Sasha Clarkson

Annotations and comments

Sasha Clarkson has posted 752 annotations/comments since 16 February 2013.

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Second Reading

About Friday 7 July 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

PS - I wonder *which* of his wines Sam was sending to Bess - a dry table wine like Claret or "tent", or a sweet wine like Canary to entertain callers?

About Friday 7 July 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

""the King might fall" - and almost immediately he is passing it on to a man who is hardly a close friend."

Sam has a taste for reporting the melodramatic in his diaries, but the important fact he told Creed is that the government via Carteret has arranged for Backwell's debts to be guaranteed is his absence.

Creed isn't a friend, but he is a close colleague on "team Sandwich". Sam's info may well save Creed money, and therefore Creed will owe him one. Despite the purpose of Backwell's mission being secret, passing on limited info info may well have helped "calm the markets" at a nervous time. Hence it's not inconceivable tha Carteret would have approved of a limited leak; ie that backwell was away on government business rather than having done a bunk.

About Friday 7 July 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

"Tent" - I'd guess it's simply "Vino Tinto" (as in ink) - the common name for red wine in Spain, which, presumably because of the climate, tends to be a darker red than some others.

I remember as a child, on our family holidays in Spain, us being offered "Tinto o Claro", the latter being rosé I believe. My parents always chose the tinto.

About Monday 26 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

The mention of St Clement's links to St Clement Danes church, but it might also have been St Clement's Eastcheap, less than half a mile from Sam's home.

He might have passed both churches on his way to Whitehall, but given that it was a market/trading area, I think the Eastcheap church is more likely to have had a "bitt maker"'s shop next to it.

About Saturday 24 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

The match between Philip and Jemima is also significant in that it's an alliance between a die-hard Royalist house, and a pragmatic Parliamentarian house - a symbol of reconciliation.

"there are many times I read Sam’s POV on these 2 men and want to whack him on the side of the head with his petty criticisms and comments"
I disagree with Jeannine here: Pepys' comments about the characters of his contemporaries ar a big part bof the value of the diary. Even when they're wrong, they give us insights into the relationships between the individuals concerned. Anyway, I find that most people analyse the personalities, faults etc of their friends anyway - we love people "warts and all" :)

About Tuesday 20 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Stan, Terry, yes - I meant "pseudo" for the contemporary usage. :)
I'm sure Pepys wouldn't have *said* "ye": I was wondering about the shorthand really ...

About Tuesday 20 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

I wonder if Pepys actually wrote "ye Dutch", or whether Wheatley has mistranscribed the shorthand?

As was, I believe, mentioned in an annotation recently, the pseudo archaic "ye", originated as "the" spelt "þe", with a letter thorn "þ" or "Þ" in early-modern English.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_…

About Thursday 15 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Terry: "William Sheldon was Clerk of the Cheque at Woolwich. Mrs Pepys, with two of her three maids, went down tthere on 5 July and returned to her London home on 2 December. (L&M note)"

So wthether or not Sam intended the sojourn at Woolwich to be a refuge from the plague, or merely a holiday, it clearly turned out to be the former.

About Monday 12 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Carl in Boston mentioned "Gather ye rosebuds...", which reminded me that dear old Robert Herrick was still going strong in 1665. so, in honour of all those whose lives were cruelly cut short by war plague and fire, here is his famous poem/song:

To The Virgins, Make Much Of Time

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may:
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

- Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Here is a rather nice musical version on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R…

Alas, Sam's and Herrick's paths never crossed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob…

About Sunday 11 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Ha ha Sarah - you're right!
I wonder if that suit met with an "accident" after one of Sam and Bess's fights? :D

About Sunday 11 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

"not being used to wear colours "

So, the Commonwealth/Protectorate Puritan fashions seem to have persisted amongst the middle classes until now?

About Saturday 3 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Again, I must protest: Robert Gertz' insistence on calling Hayter a Quaker rests upon evidence which is flimsy to non-existent - unless there is evidence outside the diary of which I am unaware. See my annotation of yesterday. I am concerned that young history students using the online diary as a resource might be misled by Robert's, undoubtedly entertaining,, fantasies.

Evidence, or the lack of it, is important.

About Friday 2 June 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Although Hayter was some kind of nonconformist, there is little evidence that he was a Quaker:

Evidence for: on 9 May 1663 Hayter confessed that he'd been arrested at a meeting of "some Friends". "Friends" with a capital F could imply Quakers (Religious Society of Friends), but equally it need not. Quakers were a small minority of the many nonconformist sects/tendencies.

Evidence against: although the language is convoluted, Pepys' conversation with Coventry on 15 May 1663 implies that Hayter was some kind of Anabaptist.

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Does L&M shed any light upon the matter?

About Thursday 25 May 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

The "dined at home" probably included mum and Bess, as he specifically mentioned dining alone the other day, because they were out.

About Tuesday 23 May 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

"At noon dined alone, my wife and mother being gone by invitation to dine with my mother’s old servant"
Just another hint that the diary gives only part of the story. That Sam finds it worthwhile to mention that he dined alone, implies that Bess and mum have been with him on other occasions, although unmentioned.

About Tuesday 16 May 1665

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Let's suppose that "with child" is used loosely, meaning "pregnant, or just having given birth". Then we might use Mrs Pepys (11/14) as an estimated proportion of the number of women one might expect to be in this situation. Using the 95% confidence interval for this proprtion yields a rough estimate of [33, 45] women out of 50 widows of child bearing age who might be expected to be in this state. In truth it's rather more complicated of course, but it's neither inconceivable (ha ha) nor incredible that 45 of these widows might have been "with child" in this loose sense.

About John Unthank

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Unthank is an interesting name: there are a few hamlets/small villages named Unthank in the North of England; there's even an Unthank Hall. However, I suspect that more people live in Norwich's Unthank Road than in all of the other places put together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unt…

According to Ancestry, the meaning derives from Old English unthanc ‘without consent’, i.e. a squatter’s holding.