Samuel Pegge

“ Addison, in the quality of The Spectator, professed a modest veneration for a couple of sticks, if concealed under petticoats; so am I loyally and religiously induced to "honour the King," as a part of our excellent Constitution: but why Kings should have in themselves a preternatural gift above other men, by healing the most stubborn of all diseases, exceeds my comprehension. Every body is, at this time, I dare believe, of the same opinion; and this foolish affectation of a divine inherent power has wisely been laid aside, ever since the accession of the House of Hanover. ”

“ QUEEN ELIZABETH.
That the Queen touched, is acknowledged; but it is as evident that she had no high opinion of the efficacy of such operation; for she once threw out an expression tending much to disparage the validity of it. Being on a Progress in Gloucestershire, her Majesty was so pestered with applications from diseased people, who pressed about her person in hopes of obtaining the Royal Touch, that she unguardedly, and in an ill-humour, exclaimed, "Alas, poor people, I cannot, I cannot cure you; it is God alone who can do it." ”

“ The accounts given of William's Court are surprizing for that age, when one would suppose our ancestors to have been rough and unpolished, little addicted to the softer vices, and totally unacquainted with the effeminacies of succeeding times; but we find that, notwithstanding men's minds were then so much turned to war and athletic diversions, excess and sensuality prevailed in a very scandalous manner among the Nobility, and even among the Clergy. Vanity, lust, and intemperance, reigned through the whole kingdom. ”

“ Henry at his Accession found himself so contracted in his Royal Revenues, by the imprudence of his immediate Predecessor, Stephen, that some spirited measures became necessary, to enable him to support his dignity equal to the Sovereign of a great Kingdom, and his own wishes.
Henry soon saw that the resumption of several grants made by Stephen was absolutely necessary; and these having been conferred on great and powerful men, the measure must be conducted with firmness and delicacy. ”

“ Wherever the King kept his Court, or indeed wherever he resided, there was, of course, the general resort of all the great men of the time, who brought with them, no doubt, large retinues; and in so great a concourse it is no wonder there should be many disorderly and abandoned people, in spite of all edicts and penalties.
Hitherto I have met with very little mention of any Officers of the Court or Household. In this Reign, however, we hear of William de Tankerville, whom Lord Lyttelton calls, "Henry's Great Chamberlain." ”

“ Henry, therefore, as soon as he was well and fully confirmed on the Throne, set about the execution of this secret article of the Treaty of Winchester, relating to the alienated lands, which Stephen had neglected. The necessity of this measure, however arduous and disagreeable in itself, appeared in the most glaring colours to Henry; for Stephen's extravagance, and the insatiable demands of his faction, had induced him to alienate so much of the ancient Demesne of the Crown, that the remaining Estate was not (as has been said) sufficient to maintain the Royal Dignity. ”

“ In the magnificence of his Court and buildings, however, (says Lord Lyttelton [93] ,) he greatly exceeded any King of that age. But though his profuseness (continues his Lordship) arose from a noble and generous nature, it must be accounted rather a vice than a virtue; as, in order to supply the unbounded extent of it, he was very rapacious. If he had lived long, his expences would have undone him, and they had brought him some years before his death into such difficulties, that even if his temper had not been despotic, his necessities would have rendered him a Tyrant. ”

“ Though the superstitious notions respecting the cure of the King's Evil by the Touch of our English Kings are probably at present entirely eradicated, it is still a curious and not uninstructive object of enquiry, by what means they were so long supported, and by what kind of evidence they have been able to gain credit even in the dawning of a more enlightened period. The testimony of Richard Wiseman, Serjeant-Surgeon to King Charles I. has been alleged as one of the strongest and most unexceptionable in favour of the Touch. ”

“ They have nothing else with the Household sans carriage of their beds, two men together, by deliverance or assignment for that carriage of the Controllers, and litter for their beds of the Serjeant Usher of the Hall and Chamber. And if any of them be sick, or let blood, he taketh for all day a cast of bread, one mess of great meat, one gallon of ale; and if it be of great sickness, he must remove out of the Court.
Also, when they make watch nightly, they should be gird with their swords, or with other weapons ready, and harness about them. ”

“ To conclude all I have to observe upon the subject of exactions towards the King's expences in foreign wars, when he passed outre-mer; I can but remark one, which fell not a little heavy on the subject, imputable indeed to the religious frenzy of the times, which was occasioned by a joint resolution of Henry of England and Philip of France to go to the relief of Jerusalem, in what is known by the name of the Holy War. These levies were made in the most oppressive manner; every one who did not go in person being taxed to the extent of his property real and personal ”

“ Wee humbly implore, O merciful God, thy infinit clemency; that as we come to Thee with a confident soule, and sincere faith, and a pious assurance of mind: with the like devotion thy beleevers may follow on these tokens of thy grace. May all superstition be banished hence; far be all suspicion of any diabolical fraud; and to the glory of thy name let all things succeede: to the end thy beleevers may understand Thee to be the dispenser of all good; and may be sensible, and publish, that whatsoever is profitable to soule or body, is derived from Thee: through Christ our Lord. ”

“ The original idea of these words, I have no doubt, related to War, and operated as what we now call the Watch-Word, and more emphatically the Word by the circulation of which the King can, at this day, call his guards about him, as the Chiefs of Scotland formerly assembled their Vassals in their respective divisions or clans. The French call it a Mot; and the Italians, by an augmentation, Motto; which last we have adopted when we speak in an heraldic style. The true Scottish term is a Ditton, the Slughorn being properly the cry de Guerre. ”

“ Sir John Clark, of Pennycuik, had this Motto, "Free for a Blast," which is explained in part by the Crest, which is a Man blowing a Horn: but for both the Crest itself, and the Motto, we must look into the Tenure of the Estate, which they derived, most probably by Marriage, from the Pennycuiks of that Ilk, an old Family in Mid-Lothian, who bore "Or, a Fess between Three Hunting Horns Sable, stringed Gules;" and, by the ancient Tenure of their Lands, were obliged, once a year, to attend in the Forest of Drumsleich, since called Barrowmuir, to give a Blast of a Horn at the King's Hunting. ”

“ Whether as an Antiquary, a classical, poetical, and historical Critick, a Biographer, or Enquirer into the Beauties and Niceties of Grammar and Languages, we find everywhere that Dr. Pegge's remarks are not only striking and useful, but original; and, in this last respect, we have little hesitation in preferring the Anonymiana to the greater part of the Works of this description, which have been lately published, either at home or abroad. There is scarcely a taste among the various divisions of human liking, that will not find something appropriate and gratifying. ”

“ In Poland the Officers of the State and Household have no salaries nor fees [68] ; but are content with the honour, unless the King chose to reward them with a Starostie, a kind of Fiefs inherent in the Crown for this purpose.
At the Court of Turin, the salaries of the Officers of the Court are extremely small, and every way inadequate to their rank. Frugality and œconomy, exercised in a Royal manner, are the characteristics of that Court; insomuch as that, if the Officers of State had not an income arising from their patrimony, their salaries would not afford them food and raiment [69] . ”

“ Tuesday and Wednesday came, but without the Lord Steward, to the utter astonishment of the Speaker, who knew that his distance from the Metropolis was not so great as that of the Duke of Devonshire, who had arrived on the Monday. "But I am told," cried he, "that his Grace of Devonshire travels at a prodigious rate; not less than 50 miles a day!" Such was the prejudice of ideas, confirmed by long habitude, in a man who never extended his journeys further than his Seat in Surrey, a few miles from London ”

“ We may, however, collect enough from these accounts, to satisfy ourselves that the introduction of Coaches took place in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; and Stowe's Continuator adds a very natural consequence:—That, after the Royal example, "divers great ladies made them Coaches, and rode in them up and down the countries, to the great admiration of all the beholders." After this, he tells us, they grew common among the Nobility and opulent Gentry; that within twenty years Coach-making became a great trade, and that Coaches grew into more general use soon after the accession of King James. ”

“ So difficult is it to regain the lost esteem of a brave and spirited people!
One very great error in the politics of the preceding three Kings was, heaping favours and honours on the Normans, to the exclusion of the English; by which the affection [41] of the Natives was warped, the natural security of the Kingdom (the People) divided, and their hearts turned against the King and his Adherents. ”

“ The Kings, in these ages, moved their Court very frequently, and often to considerable distances; and, as the state of the roads would not permit them to travel far in a day, they were forced to accommodate themselves as well as they could at such houses as lay convenient, there being then no receptacles of a public nature. These motions of so large a body of people, added to the frequency of them, were often, of themselves, very oppressive to the Yeomanry, who were obliged to supply the Court with carts and horses from place to place ”

“ Before the death of Henry, Richard had bound himself in a vow to Philip of France, to join in this undertaking; and every one, ad Regis exemplum, strove either to go in person, or to supply money towards the expence of the expedition. Nothing, however sacred, could withstand Richard, in his schemes to raise money for this purpose. Most of the Crown lands which Henry had, with so much prudence and address, but a few years before, recovered out of private hands, and annexed to the State, were again put up to public sale, to be purchased by such as were able. ”

“ When we speak of the superior magnificence of our own Court, we may add, that no other makes so liberal appointments to its Officers, could we know the Establishments of the rest.
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In France they figure away with thousands of livres per annum; but, when these come to be liquidated into pounds sterling, the idea is lost, and the appointment of a Lord of the Bed-chamber sinks down into a salary not superior to our Gentlemen Ushers. ”

“ To these circumstances the Armorial Bearings of the Family have very strong allusions; for the Supporters are Two Labourers with each a Yoke on his Shoulder; the Crest is a Falcon; and the Motto "Serva Jugum." The Coat Armour likewise is, Argent, Three Escocheons Gules; or, to speak in the language of noble Blazonry, Pearl, Three Escutcheons Ruby; to intimate that the Father and his Two Sons had been the three fortunate Shields by which Scotland had been defended and saved. ”

“ One Christopher Lovel, born at Wells in Somersetshire, but when he grew up residing in the City of Bristol, where he got his living by labour, was extremely afflicted for many years with that distemper, and such a flow of the scrophulous humour, that, though it found a vent by five running sores about his breast, neck, and arms, there was such a tumour on one side of his neck, as left no hollow between his cheek and the upper part of his left shoulder, and forced him to keep his head always awry. The young man was reduced, by the virulence of the humour, to the lowest state of weakness ”

“ The Almighty Lord, who is a most strong Tower to all them that put their Trust in him; to whom all things in Heaven, in Earth, and under the Earth, do bow and obey, be now and evermore your Defence; and make you know and feel, that there is none other Name under Heaven given to Man, in whom, and through whom, you may receive Health and Salvation, but only the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ One may judge a little of the hospitality of the Court in those days, by the manner of living among the Nobility: for at this time, and many ages after, the great halls of the castles or principal manor-houses of the Nobility and Gentry were crowded with vast numbers of their vassals and tenants, who were daily fed at their cost. ”

“ We left London on the 18th of July, and made a journey of three days to Spital, near Chesterfield. After resting there, for as many days, we set off for this place, which we found very full, and made our quarters good at the humblest house we could find; but with the most comfortable accommodations that a very uncomfortable place can afford; and are reconciled to our situation. We dine (en masse) about 20 on the average, keep good hours, and are not pestered with gamblers, ladies-maids, or lap-dogs. In some houses they dine 120 people!!! ”