Thursday 1 November 1660

This morning Sir W. Pen and I were mounted early, and had very merry discourse all the way, he being very good company.

We came to Sir W. Batten’s, where he lives like a prince, and we were made very welcome. Among other things he showed us my Lady’s closet, where was great store of rarities; as also a chair, which he calls King Harry’s chair, where he that sits down is catched with two irons, that come round about him, which makes good sport. Here dined with us two or three more country gentle men; among the rest Mr. Christmas, my old school-fellow, with whom I had much talk. He did remember that I was a great Roundhead when I was a boy, and I was much afraid that he would have remembered the words that I said the day the King was beheaded (that, were I to preach upon him, my text should be “The memory of the wicked shall rot”); but I found afterwards that he did go away from school before that time.1

He did make us good sport in imitating Mr. Case, Ash, and Nye, the ministers, which he did very well, but a deadly drinker he is, and grown exceeding fat. From his house to an ale-house near the church, where we sat and drank and were merry, and so we mounted for London again, Sir W. Batten with us. We called at Bow and drank there, and took leave of Mr. Johnson of Blackwall, who dined with us and rode with us thus far.

So home by moonlight, it being about 9 o’clock before we got home.

35 Annotations

First Reading

Paul Miller  •  Link

"I was much afraid that he would have remembered the words that I said the day the King was beheaded (that, were I to preach upon him, my text should be 'The memory of the wicked shall rot');”

In this we see just how secure Pepys felt in putting anything and everything in his diary. With this in view we can expect reading his diary to be a peering into the mind of a seventeenth century man.

vincent  •  Link

"...Sir W. Pen and I were mounted early, and had very merry discourse all the way, he being very good company..." remember Pen is only 39 YoA.

"...but a deadly drinker he[Mr Christmas] is, and grown exceeding fat...." Warning Sam!!!{ a nice pun in the making !!!}
"...where we sat and drank and were merry..."

Jenny Doughty  •  Link

Does anybody know where Sir William Batten lived? I can't seem to turn it up on Google. I know he became MP for Rochester in 1661, but it seems a long ride all the way to Rochester and back in one day if Batten's house was there, and there are other references in the diary which seem to indicate that Batten's house was closer by Pepys' than that.

J A Gioia  •  Link

to an ale-house near the church, where we sat and drank and were merry

to rochester or not, this liquid 'business trip' on horseback has aspects of the merrier parts of the canturbury tales.

and agreed, here 'my lady's' seems to be sam's way of saying 'his wife's'.

George  •  Link

We came to Sir W. Batten's, where he lives like a prince, and we were made very welcome. Among other things he showed us my Lady's closet.
Sir William’s wife would have been “Lady Batten” and Walthamstow is North East London on the North Circular. Out in the country in Sam’s day but now part of the urban scrawl.

Mary  •  Link

and here's another closet

See annotations for 28th October.

vincent  •  Link

"...We called at Bow and drank there, and took leave ..." 'ear ye 'ear yeh 'ho were borne in the sound of Bow Bells.

Jenny Doughty  •  Link

Thanks Vincent - Walthamstow makes sense in terms of the length of the journey in Pepys' day.

Pauline  •  Link

"...a chair, which he calls King Harry's chair, where he that sits down is catched with two irons, that come round about him, which makes good sport.”

How fascinating this it! But what is it? Would King Harry at this time mean Henry VIII? Or which Henry? And the two irons come round him? What is the joke/yoke in this? And try to imagine the mechanics of this chair!

Dear fellow Pepysters, what are we to make of this?

dirk  •  Link

the infamous chair

Amazing as it may sound, chairs like that existed - I don't know who made them though, or were you could get them.

In the late 1500's such a chair was used in Antwerp (Low Countries, now Belgium) to commit an atrocious murder: the unsuspecting victim was invited for dinner, caught in just such a chair, and subsequently cruelly tortured to death by his host, who afterwards buried the corpse in the cellar!

The murderer was found out though and put to death by roasting him on a low fire while locked in that very same chair. Those were cruel times...

dirk  •  Link

the infamous chair - continued

There are some indications that the chair I mentioned may have come from somewhere in northern Italy. But I'm not sure of this.

Mary  •  Link

Similar chairs still exist.

In the 1970s in a local medical practice in West Africa, our family doctor had a 'modern' version of the same; he used it when he was obliged to give emergency dental treatment (there were no dentists closer than 300 miles away) and didn't want the patient's arms flailing about whilst he tried to deal with the offending tooth. A happy prospect.

dirk  •  Link

the chair thing again

I looked into the chair thing some more, and found the following additional bits of info on the Antwerp chair:

1. What actually happened was that out of each armrest came an iron clamp. The two clamps locked around the waist of the unfortunate victim, rendering him helpless. (If he had been holding his arms at the level of the armrest or higher, he would have his arms free from the clamps, but it appears that the mechanical system actually blocked the clamps in position, so that even with his arms free the victim could not release himself.)

2. Under torture the murderer confessed to having constructed the chair himself (?) - but he was from northern Italy and had only a short time before returned from there - and had been preparing for this murder for some time (there was a long standing fued between him and his victim).

3. The whole affair took place in 1551 (new style, i.e. 1550 in contemporary reckoning) "7 days before tuesday of Easter week". The execution was on that tuesday of Easter week - so justice was not only cruel, but also quick!

Emilio  •  Link

At Charles's execution

Here's a link to an account of that day, from the tone certainly written by a royalist.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.co…

The words attributed to Charles -- "I tell you (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) that I am the martyr of the people . . ." -- make a sharp contrast to Pepys's response at the time. After a decade of drama and chaos, thank heavens that politics have become less divided once again.

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

"He did make us good sport in imitating Mr. Case, Ash, and Nye, the ministers"

Thomas Case, one of the Assembly of Divines, and some time rector of St Giles's-in-the-Fields. Ob. 1682, aged 84. Simeon Ash, one of the leading Presbyterian ministers. Philip Nye, who had been minister of Kimbolton, and rector of Acton, Middlesex, retired after his nonconformity, and died in 1672.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

Dick Wilson  •  Link

I'm missing something here. What was the purpose of this visit? Did Pepys & Pen have business with Batten, or he with them, that could not wait until all met at the office? Or did Batten just invite the two to come have drinks with some of his country buddies?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Dick Wilson, yesterday Pepys had noted "Home, and there I had news that Sir W. Pen[n] is resolved to ride to Sir W. Batten’s country house to-morrow, and would have me go with him," http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Dick Wilson  •  Link

Yes Terry, and he cut up an old pair of boots to reinforce his riding boots (or pants; the entry is ambiguous) . Yet it still appears that this was purely a social call. Our boy Sam is a social animal, but it is one thing to nip round to the local for a pint or two (or six or eight) and it is something else to get on a horse and ride out, drink, and ride home at nine o'clock at night. I am glad they made a convivial stop on the way home. The trip might have made somebody thirsty. Sounds like a fun day.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

More views of the chair

A variety of joke-chair said to have been invented by the Borghese Pope Paul V, and associated by Evelyn with Italian 'treachery' rather than, as here, with Henry VIII: DIARY, Rome 17 Nov. 1644 Villa Borghese: "They shew’d us also a chayre that catches fast any who sitts downe in it, so as not to be able to stirr out, by certaine springs concealed in the armes and back thereoff, which at sitting downe surprizes a man on the suddaine, locking him in by the armes and thighs, after a true tretcherous Italian guise. " https://books.google.com/books?id…'d%20us%20alsso%20a%20chayre&f=false Cf. the chair 'with an engine' in John Ford's The Broken Heart, IV, 4, in which Ithocles sits down in the chair as a throne, at Orgilus' invitation, "is catcht in the engine" and murdered. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/…
(per L&M footnote )
------

See THE TRICK CHAIR, The Broken Heart (Revels Plays)Jan 1, 1981, by John Ford, Appendix B
https://books.google.com/books?id…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He did make us good sport in imitating Mr. Case, Ash, and Nye, the ministers"

L&M: All were well-known London preachers. Mimicry of preachers was a favourite game.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Trick Chair-see THE TRICK CHAIR, The Broken Heart Appendix B link above

When Henry Winstanley (1644-1703) had a house at Littlebury, near Audley End in Essex, there were (says Horace Walpole) 'several mechanic tricks to surprise the populace, and known by the name of Winstanley's wonders These childish contrivances, I suppose, he learned in Italy.' These included 'trick chairs of various kinds. One of thesee snapped its arms across anyone who sat on it, pinioning him until Winstanley came to the rescue.'

Winstanley's Wonders, Henry Winstanley and the Eddystone Lighthouse
By Adam Hart-Davis, Emily Troscianko, ch. Four

Charles II was a regular at the Wonder House, and no doubt used to take tea with Henry and his wife. He genuinely admired the ingenuity of the place.
https://books.google.com/books?id…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

John Evelyn's Diary – he and Mary Browne Evelyn live at Saye's Court, Deptford.

http://brittlebooks.library.illin…

@@@

1 November, 1660.

I went with some of my relations to Court, to show them his Majesty's cabinet and closet of rarities; the rare miniatures of Peter Oliver, after Raphael, Titian, and other masters, which I infinitely esteem; also, that large piece of the Duchess of Lennox, done in enamel, by Petitot, and a vast number of agates, onyxes, and intaglios, especially a medallion of Caesar, as broad as my hand; likewise, rare cabinets of pietra-commessa, a landscape of needlework, formerly presented by the Dutch to King Charles I.

Here I saw a vast book of maps, in a volume near four yards large; a curious ship model; and, among the clocks, one that showed the rising and setting of the sun in the zodiac; the sun represented by a face and rays of gold, upon an azure sky, observing the diurnal and annual motion, rising and setting behind a landscape of hills -- the work of our famous Fromantil -- and several other rarities.

@@@

King Charles I's treasures are coming home. Not everything, of course, but Charles II must have been gratified to see so many things from his early childhood again.

Cabinet -- https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Peter Oliver (1594 – December 1648) was an English miniaturist, he was born in Isleworth, Middlesex -- A great many of Oliver's works were purchased by Charles II from his widow; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet…

Fromantil -- My first choice is Ahasuerus Fromanteel who was born in Norwich, made clocks for Cromwell and lived in London.
His son, John (1632 - ?) was also a clockmaker. In the 1660’s they lived in Holland and made the first (beautiful) pendulum clocks – lots of pictures: http://www.antique-horology.org/i…

Duchess of Lennox – probably Frances Howard Pranell Seymour Stewart, Duchess of Lennox and Richmond, Countess of Hertford (1578 – 1639). She was the widow of Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra…
Petitot, Jean -- https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

pietra-commessa – NOUN rare
Mosaic work of developed in Florence in the late 16th century, consisting of thin pieces of colored semi-precious stones cut to shape and inlaid in marble to produce decorative designs and pictures; Florentine mosaic.
Origin -- Mid-17th century; earliest use found in John Evelyn (1620–1706), diarist and writer. From Italian pietra commessa (not recorded in Italian dictionaries) from pietra stone + commessa, feminine of commesso, past participle of commettere to fit together (from classical Latin committere).

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Frances Howard Pranell Seymour Stewart, Duchess of Lennox and Richmond, Countess of Hertford"

I use women's entire name in annotations. When women marry and change their names, they lose their heritage. By giving all their names it gives hints to the reader that someone is talking to a former brother-in-law or distant relative.

Most of the courtier class were related -- you can almost think about it as being a tribal system. Intermarriage preserved the wealth of the family, so cousins married a lot.

And then there were situations like the St.John family: 6 sisters and a brother who inherited. You won't see any St.Johns at court as the brother stayed in the country -- until you realize they are named Villiers, Apsley, Hyde, Wilmot, Lee, etc.

Networking is not a new concept.

Third Reading

Scott Christmas  •  Link

"Dined with us two or three more country gentle men; among the rest Mr. Christmas, my old school-fellow, with whom I had much talk."

Hmm, looks like my ancestor was friends with old Sam!

MartinVT  •  Link

Dick Wilson 2013: "I'm missing something here. What was the purpose of this visit? Did Pepys & Pen have business with Batten, or he with them, that could not wait until all met at the office? Or did Batten just invite the two to come have drinks with some of his country buddies?"

The purpose appears to have been purely recreational, an all -day bender with lots of mutual entertainment. But at the same time, Sam well knows that he is building up relationships, particularly with Batten, who will be quite important to him going forward.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Agreed, Martin -- plus Penn may have thought the Pepys/Davis affair needed some time and space.

There may have been paperwork that needed Batten's attention; Penn was househunting in the area; the Sir Wills might have been trying to lull the young CofA into going along with their office financial schemes; they might have wanted to have good reports about them given to Sandwich; or all of the above. Penn might have been grooming Pepys. Who knows.

I want to know who owned the horses and where they were kept. If it was a stable at the back of the Navy Office, why doesn't Pepys ride more often?

MartinVT  •  Link

"I want to know who owned the horses and where they were kept. If it was a stable at the back of the Navy Office, why doesn't Pepys ride more often?"

Just a wild guess: The economics of renting horses may have been such that they only made sense for longer trips such as this one out to Batten's. Sort of like if you live downtown in a city, taking cabs makes sense (like Pepys takes a carriage or water taxi), but renting a car to go across town does not, both in terms of expense and convenience, even if you're going to return to where you started. But if you're heading out into the country somewhere, you rent a car, Sam rents a horse.

john  •  Link

@Martin. I suspect that you are quite correct. Renting "day-horses" in urban areas persisted for some time. I know of no UK or EU references for that time period but, for example, "The Horse in the City" by McShane and Tarr covers this history in 19th-century US.

Louise Hudson  •  Link

Footnote: “Pepys might well be anxious on this point, for in October of this year Phineas Pett, assistant master shipwright at Chatham, was dismissed from his post for having when a Child spoken disrespectfully of the King. See ante, August 23rd.”

I can’t make head or tail out of this footnote. Dismissed from his post for having what?

GrahamT  •  Link

@Louise Hudson: I read it as [Pett] was dismissed from his post for having spoken disrespectfully of the King, when [he was] a Child.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

MartinVT later noted that the Dolphin Inn on Thames Street was a much- visited local Inn by Pepys and Adm. Batten -- and probably more of the Navy gang -- and Wheatley tells us they stabled horses there.
I'm happy -- that's where Pepys and Penn got their horses today.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

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