Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
Description
Groom of the Bedchamber to the King.
Annotations
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As a reward for his loyalty to Charles II during his exile, Edward Proger was made keeper of the Middle Park and was commanded by the King to build a ‘Lodge for Our Service in one of Our Parks at Hampton Court called North Parke’. This keeper’s lodge cost Proger £4000, an enormous amount of money which he spent the next 40 years attempting to recover from the Treasury. A pension of £400 a year was agreed in 1711-12 only two years before his death ‘of the anguish of cutting teeth’ at the age of 92. He lived in Bushy House until his death. http://www.richmond.gov.uk/local_history_bushy_house.pdf
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The king’s valet de chambre and the confidant of his amours. He died 1713, aged ninety-six.
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This is the inscription on Proger’s memorial slab in Hampton Church where he is buried:
Here lyes in hopes of A hapy Resurection the body of Edward Proger Esq’r. Decended from ye Progers of Gwernddee in Monmouthshire, he was Page of honour to King Charles ye first, & tho very young behaved himself with so much Courage in the civill warrs, and aquitted himself with so much Judgment and Fidelity of many secret and important imployments, that, that Prince during his imprisonment at Hampton Court sent an Order to have him sworn one of ye Grooms of the Bedchamber to his son ye then Prince of Wales, afterwards King Charles ye Second in which Post he continued during the life of [ye] Prince. He served his country seventeen years as a member of the House of Commons: for the County of Brecon. Upon the death of ye King Charles the Second He retired from all publick busines: spending ye remainder of his life in hearty & Zealous prayers for the good and Prosperity of his Church & Country. In doing good Offices to his friends & Neighbours, in being afectionately kind to his Children and Relations in shewing great tendernes & affability fo his servants & inferiors & in being good as farr as he had power to all People. He was born June ye 16th 1621 and deceased December ye 31st 1713.