Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S. Volume 1; With a Life and Notes by Richard, Lord Braybrooke (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1890 Excerpt: ... Tavern, where he told me how he had the grant of being Dean of St. Patrick's, in Ireland; and I told him my condition, and both rejoiced one for another. To give order for horses to be got to draw my Lord's great coach to Mr. Crewe's. Thence to my Lord's, and had the great coach to Brigham's, who give me a case of good julep, and told me how my Lady Monk deals with him and others for their places, asking him 500, though he was formerly the King's coachmaker, and sworn to it. To bed the first time since my coming from sea, in my own house, for which God be praised. 23d. To my Lord's lodgings, where Tom Guy come to me, and there staid to see the King touch people for the King's evil.1 But he did not come at all, it rained so; 1 This ceremony is of great antiquity in England; perhaps it may be traced to Edward the Confessor. Sir John Fortescue, in his defence of the House of Lancaster against that of York, argued that the crown could not descend to a female, because the Queen is not qualified by the form of anointing her, used at the coronation, to cure the disease called the king's evil. In the time of Charles II. the practice was at its height (Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii., p. 151). In the first four years after his restoration, he "touched" nearly 24,000 people. The ceremony was continued during the reigns of his successors; and so late as Lent, 1712, we find Dr. Johnson (Boswell's Life, vol. i., p. 16) amongst the number of persons actually touched by Queen Anne. The practice was supposed to have expired with the Stuarts, but the point being disputed, reference was made to the library of the Duke of Sussex, and four several Oxford editions of the Book of Common Prayer were found, all printed after the accession of the House of Hanover, and all containing...