19th. Up, and after seeing the girls, who lodged in our bed, with their maid Martha, who hath been their father's maid these twenty years and more, I with Lord Brouncker to White Hall, where all of us waited on the Duke of York; and after our usual business done, W. Hewer and I to look my wife at the Black Lion, Mercer's, but she is gone home, and so I home and there dined, and W. Batelierand W. Hewer with us. All the afternoon I at the Office, while the young people went to see Bedlam, and at night home to them and to supper, and pretty merry, only troubled with a great cold at this time, and my eyes very bad ever since Monday night last that the light of the candles spoiled me. So to bed. This morning, among other things, talking with Sir W. Coventry, I did propose to him my putting in to serve in Parliament, if there should, as the world begins to expect, be a new one chose: he likes it mightily, both for the King's and Service's sake, and the Duke of York's, and will propound it to the Duke of York: and I confess, if there be one, I would be glad to be in.
20th. Up, and all the morning at the office, and then home to dinner, and after dinner out with my wife and my two girls to the Duke of York's house, and there saw "The Gratefull Servant," a pretty good play, and which I have forgot that ever I did see. And thence with them to Mrs. Gotier's, the Queen's tire-woman, for a pair of locks for my wife; she is an oldish French woman, but with a pretty hand as most I have seen; and so home, and to supper, W. Batelier and W. Hewer with us, and so my cold being great, and greater by my having left my coat at my tailor's to-night and come home in a thinner that I borrowed there, I went to bed before them and slept pretty well.
21st (Lord's day). Up, and with my wife and two girls to church, they very fine; and so home, where comes my cozen Roger and his wife, I having sent for them, to dine with us, and there comes in by chance also Mr. Shepley, who is come to town with my Lady Paulina, who is desperately sick, and is gone to Chelsey, to the old house where my Lord himself was once sick, where I doubt my Lord means to visit hers more for young Mrs. Beck's sake than for hers. Here we dined with W. Batelier, and W. Hewer with us, these two, girls making it necessary that they be always with us, for I am not company light enough to be always merry with them and so sat talking all the afternoon, and then Shepley went: away first, and then my cozen Roger and his wife. And so I, to my Office, to write down my Journall, and so home to my chamber and to do a little business there, my papers being in mighty disorder, and likely so to continue while these girls are with us. In the evening comes W. Batelier and his sisters and supped and talked with us, and so spent the evening, myself being somewhat out of order because of my eyes, which have never been well since last Sunday's reading at Sir W. Coventry's chamber, and so after supper to bed.
22nd. Up, and betimes to White Hall; but there the Duke of York is gone abroad a-hunting, and therefore after a little stay there I into London, with Sir H. Cholmly, talking all the way of Tangier matters, wherein I find him troubled from some reports lately from Norwood (who is his great enemy and I doubt an ill man), of some decay of the Mole, and a breach made therein by the sea to a great value. He set me down at the end of Leadenhall Street, and so I home, and after dinner, with my wife, in her morning-gown, and the two girls dressed, to Unthanke's, where my wife dresses herself, having her gown this day laced, and a new petticoat; and so is indeed very fine. And in the evening I do carry them to White Hall, and there did without much trouble get into the playhouse, there in a good place among the Ladies of Honour, and myself also sat in the pit; and there by and by come the King and Queen, and they begun "Bartholomew Fayre." But I like no play here so well as at the common playhouse; besides that, my eyes being very ill since last Sunday and this day se'nnight, with the light of the candles, I was in mighty pain to defend myself now from the light of the candles. After the play done, we met with W. Batelier and W. Hewer and Talbot Pepys, and they follow us in a hackney-coach: and we all stopped at Hercules' Pillars; and there I did give them the best supper I could, and pretty merry; and so home between eleven and twelve at night, and so to bed, mightily well pleased with this day's work.
23rd. Up: and to the Office, where all the morning, and then home, and put a mouthfull of victuals in my mouth; and by a hackney-coach followed my wife and the girls, who are gone by eleven o'clock, thinking to have seen a new play at the Duke of York's house. But I do find them staying at my tailor's, the play not being to-day, and therefore I now took them to Westminster Abbey, and there did show them all the tombs very finely, having one with us alone, there being other company this day to see the tombs, it being Shrove Tuesday; and here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois; and I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen,
[Pepys's attachment to the fair sex extended even to a dead queen.
The record of this royal salute on his natal day is very
characteristic. The story told him in Westminster Abbey appears to
have been correct; for Neale informs us ("History of Westminster
Abbey," vol. ii., p. 88) that near the south side of Henry V.'s tomb
there was formerly a wooden chest, or coffin, wherein part of the
skeleton and parched body of Katherine de Valois, his queen (from
the waist upwards), was to be seen. She was interred in January,
1457, in the Chapel of Our Lady, at the east end of this church; but
when that building was pulled down by her grandson, Henry VII., her
coffin was found to be decayed, and her body was taken up, and
placed in a chest, near her first husband's tomb. "There," says
Dart, "it hath ever since continued to be seen, the bones being
firmly united, and thinly clothed with flesh, like scrapings of
tanned leather." This awful spectacle of frail mortality was at
length removed from the public gaze into St. Nicholas's Chapel, and
finally deposited under the monument of Sir George Villiers, when
the vault was made for the remains of Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of
Northumberland, in December, 1776.—B.]
and that this was my birth-day, thirty-six years old, that I did first kiss a Queen. But here this man, who seems to understand well, tells me that the saying is not true that says she was never buried, for she was buried; only, when Henry the Seventh built his chapel, it was taken up and laid in this wooden coffin; but I did there see that, in it, the body was buried in a leaden one, which remains under the body to this day. Thence to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there, finding the play begun, we homeward to the Glass-House,
[Glass House Alley, Whitefriars and Blackfriars, marked the site for
some years: The Whitefriars Glass Works of Messrs. Powell and Sons
are on the old site, now Temple Street.]
and there shewed my cozens the making of glass, and had several things made with great content; and, among others, I had one or two singing-glasses made, which make an echo to the voice, the first that ever I saw; but so thin, that the very breath broke one or two of them. So home, and thence to Mr. Batelier's, where we supped, and had a good supper, and here was Mr. Gumbleton; and after supper some fiddles, and so to dance; but my eyes were so out of order, that I had little pleasure this night at all, though I was glad to see the rest merry, and so about midnight home and to bed.
24th. Lay long in bed, both being sleepy and my eyes bad, and myself having a great cold so as I was hardly able to speak, but, however, by and by up and to the office, and at noon home with my people to dinner, and then I to the office again, and there till the evening doing of much business, and at night my wife sends for me to W. Hewer's lodging, where I find two best chambers of his so finely furnished, and all so rich and neat, that I was mightily pleased with him and them and here only my wife, and I, and the two girls, and had a mighty neat dish of custards and tarts, and good drink and talk. And so away home to bed, with infinite content at this his treat; for it was mighty pretty, and everything mighty rich.