Samuel Pepys - Diary of Samuel Pepys

24th. Up early this morning sending the things to the carrier’s, and my boy, who goes to-day, though his mistress do not till next Monday. All the morning at the office, Sir W. Batten being come to town last night. I hear, to my great content, that my Lord Sandwich is safe landed in France. Dined at our chamber, where W. Bowyer with us, and after much simple talk with him, I left him, and to my office, where all the afternoon busy till 9 at night, among other things improving my late experiment at Woolwich about hemp. So home and to bed.

25th. At the office all the morning, reading Mr. Holland’s’ discourse of the Navy, lent me by Mr. Turner, and am much pleased with them, they hitting the very diseases of the Navy, which we are troubled with now-a-days. I shall bestow writing of them over and much reading thereof. This morning Sir W. Batten came in to the office and desired to speak with me; he began by telling me that he observed a strangeness between him and me of late, and would know the reason of it, telling me he heard that I was offended with merchants coming to his house and making contracts there. I did tell him that as a friend I had spoke of it to Sir W. Pen and desired him to take a time to tell him of it, and not as a backbiter, with which he was satisfied, but I find that Sir W. Pen has played the knave with me, and not told it from me as a friend, but in a bad sense. He also told me that he heard that exceptions were taken at his carrying his wife down to Portsmouth, saying that the King should not pay for it, but I denied that I had spoke of it, nor did I. At last he desired the difference between our wives might not make a difference between us, which I was exceedingly glad to hear, and do see every day the fruit of looking after my business, which I pray God continue me in, for I do begin to be very happy. Dined at home, and so to the office all the afternoon again, and at night home and to bed.

26th. Sir W. Batten, Mr. Pett, and I at the office sitting all the morning. So dined at home, and then to my office again, causing the model hanging in my chamber to be taken down and hung up in my office, for fear of being spoilt by the workmen, and for my own convenience of studying it. This afternoon I had a letter from Mr. Creed, who hath escaped narrowly in the King’s yacht, and got safe to the Downs after the late storm; and that there the King do tell him, that he is sure that my Lord is landed at Callis safe, of which being glad, I sent news thereof to my Lord Crew, and by the post to my Lady into the country. This afternoon I went to Westminster; and there hear that the King and Queen intend to come to White Hall from Hampton Court next week, for all winter. Thence to Mrs. Sarah, and there looked over my Lord’s lodgings, which are very pretty; and White Hall garden and the Bowling-ally (where lords and ladies are now at bowles), in brave condition. Mrs. Sarah told me how the falling out between my Lady Castlemaine and her Lord was about christening of the child lately,

[The boy was born in June at Lady Castlemaine’s house in King

Street. By the direction of Lord Castlemaine, who had become a

Roman Catholic, the child was baptized by a priest, and this led to

a final separation between husband and wife. Some days afterwards

the child was again baptized by the rector of St. Margaret’s,

Westminster, in presence of the godparents, the King, Aubrey De

Vere, Earl of Oxford, and Barbara, Countess of Suffolk, first Lady

of the Bedchamber to the Queen and Lady Castlemaine’s aunt. The

entry in the register of St. Margaret’s is as follows: “1662 June

18 Charles Palmer Ld Limbricke, s. to ye right honorble Roger Earl

of Castlemaine by Barbara” (Steinman’s “Memoir of Barbara, Duchess

of Cleveland,” 1871, p. 33). The child was afterwards called

Charles Fitzroy, and was created Duke of Southampton in 1674. He

succeeded his mother in the dukedom of Cleveland in 1709, and died

1730.]

which he would have, and had done by a priest: and, some days after, she had it again christened by a minister; the King, and Lord of Oxford, and Duchesse of Suffolk, being witnesses: and christened with a proviso, that it had not already been christened. Since that she left her Lord, carrying away every thing in the house; so much as every dish, and cloth, and servant but the porter. He is gone discontented into France, they say, to enter a monastery; and now she is coming back again to her house in Kingstreet. But I hear that the Queen did prick her out of the list presented her by the King;

[“By the King’s command Lord Clarendon, much against his

inclination, had twice visited his royal mistress with a view of

inducing her, by persuasions which he could not justify, to give way

to the King’s determination to have Lady Castlemaine of her

household. … Lord Clarendon has given a full account of all

that transpired between himself, the King and the Queen, on this

very unpleasant business (‘Continuation of Life of Clarendon,’ 1759,

ff. 168–178).”—Steinman’s Memoir of Duchess of Cleveland, p. 35.

“The day at length arrived when Lady Castlemaine was to be formally

admitted a Lady of the Bedchamber. The royal warrant, addressed to

the Lord Chamberlain, bears date June 1, 1663, and includes with

that of her ladyship, the names of the Duchess of Buckingham, the

Countesses of Chesterfield and Bath, and the Countess Mareshall. A

separate warrant of the same day directs his lordship to admit the

Countess of Suffolk as Groom of the Stole and first Lady of the

Bedchamber, to which undividable offices she had, with the

additional ones of Mistress of the Robes and Keeper of the Privy

Purse, been nominated by a warrant dated April 2, 1662, wherein the

reception of her oath is expressly deferred until the Queen’s

household shall be established. We here are furnished with the

evidence that Charles would not sign the warrants for the five until

Catherine had withdrawn her objection to his favourite one.”—

Addenda to Steinman’s Memoir of Duchess of Cleveland (privately

printed), 1874, p. i.]

desiring that she might have that favour done her, or that he would send her from whence she come: and that the King was angry and the Queen discontented a whole day and night upon it; but that the King hath promised to have nothing to do with her hereafter. But I cannot believe that the King can fling her off so, he loving her too well: and so I writ this night to my Lady to be my opinion; she calling her my lady, and the lady I admire. Here I find that my Lord hath lost the garden to his lodgings, and that it is turning into a tennis-court. Hence by water to the Wardrobe to see how all do there, and so home to supper and to bed.

27th (Lord’s day). At church alone in the pew in the morning. In the afternoon by water I carried my wife to Westminster, where she went to take leave of her father,

[Mrs. Pepys’s father was Alexander Marchant, Sieur de St. Michel, a

scion of a good family in Anjou. Having turned Huguenot at the age

of twenty-one, his father disinherited him, and he was left

penniless. He came over in the retinue of Henrietta Maria, on her

marriage with Charles I., as one of her Majesty’s gentlemen carvers,

but the Queen dismissed him on finding out he was a Protestant and

did not go to mass. He described himself as being captain and major

of English troops in Italy and Flanders.—Wheatley’s Pepys and the

World he lived in, pp. 6, 250. He was full of schemes; see

September 22nd, 1663, for account of his patent for curing smoky

chimneys.]

and I to walk in the Park, which is now every day more and more pleasant, by the new works upon it. Here meeting with Laud Crispe, I took him to the farther end, and sat under a tree in a corner, and there sung some songs, he singing well, but no skill, and so would sing false sometimes. Then took leave of him, and found my wife at my Lord’s lodging, and so took her home by water, and to supper in Sir W. Pen’s balcony, and Mrs. Keene with us, and then came my wife’s brother, and then broke up, and to bed.