"July.—The King going to swim one night in the Thames, there were divers ladies and gentlemen looking out of the windows of Whitehall, which he beholding, sent a message that either they should shut their windows and pray for his safety, or begone out of court. O chaste and good prince!"
"Oct. 23rd.—A settling of the King's household according as the book was 6th Charles I.—wherein His Majesty declares that his officers should collect out of the same all such wholesome orders, decrees, and directions as may tend most to the planting, establishing, and countenancing of virtue and piety in his family, and to the discountenancing of all manner of disorder, debauchery, and vice in any person of what degree or quality soever."
[180] State Papers, Dom. 1661, January 11th.
[181] The entry in the Council Book, and the subsequent Proclamation, are printed in Kennet's Register, under dates January 2nd & 10th.
[182] Neal, iv. 311.
[183] Crosby, ii. 108.
[184] Sir John Maynard informed Lord Mordaunt that so many refused to swear that he did not know what to do: some because they would not swear at all; others because they would not enter into promissory obligations; others because, as the King had taken no oath to obey the laws, they would take no oath to obey the King.—State Papers, Dom. 1661, January 19th.
[185] Baxter's Life and Times, ii. 301. No date is given—it is only said that the circumstance occurred at the time of Venner's insurrection.
[186] Loyal Subject's Lamentation for London's perverseness in the malignant choice of some rotten Members on Tuesday, 19th March, 1661.
[187] The Government monopoly of letter carrying was sometimes invaded; and I notice in the Minute Book of Privy Council, 1661–2, a curious order for taking into custody two persons, who obtained large quantities of letters under the pretence of conveying them to their proper destination, but who in fact threw them into the Thames, and still worse places.