Extraordinary 17th century manuscript diary and day-book written by the ‘Keeper of the Palace at Westminster’ which offers an insider’s perspective on the torrid months around the collapse of the Cromwellian regime and the Restoration of Charles II, culminating on:
‘Tuesday Aprill 23 1661 Coronation day at night left in my charge the Globe & 2 Scepters Rich with Juoells [Jewels]: which I delivered to the deane of westminster Doctor [John] Earle Thursday 25: The Kings Robes left at the same tyme w[i]th me w[hi]ch I delivered the next day to Mr Toby Rustatt yeoman of the Robes to the King [ardent royalist who created the first fund to buy books for Cambridge University Library]. All these were left with me by Mr Rustatt. The Robes & Caps & Gloves & Sword were left with me the night before the Coronation: by order of the Lord High Chamberlain.’
Wynyard’s entries begin in 1658 but it was late in 1660 that he began to write almost daily to record his experience of what he already realised was a turning point in English history. Individually Wynyard notes the torrent of Enabling Bills as they went through Parliament and then: ‘25th Aprill 2 Houses of Lords & Commons convened. 1st May King Charles 2d letter & Declaration [of Breda] read in House & he [was] acknowledged King: Sir John Grinvill: brought them King proclaimed.’ On May 10 Wynyard was present for the removal of the last vestiges of Commonwealth-era regalia from the Palace when ‘States Armes [were] pull’d downe from over the Speakers Chaire in the House of Commons‘.
Yet these high matters of state are constantly juxtaposed with Wynyard’s personal responsibility for Parliamentary toileting, and deliveries of paper, pens and sealing wax:
‘To Sr Jo[hn] Ayton [Black Rod] By Mr Safe Mar:3
1 Close Stoole: 2 par[ts]
1 Reeme pap[er]: 2:B:P
2 Bund[le] pens
& wafers’
And interspersed throughout the manuscript are Wynyard’s orders for beer, in vast quantities: by the firkin (9 gallons) and the kilderkin (18 gallons). Such was the urgency for ordering ‘From Mr Dagnell the Brewer’ and ‘Ale of Mr Allen’ that not even the Great Fire of London could halt deliveries with one documented by Wynward as having taken place as the City of London still burnt on September 5th 1666 - he does later record the devastation caused by the fire itself. Wynyard’s entries aren’t always chronological and he juxtaposes personal and Parliamentary matters in sometimes complementary, often complicated, fashion over 110 manuscript pages: perhaps most rewardingly when he records the birth of his son, Thomas, exactly two days after he has written about the Coronation. This manuscript will yield much more to systematic research.
DESCRIPTION:
Full contemporary sheep (9.5x5.5cm) with ‘1651’ (it’s unclear why) in blind to the upper cover with roundel and double fillet to boards and hinges for missing clasps to the lower board. A small section of leather is missing from the upper cover but the binding remains sound.
64 pages of blanks precede the printed text of the (otherwise lost) 1658 Almanac - 4 leaves only of this 12mo publication that appears originally to have had two full gatherings - annotation to surviving leaves: the title page, 2 leaves for December and the ‘finis’ leaf. 64 pages of manuscript precede the almanack followed by 46 after it - at least two stubs visible in this second section. Dry paper stock, fraying with some loss to foreedges, corners and a couple of pages pulled. Wynyard has written from both ends of the book, beginning at the front in 1658; concentrating on the period 1659-1661, with entries continuing through until 1669. The book remains entirely unsophisticated. It is presented with a bifolium legal Bond of ‘Obligation’ with docket title: ‘from Mr Doughty to John Wynyard Esq for paying up 50-15. S[hillings] the 16th of Dec [16]86’; signed and sealed by Henry Doughty, signed by Susan Billinghurst. Provenance: from a longstanding collection Wynyard collection, recently dispersed at auction.
JOHN WYNYARD(1624-1690) was appointed by letters patent in 1650 as ‘Keeper of the Palace at Westminster’, a role occupied by his father and grandfather, also John Wynyard, who had helped to arrest Guy Fawkes in 1605. From them he inherited ‘Vinegar House’ adjoining the Old Palace from where he could act as ‘Housekeeper’ and ‘Yeoman Usher’ (his phrases in the manuscript) to the House of Lords, the Prince's Chamber and the Painted Chamber. Married to his second wife, Margaret Kettlebee at the time of this diary he records here the birth of his son Thomas on 25th April 1661, immediately after the coronation.
