Before passing on to consider some other customs, a word should be said on the practice of wearing mourning. When the Duke of Gloucester died, it is related that the King wore purple, which was used as royal mourning. At the same time Mrs. Pepys spent _£_15 on mourning clothes for herself and husband.[339] We are told how the whole family went into black on the death of the elder Mrs. Pepys,[340] and we have very full and curious particulars of the funeral of Thomas Pepys. For this occasion Samuel had the soles of his shoes blacked, which seems a rather odd kind of mourning![341]
The engagement between Philip Carteret and Lady Jemimah Montagu gave the Diarist considerable employment, and from the long account he has written on it we gather that he was very proud of such assistance as he was able to give. Carteret was a shy young man, and needed much instruction, as to how he should take the lady’s hand, and what he should do. The whole description is very droll, but too long to quote here. Pepys made the best of the affair, but he evidently thought his _protégé_ a very insipid lover. The wedding took place on July 31st, 1665, the bride and bridegroom being in their old clothes, but Pepys was resplendent in a “new coloured suit and coat trimmed with gold buttons, and gold broad lace round his hands, very rich and fine.” This is the account of what occurred after supper:--“All of us to prayers as usual, and the young bride and bridegroom too; and so after prayers soberly to bed; only I got into the bridegroom’s chamber while he undressed himself, and there was very merry till he was called to the bride’s chamber, and into bed they went. I kissed the bride in bed, and so the curtains drawn with the greatest gravity that could be, and so good night. But the modesty and gravity of this business was so decent that it was to me, indeed, ten times more delightful than if it had been twenty times more merry and jovial.”
There are several allusions in the “Diary” to the custom of scrambling for ribbons and garters at weddings, and Pepys expresses himself as not pleased when favours were sent to others after Lord Hinchingbroke’s wedding, and he was overlooked.[342] At this time wedding rings were not the plain and inelegant things they are now, but were frequently ornamented with precious stones, and almost invariably had a motto engraved upon them. Pepys’s aunt Wight was “mighty proud” of her wedding ring, which cost her twelve pounds, and had been lately set with diamonds.[343]