Tuesday 14 August 1666

(Thanksgiving day.)1 Up, and comes Mr. Foley and his man, with a box of a great variety of carpenter’s and joyner’s tooles, which I had bespoke, to me, which please me mightily; but I will have more. Then I abroad down to the Old Swan, and there I called and kissed Betty Michell, and would have got her to go with me to Westminster, but I find her a little colder than she used to be, methought, which did a little molest me. So I away not pleased, and to White Hall, where I find them at Chappell, and met with Povy, and he and I together, who tells me how mad my letter makes my Lord Peterborough, and what a furious letter he hath writ to me in answer, though it is not come yet. This did trouble me; for though there be no reason, yet to have a nobleman’s mouth open against a man may do a man hurt; so I endeavoured to have found him out and spoke with him, but could not. So to the chappell, and heard a piece of the Dean of Westminster’s sermon, and a special good anthemne before the king, after a sermon, and then home by coach with Captain Cocke, who is in pain about his hempe, of which he says he hath bought great quantities, and would gladly be upon good terms with us for it, wherein I promise to assist him. So we ’light at the ’Change, where, after a small turn or two, taking no pleasure now-a-days to be there, because of answering questions that would be asked there which I cannot answer; so home and dined, and after dinner, with my wife and Mercer to the Beare-garden, where I have not been, I think, of many years, and saw some good sport of the bull’s tossing of the dogs: one into the very boxes. But it is a very rude and nasty pleasure. We had a great many hectors in the same box with us (and one very fine went into the pit, and played his dog for a wager, which was a strange sport for a gentleman), where they drank wine, and drank Mercer’s health first, which I pledged with my hat off; and who should be in the house but Mr. Pierce the surgeon, who saw us and spoke to us. Thence home, well enough satisfied, however, with the variety of this afternoon’s exercise; and so I to my chamber, till in the evening our company come to supper. We had invited to a venison pasty Mr. Batelier and his sister Mary, Mrs. Mercer, her daughter Anne, Mr. Le Brun, and W. Hewer; and so we supped, and very merry. And then about nine o’clock to Mrs. Mercer’s gate, where the fire and boys expected us, and her son had provided abundance of serpents and rockets; and there mighty merry (my Lady Pen and Pegg going thither with us, and Nan Wright), till about twelve at night, flinging our fireworks, and burning one another and the people over the way. And at last our businesses being most spent, we into Mrs. Mercer’s, and there mighty merry, smutting one another with candle grease and soot, till most of us were like devils. And that being done, then we broke up, and to my house; and there I made them drink, and upstairs we went, and then fell into dancing (W. Batelier dancing well), and dressing, him and I and one Mr. Banister (who with his wife come over also with us) like women; and Mercer put on a suit of Tom’s, like a boy, and mighty mirth we had, and Mercer danced a jigg; and Nan Wright and my wife and Pegg Pen put on perriwigs. Thus we spent till three or four in the morning, mighty merry; and then parted, and to bed.

31 Annotations

First Reading

Michael Robinson  •  Link

" ... and heard a piece of the Dean of Westminster’s sermon, ..."

Dolben, John, 1625-1686.
A sermon preached before the King, Aug. 14. 1666. Being the day of thanksgiving for the late victory at sea. By J. Dolben, D.D. Dean of Westminster, and Clerk of the Closet. Printed by His Majesties especial command.
London : printed for Timothy Garthwait, 1666.
XXXII p.; 4to. Wing (CD-ROM, 1996), D1833

No copy in the PL.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...there I called and kissed Betty Michell, and would have got her to go with me to Westminster, but I find her a little colder than she used to be, methought, which did a little molest me."

Drat, a hitch in Sam's perfect seduction plan...

Ala Leonato- "No,no, Samuel you come to molest her..."

***

"...and there mighty merry (my Lady Pen and Pegg going thither with us, and Nan Wright), till about twelve at night, flinging our fireworks, and burning one another and the people over the way. And at last our businesses being most spent, we into Mrs. Mercer’s, and there mighty merry, smutting one another with candle grease and soot, till most of us were like devils. And that being done, then we broke up, and to my house; and there I made them drink, and upstairs we went, and then fell into dancing (W. Batelier dancing well), and dressing, him and I and one Mr. Banister (who with his wife come over also with us) like women; and Mercer put on a suit of Tom’s, like a boy, and mighty mirth we had, and Mercer danced a jigg; and Nan Wright and my wife and Pegg Pen put on perriwigs. Thus we spent till three or four in the morning, mighty merry; and then parted, and to bed."

Party till you don't know who your periwig has got to...

cgs  •  Link

"...which did a little molest me..."

cape henry  •  Link

It's usually the other way around, is it not cgs?

Tony Eldridge  •  Link

'We had a great many hectors in the same box with us'
Is this slang for 'heroes', eg Hector and Lysander?

Bryan M  •  Link

hector:
1387, "a valiant warrior," 1660 as slang for "a blustering, turbulent, pervicacious, noisy fellow" [Johnson], both in allusion to the provocative character of Hektor, Trojan hero, oldest son of Priam and Hecuba, in the "Iliad." It represents Gk. hektor, lit. "holder, stayer;" an agent noun from ekhein "to have, hold, possess." As a proper name, rare in England but used in Scotland to render Gael. Eachdonn.

from: The Online Etymology Dictionary

JWB  •  Link

"...with a box of a great variety of carpenter’s and joyner’s tooles, which I had bespoke,"

Would this stash of tools be worth more today than his stash of Gold?

Mary  •  Link

the stash of tools.

Now, that is a very interesting question; a complete set of 17th century woodworking tools, especially if they were of good quality and fitted into a purpose-built tool-box, would fetch a goodly sum in today's market.

arby  •  Link

Did anyone say what Sam's gold would be worth in today's currencies back when he was stashing it away? I remember a discussion about the percentage of the hit he took, but not current value. rb

cgs  •  Link

In my odd thinking there be at least two ways of evaluating Samuell's bags of aurum [AT # 79]
I: 5000 AU coins would fetch to day over $5 mil at over $1000 an oz. or if they be Samuell's originals , the sky be the limit
2: purchasing power with this coin he could build ten nice houses off the Strand, to do the same to day be a bankers delight.
3: at 9d a pound of Bacon then, you would need 5.4l for a pound of Wiltshire smoked bacon today i.e. you need in your piggy bank only 750,000 quid to have the same amount of taking home the bacon as Samuell.

See Eliza Picard for some clues to life style of the rich and famous.

cgs  •  Link

"...comes Mr. Foley and his man, with a box of a great variety of carpenter’s and joyner’s tooles..."
He needed 'is man to carry this collection of Saws,tenon, rip; files, rasp ; planes for molding,chisels,boxwood folding ruler etc.
A master Carpenter would have a special tool for almost every thing.
When I was a lad, a box wood 1" chisel would cost 2 weeks money when I was paid 9d/hr for milking Bessie and only if Bessie did not kick over the pail.
Tools were always expensive and they HAD to last a life time, My father still had all the tools I had accumulated when He had hopes of my joining his family to be a Cabinet maker like my grand father and his grandfather.
In fact when one joined the Government, they supplied the tools because ye did never have enough money to have enough tools to do the job that had to be done.
A calculator cost 3 times my annual salary.

cgs  •  Link

PS: that calculator, Manual, first conceived by one of Samuell's Math buddies, finally produced in the 20 C, can now be replaced with one they give away as a free gift and also can solve Issac's windy problem as a bonus. So how much is an oz of gold worth?
Now for a weeks minimum wage [$300] you can calculate all of Sams work of sitting with a device that he can watch the Carpenter making his custom made Cabinet while he Samuell dothe get molested and get the best cheese for the Tars.

cgs  •  Link

No smutty jokes.
"...smutting one another with candle grease and soot, till most of us were like devils..."

cgs  •  Link

"...which did a little molest me...."

[< Anglo-Norman and Middle French molester to trouble, annoy, harm (early 13th cent. in Old French) < classical Latin molest{amac}re to trouble, annoy < molestus troublesome, burdensome, annoying < the same base as m{omac}l{emac}s mass, burden (see MOLE n.2) + -tus, suffix forming adjectives. Compare Italian molestare (a1292), Old Occitan molestar (1440), Catalan molestar (1360), Spanish molestar (1325).]

1. trans.

a. To cause trouble, grief, or vexation to; to disturb, annoy, inconvenience. Occas. intr. Now rare.
a1425

b. Of a disease: to afflict or affect, esp. recurrently. Also fig. Obs.
1559

2. trans.

a. To interfere or meddle with (a person, animal, etc.) injuriously or with hostile intent; to pester or harass, esp. in an aggressive or persistent manner. Also fig.
?a1425

b. spec. To harass, attack, or abuse sexually.
1889
3. trans. To tamper with (a thing). Obs.
1603 True Narr. Entertainm. his Majestie sig. E4v, A great common (which as the people there-about complaine, sir I. Spenser of London hath very vncharitable molested).

arby  •  Link

Thanks, cgs. mmm, bacon...

cgs  •  Link

hectors OED:
[f. prec. n. (sense 2).]

1. intr. To play the hector or bully; to brag, bluster, domineer. Also, to hector it.
1660 HICKERINGILL Jamaica (1661) 80 For which he needs not venture life nor limb, Nor Hector it, nor list under Sir Hugh. 1681 {emem} Def. Fullwood's Leges Angliæ 5 While I hector and rant and call names.

2. trans. To intimidate by bluster or threats; to domineer over; to bully; to bring or force out of or into something by threats or insolence.

1664 PEPYS Diary 22 Feb., Our King did openly say..that he would not be hectored out of his right and pre~eminencys by the King of France.
[ http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… ]

Hence {sm}hectoring vbl. n. and ppl. a.; {sm}hectoringly adv., in a hectoring manner; also {sm}hectorer, one who hectors.
1664 BUTLER Hud. II. i. 352 The Hect'ring Kill-Cow Hercules.

1678 CUDWORTH Intell. Syst. 176 Ranting and hectoring atheists.

previous uses
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
"...and lays it down for a maxime that a Hector can have no courage..."

"...which he hopes to find upon the Wellbancke, with the loss only of the Hector, poor Captain Cuttle. This newes do so overjoy me that I know not what to say enough to express it,..."

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

cgs  •  Link

note "...but Mr. Pierce the surgeon,..."
no MD?

Elizabeth  •  Link

Between the pasty-eating, drinking, throwing fireworks at people, besmirching one another with soot, cross-dressing and dancing, it sounds like Sam and his friends had a pretty wild time :D

Michael Robinson  •  Link

" ... Mr. Pierce the surgeon ..."

" .... The use of the title dates back to the Middle Ages when surgeons served an apprenticeship, like other tradesmen, while physicians required a university degree in medicine before they could enter practice. On account of their university training physicians were entitled to call themselves "doctor of medicine" ..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/life…

also:
The Royal College of Surgeons
http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/about/his…

Bradford  •  Link

My thoughts exactly, Elizabeth, and all these high jinks following an afternoon of bull-teasing and dog-tossing, though his pleasure is not quite outweighed by the suspicion that it's a nasty pleasure. And wouldn't the wax have been hot?

Glyn  •  Link

There is plaque on this place, which is literally only a 2-minute walk from the Globe theatre. Obviously bull and bear-baiting has advantages over plays (no temperamental actors).

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"with my wife and Mercer to the Beare-garden, where I have not been, I think, of many years, and saw some good sport of the bull’s tossing of the dogs: one into the very boxes. But it is a very rude and nasty pleasure."

Evelyn went to the same venue nearly four years later in Southwark:

16th June, 1670. I went with some friends to the Bear Garden, where was
cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear and bull-baiting, it being a famous
day for all these butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties. The
bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish wolf dog exceeded, which was a
tall greyhound, a stately creature indeed, who beat a cruel mastiff. One
of the bulls tossed a dog full into a lady's lap as she sat in one of
the boxes at a considerable height from the arena. Two poor dogs were
killed, and so all ended with the ape on horseback, and I most heartily
weary of the rude and dirty pastime, which I had not seen, I think, in
twenty years before. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/ep…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

How many vowes did Pepys break today? He must get holidays off.

That was one drunken party ... ending up with soot and candle grease on his periwig (although he didn't mention it ... but how could it be avoided?).

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... where they drank wine, and drank Mercer’s health first, which I pledged with my hat off ..."

Mercer must have blushed ... Pepys took his hat off to her! I wonder if Elizabeth noticed!!!??? If questioned, Pepys could cover his tracks by saying it was in fun, but he knows that she [Mercer] knows that he likes her breasts ...

StanB  •  Link

Sounds like a Weatherspoons on a Saturday Night

Gerald Berg  •  Link

So in this case Betty Mitchell would be the molester?

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Birkenhead to Lane
Written from: Whitehall
Date: 14 August 1666
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 35, fol(s). 28
Document type: Holograph

One Isaac Wilson, who practises physic, is gone to Chester intending to cross over into Ireland, under pretence - in order to move more freely from house to house - of pursuing his profession there ... Five weeks since, he was in Amsterdam; ... and ought to be carefully watched. ...

In a PS.: mentions naval intelligence, just sent to the King. ...

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

That's the most drunken bash that I've heard Pepys report so far. And Mistress Pegg Penn forgot herself to the extent of putting on a periwig (with Elizabeth and Nan Wright). Mercer probably had the most fun. I doubt they party like that at the Penn house. (Did mom go home early? or is this another secret the Margarets will have to keep from the Williams?)

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