Elizabeth Pearse

8 Annotations

First Reading

Pauline  •  Link

Noted for her beauty.

Pauline  •  Link

From her husband's entry in L&M Companion
"[James] and his beautiful wife Elizabeth were friends of Pepys close enough to be invited to the stone feast and, in the case of Elizabeth, close enough to make Elizabeth Pepys jealous."

"Her beauty had been extraordinary and was remarked on by others than Pepys. In 1678 she had her 19th child and was said still to look only 20. She was alive in 1696."

Pauline  •  Link

"...she had her 19th child and was said still to look only 20."

I have to add that I am jealous too.

dirk  •  Link

"she had her 19th child and was said still to look only 20"

Hardly believable, is it?

michael j. gresk m.a.  •  Link

what is truly amazing is that she survived the birth of (at least) 19 children!!

Second Reading

Sjoerd22  •  Link

An Elisabet Pearse, "washer woman to the Queen" was recorded as a witness at the birth of James Francis Edward Stuart, 1688. But not in the "official" list of witnesses that James, "the old Pretender" published years later to prove that he had NOT been switched at birth, but in a protestant pamphlet that tried to show that he had.

"This servant to the Queen, that used to receive a yearly sum of 2500 guilder, tells us the following:

1. That she had heard the Queen crying loudly.
2. That this went on until the (so called) Prince of Wales was handed to mrs Labadie
3. That the midwife held up the afterbirth
4. That she with her servant carried away the soiled bed linnen while it was still warm
5. That from looking at the bedlinnen handed to her from time to time she could see that her majesty had been in the same circumstances as women are apt to be.
and 6. That her majesty at that time had had milk in her breasts, as shown by the shirts.

The pamphlet goes on to argue that all of this was secondary evidence and could easily have been falsely constructed to switch a stillborn baby with a healthy changeling.

"De onwettelyke getuygen, George Jeffreys cancelier en Robert grave van Sunderland, president van de geheyme raad van Jacobus de II. coning van Groot Britanje, en secretaris van Staat: Nevens andere getuygen tegens malkanderen, in hunne gegeven attestatien, over de geboorte van den genaamden prince van Wales: Geconfronteert en ongegrond bevonden."

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Monday, August 6, 1666 – Elizabeth Pepys and Betty Pearse have words, and the bad feelings linger for several months, to Pepys’ displeasure. I’m not sure what it really was about:

“By and by comes Mr. Pierce and his wife, the first time she also hath been here since her lying-in, both having been brought to bed of boys, and both of them dead. And here we talked, and were pleasant, only my wife in a chagrin humour, she not being pleased with my kindnesse to either of them, and by and by she fell into some silly discourse wherein I checked her, which made her mighty pettish, and discoursed mighty offensively to Mrs. Pierce, which did displease me, but I would make no words, but put the discourse by as much as I could (it being about a report that my wife said was made of herself and meant by Mrs. Pierce, that she was grown a gallant, when she had but so few suits of clothes these two or three years, and a great deale of that silly discourse), and by and by Mrs. Pierce did tell her that such discourses should not trouble her, for there went as bad on other people, and particularly of herself at this end of the towne, meaning my wife, that she was crooked, which was quite false, which my wife had the wit not to acknowledge herself to be the speaker of, though she has said it twenty times. But by this means we had little pleasure in their visit; however, Knipp and I sang, and then I offered them to carry them home, and to take my wife with me, but she would not go: so I with them, leaving my wife in a very ill humour, and very slighting to them, which vexed me. However, I would not be removed from my civility to them, but sent for a coach, and went with them; and, in our way, Knipp saying that she come out of doors without a dinner to us, I took them to Old Fish Streete, to the very house and woman where I kept my wedding dinner, where I never was since, and there I did give them a jole of salmon, and what else was to be had. And here we talked of the ill-humour of my wife, which I did excuse as much as I could, and they seemed to admit of it, but did both confess they wondered at it; but from thence to other discourse, and among others to that of my Lord Bruncker and Mrs. Williams, who it seems do speake mighty hardly of me for my not treating them, and not giving her something to her closett, and do speake worse of my wife, and dishonourably, but it is what she do of all the world, though she be a whore herself; so I value it not.

… “I set them both at home, Knipp at her house, her husband being at the doore; and glad she was to be found to have staid out so long with me and Mrs. Pierce, and none else; and Mrs. Pierce at her house, and am mightily pleased with the discretion of her during the simplicity and offensiveness of my wife’s discourse this afternoon.”

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

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1666

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