Pepy's Diary. 07 Oct 1667. So we to Enfield [Map], and there bayted, it being but a foul, bad day, and there Lowther and Mr. Burford, an acquaintance of his, did overtake us, and there drank and eat together; and, by and by, we parted, we going before them, and very merry, my wife and girle and I talking, and telling tales, and singing, and before night come to Bishop Stafford [Map], where Lowther and his friend did meet us again, and carried us to the Raynedeere [Map], where Mrs. Aynsworth¹, who lived heretofore at Cambridge, and whom I knew better than they think for, do live. It was the woman that, among other things, was great with my cozen Barnston, of Cottenham, and did use to sing to him, and did teach me "Full forty times over", a very lewd song: a woman they are very well acquainted with, and is here what she was at Cambridge, and all the good fellows of the country come hither. Lowther and his friend stayed and drank, and then went further this night; but here we stayed, and supped, and lodged. But, as soon as they were gone, and my supper getting ready, I fell to write my letter to my Lord Sandwich (age 42), which I could not finish before my coming from London; so did finish it to my good content, and a good letter, telling him the present state of all matters, and did get a man to promise to carry it to-morrow morning, to be there, at my house, by noon, and I paid him well for it; so, that being done, and my mind at ease, we to supper, and so to bed, my wife and I in one bed, and the girl in another, in the same room, and lay very well, but there was so much tearing company in the house, that we could not see my landlady; so I had no opportunity of renewing my old acquaintance with her, but here we slept very well.

Note 1. Elizabeth Aynsworth, here mentioned, was a noted procurerss at Cambridge, banished from that town by the university authorities for her evil courses. She subsequently kept the Rein Deer Inn [Map] at Bishops Stortford, at which the Vice-Chancellor, and some of the heads of colleges, had occasion to sleep, in their way to London, and were nobly entertained, their supper being served off plate. The next morning their hostess refused to make any charge, saying, that she was still indebted to the Vice-Chancellor, who, by driving her out of Cambridge, had made her fortune. No tradition of this woman has been preserved at Bishops Stortford; but it appears, from the register of that parish, that she was buried there 26th of March, 1686. It is recorded in the "History of Essex", vol. iii., (p. 130) 8vo., 1770, and in a pamphlet in the British Museum, entitled, "Boteler's Case", that she was implicated in the murder of Captain Wood, a Hertfordshire gentleman, at Manuden, in Essex, and for which offence a person named Boteler was executed at Chelmsford, September 10th, 1667, and that Mrs. Aynsworth, tried at the same time as an accessory before the fact, was acquitted for want of evidence; though in her way to the jail she endeavoured to throw herself into the river, but was prevented. See Postea, May 25th, 1668. B.