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And he was made Marshall of the field in England, the enemy being vpon our coast, and when it was expected the crowne of England should haue bene tried by battel.
We went to the Crowne Inne, at Rochester, and there to supper, and made ourselves merry with our poor fisher-boy, who told us he had not been in a bed in the whole seven years since he came to 'prentice, and hath two or three more years to serve. After eating something, we in our clothes to bed. 26th.
And among other things he tells me how the King of Syam seldom goes out without thirty or forty thousand people with him, and not a word spoke, nor a hum or cough in the whole company to be heard. He tells me the punishment frequently there for malefactors is cutting off the crowne of their head, which they do very dexterously, leaving their brains bare, which kills them presently.
¶ It is reported by some writers, that he did this, to root out of mens minds a foolish superstitious conceit, which beléeued that no king with his crowne vpon his head might enter that citie, but some mischance should light vpon him: wherevpon he seemed by this meanes to mocke their superstitious imagination.
They cutt some downe of Swan or other fowle that hath a white feather, and cover with it the crowne of their heads. Their ears are pierced in 5 places; the holes are so bigg that your little finger might passe through. They have yallow waire that they make with copper, made like a starr or a half moone, & there hang it. Many have Turkeys.
At dinner we talked much of Cromwell; all saying he was a brave fellow, and did owe his crowne he got to himself as much as any man that ever got one. 9th. Read a piece of a play, "Every Man in his Humour," wherein is the greatest propriety of speech that; ever I read in my life; and so to bed.
Neither in nature nor in language, doe they any whit agree with them which we found first: their heads be altogether shauen, except one bush of haire which they suffer to grow vpon the top of their crowne as long as a horse taile, and then with certaine leather strings binde it in a knot vpon their heads.
One while it was prohibited on account of its being dangerous; another while it was laid aside upon pretence of its being flat and insipid; till Mr. Crowne, at last, was forced to have recourse to the King himself, and engage him to lay his absolute commands on the lord chamberlain to have it no longer delayed.
And they haue no shirts: neither couer they their heads, but their hayre is trussed vp aboue the crowne of their heads, and playted or broyded. Touching their victuals, they eate good meate, but all vnsalted, but they drye it, and afterward they broyle it, as well fish as flesh.
And in my Lord Treasurer's excellent letter to the King upon this subject, he tells the King how it was the spending more than the revenue that did give the first occasion of his father's ruine, and did since to the rebels; who, he says, just like Henry the Eighth, had great and sudden increase of wealth, but yet, by overspending, both died poor; and further tells the King how much of this L1,200,000 depends upon the life of the Prince, and so must be renewed by Parliament again to his successor; which is seldom done without parting with some of the prerogatives of the Crowne; or if denied and he persists to take it of the people, it gives occasion to a civill war, which may, as it did in the late business of tonnage and poundage, prove fatal to the Crowne.
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