of the declaration to be printed for the people's satisfaction, promising
them a great many good things.

24th. In the morning to my office, where, after I had drank my morning
draft at Will's with Ethell and Mr. Stevens, I went and told part of the
excise money till twelve o'clock, and then called on my wife and took her
to Mr. Pierces, she in the way being exceedingly troubled with a pair of
new pattens, and I vexed to go so slow, it being late. There when we came
we found Mrs. Carrick very fine, and one Mr. Lucy, who called one another
husband and wife, and after dinner a great deal of mad stir. There was
pulling off Mrs. bride's and Mr. bridegroom's ribbons;

[The scramble for ribbons, here mentioned by Pepys in connection
with weddings (see also January 26th, 1660-61, and February 8th,
1662-3), doubtless formed part of the ceremony of undressing the
bridegroom, which, as the age became more refined, fell into disuse.
All the old plays are silent on the custom; the earliest notice of
which occurs in the old ballad of the wedding of Arthur O'Bradley,
printed in the Appendix to "Robin Hood," 1795, where we read--

"Then got they his points and his garters,
And cut them in pieces like martyrs;
And then they all did play
For the honour of Arthur O'Bradley."

Sir Winston Churchill also observes ("Divi Britannici," p. 340) that
James I. was no more troubled at his querulous countrymen robbing
him than a bridegroom at the losing of his points and garters. Lady
Fanshawe, in her "Memoirs," says, that at the nuptials of Charles
II. and the Infanta, "the Bishop of London declared them married in