bid me give them five pieces in gold at his going away. Thence back to White Hall, where, the King being gone abroad, my Lord and I walked a great while discoursing of the simplicity of the Protector, in his losing all that his father had left him. My Lord told me, that the last words that he parted with the Protector with (when he went to the Sound), were, that he should rejoice more to see him in his grave at his return home, than that he should give way to such things as were then in hatching, and afterwards did ruin him: and the Protector said, that whatever G. Montagu, my Lord Broghill, Jones, and the Secretary, would have him to do, he would do it, be it what it would. Thence to my wife, meeting Mr. Blagrave, who went home with me, and did give me a lesson upon the flageolet, and handselled my silver can with my wife and me. To my father’s, where Sir Thomas Honeywood and his family were come of a sudden, and so we forced to lie all together in a little chamber, three stories high.
22d. To my Lord, where much business. With him to White Hall, where the Duke of York not being up, we walked a good while in the Shield Gallery. Mr. Hill (who for these two or three days hath constantly attended my Lord) told me of an offer of £500 for a Baronet’s dignity, which I told my Lord of in the balcone in this gallery, and he said he would think of it. I to my Lord’s and gave order for horses to be got to draw my Lord’s great coach to Mr. Crew’s. Mr. Morrice the upholsterer came himself to-day to take notice what furniture we lack for our lodgings at Whitehall. My dear friend Mr. Fuller of Twickenham and I dined alone at the Sun Tavern, where he told me how he had the grant of being Dean of St. Patrick’s, in Ireland; and I told him my condition, and both rejoiced one for another. Thence to my Lord’s, and had the great coach to Brigham’s, who went with me to the Half Moon, and gave me a can of good julep, and told me how my Lady Monk deals with him and others 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