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

Pride, haughtiness, only used now as a quotation.

“He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes.”

↩

Joyce Norton (see note 88). ↩

Parliament met on March 16th, and was at once adjourned until the 21st. ↩

The manor-house of Wimbledon was purchased of Sir Christopher Hatton by Sir Thomas Cecil (afterwards Earl of Exeter), who rebuilt it in 1588. He bequeathed it to his third son, Sir Edward Cecil (afterwards Viscount Wimbledon), at whose death in 1638 it was sold to Queen Henrietta Maria. The estate was seized during the Civil Wars, and a survey was taken by order of Parliament in 1649 (printed in Archæologia, vol. x). At the Restoration it again came into the possession of the Queen Dowager, who in 1661 sold it to George Digby, Earl of Bristol. On his death in 1676 it was sold by his widow to Lord Treasurer Danby (afterwards Duke of Leeds). Wimbledon House, designed by John Thorpe, was a very remarkable building, thought by some (according to Fuller) to be equal, if not to exceed Nonsuch. There is a view of the front in Lysons’ Environs of London. ↩

St. Bride’s, of which Richard Pierson, D.D., the vicar, officiated at the funeral. “March 18, 1663⁠–⁠4, Mr. Thomas Pepys” (“Burial Register of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street”). —⁠B. ↩

Mrs. Pepys’s leaning towards Roman Catholicism was a constant trouble to her husband; but, in spite of his fears, she died a Protestant (Dr. Milles’s certificate.) ↩

The young lady whom Thomas Pepys courted lived at Banbury (see September 30th 1662). ↩

March 16th, 1663⁠–⁠64. This day both Houses met, and on the gist the king opened the session with a speech from the throne, in which occurs this Passage: “I pray, Mr. Speaker, and you, gentlemen of the House of Commons, give that Triennial Bill once a reading in your house, and then, in God’s name, do what you think fit for me and yourselves and the whole kingdom. I need not tell you how much I love parliaments. Never king was so much beholden to parliaments as I have been, nor do I think the crown can ever be happy without frequent parliaments.” (Cobbett’s Parliamentary History, vol. iv, cc. 290, 291). ↩

Undressed. See note 1559. ↩

Dr. Robert Creighton. See March 7th, 1661⁠–⁠62. ↩

The preacher appears to have had the grave scene in Hamlet in his mind, as he gives the same illustration of Alexander as Hamlet does. ↩

Gracechurch Street. ↩

There are some letters of M. Vernatti or Vernatty (dated 1654, 1656, 1657) among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library. This man appears to have turned out a cheat, and fled the country in 1666 (see post, October 27th, 1667). ↩

The successful operation for the stone took place on March 26th, 1658. ↩

In Pepys’s General Collection of Prints in the Pepysian Library are some coloured engravings of Tangier and the Mole, before they were demolished, and in their ruins, by Thomas Phillips; but Jonas Moore’s map does not appear to be there. ↩

On March 23rd, 1663⁠–⁠64, a Bill for the repeal of the Act entituled “An Act for the preventing the inconveniences happening by the long intermission of Parliaments, and for the provision for the calling and holding of Parliaments once in three years at least,” was read the first time. The question being put that the Bill be read on Tuesday was passed in the negative (yeas 42, noes 129), and it was resolved that the Bill be read the second time on the following morning. Sir Richard Temple was one of the tellers for the yeas (Journal of the House of Commons, vol. viii, p. 526). ↩

Two servants of one Ireland, a cooper upon Bread Street Hill (The Intelligencer, March 28th, 1664). —⁠B. ↩

The church of St. James’s, Clerkenwell, which Pepys visited, was built in 1625 on the site of an older church. The present church was erected 1788⁠–⁠92. The Diarist went to church to see the fair Butlers on August 11th, 1661. ↩

In Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour, there is an allusion to the “Citizens that come a-ducking to Islington Ponds” (act i, sc. i). The piece of ground, long since bulk upon, was called “Ducking-pond Field,” from the pool in which the unfortunate ducks were hunted by dogs, to amuse the Cockneys, who went to Islington to breathe fresh air and drink cream. “On the north side of White Conduit House, now Albert Street, and at the south end of Claremont Place, there existed a deep and dangerous pool called Wheal Pond, which until a late period was famous for this inhuman sport” (Pinks’s History of Clerkenwell, p. 543). The King’s Head Tavern stood opposite the church. ↩

St. James’s Fields consisted of an open space west of the Haymarket, and north of Pall Mall, now occupied by St. James’s Square and the adjacent streets. The square was planned about this time by the Earl of St. Albans. ↩

Henry, third son of Thomas, first Lord Coventry; after the restoration made a Groom of the Bedchamber, and elected M.P. for Droitwich. In 1664 he was sent Envoy Extraordinary to Sweden, where he remained two years, and was again employed on an embassy to the same court in 1671. He also succeeded in negotiating the peace at Breda in 1667, and in 1672 became Secretary of State, which office