28 June 1661
At home all the morning practising to sing, which is now my great trade, and at noon to my Lady and dined with her. So back and to the office, and there sat till 7 at night, and then Sir W. Pen and I in his coach went to Moorefields, and there walked, and stood and saw the wrestling, which I never saw so much of before, between the north and west countrymen.
So home, and this night had our bed set up in our room that we called the Nursery, where we lay, and I am very much pleased with the room.
Jemima Mountagu ("my Lady," Countess of Sandwich, b. Crew)
Admiral William Penn
Moorfields
The Moorfields were one of the last pieces of open land in the City of London, near the Moorgate.
Claire Tomalin The Unequalled Self
"As for a child of their own: a room was set aside hopefully to become the nursery." No kids resulted.
Pepys will mention on Aug 25 1663 that the Lord Mayor has re-instituted an old custom of wrestling as part of a three-day Bartholomew Fair.
In 1654, Oliver Cromwell and many of his privy council were reported as watching 100 Cornishmen wrestling in Hyde Park. Charles II, along with "a world of lords" and many other spectators, watched a series of wrestling matches in St James' Park in 1669, with a purse of £1000, which saw the "Western men" win.
“Wrastling is as full of manliness, more delightful and less dangerous than hurlin.”
17th century historian Richard Carew
Michiel Sweerts, Wrestling Match (1649)