This Just In: Spittle and Anointings

Eighty-three years after the defeat of the Armada, the English still rub against the Spanish in the New World, and the Catholics at home:

To Lond: and Council: The letters of Sir T:Mudiford were read, giving relation of the Exploit at Panamà, which was very brave: They tooke and burnt, and pilag’d the Towne of vast Treasures, but the best of the booty had ben ship’d off, and lay at anker in the South Sea, so as after our Men had ranged the Country 60 miles about, they went back to Nombre de Dios and embarq’d to Jamaica; Such an action had not ben don since the famous Drake: I dined at the Resident of Hambroghs, and after dinner at the Christning of Sir Sam: Tukes Son Charles which was don at Somerset house by a Popish Priest with many odd Ceremonies, Spittle and anointings: …

—John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn 235,
September 19, 1671 (World Classics ed. 1985)