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 L295,994 16s. 6d., in lieu of which the King gave him an annuity of L17,759 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 L150 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 L1500; Thomas Tourner, General Clerk, for himself and clerk, L100.]
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 brother, my Lord returned answer, that he could not desist in my business; and that he believed that General Monk would take it ill if my Lord should name the officers in his army; and therefore he desired to have the naming of one officer in the fleet. With my Lord by coach to Mr. Crew’s, and very merry by the way, discoursing of the late changes and his good fortune. Thence home, and then with my wife to Dorset House, to deliver a list of the names of the justices of the peace for Huntingdonshire. By coach, taking Mr. Fox part of the way with me, that was with us with the King on board the Nazeby, who I found to have married Mrs. Whittle, that lived at Mr. Geer’s so long. A very civil gentleman. At Dorset House I met with Mr. Kipps, my old friend, with whom the world is well changed, he being now sealbearer to the Lord Chancellor, at which my wife and I are well pleased, he being a very good natured man. Home and late writing letters. Then to my Lord’s lodging, this being the first night of his coming to Whitehall to lie since his coming from sea.
26th. My Lord dined at his lodgings all alone to-day. I went to Secretary Nicholas
[Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to Charles I. and II. He was dismissed from his office through the intrigues of Lady Castlemaine in 1663. He died 1669, aged seventy-seven.]
to carry him my Lord’s resolutions about his title, which he had chosen, and that is Portsmouth.
[Montagu changed his mind, and ultimately took his title from the town of Sandwich, leaving that of Portsmouth for the use of a King’s mistress.]
I met with Mr. Throgmorton, a merchant, who went with me to the old Three Tuns, at Charing Cross, who did give me five pieces of gold for to do him a small piece of service about a convoy to Bilbo, which I did. In the afternoon, one Mr. Watts came to me, a merchant, to offer me L500 if I would desist from the Clerk of the Acts place. I pray God direct me in what I do herein. Went to my house, where I found my father, and carried him and my wife to Whitefriars, and myself to Puddlewharf, to the Wardrobe, to Mr. Townsend, who went with me to Backwell, the goldsmith’s, and there we chose L100 worth of plate for my Lord to give Secretary Nicholas. Back and staid at my father’s, and so home to bed.
27th. With my Lord to the Duke, where he spoke to Mr. Coventry to despatch my business of the Acts, in which place every body gives me joy, as if I were in it, which God send.