Background Few descriptions of daily life in any period of history are as vivid as those found in The Diary of Samuel Pepys—a rare firsthand account of events that occurred more than 300 years ago. As personal secretary to a British admiral, Pepys was aboard the ship on which King Charles II returned to England from exile in France. He also witnessed the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed thousands of homes and most of London’s government buildings.
The Restoration of Charles II 1660
March 16. ... To Westminster Hall, where I heard how the Parliament had this day dissolved themselves and did pass very cheerfully through the Hall and the Speaker without his mace. The whole Hall was joyful thereat, as well as themselves; and now they begin to talk loud of the King. ...
May 22. ... News brought that the two dukes are coming on board, which, by and by they did in a Dutch boat, the Duke of York in yellow trimming, the Duke of Gloucester in gray and red. My Lord4 went in a boat to meet them, the captain, myself, and others standing at the entering port. ...
May 23. ... All the afternoon the King walking here and there, up and down (quite contrary to what I thought him to have been), very active and stirring. Upon the quarter-deck he fell in discourse of his escape from Worcester. Where it made me ready to weep to hear the stories that he told of his difficulties that he had passed through. As his traveling four days and three nights on foot[128], every step up to his knees in dirt, with nothing but a green coat and a pair of country breeches on and a pair of country shoes, that made him so sore all over his feet that he could scarce stir. Yet he was forced to run away from a miller and other company that took them for rogues. His sitting at table at one place, where the master of the house, that had not seen him in eight years, did know him but kept it private; when at the same table there was one that had been of his own regiment at Worcester, could not know him but made him drink the King’s health and said that the King was at least four fingers higher than he. Another place, he was by some servants of the house made to drink, that they might know him not to be a Roundhead, which they swore he was. In another place, at his inn, the master of the house, as the King was standing with his hands upon the back of a chair by the fire-side, he kneeled down and kissed his hand privately, saying that he would not ask him who he was, but bid God bless him whither that he was going. ...[129]
The Coronation of the King 1661
April 23. ... About 4 in the morning I rose. ... And got to the Abbey, ... where with a great deal of patience I sat from past 4 till 11 before the King came in. And a pleasure it was to see the Abbey raised in the middle, all covered with red and a throne (that is a chair) and footstool on the top of it. And all the officers of all kinds, so much as the very fiddlers, in red vests. At last comes in the dean and prebends of Westminster with the bishops (many of them in cloth-of-gold copes); and after them the nobility all in their parliament-robes, which was a most magnificent sight. Then the duke and the King with a scepter (carried by my Lord of Sandwich) and sword and mond before him, and the crown too.
The King in his robes, bare-headed, which was very fine. And after all had placed themselves—there was a sermon and the service. And then in the choir at the high altar he passed all the ceremonies of the coronation—which, to my very great grief, I and most in the Abbey could not see. The crown being put upon his head, a great shout begun. And he came forth to the throne and there passed more ceremonies: as, taking the oath and having things read to him by the bishop, and his lords (who put on their caps as soon as the King put on his crown) and bishops came and kneeled before him. And three times the king-at-arms went to the three open places on the scaffold and proclaimed that if any one could show any reason why Ch. Stuart should not be King of England, that now he should come and speak. And a general pardon also was read by the Lord Chancellor; and medals flung up and down by my Lord Cornwallis—of silver; but I could not come by any.
Cultural History
London Fires
Cities like London were subject to frequent and terrible fi res during this time. In 1666, most buildings in London were made of highly flammable wood and pitch construction. Hay and feed piles for animals and riverside warehouses filled with hemp, oil, tallow, timber, and coal added to the combustible conditions. Strong winds easily carried sparks from one part of the city to another. After the fi re, Charles II appointed commissioners to redesign the city, and 9,000 houses and public buildings of brick were completed along wider streets by 1671. Nevertheless, London suffered another serious fire in 1676.
Cultural History
Royal Celebration The coronation of Charles II gave Londoners an excuse to decorate their houses and wear their best clothes. The day before the coronation, Pepys put on a new velvet coat and went to see a royal procession from the Tower of London to Whitehall. Pepys notes in his diary that the route was “all graveled; and the houses, hung with carpets before them, made brave show, and the ladies out of the windows.”
But so great a noise, that I could make but little of the music; and indeed, it was lost to everybody. ... I went out a little while before the King had done all his ceremonies and went round the Abbey to Westminster Hall, all the way within rails, and 10,000 people, with the ground covered with blue cloth—and scaffolds all the way. Into the hall I got—where it was very fine with hangings and scaffolds, one upon another, full of brave ladies. And my wife in one little one on the right hand. Here I stayed walking up and down; and at last, upon one of the side-stalls, I stood and saw the King come in with all the persons (but the soldiers) that were yesterday in the cavalcade; and a most pleasant sight it was to see them in their several robes. And the King came in with his crown on and his scepter in his hand—under a canopy borne up by six silver staves, carried by barons of the Cinque Ports—and little bells at every end.
And after a long time he got up to the farther end, and all set themselves down at their several tables—and that was also a rare sight. And the King’s first course carried up by the Knights of the Bath. And many fine ceremonies there was of the heralds leading up people before him and bowing; and my Lord of Albemarle going to the kitchen and ate a bit of the first dish that was to go to the Kings’s table. ...[130]
