So great were the acclamations and numbers of people, that it reached like one street from Dover to Whitehall: we lay that night at Dover, and the next day we went in Sir Arnold Braem's [Footnote: Of a Dutch family settled at Bridge, in Kent. The house at Dover, in which Lady Fanshawe lay, was built by Jacob Braem, and is, or was in Hasted's time, the Custom-house. The family is now extinct.] coach towards London, where on Sunday night we came to a house in the Savoy. My niece, Fanshawe, then lay in the Strand, where I stood to see the King's entry with his brothers; surely the most pompous show that ever was, for the hearts of all men in this kingdom moved at his will.
The next day I went with other ladies of the family to congratulate his Majesty's happy arrival, who received me with great grace, and promised me future favours to my husband and self. His Majesty gave my husband his picture, set with small diamonds, when he was a child: it is a great rarity, because there never was but one. We took a house in Portugal Row, Lincoln's-inn Fields. My husband had not long entered upon his office, but he found an oppression from Secretary Nicholas, to his great vexation, for he, as much as in him lay, engrossed all the petitions, which really, by the foundation, belonged to the Master of the Requests; and in this he was countenanced by Lord Chancellor Clarendon, his great patron, notwithstanding he had married Sir Thomas Aylesbury's daughter, that was one of the Masters of the Requests.
This year I sent for my daughter Nan from my sister Boteler's, in Kent, where I had left her; and my daughter Mary died in Hertfordshire in August, and lies buried in Hertford church, in my father's vault.
In the latter end of the summer I miscarried, when I was near half gone with child, of three sons, two hours one after the other. I think it was with the hurry of business I then was in, and perpetual company that resorted to us of all qualities, some for kindness and some for their own advantage.
As that was a time of advantage, so it was of great expense, for on April the 23rd, 1661, the King was crowned, when my husband, being in waiting, rode upon his Majesty's left hand [Footnote: Evelyn says, that at the coronation of Charles the Second were "Two persons, representing the Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine, viz., Sir Richard Fanshawe and Sir Herbert Price, in fantastic habits."-Diary, vol. ii. p. 168.] with very rich footcloths, and four men in very rich liveries; and this year we furnished our house and paid all our debts which we had contracted during the war.
The 8th day of May following, the King rode to the Parliament, and then my husband rode in the same manner. His Majesty had commanded my husband to execute the place of the Chancellor of the Garter, both because he understood it better than any, and was to have the reversion of it. The first feast of St. George, my husband was proxy for the Earl of Bristol, and was installed for him Knight of the Garter. The Duke of Buckingham put on his robes, and the Duke of Ormond his spurs, in the stall of the Earl of Bristol.
Now it was the business of the Chancellor to put your father as far from the King as he could, because his ignorance in state affairs was daily discovered by your father, who showed it to the King; but at that time the King was so content that he should almost and alone manage his affairs, that he might have more time for his pleasure, that his faults were not so visible as otherwise they would have been, and afterwards proved. But now he sends to your father and tells him that he was, by the King's particular choice, resolved on to be sent to Lisbon with the King's letter and picture to the Princess, now our Queen, which then, indeed, was an employment any nobleman would be glad of; but the design from that time forth was to fix him here.
When your father was gone on this errand, I stayed in our house in Portugal Row, and at Christmas I received the New Year's gifts belonging to his places, which is the custom, of two tuns of wine at the Custom-house, for Master of Requests, and fifteen ounces of gilt plate at the Jewel-house, as Secretary of the Latin Tongue.
At the latter end of Christmas my husband returned from Lisbon, and was very well received by the King; and upon the 22nd of February following I was delivered of my daughter Elizabeth.
Upon the 8th of June,[Footnote: Query, 8th] 1662, my husband was made a Privy Councillor of Ireland; and some time after my Lord and Lady Ormond went into Ireland, and upon my taking leave of her Grace, she gave me a turquoise and diamond bracelet, and my husband a fasset [Footnote: A diamond cut into facets; a brilliant.] diamond ring. I never parted from her upon a journey but she ever gave me some present. When her daughter, the Lady Mary Cavendish, was married, none were present but his grandmother and father, and my husband and self; they were married in my Lord Duke's lodging in Whitehall, and given by the King, who came privately without any train. [Footnote: According to Collins' Peerage, Mary, second daughter of James Duke of Ormond, married William Cavendish, ninth Duke of Devonshire, at Kilkenny in Ireland, on the 27th of October, 1662. Lady Fanshawe's statement proves that he was mistaken.]