A London mob has never been famed for politeness, and we do not gain a very pleasing view of those in Pepys’s day from some of the entries in the “Diary.” On the 27th of November, 1662, the Russian Ambassador entered the city, and the trained bands, the King’s Life Guards, and wealthy citizens clad in black velvet coats with gold chains were ready to receive him. Pepys did not see the Ambassador in his coach, but he was pleased with the “attendants in their habits and fur caps, very handsome, comely men, and most of them with hawks upon their fists to present to the King.” He adds, however, “But, Lord! to see the absurd nature of Englishmen, that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at everything that looks strange.”
The high road of Newgate Street was formerly crowded in a most inconvenient degree by the shambles of the butchers, and our Diarist once got into trouble while driving past them. The account of this adventure is amusing, from the ease with which he got out of his difficulty. “My coach plucked down two pieces of beef into the dirt, upon which the butchers stopped the horses, and a great rout of people in the street, crying that he had done him 40_s._ and _£_5 worth of hurt; but going down I saw that he had little or none; and so I give them a shilling for it, and they were well contented.”[149]
The following is a good sample of the quarrels that were constantly occurring; there being no authority to put a stop to such exhibitions. “Great discourse of the fray yesterday in Moorfields; how the butchers at first did beat the weavers (between whom there hath been ever an old competition for mastery), but at last the weavers rallied and beat them. At first the butchers knocked down all for weavers that had green or blue aprons, till they were fain to pull them off and put them in their breeches. At last the butchers were fain to pull off their sleeves, that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out of the field, and some deeply wounded and bruised; till at last the weavers went out triumphing, calling _£_100 for a butcher.”[150] Moorfields, now occupied by Finsbury Square and Circus and the surrounding streets, was at this time one of the chief recreation grounds outside the City walls. It was partly given up to the laundresses and bleachers; and boxers and cudgel-players found in it a congenial sphere for their amusements. On an emergency, the troops were mustered on the fenny ground.