me his mind about Sir G. Carteret’s having so much the command of the money, which must be removed. And indeed it is the bane of all our business. He observed to me also how Sir W. Batten begins to struggle and to look after his business, which he do indeed a little, but it will come to nothing. I also put him upon getting an order from the Duke for our inquiries into the Chest, which he will see done. So we parted, and Mr. Creed by appointment being come, he and I went out together, and at an ordinary in Lumbard Streete dined together, and so walked down to the Styllyard, and so all along Thames-street, but could not get a boat: I offered eight shillings for a boat to attend me this afternoon, and they would not, it being the day of the Queen’s coming to town from Hampton Court. So we fairly walked it to White Hall, and through my Lord’s lodgings we got into White Hall garden, and so to the Bowling-green, and up to the top of the new Banqueting House there, over the Thames, which was a most pleasant place as any I could have got; and all the show consisted chiefly in the number of boats and barges; and two pageants, one of a King, and another of a Queen, with her Maydes of Honour sitting at her feet very prettily; and they tell me the Queen is Sir. Richard Ford’s daughter. Anon come the King and Queen in a barge under a canopy with 10,000 barges and boats, I think, for we could see no water for them, nor discern the King nor Queen. And so they landed at White Hall Bridge, and the great guns on the other side went off: But that which pleased me best was, that my Lady Castlemaine stood over against us upon a piece of White Hall, where I glutted myself with looking on her. But methought it was strange to see her Lord and her upon the same place walking up and down without taking notice one of another, only at first entry he put off his hat, and she made him a very civil salute, but afterwards took no notice one of another; but both of them now and then would take their child, which the nurse held in her armes, and dandle it. One thing more; there happened a scaffold below to fall, and we feared some hurt, but there was none, but she of all the great ladies only run down among the common rabble to see what hurt was done, and did take care of a child that received some little hurt, which methought was so noble. Anon there came one there booted and spurred that she talked long with. And by and by, she being in her hair, she put on his hat, which was but an ordinary one, to keep the wind off. But methinks it became her mightily, as every thing else do. The show being over, I went away, not weary with looking on her, and to my Lord’s lodgings, where my brother Tom and Dr. Thomas Pepys were to speak with me. So I walked with them in the garden, and was very angry with them both for their going out of town without my knowledge; but they told me the business, which was to see a gentlewoman for a wife for Tom, of Mr. Cooke’s providing, worth £500, of good education, her name Hobell, and lives near Banbury, demands £40 per annum joynter. Tom likes her, and, they say, had a very good reception, and that Cooke hath been very serviceable therein, and that she is committed to old Mr. Young, of the Wardrobe’s, tuition. After I had told them my mind about their folly in going so unadvisedly, I then begun to inquire after the business, and so did give no answer as to my opinion till I have looked farther into it by Mr. Young. By and by, as we were walking in my Lord’s walk, comes my Lord, and so we broke our discourse and went in with him, and after I had put them away I went in to my Lord, and he and I had half an hour’s private discourse about the discontents of the times, which we concluded would not come to anything of difference, though the Presbyters would be glad enough of it; but we do not think religion will so soon cause another war. Then to his own business. He asked my advice there, whether he should go on to purchase more land and to borrow money to pay for it, which he is willing to do, because such a bargain as that of Mr. Buggins’s, of Stukely, will not be every day to be had, and Brampton is now perfectly granted him by the King—I mean the reversion of it—after the Queen’s death; and, in the meantime, he buys it of Sir Peter Ball his present right. Then we fell to talk of Navy business, and he concludes, as I do, that he needs not put himself upon any more voyages abroad to spend money, unless a war comes; and that by keeping his family awhile in the country, he shall be able to gather money. He is glad of a friendship with Mr. Coventry, and I put him upon increasing it, which he will do, but he (as Mr. Coventry do) do much cry against the course of our payments and the Treasurer to have the whole power in his own hands of doing what he will, but I think will not meddle in himself. He told me also that in the Commission for Tangier Mr. Coventry had advised him that Mr. Povy, who intended to be Treasurer,
[Thomas Povy, who had held, under Cromwell, a high situation in the
Office of Plantations, was appointed in July, 1660, Treasurer and
Receiver-General of the Rents and Revenues of James, Duke of York;
but his royal master’s affairs falling into confusion, he
surrendered his patent on the 27th July, 1668, for a consideration
of £2,000. He was also First Treasurer for Tangier, which office he
resigned to Pepys. Povy, had apartments at Whitehall, besides his
lodgings in Lincoln’s Inn, and a villa near Hounslow, called the
Priory, which he had inherited from Justinian Povy, who purchased it
in 1625. He was one of the sons of Justinian Povy, Auditor-General
to Queen Anne of Denmark in 1614, whose father was John Povy,
citizen and embroiderer of London.]
and it is intended him, may not be of the Commission itself, and my Lord I think will endeavour to get him to be contented to be left out of the Commission, and it is a very good rule indeed that the Treasurer in no office ought to be of the Commission. Here we broke off, and I bid him good night, and so with much ado, the streets being at nine o’clock at night crammed with people going home to the city, for all the borders of the river had been full of people, as the King had come, to a miracle got to the Palace Yard, and there took boat, and so to the Old Swan, and so walked home, and to bed very weary.
24th (Lord’s day). Slept till 7 o’clock, which I have not done a very great while, but it was my weariness last night that caused it. So rose and to my office till church time, writing down my yesterday’s observations, and so to church, where I all alone, and found Will Griffin and Thomas Hewett got into the pew next to our backs, where our maids sit, but when I come, they went out; so forward some people are to outrun themselves. Here we had a lazy, dull sermon. So home to dinner, where my brother Tom came to me, and both before and after dinner he and I walked all alone in the garden, talking about his late journey and his mistress, and for what he tells me it is like to do well. He being gone, I to church again, where Mr. Mills, making a sermon upon confession, he did endeavour to pull down auricular confession, but did set it up by his bad arguments against it, and advising people to come to him to confess their sins when they had any weight upon their consciences, as much as is possible, which did vex me to hear. So home, and after an hour’s being in my office alone, looking over the plates and globes, I walked to my uncle Wight’s, the truth is, in hopes to have seen and been acquainted with the pretty lady that came along with them to dinner the other day to Mr. Rawlinson, but she is gone away. But here I staid supper, and much company there was; among others, Dr. Burnett, Mr. Cole the lawyer, Mr. Rawlinson, and Mr. Sutton, a brother of my aunt’s, that I never saw before. Among other things they tell me that there hath been a disturbance in a church in Friday Street; a great many young people knotting together and crying out “Porridge”
[A nickname given by the Dissenters to the Prayer-Book. In Mrs.
Behn’s “City Heiress” (1682), Sir Anthony says to Sir Timothy, “You
come from Church, too.” Sir Timothy replies, “Ay, needs must when
the Devil drives—I go to save my bacon, as they say, once a month,
and that too after the Porridge is served up.” Scott quotes, in his
notes to “Woodstock,” a pamphlet entitled, “Vindication of the Book
of Common Prayer, against the contumelious Slanders of the Fanatic
party terming it Porridge.”]
often and seditiously in the church, and took the Common Prayer Book, they say, away; and, some say, did tear it; but it is a thing which appears to me very ominous. I pray God avert it. After supper home and to bed.