We, too, have been wondering about Sam's apparently relaxed schedule. 'Twas not so earlier in his career, but we truly don't seem to know much about life in the Office. However we've seen allusions to working hours being enforced elsewhere in the administration. Is there a boss above Sam checking when he punches the clock? Apparently not, and if he chose to avoid burn-out then he was free to make that wise decision.
Maybe the Office was such a fluid place that Sam got a lot of leeway, but overall it kept the Navy going, and if it wouldn't have if it had been a happy shamble where one didn't have to work. And look at him, his constant, intimate encounters with the highest aristocracy, how he dresses like them, will (spoiler) soon have a coach like them, entertains them (not routinely, but still), has the occasional chat with the King himself... he's still middle-class enough to eat in ordinaries but he's fast becoming one of Them. And they don't work 9-to-5, do they. Papers prepared by others - the faceless entourage of "my clerks" that Sam now has - are perused and signed off in the morning, then it's off to the real business at the theater or Parliament, where the Kingdom is ruled not from behind a desk, but in little hallway chats with the earls and their own sherpas. (Speaking of which, Williamson: "I knew I'd find you at Martin Mar-all. Did you find me that info on quicksilver?" "I put one of my guys on it. Hey, nice wig.")
It's not the same Sam who gets these eye-wateringly boring "I need some planks" letters from Portsmouth that the State Papers preserve. Those have the feel of stuff that fell off Sam's desk while he dealt with the higher matters which the Diary suggest his days were filled with, or they were kicked over to some staffer who conscienciously filed them where future archivists would find them (some place that wouldn't burn in 1673, too, maybe some annex for the less-important stuff). Surely they're not all that crossed His desk, or even the main, but what do we really know either of the ways by which his letters ended in the State Papers around 1890? Their number ebbs randomly (we checked), and in fact this month, with all its Bess-is-away epicurianism, has more than average (around 30), as if more stuff than usual had fallen off.
No indeed, comets do not hang around, the Universe being a busy place where nothing stands idle, and let the record show that we're not suggesting otherwise. Most, however, travel in the same plane as the Earth, and we see them coasting along, as a coach on a road parallel to ours, for up to a few weeks if our roads are close enough. We thought this one, if visible so briefly, was a coach we quickly passed on a road perpendicular to ours. But all is in motion, always, and the comet seen in March, if it survived an encounter with the Sun, is by May speeding away and ever further from Mrs Bagwell.
But, if the comet fractured ahead of its flyby of Earth, and one of the fragments was impelled a lateral push (by, say, a release of gas as the comet's ice volatilised), that fragment may have been drawn to Earth by the forces which Mr. Newton is presently ruminating about, and may have entered a broad orbit around the Earth. With the right combination of timings, angles and velocities, that orbit could, over 2.5 months, have narrowed to the point of bringing this small, second Moon, into collision with the atmosphere. With so few observations to triangulate the comet's trajectory, and much controversy around the 19th century attempts to do so - 'tis pure speculation on our part, but we've done worse.
Sam is to be congratulated on his good fortune for having seen last night's meteor - he could have been indoors or in a narrow street - and commended for not parsing it for portents. If it made a bang, audible even over the hum of London, it must have been low, and/or large, indeed, and the people's concern well justified, if maybe not for the reasons they imagined.
We now wonder if it is more than coincidence that, in early March, a great comet hung in the skies for a few days. It wasn't visible from England, but the Society took note of reports from more southerly latitudes, and the Gazette (how we now wish it was searchable) recorded the fright it gave in parts of Europe. A helpful compilation of reports (at https://cometography.com/lcomets/…) notes it was "extraordinarily bright" as seen from Brazil, though for a few days only. Tentative, and disputed, reconstitutions of its orbit have suggested it was so observed in the days after it had grazed the Sun (some comets to that, to their detriment), on a trajectory nearly perpendicular to the Earth's orbit (an inclination of 144°). The comet was then on its way out, returning to the more serene outer reaches of the upper spheres.
In the pristine skies of 1668 one wouldn't expect a bright comet to be so briefly visible, but if it flew by on this vertical approach then it could have got away fast indeed. If so, could it have also passed close enough to the Earth (and to Sam, and even to Fraü Bagwell) for some debris it would have shed, being weakened by its then-recent adventure into the Sun's ardent neighborhood, to have so promptly (2.5 months) entered the atmosphere and occasioned this exceptional meteor? Why, it could easily have been an even larger, much larger, debris. The Diary would then have ended even sooner, and the Anthropocene perhaps ended before it had even really started. But Providence saw otherwise, for which the Lord be praised!
Now, getting it from the Moon would be easier than getting a Spanish passport for Peru. Except... Do we know anyone in Madrid who's be owed a favor by Queen Mariana? And then Sam could be secretly sent to Peru!
We have found it good practice, when faced with mysteries such as Dr. Sharrock's letter contains, to hop onto the ol' time machine and go consult the wisdom of far future ages. In this case we went to 1751 and found a long explanation of the "mercurification", which our botanist proposes to undertake, in an article by pharmacist Gabriel François Venel in the great Encyclopédie of Messrs. Diderot and D'Alembert.
Long story short: All metals (surely we all know that) are made of pure mercury, alloyed with some other earth that gives them their distinctive Character. Mercurification is the extraction of that pure mercury that resides at the heart of, say, lead. Mix that marvelous substance with the right quantity and quality of sulphur and you get, yea, gold.
Mercurification is not, then, the soaking of a (tree) trunk and a capuut mortum into mercury, to infuse them with life for the better service of His Majesty? Doesn't seem to be. Williamson's big project could be a big time-wasting misunderstanding then. Sorry! Or at least, L'Encyclopédie doesn't say. But alchemists are devious fellows and there could be an even deeper mystery, and Venel makes it clear he thinks it's all bunk, so he might now have been told the whole story. And anyway, there are few limits to what you can do with the philosopher's mercury. Infuse it into a capuut mortum, and who knows what happens? (Dr. Sharrock was into improving vegetables; he may have tried it on cucumbers and extrapolated).
"Poison the troops moving him", the mercurified cadaver - good idea, but mercury is (in 1668, and still in Venel's even more enlightened times), first and foremost, a life-giving miracle substance, a cure-all medicine. Venel writes pages and pages on how it fixes your skin problems, your lice problems, your bowel problems, etc. Yes, it does make the mercury miners dizzy and fidgety, but give them a bit of fresh air and they're fine, though in Sam's future his friend Newton will write him nasty letters after going nuts on breathing the fumes - he should have opened the windows more often! The scavans of 1751 suspect that such problems are caused by a bit of arsenic being mixed in the mercury, but in 1668 nobody would be so rash as to call it a poison.
Venel also wrote a very fine article on mercury itself, and offers that the most remarkable mine in Europe, in Austria, produces up to 300 tons per year, which is sold by Mr. Keyssler for 150 German florins a quintal (100 kg). There, we've done Sam's job for Williamson (a venison pie to anyone who can convert that into pounds). Except the whole take is bought by the Dutch. That's a problem. Our other sources, however, tell us there are even bigger mines in Spain, and in the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Why, Sarah that was Sam's exact reaction. He doesn't know, and very, very few people do, either of Williamson's barely suggested history with the shiny liquid, or of the fantastical letter he received not a week ago, and which we dare imagine he acted upon, and which we broached in our annotation of https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/….
"Mercury????" Sam says in a hush. "Mean you, quicksilver? No doubt the details will emerge soon".
"Aye, if we're successful, the World shall know", Williamson says, as they wander back through the foyer. "Until then, utmost discretion, yes?" He rummages through his pocket and adds more brightly, "Here, Pepys, would you like some backstage tickets? Their price is going up, you know? I never understand how a man of your quality still enters the theater through the front door".
"Hrmpf. I prefer to visit the dressing rooms after the play. I find the players to be more... relaxed".
"Ah, spoken like a true lover of the art. And today we've been here two hours to rehearse them, so I assure you the players are verrry... relaxed". A nod at the Earl of Arlington, who is sprawled in an armchair with a glass of wine in hand and an exhausted but happy look on his face.
Sam makes a proper half-bow. But God! Did the Earl actually... wink at him with a knowing smile? And did Williamson put a subtle stress on it when he said, "the Art?"
******************** Warrant to pay to Lord Arlington 3,000l. for secret service without account. [S.P., Docquet, Vol. 23, No. 218.] ********************
Routine, you think? What do we know.
Sam is on his way to get a bit at the Rose, since it looks like the play won't start for a while and the orange girl, for some reason, has decided to avoid him. He sees Joseph Williamson angle through the crowd of periwigs to intercept him.
"How now, Mr. Pepys? Congratulations on the speech". Sam winces at the tired joke. Williamson adds, "Nice suit".
"Why, Sir Joseph, well met. And thank you".
"Great expectations for the play?"
"Yes indeed, I really do think it will be the best theatricall experience in all my life, ever. Is His Grace with us today?"
"Yeah, yeah. HM's here so we all have to come, like it or not. Pepys, what I wanted to talk to you about is kinda sensitive and just between us". They edge to a more private corner. "We have a project for which we'd like you to get us some supplies, the Commission not necessarily being informed".
Sam rolls his eyes. "A naval project, Sir Joseph? A really, really fast ship maybe?"
Williamson chuckles at that. "Peace. No, not that. It's something rather different. If anything it's even more philosophicall, but recently we experimented it with quite a bit of success and now His Majesty has given us a bit of money to scale it up. It's very out of the box, so I'm telling you as a friend but we'd rather you keep it really, really quiet. Even diary-quiet, see what I mean?" Sam does, and sighs; is there anything that guy doesn't know about? But Williamson seems to be getting really worked up about his mystery topic. "What if I told you it could someday give England a real advantage over the Froggies, and solve your little problem with paying seamen and tickets and all that?"
Now Sam is interested. "All of that would be welcome indeed, Sir Joseph. How may I help?"
"It's not your usual planks and biscuits. We'd need fifty tuns of mercury for a start. Can you find out the prices and the suppliers?"
For the record, the Gazette will be notified on May 16, and will report in its No. 259 (page 2) that several of Clarendon's assailants, who turned out indeed to be English mercenaries not seamen, were captured and that, after four of them were personally sentenced to death by Louis, "two were broken upon the Wheel, and the other two hanged". Attacks on the nobility are not a joke at all in France, and military indiscipline is discouraged also.
The news of the two warrants that would prohibit access to the Theatre Royal's dressing rooms, or free entry after the first act, have got to be the worst since the Fire.
But, good luck to the bouncer who tries to enforce them. It's the entire ruling class of England from the King on down that seems to have taken quarters in the theaters these days. Even if the plays are not quite the political instruments that Louis has deliberately made them be in Versailles, it's clear the theaters are where the court is to be found for much of the day and are places of power that rank somewhere between the House and the painted gallery. Sam was seen recently, ducking in just to see who's there.
And does anyone think the beautiful gentlemen only or mainly come for the play? Can the actresses even make a living on just the box office? Literary historian Tita Chico, who wrote histories of dressing rooms that quote Sam extensively ("Designing Women: The Dressing Room in Eighteenth-century English Literature", 2005, visible at books.google.fr/books?id=cqJImjFzzKkC, and "The Dressing Room Unlock'd", in "Monstrous Dreams of Reason", 2002, books.google.fr/books?id=yaSQFx10hJIC), notes that, at the Rose theater, the elite pays extra to enter the theater through the dressing house.
Also that the Lord Chamberlain, whose warrant this is, had already issued one in 1663, with at least one more to come in 1675. Who knows if he was never to be seen wandering backstage himself, and thinking as he had to wait in line between two other earls at some actress' door that some way should be found to keep out the riffraff.
Why, Sir Joseph Williamson works so hard, he can't have a case of wine now and then? And in this case, it looks to be legit, because Mr. Google our learned bookseller has records of John Paige being a wine merchant, of long standing and (we're sure) impeccable licenses. As for the "packet" to Paris, didn't Allin recently remark that even his official reports went through a trusted merchant? Even if we'd still really like to know what's in the packet.
But stranger still is this other letter, written today to Sir Joseph:
***************************************** Dr. Rob. Sharrock to Williamson. If advised, I will try one chemical experiment to mercurify a trunk, in spite of the proverb ex quolibet ligno, &c., but I mean only to put a little mercury into that caput mortuum, our present head, so as to make him not so intolerably heavy in the doing of his duty and the desire of the society. The paper enclosed contains the first lines of the proposal, but it will cease if you disapprove. I beg your advice and assistance, reminding you of our former joint relation to the furnace; you may guess what clients I and my friends will be in any weightier matter, if opportunity call for it. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 240, No. 18.] *****************************************
What an Age indeed. Williamson's "relation to the furnace" - his involvement with alchemy - isn't a total surprize in a future president of the Royal Society, but it seems to have been buried deep, and the biographies at hand limit his philosophicall interests to history and other humanities. Maybe his retorts blew up, or the pursuit is deemed too unseemly (of course there's Newton, but he's special), and anyway he certainly found easier ways to make gold.
Dr. Sharrock is known as a botanist, but the experiment he so gingerly submits for approval and joint venture involves, not just a "trunk", but a capuut mortum - a dead head, bad enough, but the mercurifycation is supposed to make that dead head, or its dead owner, "do his duty and the desire of society"? That seems even darker than the Society's present Shelleyesque expts. with doggs. It ties bizarrely with the proverb, "ex quolibet ligno non fit Mercurius", not from any block of wood can you make a statue of Mercury. And is there a subtle hint of menace - to one of the most powerful men in the kingdom - in this reminder of Williamson's old furnace, and of "my friends"..? It's all a bit much to unpack, in a letter from a gentle botanist to a bureaucrat who likes legal history.
If Williamson approves, Sam may soon have to deal with zombie seamen half made of wood, and leaking mercury.
Duh. How could we miss it. Lister wants Sam et get Navy to tell Keeper they need the wood at Bawtry to build ships, so that Keeper tells Sewers to unstop the river. Crystal clear.
But, Sam, the hot weather slowed your wits as well. If the whole world is soon going to have Helmskirke's fast ships, then England has no choice but to buy them too. Still not interested? OK, OK.
"a ship that sails two feet for one of any other ship, (...) which, for my part, I think a piece of folly for them to meddle with, because the secret cannot be long kept"
Aww, Sam, you have no sense of fun. An arms race! The longest bow, the largest dreadnought, the heaviest missile! No? OK then, stay out of it.
Instead you'll get the letter thus summarized:
****************************** May 13, London. Thos. Lister to Sam. Pepys. Several complaints depending before the Lord Keeper, of the want of water at Bawtry, are to be heard next Saturday. Shall attend and move something in reference to the navigation of the river. Desires a few lines from the Commissioners to his Lordship of the occasion there is for timber, and the prejudice they suffer by not having quick conveyance when desired; doubts not but his Lordship will give such directions to the Commissioners of Sewers and participants of the level as will procure a speedy remedy in it. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 240, No. 6; https://www.british-history.ac.uk…] ******************************
Mr. Lister complains about river navigation ("the want of water" - the river is too low). You've been quite involved in cleaning out the Medway of sunk ships but how does Bawtry, a town far inland on the little river Idle, concern you? Do you get mail on everything that floats? There is indeed, to deal at least indirectly with the regulation of rivers, a Commission of Sewers, which manages not underground effluents (not for another 130 years) but drainage and flood defence - an all-essential organization in such a semi-submersible country as England (just you wait), but it's not your Commission, and you last met them four years ago, while looking for a place to store masts [https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…] Or is it the timber angle?
And who is "Thos. Lister"? There is a disgraced, regicide former MP of that name on the books, barred from public office and presumably anything like meeting the Lord Keeper, and who will die or has already died sometime in this very year, 1668. Surely you wouldn't know such a man.
And McGregor, whose execution we read of! An infamous name, and how seeing it made the very hair on our periwig stand up! We were just reading, in the Newgate Calendar (www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngcont…) how the rebel Clan Gregor had committed such terrible felonies earlier in the century for their very name to "be abolished", under an Act of 1633 that also ruled "that no minister should baptize a child (...) under the name of McGregor under pain of deprivation".
But you know what? "This Act was rescinded at the restoration". See what happens under a womanizing, semi-Catholick king? See? See?
A mummy! Just what Sam needs to decorate his closet. Imagine how the surprize will delight Bess when she returns.
If it's a piece of bone, we doubt somewhat that Sam took it as medicine (or for the mummies' other use, to make the pigment painters call Egyptian brown), because for that you need part of the mummy's tummy, where the asphalt was put. If he did he will be disappointed because ground bone would only give you a sneeze, and anyway as medicine it's expensive and Sam isn't sick. So he must have taken it as a curio. Sam the bibliophile hadn't been known to collect such knick-knacks before, but, what with reading Athanasius Kirchner, all this disposable income and his access to the sea trade, he is well placed and should absolutely be encouraged to start a cabinet of curiosities now, unicorn horns and all. As a showpiece it will go beautifully with the Stone.
Those 2,350 Spanish men may have been on a cruise to nowhere now that the Peace is signed, but the ink is still fresh, and it will take weeks for the news to reach everywhere. They may have left Vigo a week ago on orders two weeks old, just in case things fell through, and unless Sig. Marconi travels back in time there is no way to recall a ship at sea. In fact all sorts of French misbehaviour is still reported, due to outdated orders or indiscipline, so they could have their uses (as... peacekeepers? Soldiers to enforce peace, what a droll concept has just entered our minde). They may be part of Don Juan de Austria's entourage, as apparently he still hasn't shown up. They also have every right to be sent, if not to Flanders, at least to Brugge, or other parts of the Netherlands which, aside from the bits and pieces now ceded to the French, are still Spanish for several decades.
Leave aside that "peace between the neighbors" has been expected to be precisely what Louis needed to turn around and attack England - it seems that fear has gone. No, everybody agrees that the place to do war now, is the Med. Today the Venetian ambassador to Madrid, Sig. Belegno, cables home on a nice end-of-tour chat he's had with My Lord on his plans: "The Ambassador Sandovich (...) told me that on his return to London he meant to offer to take a fleet for the relief of Candia" - the eternally suffering Venetian port in Crete, besieged by the Turk and totally the place for a good Christian prince to be seen [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…] Louis has said the same thing: as soon as Spain stops wasting his time with its foolish pretentions, he'll turn to the business he really cares about and go free Candia.
Eventually Sandovich, who may have just been telling the Venetian what he wanted to hear, will do no such thing (and the English trade interests in Constantinople thank him for that, plus we don't want him to go get the plague from the Turks). Louis will make a small effort that will fail badly.
Ah yes, the treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle, the peace between France and Spain, our great passion of two weeks ago, whatever happened to all that? Not a word in all the letters and reports we have access to via the State Papers, but for a vague mention in a dispatch about a ship arrived from Calais that "the discourse there is of peace" [John Pocock to Williamson, [S. P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No. 185, https://www.british-history.ac.uk…]
Gazette No. 256, containing datelines up to May 5 and so presumably the latest to circulate in the taverns and the chanceries, reported that M. Colbert and the Spanish plenipotentiary, the Baron de Bergeick, had signed the treaty on May 1 (yes, not on May 2, and now we wonder why the history books will all date the treaty from May 2 but that's a problem for the later ages). Sam didn't mention it. Maybe his mind was elsewhere (it's been in strange places of late), or he cares not for these foreigne affairs, or, the King's confident statement aside, nobody in the corridors of power was yet too sure of what was really going on.
The Baron de Bergeick is an important man, but he's no Colbert, and it's not him but the Marquis de Castel Rodrigo, governor of the Netherlands, who had been expected to sign for Spain. Also, the Gazette's informant is "confidently assured" that Bergeick signed, but it seems to be second-hand, so, hmm... So where is Castel Rodrigo? Slowly making his way from Antwerp, it seems, maybe planning with Spanish flair to be fashionably late - how long can it take him to go 140 km? A note from Paris, sent to the Gazette (and not to be printed until Gazette No. 258, but already intercepted by our spy at the Savoy) will still say on May 5 that "we are impatiently expecting the issue of the Treaty at Aix-la-Chappelle".
The colonies? If so those fishermen be venturesome and so a real loss to the Navy, and out there for sure they will tangle with the French. Just last month, we saw a mass of memoranda [Col. Papers, Vol. XXII., Nos. 65-71, at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…] on the sorry state of Newfoundland, how it's been ruined and occupied by the French since 1662, and turned into a cesspit of impiety and drunkenness -- we are at a loss on how a lusty young sailor may prefer possibly that to Naval service. Interestingly, in terms of overfishing, among the horrors which the memos described was "great abuses committed by unseasonable fishing". But the lure must have been strong, because those are all North Sea ports the captain named, and not usual Atlantic fishing ports, so the lads will be going the long way; as far as possible from the press maybe, and maybe the North Sea is too hot indeed.
Sarah, regarding "the fishermen (...) being all gone", and the European fishing grounds being hotly contested.
We suspect that the real bother in the fishermen being gone is that they couldn't be pressed to share the glory of Captain Fortiscue's good ship. Able seamen are a scarce commodity. But what indeed of the fish? Could any cod wars between England and its neighbors have added to the Navy's problems?
'Tis the nature of the times in the 21st century to always have in mind the competition for resources and, immediately post-Brexit, the fishing grounds are certainly contested between France and England. In 1668 however, there must have been a lot more fish in the sea, chased by fewer fishermen - one article (1), while focused on the long-distance fleet, notes the civil war and other inconveniences had cut the fleet by one-third, to 100 large vessels in 1660 - and for a limited market. England in 1668 has around 5 million inhabitants, who probably don't eat much fish unless they live on the coast as salt was still a bit expensive.
There's also not a lot of statistics, but still occasional evidence of pressure on some fish stocks. The Norwegians cod fisheries, in particular, seem to have been struggling in the 1660s, (2) due to environmental fluctuations ('tis still the little ice age, and who knows how the North Sea responded). But it may have been a local problem only. In fact one remarkably detailed reconstruction of dutch herring catches, available at (3), concludes that, while there will be declines later on, in the 1660s the catches were nearing record highs. And so there was plenty of fish in the sea, and maybe more competition for the fishermen themselves than among fishermen for the fish.
The same study notes that fishing seasons were short, and prices the best at the start of the season, so if they behaved like the Dutch the fishermen of Yarmouth wouldn't have wanted to wait. Not that Sam really cares either way; he's more into venison (cited around 70 times) and lobster (around 30 times) than the sea fishes (around 10 times).
(1) "The English Migratory Fishery and Trade in the 17th Century", https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articl… (2) Terje G. Birkedal, "When the fish went away", The Norwegian-American, 30 June 2020 [https://www.norwegianamerican.com…] (3) B. Poulsen, "Reconstructing stock fluctuations of North Sea herring, 1604-1850", in "Dutch Herring: An Environmental History, c. 1600-1860", Amsterdam University Press (2008), pp. 130-159 (very, very obligingly posted by the author at https://www.researchgate.net/prof…)
Comments
Second Reading
About Friday 22 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
We, too, have been wondering about Sam's apparently relaxed schedule. 'Twas not so earlier in his career, but we truly don't seem to know much about life in the Office. However we've seen allusions to working hours being enforced elsewhere in the administration. Is there a boss above Sam checking when he punches the clock? Apparently not, and if he chose to avoid burn-out then he was free to make that wise decision.
Maybe the Office was such a fluid place that Sam got a lot of leeway, but overall it kept the Navy going, and if it wouldn't have if it had been a happy shamble where one didn't have to work. And look at him, his constant, intimate encounters with the highest aristocracy, how he dresses like them, will (spoiler) soon have a coach like them, entertains them (not routinely, but still), has the occasional chat with the King himself... he's still middle-class enough to eat in ordinaries but he's fast becoming one of Them. And they don't work 9-to-5, do they. Papers prepared by others - the faceless entourage of "my clerks" that Sam now has - are perused and signed off in the morning, then it's off to the real business at the theater or Parliament, where the Kingdom is ruled not from behind a desk, but in little hallway chats with the earls and their own sherpas. (Speaking of which, Williamson: "I knew I'd find you at Martin Mar-all. Did you find me that info on quicksilver?" "I put one of my guys on it. Hey, nice wig.")
It's not the same Sam who gets these eye-wateringly boring "I need some planks" letters from Portsmouth that the State Papers preserve. Those have the feel of stuff that fell off Sam's desk while he dealt with the higher matters which the Diary suggest his days were filled with, or they were kicked over to some staffer who conscienciously filed them where future archivists would find them (some place that wouldn't burn in 1673, too, maybe some annex for the less-important stuff). Surely they're not all that crossed His desk, or even the main, but what do we really know either of the ways by which his letters ended in the State Papers around 1890? Their number ebbs randomly (we checked), and in fact this month, with all its Bess-is-away epicurianism, has more than average (around 30), as if more stuff than usual had fallen off.
About Thursday 21 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
No indeed, comets do not hang around, the Universe being a busy place where nothing stands idle, and let the record show that we're not suggesting otherwise. Most, however, travel in the same plane as the Earth, and we see them coasting along, as a coach on a road parallel to ours, for up to a few weeks if our roads are close enough. We thought this one, if visible so briefly, was a coach we quickly passed on a road perpendicular to ours. But all is in motion, always, and the comet seen in March, if it survived an encounter with the Sun, is by May speeding away and ever further from Mrs Bagwell.
But, if the comet fractured ahead of its flyby of Earth, and one of the fragments was impelled a lateral push (by, say, a release of gas as the comet's ice volatilised), that fragment may have been drawn to Earth by the forces which Mr. Newton is presently ruminating about, and may have entered a broad orbit around the Earth. With the right combination of timings, angles and velocities, that orbit could, over 2.5 months, have narrowed to the point of bringing this small, second Moon, into collision with the atmosphere. With so few observations to triangulate the comet's trajectory, and much controversy around the 19th century attempts to do so - 'tis pure speculation on our part, but we've done worse.
About Thursday 21 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam is to be congratulated on his good fortune for having seen last night's meteor - he could have been indoors or in a narrow street - and commended for not parsing it for portents. If it made a bang, audible even over the hum of London, it must have been low, and/or large, indeed, and the people's concern well justified, if maybe not for the reasons they imagined.
We now wonder if it is more than coincidence that, in early March, a great comet hung in the skies for a few days. It wasn't visible from England, but the Society took note of reports from more southerly latitudes, and the Gazette (how we now wish it was searchable) recorded the fright it gave in parts of Europe. A helpful compilation of reports (at https://cometography.com/lcomets/…) notes it was "extraordinarily bright" as seen from Brazil, though for a few days only. Tentative, and disputed, reconstitutions of its orbit have suggested it was so observed in the days after it had grazed the Sun (some comets to that, to their detriment), on a trajectory nearly perpendicular to the Earth's orbit (an inclination of 144°). The comet was then on its way out, returning to the more serene outer reaches of the upper spheres.
In the pristine skies of 1668 one wouldn't expect a bright comet to be so briefly visible, but if it flew by on this vertical approach then it could have got away fast indeed. If so, could it have also passed close enough to the Earth (and to Sam, and even to Fraü Bagwell) for some debris it would have shed, being weakened by its then-recent adventure into the Sun's ardent neighborhood, to have so promptly (2.5 months) entered the atmosphere and occasioned this exceptional meteor? Why, it could easily have been an even larger, much larger, debris. The Diary would then have ended even sooner, and the Anthropocene perhaps ended before it had even really started. But Providence saw otherwise, for which the Lord be praised!
About Monday 18 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Now, getting it from the Moon would be easier than getting a Spanish passport for Peru. Except... Do we know anyone in Madrid who's be owed a favor by Queen Mariana? And then Sam could be secretly sent to Peru!
L'Encyclopédie is available (in French), among various sites, at https://zims-lfr.kiwix.campusafri…'Encyclopédie/1re_édition
To anyone with bowel problems (or lice): We don't recommend using mercury. At all.
About Monday 18 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
We have found it good practice, when faced with mysteries such as Dr. Sharrock's letter contains, to hop onto the ol' time machine and go consult the wisdom of far future ages. In this case we went to 1751 and found a long explanation of the "mercurification", which our botanist proposes to undertake, in an article by pharmacist Gabriel François Venel in the great Encyclopédie of Messrs. Diderot and D'Alembert.
Long story short: All metals (surely we all know that) are made of pure mercury, alloyed with some other earth that gives them their distinctive Character. Mercurification is the extraction of that pure mercury that resides at the heart of, say, lead. Mix that marvelous substance with the right quantity and quality of sulphur and you get, yea, gold.
Mercurification is not, then, the soaking of a (tree) trunk and a capuut mortum into mercury, to infuse them with life for the better service of His Majesty? Doesn't seem to be. Williamson's big project could be a big time-wasting misunderstanding then. Sorry! Or at least, L'Encyclopédie doesn't say. But alchemists are devious fellows and there could be an even deeper mystery, and Venel makes it clear he thinks it's all bunk, so he might now have been told the whole story. And anyway, there are few limits to what you can do with the philosopher's mercury. Infuse it into a capuut mortum, and who knows what happens? (Dr. Sharrock was into improving vegetables; he may have tried it on cucumbers and extrapolated).
"Poison the troops moving him", the mercurified cadaver - good idea, but mercury is (in 1668, and still in Venel's even more enlightened times), first and foremost, a life-giving miracle substance, a cure-all medicine. Venel writes pages and pages on how it fixes your skin problems, your lice problems, your bowel problems, etc. Yes, it does make the mercury miners dizzy and fidgety, but give them a bit of fresh air and they're fine, though in Sam's future his friend Newton will write him nasty letters after going nuts on breathing the fumes - he should have opened the windows more often! The scavans of 1751 suspect that such problems are caused by a bit of arsenic being mixed in the mercury, but in 1668 nobody would be so rash as to call it a poison.
Venel also wrote a very fine article on mercury itself, and offers that the most remarkable mine in Europe, in Austria, produces up to 300 tons per year, which is sold by Mr. Keyssler for 150 German florins a quintal (100 kg). There, we've done Sam's job for Williamson (a venison pie to anyone who can convert that into pounds). Except the whole take is bought by the Dutch. That's a problem. Our other sources, however, tell us there are even bigger mines in Spain, and in the Viceroyalty of Peru.
About Monday 18 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Why, Sarah that was Sam's exact reaction. He doesn't know, and very, very few people do, either of Williamson's barely suggested history with the shiny liquid, or of the fantastical letter he received not a week ago, and which we dare imagine he acted upon, and which we broached in our annotation of https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/….
"Mercury????" Sam says in a hush. "Mean you, quicksilver? No doubt the details will emerge soon".
"Aye, if we're successful, the World shall know", Williamson says, as they wander back through the foyer. "Until then, utmost discretion, yes?" He rummages through his pocket and adds more brightly, "Here, Pepys, would you like some backstage tickets? Their price is going up, you know? I never understand how a man of your quality still enters the theater through the front door".
"Hrmpf. I prefer to visit the dressing rooms after the play. I find the players to be more... relaxed".
"Ah, spoken like a true lover of the art. And today we've been here two hours to rehearse them, so I assure you the players are verrry... relaxed". A nod at the Earl of Arlington, who is sprawled in an armchair with a glass of wine in hand and an exhausted but happy look on his face.
Sam makes a proper half-bow. But God! Did the Earl actually... wink at him with a knowing smile? And did Williamson put a subtle stress on it when he said, "the Art?"
About Monday 18 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Today there was this, also:
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Warrant to pay to Lord Arlington 3,000l. for secret service without account. [S.P., Docquet, Vol. 23, No. 218.]
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Routine, you think? What do we know.
Sam is on his way to get a bit at the Rose, since it looks like the play won't start for a while and the orange girl, for some reason, has decided to avoid him. He sees Joseph Williamson angle through the crowd of periwigs to intercept him.
"How now, Mr. Pepys? Congratulations on the speech". Sam winces at the tired joke. Williamson adds, "Nice suit".
"Why, Sir Joseph, well met. And thank you".
"Great expectations for the play?"
"Yes indeed, I really do think it will be the best theatricall experience in all my life, ever. Is His Grace with us today?"
"Yeah, yeah. HM's here so we all have to come, like it or not. Pepys, what I wanted to talk to you about is kinda sensitive and just between us". They edge to a more private corner. "We have a project for which we'd like you to get us some supplies, the Commission not necessarily being informed".
Sam rolls his eyes. "A naval project, Sir Joseph? A really, really fast ship maybe?"
Williamson chuckles at that. "Peace. No, not that. It's something rather different. If anything it's even more philosophicall, but recently we experimented it with quite a bit of success and now His Majesty has given us a bit of money to scale it up. It's very out of the box, so I'm telling you as a friend but we'd rather you keep it really, really quiet. Even diary-quiet, see what I mean?" Sam does, and sighs; is there anything that guy doesn't know about? But Williamson seems to be getting really worked up about his mystery topic. "What if I told you it could someday give England a real advantage over the Froggies, and solve your little problem with paying seamen and tickets and all that?"
Now Sam is interested. "All of that would be welcome indeed, Sir Joseph. How may I help?"
"It's not your usual planks and biscuits. We'd need fifty tuns of mercury for a start. Can you find out the prices and the suppliers?"
About Wednesday 22 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
For the record, the Gazette will be notified on May 16, and will report in its No. 259 (page 2) that several of Clarendon's assailants, who turned out indeed to be English mercenaries not seamen, were captured and that, after four of them were personally sentenced to death by Louis, "two were broken upon the Wheel, and the other two hanged". Attacks on the nobility are not a joke at all in France, and military indiscipline is discouraged also.
About Saturday 16 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
The news of the two warrants that would prohibit access to the Theatre Royal's dressing rooms, or free entry after the first act, have got to be the worst since the Fire.
But, good luck to the bouncer who tries to enforce them. It's the entire ruling class of England from the King on down that seems to have taken quarters in the theaters these days. Even if the plays are not quite the political instruments that Louis has deliberately made them be in Versailles, it's clear the theaters are where the court is to be found for much of the day and are places of power that rank somewhere between the House and the painted gallery. Sam was seen recently, ducking in just to see who's there.
And does anyone think the beautiful gentlemen only or mainly come for the play? Can the actresses even make a living on just the box office? Literary historian Tita Chico, who wrote histories of dressing rooms that quote Sam extensively ("Designing Women: The Dressing Room in Eighteenth-century English Literature", 2005, visible at books.google.fr/books?id=cqJImjFzzKkC, and "The Dressing Room Unlock'd", in "Monstrous Dreams of Reason", 2002, books.google.fr/books?id=yaSQFx10hJIC), notes that, at the Rose theater, the elite pays extra to enter the theater through the dressing house.
Also that the Lord Chamberlain, whose warrant this is, had already issued one in 1663, with at least one more to come in 1675. Who knows if he was never to be seen wandering backstage himself, and thinking as he had to wait in line between two other earls at some actress' door that some way should be found to keep out the riffraff.
About Tuesday 12 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Why, thankee, your humble servant, Madam. We hope to be, of this Society's rock collection, the mummy bone, if not the carbuncle.
About Thursday 14 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Why, Sir Joseph Williamson works so hard, he can't have a case of wine now and then? And in this case, it looks to be legit, because Mr. Google our learned bookseller has records of John Paige being a wine merchant, of long standing and (we're sure) impeccable licenses. As for the "packet" to Paris, didn't Allin recently remark that even his official reports went through a trusted merchant? Even if we'd still really like to know what's in the packet.
But stranger still is this other letter, written today to Sir Joseph:
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Dr. Rob. Sharrock to Williamson. If advised, I will try one chemical experiment to mercurify a trunk, in spite of the proverb ex quolibet ligno, &c., but I mean only to put a little mercury into that caput mortuum, our present head, so as to make him not so intolerably heavy in the doing of his duty and the desire of the society. The paper enclosed contains the first lines of the proposal, but it will cease if you disapprove. I beg your advice and assistance, reminding you of our former joint relation to the furnace; you may guess what clients I and my friends will be in any weightier matter, if opportunity call for it. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 240, No. 18.]
*****************************************
What an Age indeed. Williamson's "relation to the furnace" - his involvement with alchemy - isn't a total surprize in a future president of the Royal Society, but it seems to have been buried deep, and the biographies at hand limit his philosophicall interests to history and other humanities. Maybe his retorts blew up, or the pursuit is deemed too unseemly (of course there's Newton, but he's special), and anyway he certainly found easier ways to make gold.
Dr. Sharrock is known as a botanist, but the experiment he so gingerly submits for approval and joint venture involves, not just a "trunk", but a capuut mortum - a dead head, bad enough, but the mercurifycation is supposed to make that dead head, or its dead owner, "do his duty and the desire of society"? That seems even darker than the Society's present Shelleyesque expts. with doggs. It ties bizarrely with the proverb, "ex quolibet ligno non fit Mercurius", not from any block of wood can you make a statue of Mercury. And is there a subtle hint of menace - to one of the most powerful men in the kingdom - in this reminder of Williamson's old furnace, and of "my friends"..? It's all a bit much to unpack, in a letter from a gentle botanist to a bureaucrat who likes legal history.
If Williamson approves, Sam may soon have to deal with zombie seamen half made of wood, and leaking mercury.
About Wednesday 13 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Duh. How could we miss it. Lister wants Sam et get Navy to tell Keeper they need the wood at Bawtry to build ships, so that Keeper tells Sewers to unstop the river. Crystal clear.
But, Sam, the hot weather slowed your wits as well. If the whole world is soon going to have Helmskirke's fast ships, then England has no choice but to buy them too. Still not interested? OK, OK.
About Wednesday 13 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"a ship that sails two feet for one of any other ship, (...) which, for my part, I think a piece of folly for them to meddle with, because the secret cannot be long kept"
Aww, Sam, you have no sense of fun. An arms race! The longest bow, the largest dreadnought, the heaviest missile! No? OK then, stay out of it.
Instead you'll get the letter thus summarized:
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May 13, London. Thos. Lister to Sam. Pepys. Several complaints depending before the Lord Keeper, of the want of water at Bawtry, are to be heard next Saturday. Shall attend and move something in reference to the navigation of the river. Desires a few lines from the Commissioners to his Lordship of the occasion there is for timber, and the prejudice they suffer by not having quick conveyance when desired; doubts not but his Lordship will give such directions to the Commissioners of Sewers and participants of the level as will procure a speedy remedy in it. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 240, No. 6; https://www.british-history.ac.uk…]
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Mr. Lister complains about river navigation ("the want of water" - the river is too low). You've been quite involved in cleaning out the Medway of sunk ships but how does Bawtry, a town far inland on the little river Idle, concern you? Do you get mail on everything that floats? There is indeed, to deal at least indirectly with the regulation of rivers, a Commission of Sewers, which manages not underground effluents (not for another 130 years) but drainage and flood defence - an all-essential organization in such a semi-submersible country as England (just you wait), but it's not your Commission, and you last met them four years ago, while looking for a place to store masts [https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…] Or is it the timber angle?
And who is "Thos. Lister"? There is a disgraced, regicide former MP of that name on the books, barred from public office and presumably anything like meeting the Lord Keeper, and who will die or has already died sometime in this very year, 1668. Surely you wouldn't know such a man.
About Tuesday 12 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And McGregor, whose execution we read of! An infamous name, and how seeing it made the very hair on our periwig stand up! We were just reading, in the Newgate Calendar (www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngcont…) how the rebel Clan Gregor had committed such terrible felonies earlier in the century for their very name to "be abolished", under an Act of 1633 that also ruled "that no minister should baptize a child (...) under the name of McGregor under pain of deprivation".
But you know what? "This Act was rescinded at the restoration". See what happens under a womanizing, semi-Catholick king? See? See?
About Tuesday 12 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
A mummy! Just what Sam needs to decorate his closet. Imagine how the surprize will delight Bess when she returns.
If it's a piece of bone, we doubt somewhat that Sam took it as medicine (or for the mummies' other use, to make the pigment painters call Egyptian brown), because for that you need part of the mummy's tummy, where the asphalt was put. If he did he will be disappointed because ground bone would only give you a sneeze, and anyway as medicine it's expensive and Sam isn't sick. So he must have taken it as a curio. Sam the bibliophile hadn't been known to collect such knick-knacks before, but, what with reading Athanasius Kirchner, all this disposable income and his access to the sea trade, he is well placed and should absolutely be encouraged to start a cabinet of curiosities now, unicorn horns and all. As a showpiece it will go beautifully with the Stone.
About Tuesday 12 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Those 2,350 Spanish men may have been on a cruise to nowhere now that the Peace is signed, but the ink is still fresh, and it will take weeks for the news to reach everywhere. They may have left Vigo a week ago on orders two weeks old, just in case things fell through, and unless Sig. Marconi travels back in time there is no way to recall a ship at sea. In fact all sorts of French misbehaviour is still reported, due to outdated orders or indiscipline, so they could have their uses (as... peacekeepers? Soldiers to enforce peace, what a droll concept has just entered our minde). They may be part of Don Juan de Austria's entourage, as apparently he still hasn't shown up. They also have every right to be sent, if not to Flanders, at least to Brugge, or other parts of the Netherlands which, aside from the bits and pieces now ceded to the French, are still Spanish for several decades.
About Saturday 9 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Leave aside that "peace between the neighbors" has been expected to be precisely what Louis needed to turn around and attack England - it seems that fear has gone. No, everybody agrees that the place to do war now, is the Med. Today the Venetian ambassador to Madrid, Sig. Belegno, cables home on a nice end-of-tour chat he's had with My Lord on his plans: "The Ambassador Sandovich (...) told me that on his return to London he meant to offer to take a fleet for the relief of Candia" - the eternally suffering Venetian port in Crete, besieged by the Turk and totally the place for a good Christian prince to be seen [https://www.british-history.ac.uk…] Louis has said the same thing: as soon as Spain stops wasting his time with its foolish pretentions, he'll turn to the business he really cares about and go free Candia.
Eventually Sandovich, who may have just been telling the Venetian what he wanted to hear, will do no such thing (and the English trade interests in Constantinople thank him for that, plus we don't want him to go get the plague from the Turks). Louis will make a small effort that will fail badly.
About Saturday 9 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"because there was peace between his neighbours"
Ah yes, the treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle, the peace between France and Spain, our great passion of two weeks ago, whatever happened to all that? Not a word in all the letters and reports we have access to via the State Papers, but for a vague mention in a dispatch about a ship arrived from Calais that "the discourse there is of peace" [John Pocock to Williamson, [S. P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No. 185, https://www.british-history.ac.uk…]
Gazette No. 256, containing datelines up to May 5 and so presumably the latest to circulate in the taverns and the chanceries, reported that M. Colbert and the Spanish plenipotentiary, the Baron de Bergeick, had signed the treaty on May 1 (yes, not on May 2, and now we wonder why the history books will all date the treaty from May 2 but that's a problem for the later ages). Sam didn't mention it. Maybe his mind was elsewhere (it's been in strange places of late), or he cares not for these foreigne affairs, or, the King's confident statement aside, nobody in the corridors of power was yet too sure of what was really going on.
The Baron de Bergeick is an important man, but he's no Colbert, and it's not him but the Marquis de Castel Rodrigo, governor of the Netherlands, who had been expected to sign for Spain. Also, the Gazette's informant is "confidently assured" that Bergeick signed, but it seems to be second-hand, so, hmm... So where is Castel Rodrigo? Slowly making his way from Antwerp, it seems, maybe planning with Spanish flair to be fashionably late - how long can it take him to go 140 km? A note from Paris, sent to the Gazette (and not to be printed until Gazette No. 258, but already intercepted by our spy at the Savoy) will still say on May 5 that "we are impatiently expecting the issue of the Treaty at Aix-la-Chappelle".
About Tuesday 5 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
The colonies? If so those fishermen be venturesome and so a real loss to the Navy, and out there for sure they will tangle with the French. Just last month, we saw a mass of memoranda [Col. Papers, Vol. XXII., Nos. 65-71, at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…] on the sorry state of Newfoundland, how it's been ruined and occupied by the French since 1662, and turned into a cesspit of impiety and drunkenness -- we are at a loss on how a lusty young sailor may prefer possibly that to Naval service. Interestingly, in terms of overfishing, among the horrors which the memos described was "great abuses committed by unseasonable fishing". But the lure must have been strong, because those are all North Sea ports the captain named, and not usual Atlantic fishing ports, so the lads will be going the long way; as far as possible from the press maybe, and maybe the North Sea is too hot indeed.
About Tuesday 5 May 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sarah, regarding "the fishermen (...) being all gone", and the European fishing grounds being hotly contested.
We suspect that the real bother in the fishermen being gone is that they couldn't be pressed to share the glory of Captain Fortiscue's good ship. Able seamen are a scarce commodity. But what indeed of the fish? Could any cod wars between England and its neighbors have added to the Navy's problems?
'Tis the nature of the times in the 21st century to always have in mind the competition for resources and, immediately post-Brexit, the fishing grounds are certainly contested between France and England. In 1668 however, there must have been a lot more fish in the sea, chased by fewer fishermen - one article (1), while focused on the long-distance fleet, notes the civil war and other inconveniences had cut the fleet by one-third, to 100 large vessels in 1660 - and for a limited market. England in 1668 has around 5 million inhabitants, who probably don't eat much fish unless they live on the coast as salt was still a bit expensive.
There's also not a lot of statistics, but still occasional evidence of pressure on some fish stocks. The Norwegians cod fisheries, in particular, seem to have been struggling in the 1660s, (2) due to environmental fluctuations ('tis still the little ice age, and who knows how the North Sea responded). But it may have been a local problem only. In fact one remarkably detailed reconstruction of dutch herring catches, available at (3), concludes that, while there will be declines later on, in the 1660s the catches were nearing record highs. And so there was plenty of fish in the sea, and maybe more competition for the fishermen themselves than among fishermen for the fish.
The same study notes that fishing seasons were short, and prices the best at the start of the season, so if they behaved like the Dutch the fishermen of Yarmouth wouldn't have wanted to wait. Not that Sam really cares either way; he's more into venison (cited around 70 times) and lobster (around 30 times) than the sea fishes (around 10 times).
(1) "The English Migratory Fishery and Trade in the 17th Century", https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articl…
(2) Terje G. Birkedal, "When the fish went away", The Norwegian-American, 30 June 2020 [https://www.norwegianamerican.com…]
(3) B. Poulsen, "Reconstructing stock fluctuations of North Sea herring, 1604-1850", in "Dutch Herring: An Environmental History, c. 1600-1860", Amsterdam University Press (2008), pp. 130-159 (very, very obligingly posted by the author at https://www.researchgate.net/prof…)