Diary

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Date: 1893–1899

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CHAPTER III

English Life and Manners Under the Restoration

1

13.

Arrival of Charles II in England

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May 23, 1660. In the morning came infinity of people on board from the king to go along with him. My Lord, Mr. Crew, and others, go on shore to meet the king as he comes off from shore, where Sir R. Stayner bringing his Majesty into the boat, I hear that his Majesty did with a great deal of affection kiss my Lord upon his first meeting. The king, with the two dukes, the queen of Bohemia, princess royal, and prince of Orange, came on board, where I in their coming in kissed the king’s, queen’s, and princess’s hands. Infinite shooting off of the guns, and that in a disorder on purpose, which was better than if it had been otherwise. All day nothing but lords and persons of honor on board, that we were exceeding full. Dined in a great deal of state, the royal company by themselves in the coach, which was a blessed sight to see. . . . We now weighed anchor, and with a fresh gale and most happy weather we set sail for England.

All the afternoon the king walked here and there, up and down (quite contrary to what I thought him to have been), very active and stirring. Upon the quarterdeck he fell into discourse of his escape from Worcester,1 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, 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 scarcely stir. Yet he was forced to run away from a miller and other company, that took him for a rogue. 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, did not know him, but made him drink the king’s health and said that the king was at least four fingers higher than he. At 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 fireside, kneeled down and kissed his hand, privately, saying that he would not ask him who he was, but bid God bless him whither he was going. Then the difficulty of getting a boat to get into France, where he was fain to plot with the master thereof to keep his design from the four men and a boy (which was all his ship’s company), and so got to Fécamp in France. At Rouen he looked so poorly, that the people went into the rooms before he went away to see whether he had not stole something or other.

May 25, 1660. By the morning we were come close to the land, and everybody made ready to get on shore. . . . The king was received by General Monk with all imaginable love and respect at his entrance upon the land of Dover. Infinite the crowd of people and the horsemen, citizens, and noblemen of all sorts. The mayor of the town came and gave him his white staff, the badge of his place, which the king did give him again. The mayor also presented him from the town a very rich Bible, which he took and said it was the thing that he loved above all things in the world. A canopy was provided for him to stand under, which he did, and talked awhile with General Monk and others, and so into a stately coach there set for him, and so away through the town toward Canterbury, without making any stay at Dover. The shouting and joy expressed by all is past imagination.

1 , edited by H. B. Wheatley. 10 vols. London, 1893–1899. George Bell and Sons.

2 Pepys, , vol. i, pp. 155–158, 161–162.

1 The battle of Worcester, won by Cromwell in 1651.

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Chicago: H. B. Wheatley, ed., "Arrival of Charles II in England," Diary in Readings in Modern European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1926), 22–23. Original Sources, accessed March 29, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=SHPN7YPGNQ19DLP.

MLA: . "Arrival of Charles II in England." Diary, edited by H. B. Wheatley, Vol. i, in Readings in Modern European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, D.C. Heath, 1926, pp. 22–23. Original Sources. 29 Mar. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=SHPN7YPGNQ19DLP.

Harvard: (ed.), 'Arrival of Charles II in England' in Diary. cited in 1926, Readings in Modern European History, ed. , D.C. Heath, Boston, pp.22–23. Original Sources, retrieved 29 March 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=SHPN7YPGNQ19DLP.