One of the diarist's entries is a description of the public entry of Queen Catherine into London, coming from Hampton Court by water; he and Creed, after dining at an ordinary in Lombard Street, went down to the Steel Yard to get a boat, and from there all along Thames Street, but could not get one to take them to Whitehall, although he offered eight shillings.
They had to walk to Whitehall, and, having passed through Lord Sandwich's lodgings to the bowling green, mounted up on top of the new Banqueting House there over the Thames, "a most pleasant place as any I could have got."
He tells us that the show principally consisted of boats and barges, and that there were two pageants, one of a King and another of a Queen, with her maids of honour sitting about her feet very prettily, and he hears that the lady personating the Queen was Sir Richard Ford's daughter.
"Anon came the King and Queen in a barge under a canopy, with 10,000 barges and boats, I think, for we could see no water for them nor discern the King or Queen, and so they landed at Whitehall Bridge, and the great guns on the other side went off."
What seems to have impressed him more than the show was that he saw Lady Castlemaine over against him on a piece of Whitehall, and that he saw her husband upon the same place walking up and down without taking any notice of one another, except that at his first entry he put off his hat and she made him a very civil salute.
But a scaffolding fell down with all the people on it, and he was afraid that some were hurt, but fortunately only a child and not seriously. Of all the ladies looking on, Lady Castlemaine was the only one who ran down among the common rabble to see what hurt was done, "which methought was noble."
He finds great difficulty, through the crowd, in getting a boat at Palace Yard, and, stopping at the Old Swan Stairs, walks the rest of the way home.
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