Pepy's Diary. 03 Jan 1666. So home, and find all my good company I had bespoke, as Coleman and his wife, and Laneare, [his wife] Knipp and her surly husband; and good musique we had, and, among other things, Mrs. Coleman sang my words I set of "Beauty retire", and I think it is a good song, and they praise it mightily. Then to dancing and supper, and mighty merry till Mr. Rolt come in, whose pain of the tooth-ake made him no company, and spoilt ours; so he away, and then my wife's teeth fell of akeing, and she to bed. So forced to break up all with a good song, and so to bed.

Pepy's Diary. 06 Jan 1666. Thence with Lord Bruncker to Greenwich, Kent [Map] by water to a great dinner and much company; Mr. Cottle and his lady and others and I went, hoping to get [his wife] Mrs. Knipp to us, having wrote a letter to her in the morning, calling myself "Dapper Dicky", in answer to hers of "Barbary Allen", but could not, and am told by the boy that carried my letter, that he found her crying; but I fear she lives a sad life with that ill-natured fellow her husband: so we had a great, but I a melancholy dinner, having not her there, as I hoped.

Pepy's Diary. 07 Jan 1666. So with my wife and Mercer took boat and away home; but in the evening, before I went, comes [his wife] Mrs. Knipp, just to speake with me privately, to excuse her not coming to me yesterday, complaining how like a devil her husband treats her, but will be with us in towne a weeke hence, and so I kissed her and parted.

Pepy's Diary. 15 Jan 1666. Busy all the morning in my chamber in my old cloth suit, while my usuall one is to my taylor's to mend, which I had at noon again, and an answer to a letter I had sent this morning to Mrs. Pierce to go along with my wife and I down to Greenwich, Kent [Map] to-night upon an invitation to Mr. Boreman's to be merry to dance and sing with [his wife] Mrs. Knipp. Being dressed, and having dined, I took coach and to Mrs. Pierce, to her new house in Covent-Garden [Map], a very fine place and fine house. Took her thence home to my house, and so by water to Boreman's by night, where the greatest disappointment that ever I saw in my life, much company, a good supper provided, and all come with expectation of excesse of mirthe, but all blank through the waywardnesse of Mrs. Knipp, who, though she had appointed the night, could not be got to come. Not so much as her husband could get her to come; but, which was a pleasant thing in all my anger, I asking him, while we were in expectation what answer one of our many messengers would bring, what he thought, whether she would come or no, he answered that, for his part, he could not so much as thinke.

Pepy's Diary. 06 Aug 1666. [his wife] Knipp tells me also that my Lord keeps another woman besides Mrs. Williams; and that, when I was there the other day, there was a great hubbub in the house, Mrs. Williams being fallen sicke, because my Lord was gone to his other mistresse, making her wait for him, till his return from the other mistresse; and a great deale of do there was about it; and Mrs. Williams swounded at it, at the very time when I was there and wondered at the reason of my being received so negligently. I set them both at home, Knipp at her house, her husband being at the doore; and glad she was to be found to have staid out so long with me and Mrs. Pierce, and none else; and Mrs. Pierce at her house, and am mightily pleased with the discretion of her during the simplicity and offensiveness of my wife's discourse this afternoon. I perceive by the new face at Mrs. Pierce's door that our Mary is gone from her.