The Diary of Samuel Pepys

by Samuel Pepys

8th. Lord Brouncker with the King and Duke upon the water to- day, to see Greenwich house, and the yacht Castle is building of.

9th. Thence to Westminster, to the Exchequer, about my Tangier business, and so to Westminster Hall, where the first day of the Terme and the hall very full of people, and much more than was expected, considering the plague that hath been.

11th (Lord's day). Up; and put on a new black cloth suit to an old coat that I make to be in mourning at Court, where they are all, for the King of Spain. I to the Park, and walked two or three times of the Pell Mell with the company about the King and Duke: the Duke speaking to me a good deal. There met Lord Brouncker and Mr. Coventry, and discoursed about the Navy business; and all of us much at a loss that we yet can hear nothing of Sir Jeremy Smith's fleet, that went away to the Straights the middle of December, through all the storms that we have had since that have driven back three or four of them with their masts by the board. Yesterday come out the King's Declaration of War against the French, but with such mild invitations of both them and the Dutch to come over here with promise of their protection, that every body wonders at it.

12th. Comes Mr. Caesar, my boy's lute-master, whom I have not seen since the plague before, but he hath been in Westminster Hall all this while very well; and tells me in the height of it, how bold people there were, to go in sport to one another's burials: and in spite too, ill people would breathe in the faces (out of their windows) of well people going by.

13th. Ill news this night that the plague is encreased this week, and in many places else about the town, and at Chatham and elsewhere.

14th. I took Mr. Hill to my Lord Chancellor's new house that is building, and went with trouble up to the top of it, and there is the noblest prospect that ever I saw in my life, Greenwich being nothing to it; and in everything is a beautiful house, and most, strongly built in every respect; and as if, as it hath, it had the Chancellor for its master. I staid a meeting of the Duke of York's, and the officers of the Navy and Ordnance. My Lord Treasurer lying in bed of the gowte.

15th. Mr. Hales [John Hayls, or Hales, a portrait-painter remarkable for copying Vandyke well, and being a rival of Lely.] began my wife's portrait in the posture we saw one of my Lady Peters, like a St. Katharine. While he painted, Knipp, [Of Mrs. Knipp's history, nothing seems known; except that she was a married actress belonging to the King's house, and as late as 1677, her name occurs among the performers in the "Wily False One.">[ and Mercer, and I, sang. We hear this night of Sir Jeremy Smith, that he and his fleet have been seen at Malaga; which is good news.

16th. To the Coffee-House, the first time I have been there, where very full, and company it seems hath been there all the plague time. The Queene comes to Hampton Court to-night.

18th. It being a brave day, I walked to White Hall, where the Queene and ladies are all come: I saw some few of them, but not the Queene, nor any of the great beauties.

19th. I am told for certain, what I have heard once or twice already, of a Jew in town, that in the name of the rest do offer to give any man 10l. to be paid 100l., if a certain person now at Smyrna be within these two years owned by all the Princes of the East, and particularly the grand Segnor as the King of the world, in the same manner we do the King of England here, and, that this man is the true Messiah. One named a friend of his that had received ten pieces in gold upon this score, and says that the Jew hath disposed of 1100l. in this manner, which is very strange; and certainly this year of 1666 will be a year of great action; but what the consequences of it will be, God knows! To White Hall, and there saw the Queene at cards with many ladies, but none of our beauties were there. But glad I was to see the Queene so well, who looks prettily; and methinks hath more life than before, since it is confessed of all that she miscarried lately; Dr. Clerke telling me yesterday of it at White Hall. [The details in the original leave no doubt of the fact,—and exculpate the Chancellor from the charge of having selected the Queen as incapable of bearing children.]