for their places, asking him £500, though he was formerly the King’s coach-maker, and sworn to it. My Lord abroad, and I to my house and set things in a little order there. So with Mr. Moore to my father’s, I staying with Mrs. Turner who stood at her door as I passed. Among other things she told me for certain how my old Lady Middlesex——herself the other day in the presence of the King, and people took notice of it. Thence called at my father’s, and so to Mr. Crew’s, where Mr. Hetley had sent a letter for me, and two pair of silk stockings, one for W. Howe, and the other for me. To Sir H. Wright’s to my Lord, where he, was, and took direction about business, and so by link home about 11 o’clock. To bed, the first time since my coming from sea, in my own house, for which God be praised.
23d. By water with Mr. Hill towards my Lord’s lodging and so to my Lord. With him to Whitehall, where I left him and went to Mr. Holmes to deliver him the horse of Dixwell’s that had staid there fourteen days at the Bell. So to my Lord’s lodgings, where Tom Guy came to me, and there staid to see the King touch people for the King’s evil. But he did not come at all, it rayned so; and the poor people were forced to stand all the morning in the rain in the garden. Afterward he touched them in the Banquetting-house.
[This ceremony is usually traced to Edward the Confessor, but there
is no direct evidence of the early Norman kings having touched for
the evil. Sir John Fortescue, in his defence of the House of
Lancaster against that of York, argued that the crown could not
descend to a female, because the Queen is not qualified by the form
of anointing her, used at the coronation, to cure the disease called
the King’s evil. Burn asserts, “History of Parish Registers,” 1862,
p. 179, that “between 1660 and 1682, 92,107 persons were touched for
the evil.” Everyone coming to the court for that purpose, brought a
certificate signed by the minister and churchwardens, that he had
not at any time been touched by His Majesty. The practice was
supposed to have expired with the Stuarts, but the point being
disputed, reference was made to the library of the Duke of Sussex,
and four several Oxford editions of the Book of Common Prayer were
found, all printed after the accession of the house of Hanover, and
all containing, as an integral part of the service, “The Office for
the Healing.” The stamp of gold with which the King crossed the
sore of the sick person was called an angel, and of the value of ten
shillings. It had a hole bored through it, through which a ribbon
was drawn, and the angel was hanged about the patient’s neck till
the cure was perfected. The stamp has the impression of St. Michael
the Archangel on one side, and a ship in full sail on the other.
“My Lord Anglesey had a daughter cured of the King’s evil with three
others on Tuesday.”—MS. Letter of William Greenhill to Lady Bacon,
dated December 31st, 1629, preserved at Audley End. Charles II.
“touched” before he came to the throne. “It is certain that the
King hath very often touched the sick, as well at Breda, where he
touched 260 from Saturday the 17 of April to Sunday the 23 of May,
as at Bruges and Bruxels, during the residence he made there; and
the English assure … it was not without success, since it was
the experience that drew thither every day, a great number of those
diseased even from the most remote provinces of Germany.”—Sir
William Lower’s Relation of the Voiage and Residence which Charles
the II. hath made in Holland, Hague, 1660, p. 78. Sir William Lower
gives a long account of the touching for the evil by Charles before
the Restoration.]
With my Lord, to my Lord Frezendorfe’s, where he dined to-day. Where he told me that he had obtained a promise of the Clerk of the Acts place for me, at which I was glad. Met with Mr. Chetwind, and dined with him at Hargrave’s, the Cornchandler, in St. Martin’s Lane, where a good dinner, where he showed me some good pictures, and an instrument he called an Angelique.
[An angelique is described as a species of guitar in Murray’s “New
English Dictionary,” and this passage from the Diary is given as a
quotation. The word appears as angelot in Phillips’s “English
Dictionary” (1678), and is used in Browning’s “Sordello,” as a
“plaything of page or girl.”]
With him to London, changing all my Dutch money at Backwell’s
[Alderman Edward Backwell, an eminent banker and goldsmith, who is
frequently mentioned in the Diary. His shop was in Lombard Street.
He was ruined by the closing of the Exchequer by Charles II. in
1672. The crown then owed him £295,994 16s. 6d., in lieu of which
the King gave him an annuity of £17,759 13s. 8d. Backwell retired
into Holland after the closing of the Exchequer, and died there in
1679. See Hilton Price’s “Handbook of London Bankers,” 1876.]
for English, and then to Cardinal’s Cap, where he and the City Remembrancer who paid for all. Back to Westminster, where my Lord was, and discoursed with him awhile about his family affairs. So he went away, I home and wrote letters into the country, and to bed.
24th. Sunday. Drank my morning draft at Harper’s, and bought a pair of gloves there. So to Mr. G. Montagu, and told him what I had received from Dover, about his business likely to be chosen there. So home and thence with my wife towards my father’s. She went thither, I to Mr. Crew’s, where I dined and my Lord at my Lord Montagu of Boughton in Little Queen Street. In the afternoon to Mr. Mossum’s with Mr. Moore, and we sat in Mr. Butler’s pew. Then to Whitehall looking for my Lord but in vain, and back again to Mr. Crew’s where I found him and did give him letters. Among others some simple ones from our Lieutenant, Lieut. Lambert to him and myself, which made Mr. Crew and us all laugh. I went to my father’s to tell him that I would not come to supper, and so after my business done at Mr. Crew’s I went home and my wife within a little while after me, my mind all this while full of thoughts for my place of Clerk of the Acts.
25th. With my Lord at White Hall, all the morning. I spoke with Mr. Coventry about my business, who promised me all the assistance I could expect. Dined with young Mr. Powell, lately come from the Sound, being amused at our great changes here, and Mr. Southerne, now Clerk to Mr. Coventry, at the Leg in King-street. Thence to the Admiralty, where I met with Mr. Turner
[Thomas Turner (or Tourner) was General Clerk at the Navy Office,
and on June 30th he offered Pepys £150 to be made joint Clerk of the
Acts with him. In a list of the Admiralty officers just before the
King came in, preserved in the British Museum, there occur, Richard
Hutchinson; Treasury of the Navy, salary £1500; Thomas Tourner,
General Clerk, for himself and clerk, £100.]
of the Navy-office, who did look after the place of Clerk of the Acts. He was very civil to me, and I to him, and shall be so. There came a letter from my Lady Monk to my Lord about it this evening, but he refused to come to her, but meeting in White Hall, with Sir Thomas Clarges, her