these Declarations appeared before this