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

Edmond Ibbott, made rector of Deale in 1662. See ante, March 25th. ↩

Mr. Ackworth seems to have held some office in Deptford Yard, see January 14th, 1660⁠–⁠61. ↩

Crambo is described as “a play at short verses in which a word is given, and the parties contend who can find most rhymes to it.” ↩

There were several Pickerings, and it is not easy to say which of them Pepys would style “uncle.” ↩

Month’s-mind. An earnest desire or longing, explained as alluding to “a woman’s longing.” See Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, act i sc. 2: “I see you have a month’s mind to them.” —⁠M. B. ↩

This is a somewhat late use of an expression which was once universal. It was formerly the custom for both sexes to sleep in bed without any nightlinen.

“Who sees his true love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white.”

Nares (Glossary) notes the expression so late as in the very odd novel by T. Amory, called John Bunde, where a young lady declares, after an alarm, “that she would never go into naked bed on board ship again.” Octavo edition, vol. i p. 90. ↩

Apparently Mallows stands for St. Malo and Murlace for Morlaise. ↩

Sir John Lenthall, who survived till 1681, was the only son of Speaker Lenthall, and Cromwell’s Governor of Windsor Castle. He had been knighted by the Protector in 1657; but is styled “Mr. Lenthall” in the Commons’ Journals of the House, May 12th, 1660, where the proceedings alluded to by Pepys are fully detailed. Mrs. Hutchinson also gives an account of them, in her Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 367, 4to. edit. On the 22nd of May following, Lenthall lost his seat for Abingdon, the double return for that borough having been decided in favour of Sir John Stonehouse; probably the then recent offence which Lenthall had given to the House of Commons had more influence in the adverse issue of the petition than the actual merits of the case. Sir John Lenthall, of whom Pepys speaks, August 10th, 1663, was the brother to the Speaker. See that passage. —⁠B. ↩

Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest child of Charles I, born July 6th, 1640, who, with his sister Elizabeth, was allowed a meeting with his father on the night before the King’s execution. Burnet says: “He was active, and loved business; was apt to have particular friendships, and had an insinuating temper which was generally very acceptable. The King loved him much better than the Duke of York.” He died of smallpox at Whitehall, September 13th, 1660, and was buried in Henry VII’s Chapel. ↩

William Coventry, to whom Pepys became so warmly attached afterwards, was the fourth son of Thomas, first Lord Coventry, the Lord Keeper. He was born in 1628, and entered at Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1642; after the Restoration he became private secretary to the Duke of York, his commission as Secretary to the Lord High Admiral not being conferred until 1664; elected M.P. for Great Yarmouth in 1661. In 1662 he was appointed an extra Commissioner of the Navy, an office he held until 1667; in 1665, knighted and sworn a Privy Councillor, and, in 1667, constituted a Commissioner of the Treasury; but, having been forbid the court on account of his challenging the Duke of Buckingham, he retired into the country, nor could he subsequently be prevailed upon to accept of any official employment. Burnet calls Sir William Coventry the best speaker in the House of Commons, and “a man of the finest and best temper that belonged to the court,” and Pepys never omits an opportunity of paying a tribute to his public and private worth. He died, 1686, of gout in the stomach. ↩

Admiral Sir William Penn (see ante, April 4th). ↩

“About midnight arrived there Mr. Downing, who did the affairs of England to the Lords the Estates, in quality of Resident under Oliver Cromwell, and afterward under the pretended Parliament, which having changed the form of the government, after having cast forth the last Protector, had continued him in his imploiment, under the quality of Extraordinary Envoy. He began to have respect for the King’s person, when he knew that all England declared for a free parliament, and departed from Holland without order, as soon as he understood that there was nothing that could longer oppose the reestablishment of monarchal government, with a design to crave letters of recommendation to General Monk. This lord considered him, as well because of the birth of his wife, which is illustrious, as because Downing had expressed some respect for him in a time when that eminent person could not yet discover his intentions. He had his letters when he arrived at midnight at the house of the Spanish Embassador, as we have said. He presented them forthwith to the King, who arose from table a while after, read the letters, receiv’d the submissions of Downing, and granted him the pardon and grace which he asked for him to whom he could deny nothing. Some daies after the King knighted him, and would it should be believed, that the strong aversions which this minister of the Protector had made appear against him on all occasions, and with all sorts of persons indifferently, even a few daies before the public and general declaration of all England, proceeded not from any evil intention, but only from a deep dissimulation, wherewith he was constrained to cover his true sentiments,