The Diary Samuel Pepys (love books to read .TXT) 📖

with Ireton’s widow, and a member of the Council of State. He seemed disposed to have espoused Charles II’s interests, but had not resolution enough to execute his design. At the Restoration, he was excepted out of the Act of Indemnity, and spent the remainder of his life in retirement at Stoke Newington. He died 1692. ↩

Mr. Wilkinson was landlord of the Crown in King Street, Westminster. ↩

Mr. Butler is usually styled by Pepys Mons. l’Impertinent. ↩

Probably Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Anne Montagu, daughter of Sir Edward Montagu, and sister to Mrs. Jem. ↩

The making of ciphers was a popular amusement about this time. Pepys made several for Montagu, Downing, and others. ↩

This salary appears to have been £50 a year. See 30th of this month. ↩

Pepys had two friends named Pierce, one the surgeon and the other the purser; he usually (but not always) distinguishes them. The one here alluded to was probably the surgeon, and husband of pretty Mrs. Pierce. After the Restoration James Pearse or Pierce became Surgeon to the Duke of York, and he was also Surgeon-General of the Fleet. ↩

Nieuport, who is described by Evelyn as “a judicious, crafty, and wise man.” ↩

Sir Thomas Widdrington was admitted a member of Gray’s Inn in 1618. As Recorder of Berwick he addressed a loyal speech to Charles I in 1633, when he expressed the wish that his throne might be “established before the Lord for ever.” He afterwards distinguished himself as a zealous Presbyterian, and in 1648 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Great Seal. When the trial of the King was arranged, he and his fellow Commissioner (Whitelocke) kept out of the way, so that they should have nothing to do with that criminal proceeding. Having declined to serve further as Commissioner, he was made Sergeant for the Commonwealth in 1650, and member of the Council of State in 1651. In 1654 he was again appointed Commissioner of the Great Seal, but was dismissed in 1655. He was elected in 1656 for York and for Northumberland, and chose to sit for the county. He was Speaker of this Parliament, which was dissolved in 1658. He was appointed Lord Chief Baron, but soon after was transferred to his former office of Commissioner of the Great Seal. He had the benefit of the Act of Indemnity at the Restoration, and was the first named of the re-appointed sergeants. He died May 13th, 1664, and was buried in the chancel of the church of St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields. ↩

The Swan in Old Fish Street was an old tavern, as it is mentioned in 1413 as the Swan on the Hoop, at the southeast comer of old Fish Street and Bread Street. There is a token of the house. (See Boyne’s Trade Tokens, ed. Williamson, vol. i, 1889, p. 691.) ↩

Mr. Falconberge (or Falconbridge, as sometimes spelt) appears to have beena clerk in the Exchequer. Mrs. Barker, Mrs. Pepys’s woman, was previously in the service of Mr. Falconberge. ↩

Mrs. Betty Lane, a haberdasher or seamstress who occupied a stall in the Hall. She is frequently mentioned in the Diary. ↩

These stationers and booksellers, whose shops disfigured Westminster Hall down to a late period, were a privileged class. In the statutes for appointing licensers and regulating the press, there is a clause exempting them from the pains and penalties of these obnoxious laws. The exception in the 14 Car. II cap. 33, sec. xx, runs thus: “Provided alsoe⁠ ⁠… that neither this act, nor any therein contained, shall be construed to prohibit any person or persons to sell books or papers who have sold books or papers within Westminster Hall, the Palace of Westminster, or in any shopp or shopps within twenty yards of the Great Gate of Westminster Hall aforesaid before the said 20th November, 1661, but they and every of them may sell books and papers as they have or did before the said 20th November, 1661, within the said Hall, Pallace, and twenty yards aforesaid, and not elsewhere, anything in this act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.” ↩

“Jan. 20th. Then there went out of the City, by desire of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, Alderman Fowke and Alderman Vincett, alias Vincent, and Mr. Broomfield, to compliment General Monk, who lay at Harborough Town, in Leicestershire.”

“Jan. 21st. Because the Speaker was sick, and Lord General Monk so near London, and everybody thought that the City would suffer for their affronts to the soldiery, and because they had sent the sword-bearer to, the General without the Parliament’s consent, and the three Aldermen were gone to give him the welcome to town, these four lines were in almost everybody’s mouth:

“Monk under a hood, not well understood,
The City pull in their horns;
The Speaker is out, and sick of the gout,
And the Parliament sit upon thorns.”

Rugge’s Diurnal

—⁠B. ↩

The Mitre in Fleet Street was opposite St. Dunstan’s Church, and stood on the site of part of Messrs. Hoare’s banking house. It is said to have dated back to Shakespeare’s day. There is a token of “Will. Pagget at the Miter in Fleet Street.” Pagget appears to have succeeded John Bayly, who died January, 1648⁠–⁠9. Mitre Tavern, Mitre Court, is another tavern. (See Boyne’s Trade Tokens, ed. Williamson, vol. i, 1889, p. 604.) ↩

William Lenthall, born June, 1591, called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1616. He was chosen Speaker of Charles I’s second parliament of 1640, but was forced to vacate his chair by Cromwell’s forcible expulsion of the members from the House, 1653. He retired to the Rolls, having been sworn in Master of the Rolls