Oh woe, woe and boo-hoo-hoo, and God help us! If only Sam could soothe his poor aching eyes with this letter which the Venetian ambassador to Spain, Catterin Belegno, is writing to the Doge and Senate today to report the much happier state of mind of My Lord, far removed from all the pettiness and squalor that Sam deplores in chilly London:
****************************** All the way through the kingdom to the frontier of Castile the Ambassador Sandovich has received unspeakable honours, acclamations of the people, universal blessings and applause. From England he has the ratification of the treaty and is making ready for his departure. He is puffed up with vanity at having brought three important negotiations to a successful conclusion, to wit: the ratification of the peace and of commerce; the affair of Portugal and this last, the most important of all, the peace between the crowns, of the conclusion of which he is confident. (https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) ******************************
And we suspect that in 1668 a Venetian ambassador to Madrid would have seen enough vanity to know it when it was of "puffed up" quality. Remember when being sent on this embassy was considered exile, infamous sanction, a second Fall from Heaven and into some lice-ridden third world court? Sandwich has had his recall for some time now, but "making ready" will take him another three months. Protocol aside, he must have known well enough what awaits him at home to be in no particular hurry to go.
Sandwich seems to have reaped the glory of various sherpas' backstage work on the treaty of Lisbon ("the affair of Portugal") after it had been substantially completed, but that's what ambassadors do. However his role in "the peace between the crowns", described as still imminent and so clearly that between Spain and France, has been a lot more discreet, with that work generally credited to Paris/Brussels-based diplomats such as Temple, so the allusion is interesting. Even if he played no major role there is certainly even more to be gained by being in that picture. Not everyone in Parliament might even know where Portugal is, but peacemaking with France... pretty unimpeachable.
Elizabeth Calvert the woman pyrate printer: She was, but she might not have started the business, which she continued after the death of husband Giles Calvert in 1664. She must have been a tough nut though, as their print shop at the Sign of the Black Spread Eagle in St Paul's Churchyard had been notorious for turning out a multitude of radical, republican and dissenter stuff, and currently there had been a warrant against Liz since at least January. According to an interesting article at [https://journals.sas.ac.uk/fhs/ar…] she intersected Pepysland in printing one of the Quaker tracts that will later send Admiral Sir Will's son William Penn to the Tower.
Finally, slightly off-topic but still revealing, the Carte Calendar (MS Carte 81, f. 286) records a minute by Lord Wharton, on no less than an "Address from both Houses of Parliament to the King", which alas is undated and not found by a quick search of Grey's Debates. On what? On "praying for the encouragement, by the example of His Majesty & of the Royal Family, of the habitual use, in apparel, of English manufactures". See, it's not all about impeaching our friends.
That old classic, the head of State proudly wearing the local woolens. Except Charlie (and likely Sam, and likely both Houses of Parliament) would rather clad Himself in Italian silks, 'coz the local woolens, they scratch.
And what to make of this, in a letter Middleton is sending today to the Commissioners:
************************* "Particulars of ships under repair, &c. (...) The masters of Watermen's Hall are good Christians, but very knaves; they should be ordered to send down 10 or 12 old women to be nurses to the children they send for the King to breed for them; unless his Royal Highness sends all the masters down themselves, the King will not have justice (...)" [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No.38] *************************
Unless we're missing some obscure joke in Middleton's thoroughly businesslike letter, we take this to perhaps reveal that, between the coils of rope and the barrels of biscuits, the Watermen also stock a bunch of children, perhaps orphans destined for a glorious life of ropemaking, raised ("bred") by the Crown ("the King"), but young enough to need nurses. And there could be a hundred of them, wailing and stealing the biscuits, if they need that many old women.
Sam's job just gets even more complicated. "My lord, you want me to find a dozen what??"
We think it prudent, given how some of this Society would have to travel all the way from the Antipodes, to give notice of this Advertisement seen in the late Gazette (No. 254, with items dated through April 29):
**************** We are ordered to give notice, that by reason of the approaching heat of Summer, His Majesty intends to continue touching for the Evil till Friday after the First of May inclusively, and no longer. **************** That's only a week hence; does the Gazette think we all live in London? And yes, lest we forget, Charlie has a Magick Finger; one source (www.britannica.com/science/kings-…) implies he uses it an average of a dozen times a day. So bring your scrofulas!
"Warrant for committing — Pool to the Gatehouse, for keeping a private press"
Pfew. What a relief. Though it seems (from her later petition to the King, at S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No. 93 in early May) that Elizabeth Poole was only the landlady, and if so L'Estrange's goons grabbed the first person they saw, and the actual printer is still running. But they stomped on all the pamphlets!
And hey, what's this, also dated April 28 and likely related:
**************** Account by Sam Mearne of expenses incurred in seizing a private printing-press under a warrant from Lord Arlington, amounting to 24l. 0s. 6d. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No.28] ****************
Twenty-four quids for making an arrest? Excuse me? It might be more than the press is worth! Spent on what? Liveries? ("She threw ink at us!") Coaches? ("'twas in a nice part of Southwark, so we needed high-class wheels, see, to blend in") Food? ("We had to loosen up that informant. If Chatelin's is where he wanted to meet, then we had to go to Chatelin's. Yea, six times. Yea, all of us. The fellow knew his French vintages though"). Informants? ("Well he said he got the pamphlet from his cousin, who wouldn't talk for free so we had to pay, and he said he got it from his uncle... We had to pay off the whole village"). Letters? ("We had to request that docket all the way from Bombay"). Doctors? ("Paper cuts, my lord, the stigma of our trade"). Muscle? ("The door was soooo thick"). Disguises? ("So no one would figure us out, the whole squad dressed up as Turks").
But never mind. The King will like the arrest so much that Samuel Mearne, a bookbinder whose beautiful work still evokes over 11,000 Google hits, will be gifted the press that he helped seize (on May 27, S.P. Dom., Entry Book 31, f. 8.) His Wikipedia notice mentions that his police work was popular with the other publishers, because apart from turning out seditious material the illegal presses also infringed their copyrights on the approved stuff.
"Certain news come, I hear, this day, that the Spanish Plenipotentiary in Flanders will not agree to the peace"
Huh? Where does that come from? It goes against what the informed publick knows from recent Gazettes, at any rate, which is that Spain through its plenipotentiary and viceroy in the Netherlands, the Marquis of Castelo Rodrigo, has accepted the terms and has just received from the Queen regent the papers authorizing him to sign. Everyone seems to expect peace, and some of the largest troop movements, by the French toward Flanders and by the Dutch toward their own border, are being stayed or cancelled. Most of the grandees are already at Aix, Colbert, the prince archbishops, the bishop of Münster, the papal nucios, all throwing parties and making their Great Entries.
Castel Rodrigo is in Antwerp today. Don Juan of Austria has been on his way from Spain with considerable hoohah and his fleet is expected at any moment; his part in all this is a bit obscure, but apparently it's more about ferrying nobles than soldiers, so it's good too. So, Sam, your source knows something we don't?
This day, judging from the datelines in the articles, is about when Gazette No. 253 should be hitting the streets. It contains the usual news of peace in Aix-la-Chapelle, carnage in the Med and ships leaving Hull, but also, at the end, an advertisement which must have held Sam's attention if he saw it, for Samuel Morland's "very useful Instrument (...) for addition and Substraction of any Number of Pounds, Shillings, Pence and Farthings". Interested buyers to inquire of Mr. Thomas Placknett at this Fathers House in the New Palace Westminster.
History doesn't say if the geeks of 1668 queued around the block. If they did Sam must have passed them on his rounds. In any case he has seen the device six weeks ago at the Society, and sniffed it was pretty but not very useful (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) 'Course he can do sums in his head, splendid bureaucratic animal that he is. He's also known Morland for years and they both work for HMG, so maybe he already has one on his desk.
But, if not, now they're for sale. He can have his very own. Not so useful but clever and pretty... At a time like this when he could use some shopping therapy... and it sells for just £3 10s (says https://history-computer.com/samu…) about the right amount for Sam's gifts to himself... and it's mechanicall... Hmmm.
Always wash your hands after holding a letter from press censor Roger L'Estrange, here seen still trying to pin down Ralph Wallis, a vitriolic pamphleteer who's been running circles around him for a decade, to Williamson, someone he certainly has no love for but who's now climbed far above him, for a reward please, the poor censor's cross being so heavy to bear. A couple days ago, he was already writing Arlington of being "exposed either to want bread or to live on charity", and of how Williamson owed him "his part of 25L. due".
And of how "the law is so short that unless the very act of printing be expressly proved, the printer will come off"; and of how "the Government will find it hard to reduce the press to that order to which I once brought it, and would have kept it" [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 179]. Alas, poor L'Estrange, he says all this but doesn't even seem to expect much anymore, the dissolute government of the present days not having time anymore for the aging reactionary.
Aging, spent, bitter, and not even doing a good job. Apart from Wallis, he can't name any printer or author, he needs more evidence, a jury couldn't use it, and this, and that, and he's ill, and sorry. And, excuse me, he "can fasten nothing on 'The poor Whores' Petition' that a jury will take notice of"? Just weeks ago it was Evidence A in sending four of the rioters to the gallows. Is L'Estrange that unaware of what the court cares about, or does he agree with the petition?
Sam, whose pride is to be a paragon of righteousness and honesty, congratulates himself on his street smarts and thorough knowledge of his city, which tonight allowed him to save his money and fair Knepp from evil, despite being (ahem) a very average athlete. He was, to be fair, a bit puzzled at how easy it was, and at the gentlemen he passed in the labyrinth of obscure alleys, who bowed and smiled and doffed their hats at him. He reflects that London may be ruined, but courtesy is not, and ascribes it to respect for His Majesty on this very Coronation Day, and so to bed.
Stepping silently over the rubble, the two rogues espy the insouciant couple, already visible in the glow that Billy the Link-boy helpfully holds aloft. They finger their heavy clubs in happy anticipation. What fool can be trudging through the Ruines at this hour, and on a festival day at that?
"Best-looking customers in a week", whispers one. "A guinny they'll try escape by the alley on the left where Big Joe waits for them". He already inhales to yell, "stand and deliver" when the senior thief clamps a hand on his mouth.
"Stay. Leave them be. He's a brother, I see".
"The squire in the finery, he's a brother thief?"
"And not just any. Du Vall the French guy carries his likeness in his wallet and showed me the other day. That be Sam 'Golden-Tongue' Pepys of the Navy Office".
"The 'Navy Office'? It really exists? I thought that was tavern-talk".
"You're new to the trade. The Navy Office. Carkesse, Sandwich, Penn, Brouncker, all these legends. We think we steal, but they plunder, up and down the coast, even at sea, right from the King's pocket. You know what 'breaking bulk' is?"
"Nay, I only know 'breaking heads'. You think we can be Navy Officemen too, someday?"
"You'll need to learn your letters, so I guess not".
"Or at least get his autograph on my club?"
But it's too late. Sam has hurriedly turned into the alley on the left.
"You win. Here's your guinea. Now go tell Big Joe to stand down".
[A note: Read the life of Claude Du Vall, his infamous if elegant exploits and how he met his just desserts in 1670, in the "Burglars, Robbers and Highwaymen" section of the posterior but highly enlightening - motivational, to some - "Newgate Calendar", reproduced at www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngintr…]
Clarendon, Clarendon my friend... What an adventure you've had, and what were you doing in Normandy still? We know not of any city of "Bourbon" between Rouen and Dreux, but you must have stopped at Gaillon, which is indeed on the way, and home to the convent of Bourbon-lèz-Gaillon (visit at http://lemercuredegaillon.free.fr…) Anyway, our last reports had you on the bus to Germany ("The Dover packet brings news that the Earl of Clarendon is at Calais, sick of fever, and is bound for Germany", at the end of https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) It seems the fever really delayed you.
Leaving aside just what those "English seamen" were doing so far from the coast, how did they identify you as the infamous C? It's not like they've seen your photo in the papers. If such had been invented, Mr. Pepys' life could be equally as lively (given how the first grievance they hurled at you was about their unpaid wages)... but England's a village, no?
The English seamen and the rabble of other patrons watch in glee as the youngest of the stranded nobles jerks a dead rat at the innkeeper: "I demand, madam, that at the least you have the room swept! We are not the ruffians you seem to expect! This monsieur here is none but His Grace the Lord Clarendon, a very high personage in la Cour d'Angleterre!"
Clarendon gestures agitedly. We had agreed I was your uncle Claude! The mood in the common room suddenly changes. The cook uses the chance to discreetly whisk away the dead rat for tonight's roast.
Warrant from Lord Arlington to Andrew Crooke (...) to search any house, shop, or printing room, supposed to contain scandalous or unlicensed books, or books imported contrary to law; to seize them, make the presses unserviceable, and bring the offenders before himself, or a justice of peace (...)
Surely this warrant, while useful to have just in case, wasn't actually executed. It seems a recipe for absolute chaos - on the streets, in Parliament and in Lord Arlington's waiting room - for all the printers decamping to Rotterdam, and for England to revert wholly to handwriting.
Who was this Andrew Crooke anyway? Mr Google our learned bookseller says he is or was himself in the book trade, and only remembered for publishing Thomas Hobbes and Christiaan Huyghens. Is he now an enforcer for the printer's guild? How sad.
Coventry and Penn, these two knaves, of course they have a secret code, which was indeed exposed on May 21 last:
***************** Mrs. Turner do tell me that my Lady and Pegg have themselves owned to her that Sir W. Coventry and Sir W. Pen had private marks to write to one another by, that when they in appearance writ a fair letter in behalf of anybody, that they had a little mark to show they meant it only in shew: this, these silly people did confess themselves of him. (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) *****************
"Him" being, presumably, Thomas Turner the general clerk, and now all the women know, and whisper knowingly over their chocolate (or laundry baskets, as their station may dictate). Silly indeed of the two false rogues, but they're not actually seen being roguishly plotting together all that often, their common knavery notwithstanding. When they appear together in the diary it's usually at different times of the day or with the rest of the herd. Maybe a search of Coventry's correspondence would unearth some sinister cabal with Pen? A quick search of the State Papers finds not a single letter from one to the other. They both have their troubles and their little secrets, but what again are they supposed to plot together about?
Anyway, better not to remind Sam of all the conspiracies around him, for today he seems melancholic enough, drifting from one vaguely hostile meeting he couldn't care less about, to another, to a failed dinner, to another meeting where we suspect he was gruff and ill-humored, to skulking half-hidden in the park at sunset like a vampyre. You can almost hear the raven overhead, crying "nevermore"! Is it the terrible besslessness of the times? The failed experiment in diary restructuring? Whatever disrupted the routine these past 10 days? Sam should have a draught of sack, or a tumble, or think of Descartes!
We think quite extraordinary this letter which Allin writes to Williamson today:
******************** April 18. The Monmouth, Downs. Sir Thos. Allin to Williamson. Thanks for his news. Your letters are taxed as high as if they came 100 miles, which will break me if I stay long here. When I rode admiral in the Downs, in Mr. O’Neal’s days, I had my letters free. I beg that letters passing between me and my correspondent, Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships, may go free. I am not beholden to the packet-boat, my own boat carrying and bringing what I have. I paid 4d. for a letter which never was but 2d., and 1s. 4d. for a treble letter; my salary will not allow payments at these rates. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 143.] ********************
Leave aside that Allin's salary "will not allow payments" that Sam flings about daily on oranges at the theater. But Allin is, as we know, an admiral and the main fleet commander in the Channel, where he's the one to deal with Capt. De la Roche, the other French, the Dutch, the Ostenders, and whatnot. Williamson is secretary to Arlington and serves as the government's human switchboard. When these two trade letters, it's not likely to be poetry. Maybe Williamson "his news" is the Gazette, but the triplicate letters Allin then mentions look like his official mail, and beside if someone needs the Gazette it's him. So Allin is telling us (1) he has to pay for his communications, or at least their overland portion, and (2) they move through nothing so official as "Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships". Allin could swallow it as one of the costs of his charge, and pillage some French prize to make it up, except it's not the way anymore. He doesn't think it normal either. Sam certainly doesn't seem to pay or to rely on a friendly merchant for the Office's mail.
Here's a conversation topic with the waterman (since at this late hour on the near-empty Thames, "look how this bloke is driving" won't be available). It's at the end of Gazette No. 250, that would be in the taverns around now:
*********************************** Advertisement. Whereas His Majesty having a great Occasion of setting our his Fleet to Sea, and a great number of Watermen and Watermens servants have been impressed, and are to be impressed for that Service; few whereof have made their appearance on board His Majesties ships, according to the appointment and direction of the Tickets left at their respective houses and habitations. Therefore it is His Majesties Pleasure and the Command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, That all Watermen, and Watermens servants, that have been or shall be impressed by the Rulers of the company of Watermen, by having Tickets left at their houses and habitations as aforesaid, together with His Majesties Press and Conduct Money, and do not make their personal appearance, and constantly attend on board, according to the true intent and meaning of the said Tickets, without any pretense or excuse whatsoever, according to His Majesties Order, shall be imprisoned, disfranchised, and banished the River of Thames, and undergo such other penalties, as are provided against such Offenders. ***********************************
Slightly pathetic. There's the repetitive legalese of the age, but before the open-ended threats in the finale His Majesties be stomping his foot and whining, here. How many watermen read the Gazette, anyway? And how will you find gents make your way home by moonshine, if your loyal watermen be 'pressed, eh? Why, we may be replaced by young rogues who can hardly row a boat - like that bloke out there, did you see that? sheesh - and then, on the benighted river, they might go waaaay to the middle where the water be deep, like thus, and maybe they'd rock the boat, like this.
Sam gulps and clutches his freshly-bought books. Wishes he had dressed down a bit today. "Too right, sir. That, uh, be the next landing after the bridge. But you're absolutely right".
1s. isn't a bad price for imports from Palestine. Maybe those oranges were small, but they're not even such a luxury that (on 15 January last) they can't be thrown at a bad actress.
There must have been quite a nice amount of demand. The present volume of State Papers mentions ships laden with oranges only three times in the 10-month period it covers but, happily, they're all Spanish or Portuguese vessels. Those ships are mostly described as carrying "oranges and lemons" and little else, so they may have been packed full with fruit; a risky venture, what with the rats and the weeks of sailing. The peace between those two and between Spain and France should now allow the oranges to flow unimpeded.
As for the orange girls, discussed yesterday, they seem the direct ancestors to the beer girls of Southeast Asia - who, skimpily dressed in Heineken green, cruise the beer gardens of Bangkok or Phnom Penh, making sure that your glass is always full and your need for a fifth bottle instantly satisfied. They're not indeed considered to add class to an establishment, but that's hardly the point. We think that if they could travel back in time and space to the King's playhouse they would, after a brief moment of adjustment, know exactly what to do with Sam and his insatiable thirst for agrumes.
He's back! Fully formed sentences... detail and color... And-So-To-Bed at the end. It seems it was just tinkering with the diary's format.
The vitamin C may have helped, because, from yesterday's entry, it seems oranges are just 1s. apiece at the theater, and so Sam stuffed himself with up to six of them.
Ooh, I wanna go to the Folly, it seems so cool! Harlots! Drunk gamblers falling into the Thames! Cheap oysters! Pleeease, Sam can we go again?
But let's not get too carried away. The Folly comes across as quite a pleasure dome in descriptions from the 1740s, generally a good time to be dissolute, but that's two generations into the future. For now, the fifth link which JB has helpfully posted has a comment that the Folly was "originally a musical summerhouse attracting the elite", which sounds more like a Sam place, and only later did "it descen[d] into drunkenness and harlotry". Alamy is a photo archive and doesn't source its comment, but it also seems that in Sam's day the Folly was anchored in front of Somerset House, a much more central location than the faraway Twickenham where it may have had to decamp only later, when it became too much fun.
Westminster, 13 Apr. The Committee of Miscarriage to the Commissioners of the Navy: You are summoned to come and explain how it was that His Royal Highness the Duke of York, second biggest man in the Kingdom and commander in chief of the armed forces, had to personally take care of bedding for the soldiers aboard The Mermaid (if that's where the problem was, a 24-gun ship so large enough but not of HRH-drops-all-for-it caliber) at a time when the future of England and Europe hang in the balance.
Naah. Minor problem. In current circumstances it's still better to have soldiers with no beds than beds with no soldiers. HRH would have been only too happy to show the personal attention to common soldiers. May have had the hammocks emblazoned with his arms and "Personal Gift of York, with thanks for your service. Sweet dreams".
Comments
Second Reading
About Thursday 30 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Oh woe, woe and boo-hoo-hoo, and God help us! If only Sam could soothe his poor aching eyes with this letter which the Venetian ambassador to Spain, Catterin Belegno, is writing to the Doge and Senate today to report the much happier state of mind of My Lord, far removed from all the pettiness and squalor that Sam deplores in chilly London:
******************************
All the way through the kingdom to the frontier of Castile the Ambassador Sandovich has received unspeakable honours, acclamations of the people, universal blessings and applause. From England he has the ratification of the treaty and is making ready for his departure. He is puffed up with vanity at having brought three important negotiations to a successful conclusion, to wit: the ratification of the peace and of commerce; the affair of Portugal and this last, the most important of all, the peace between the crowns, of the conclusion of which he is confident. (https://www.british-history.ac.uk…)
******************************
And we suspect that in 1668 a Venetian ambassador to Madrid would have seen enough vanity to know it when it was of "puffed up" quality. Remember when being sent on this embassy was considered exile, infamous sanction, a second Fall from Heaven and into some lice-ridden third world court? Sandwich has had his recall for some time now, but "making ready" will take him another three months. Protocol aside, he must have known well enough what awaits him at home to be in no particular hurry to go.
Sandwich seems to have reaped the glory of various sherpas' backstage work on the treaty of Lisbon ("the affair of Portugal") after it had been substantially completed, but that's what ambassadors do. However his role in "the peace between the crowns", described as still imminent and so clearly that between Spain and France, has been a lot more discreet, with that work generally credited to Paris/Brussels-based diplomats such as Temple, so the allusion is interesting. Even if he played no major role there is certainly even more to be gained by being in that picture. Not everyone in Parliament might even know where Portugal is, but peacemaking with France... pretty unimpeachable.
About Wednesday 29 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Elizabeth Calvert the woman pyrate printer: She was, but she might not have started the business, which she continued after the death of husband Giles Calvert in 1664. She must have been a tough nut though, as their print shop at the Sign of the Black Spread Eagle in St Paul's Churchyard had been notorious for turning out a multitude of radical, republican and dissenter stuff, and currently there had been a warrant against Liz since at least January. According to an interesting article at [https://journals.sas.ac.uk/fhs/ar…] she intersected Pepysland in printing one of the Quaker tracts that will later send Admiral Sir Will's son William Penn to the Tower.
About Wednesday 29 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Finally, slightly off-topic but still revealing, the Carte Calendar (MS Carte 81, f. 286) records a minute by Lord Wharton, on no less than an "Address from both Houses of Parliament to the King", which alas is undated and not found by a quick search of Grey's Debates. On what? On "praying for the encouragement, by the example of His Majesty & of the Royal Family, of the habitual use, in apparel, of English manufactures". See, it's not all about impeaching our friends.
That old classic, the head of State proudly wearing the local woolens. Except Charlie (and likely Sam, and likely both Houses of Parliament) would rather clad Himself in Italian silks, 'coz the local woolens, they scratch.
About Wednesday 29 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And what to make of this, in a letter Middleton is sending today to the Commissioners:
*************************
"Particulars of ships under repair, &c. (...) The masters of Watermen's Hall are good Christians, but very knaves; they should be ordered to send down 10 or 12 old women to be nurses to the children they send for the King to breed for them; unless his Royal Highness sends all the masters down themselves, the King will not have justice (...)" [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No.38]
*************************
Unless we're missing some obscure joke in Middleton's thoroughly businesslike letter, we take this to perhaps reveal that, between the coils of rope and the barrels of biscuits, the Watermen also stock a bunch of children, perhaps orphans destined for a glorious life of ropemaking, raised ("bred") by the Crown ("the King"), but young enough to need nurses. And there could be a hundred of them, wailing and stealing the biscuits, if they need that many old women.
Sam's job just gets even more complicated. "My lord, you want me to find a dozen what??"
About Wednesday 29 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
We think it prudent, given how some of this Society would have to travel all the way from the Antipodes, to give notice of this Advertisement seen in the late Gazette (No. 254, with items dated through April 29):
****************
We are ordered to give notice, that by reason of the approaching heat of Summer, His Majesty intends to continue touching for the Evil till Friday after the First of May inclusively, and no longer.
****************
That's only a week hence; does the Gazette think we all live in London? And yes, lest we forget, Charlie has a Magick Finger; one source (www.britannica.com/science/kings-…) implies he uses it an average of a dozen times a day. So bring your scrofulas!
About Tuesday 28 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"Warrant for committing — Pool to the Gatehouse, for keeping a private press"
Pfew. What a relief. Though it seems (from her later petition to the King, at S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No. 93 in early May) that Elizabeth Poole was only the landlady, and if so L'Estrange's goons grabbed the first person they saw, and the actual printer is still running. But they stomped on all the pamphlets!
And hey, what's this, also dated April 28 and likely related:
****************
Account by Sam Mearne of expenses incurred in seizing a private printing-press under a warrant from Lord Arlington, amounting to 24l. 0s. 6d. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No.28]
****************
Twenty-four quids for making an arrest? Excuse me? It might be more than the press is worth! Spent on what? Liveries? ("She threw ink at us!") Coaches? ("'twas in a nice part of Southwark, so we needed high-class wheels, see, to blend in") Food? ("We had to loosen up that informant. If Chatelin's is where he wanted to meet, then we had to go to Chatelin's. Yea, six times. Yea, all of us. The fellow knew his French vintages though"). Informants? ("Well he said he got the pamphlet from his cousin, who wouldn't talk for free so we had to pay, and he said he got it from his uncle... We had to pay off the whole village"). Letters? ("We had to request that docket all the way from Bombay"). Doctors? ("Paper cuts, my lord, the stigma of our trade"). Muscle? ("The door was soooo thick"). Disguises? ("So no one would figure us out, the whole squad dressed up as Turks").
But never mind. The King will like the arrest so much that Samuel Mearne, a bookbinder whose beautiful work still evokes over 11,000 Google hits, will be gifted the press that he helped seize (on May 27, S.P. Dom., Entry Book 31, f. 8.) His Wikipedia notice mentions that his police work was popular with the other publishers, because apart from turning out seditious material the illegal presses also infringed their copyrights on the approved stuff.
About Monday 27 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"Certain news come, I hear, this day, that the Spanish Plenipotentiary in Flanders will not agree to the peace"
Huh? Where does that come from? It goes against what the informed publick knows from recent Gazettes, at any rate, which is that Spain through its plenipotentiary and viceroy in the Netherlands, the Marquis of Castelo Rodrigo, has accepted the terms and has just received from the Queen regent the papers authorizing him to sign. Everyone seems to expect peace, and some of the largest troop movements, by the French toward Flanders and by the Dutch toward their own border, are being stayed or cancelled. Most of the grandees are already at Aix, Colbert, the prince archbishops, the bishop of Münster, the papal nucios, all throwing parties and making their Great Entries.
Castel Rodrigo is in Antwerp today. Don Juan of Austria has been on his way from Spain with considerable hoohah and his fleet is expected at any moment; his part in all this is a bit obscure, but apparently it's more about ferrying nobles than soldiers, so it's good too. So, Sam, your source knows something we don't?
About Monday 27 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
This day, judging from the datelines in the articles, is about when Gazette No. 253 should be hitting the streets. It contains the usual news of peace in Aix-la-Chapelle, carnage in the Med and ships leaving Hull, but also, at the end, an advertisement which must have held Sam's attention if he saw it, for Samuel Morland's "very useful Instrument (...) for addition and Substraction of any Number of Pounds, Shillings, Pence and Farthings". Interested buyers to inquire of Mr. Thomas Placknett at this Fathers House in the New Palace Westminster.
History doesn't say if the geeks of 1668 queued around the block. If they did Sam must have passed them on his rounds. In any case he has seen the device six weeks ago at the Society, and sniffed it was pretty but not very useful (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) 'Course he can do sums in his head, splendid bureaucratic animal that he is. He's also known Morland for years and they both work for HMG, so maybe he already has one on his desk.
But, if not, now they're for sale. He can have his very own. Not so useful but clever and pretty... At a time like this when he could use some shopping therapy... and it sells for just £3 10s (says https://history-computer.com/samu…) about the right amount for Sam's gifts to himself... and it's mechanicall... Hmmm.
About Friday 24 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Always wash your hands after holding a letter from press censor Roger L'Estrange, here seen still trying to pin down Ralph Wallis, a vitriolic pamphleteer who's been running circles around him for a decade, to Williamson, someone he certainly has no love for but who's now climbed far above him, for a reward please, the poor censor's cross being so heavy to bear. A couple days ago, he was already writing Arlington of being "exposed either to want bread or to live on charity", and of how Williamson owed him "his part of 25L. due".
And of how "the law is so short that unless the very act of printing be expressly proved, the printer will come off"; and of how "the Government will find it hard to reduce the press to that order to which I once brought it, and would have kept it" [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 179]. Alas, poor L'Estrange, he says all this but doesn't even seem to expect much anymore, the dissolute government of the present days not having time anymore for the aging reactionary.
Aging, spent, bitter, and not even doing a good job. Apart from Wallis, he can't name any printer or author, he needs more evidence, a jury couldn't use it, and this, and that, and he's ill, and sorry. And, excuse me, he "can fasten nothing on 'The poor Whores' Petition' that a jury will take notice of"? Just weeks ago it was Evidence A in sending four of the rioters to the gallows. Is L'Estrange that unaware of what the court cares about, or does he agree with the petition?
About Thursday 23 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam, whose pride is to be a paragon of righteousness and honesty, congratulates himself on his street smarts and thorough knowledge of his city, which tonight allowed him to save his money and fair Knepp from evil, despite being (ahem) a very average athlete. He was, to be fair, a bit puzzled at how easy it was, and at the gentlemen he passed in the labyrinth of obscure alleys, who bowed and smiled and doffed their hats at him. He reflects that London may be ruined, but courtesy is not, and ascribes it to respect for His Majesty on this very Coronation Day, and so to bed.
About Thursday 23 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Stepping silently over the rubble, the two rogues espy the insouciant couple, already visible in the glow that Billy the Link-boy helpfully holds aloft. They finger their heavy clubs in happy anticipation. What fool can be trudging through the Ruines at this hour, and on a festival day at that?
"Best-looking customers in a week", whispers one. "A guinny they'll try escape by the alley on the left where Big Joe waits for them". He already inhales to yell, "stand and deliver" when the senior thief clamps a hand on his mouth.
"Stay. Leave them be. He's a brother, I see".
"The squire in the finery, he's a brother thief?"
"And not just any. Du Vall the French guy carries his likeness in his wallet and showed me the other day. That be Sam 'Golden-Tongue' Pepys of the Navy Office".
"The 'Navy Office'? It really exists? I thought that was tavern-talk".
"You're new to the trade. The Navy Office. Carkesse, Sandwich, Penn, Brouncker, all these legends. We think we steal, but they plunder, up and down the coast, even at sea, right from the King's pocket. You know what 'breaking bulk' is?"
"Nay, I only know 'breaking heads'. You think we can be Navy Officemen too, someday?"
"You'll need to learn your letters, so I guess not".
"Or at least get his autograph on my club?"
But it's too late. Sam has hurriedly turned into the alley on the left.
"You win. Here's your guinea. Now go tell Big Joe to stand down".
[A note: Read the life of Claude Du Vall, his infamous if elegant exploits and how he met his just desserts in 1670, in the "Burglars, Robbers and Highwaymen" section of the posterior but highly enlightening - motivational, to some - "Newgate Calendar", reproduced at www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngintr…]
About Wednesday 22 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Clarendon, Clarendon my friend... What an adventure you've had, and what were you doing in Normandy still? We know not of any city of "Bourbon" between Rouen and Dreux, but you must have stopped at Gaillon, which is indeed on the way, and home to the convent of Bourbon-lèz-Gaillon (visit at http://lemercuredegaillon.free.fr…) Anyway, our last reports had you on the bus to Germany ("The Dover packet brings news that the Earl of Clarendon is at Calais, sick of fever, and is bound for Germany", at the end of https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) It seems the fever really delayed you.
Leaving aside just what those "English seamen" were doing so far from the coast, how did they identify you as the infamous C? It's not like they've seen your photo in the papers. If such had been invented, Mr. Pepys' life could be equally as lively (given how the first grievance they hurled at you was about their unpaid wages)... but England's a village, no?
The English seamen and the rabble of other patrons watch in glee as the youngest of the stranded nobles jerks a dead rat at the innkeeper: "I demand, madam, that at the least you have the room swept! We are not the ruffians you seem to expect! This monsieur here is none but His Grace the Lord Clarendon, a very high personage in la Cour d'Angleterre!"
Clarendon gestures agitedly. We had agreed I was your uncle Claude! The mood in the common room suddenly changes. The cook uses the chance to discreetly whisk away the dead rat for tonight's roast.
About Monday 20 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Warrant from Lord Arlington to Andrew Crooke (...) to search any house, shop, or printing room, supposed to contain scandalous or unlicensed books, or books imported contrary to law;
to seize them, make the presses unserviceable, and bring the offenders before himself, or a justice of peace (...)
Surely this warrant, while useful to have just in case, wasn't actually executed. It seems a recipe for absolute chaos - on the streets, in Parliament and in Lord Arlington's waiting room - for all the printers decamping to Rotterdam, and for England to revert wholly to handwriting.
Who was this Andrew Crooke anyway? Mr Google our learned bookseller says he is or was himself in the book trade, and only remembered for publishing Thomas Hobbes and Christiaan Huyghens. Is he now an enforcer for the printer's guild? How sad.
About Monday 20 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Coventry and Penn, these two knaves, of course they have a secret code, which was indeed exposed on May 21 last:
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Mrs. Turner do tell me that my Lady and Pegg have themselves owned to her that Sir W. Coventry and Sir W. Pen had private marks to write to one another by, that when they in appearance writ a fair letter in behalf of anybody, that they had a little mark to show they meant it only in shew: this, these silly people did confess themselves of him. (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…)
*****************
"Him" being, presumably, Thomas Turner the general clerk, and now all the women know, and whisper knowingly over their chocolate (or laundry baskets, as their station may dictate). Silly indeed of the two false rogues, but they're not actually seen being roguishly plotting together all that often, their common knavery notwithstanding. When they appear together in the diary it's usually at different times of the day or with the rest of the herd. Maybe a search of Coventry's correspondence would unearth some sinister cabal with Pen? A quick search of the State Papers finds not a single letter from one to the other. They both have their troubles and their little secrets, but what again are they supposed to plot together about?
Anyway, better not to remind Sam of all the conspiracies around him, for today he seems melancholic enough, drifting from one vaguely hostile meeting he couldn't care less about, to another, to a failed dinner, to another meeting where we suspect he was gruff and ill-humored, to skulking half-hidden in the park at sunset like a vampyre. You can almost hear the raven overhead, crying "nevermore"! Is it the terrible besslessness of the times? The failed experiment in diary restructuring? Whatever disrupted the routine these past 10 days? Sam should have a draught of sack, or a tumble, or think of Descartes!
About Saturday 18 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
We think quite extraordinary this letter which Allin writes to Williamson today:
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April 18. The Monmouth, Downs. Sir Thos. Allin to Williamson.
Thanks for his news. Your letters are taxed as high as if they came 100 miles, which will break me if I stay long here. When I rode admiral in the Downs, in Mr. O’Neal’s days, I had my letters free. I beg that letters passing between me and my correspondent, Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships, may go free. I am not beholden to the packet-boat, my own boat carrying and bringing what I have. I paid 4d. for a letter which never was but 2d., and 1s. 4d. for a treble letter; my salary will not allow payments at these rates. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 143.]
********************
Leave aside that Allin's salary "will not allow payments" that Sam flings about daily on oranges at the theater. But Allin is, as we know, an admiral and the main fleet commander in the Channel, where he's the one to deal with Capt. De la Roche, the other French, the Dutch, the Ostenders, and whatnot. Williamson is secretary to Arlington and serves as the government's human switchboard. When these two trade letters, it's not likely to be poetry. Maybe Williamson "his news" is the Gazette, but the triplicate letters Allin then mentions look like his official mail, and beside if someone needs the Gazette it's him. So Allin is telling us (1) he has to pay for his communications, or at least their overland portion, and (2) they move through nothing so official as "Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships". Allin could swallow it as one of the costs of his charge, and pillage some French prize to make it up, except it's not the way anymore. He doesn't think it normal either. Sam certainly doesn't seem to pay or to rely on a friendly merchant for the Office's mail.
About Thursday 16 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"... by water, by moonshine, home"
Here's a conversation topic with the waterman (since at this late hour on the near-empty Thames, "look how this bloke is driving" won't be available). It's at the end of Gazette No. 250, that would be in the taverns around now:
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Advertisement.
Whereas His Majesty having a great Occasion of setting our his Fleet to Sea, and a great number of Watermen and Watermens servants have been impressed, and are to be impressed for that Service; few whereof have made their appearance on board His Majesties ships, according to the appointment and direction of the Tickets left at their respective houses and habitations. Therefore it is His Majesties Pleasure and the Command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, That all Watermen, and Watermens servants, that have been or shall be impressed by the Rulers of the company of Watermen, by having Tickets left at their houses and habitations as aforesaid, together with His Majesties Press and Conduct Money, and do not make their personal appearance, and constantly attend on board, according to the true intent and meaning of the said Tickets, without any pretense or excuse whatsoever, according to His Majesties Order, shall be imprisoned, disfranchised, and banished the River of Thames, and undergo such other penalties, as are provided against such Offenders.
***********************************
Slightly pathetic. There's the repetitive legalese of the age, but before the open-ended threats in the finale His Majesties be stomping his foot and whining, here. How many watermen read the Gazette, anyway? And how will you find gents make your way home by moonshine, if your loyal watermen be 'pressed, eh? Why, we may be replaced by young rogues who can hardly row a boat - like that bloke out there, did you see that? sheesh - and then, on the benighted river, they might go waaaay to the middle where the water be deep, like thus, and maybe they'd rock the boat, like this.
Sam gulps and clutches his freshly-bought books. Wishes he had dressed down a bit today. "Too right, sir. That, uh, be the next landing after the bridge. But you're absolutely right".
About Tuesday 14 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
1s. isn't a bad price for imports from Palestine. Maybe those oranges were small, but they're not even such a luxury that (on 15 January last) they can't be thrown at a bad actress.
There must have been quite a nice amount of demand. The present volume of State Papers mentions ships laden with oranges only three times in the 10-month period it covers but, happily, they're all Spanish or Portuguese vessels. Those ships are mostly described as carrying "oranges and lemons" and little else, so they may have been packed full with fruit; a risky venture, what with the rats and the weeks of sailing. The peace between those two and between Spain and France should now allow the oranges to flow unimpeded.
As for the orange girls, discussed yesterday, they seem the direct ancestors to the beer girls of Southeast Asia - who, skimpily dressed in Heineken green, cruise the beer gardens of Bangkok or Phnom Penh, making sure that your glass is always full and your need for a fifth bottle instantly satisfied. They're not indeed considered to add class to an establishment, but that's hardly the point. We think that if they could travel back in time and space to the King's playhouse they would, after a brief moment of adjustment, know exactly what to do with Sam and his insatiable thirst for agrumes.
About Wednesday 15 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
He's back! Fully formed sentences... detail and color... And-So-To-Bed at the end. It seems it was just tinkering with the diary's format.
The vitamin C may have helped, because, from yesterday's entry, it seems oranges are just 1s. apiece at the theater, and so Sam stuffed himself with up to six of them.
About Monday 13 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Ooh, I wanna go to the Folly, it seems so cool! Harlots! Drunk gamblers falling into the Thames! Cheap oysters! Pleeease, Sam can we go again?
But let's not get too carried away. The Folly comes across as quite a pleasure dome in descriptions from the 1740s, generally a good time to be dissolute, but that's two generations into the future. For now, the fifth link which JB has helpfully posted has a comment that the Folly was "originally a musical summerhouse attracting the elite", which sounds more like a Sam place, and only later did "it descen[d] into drunkenness and harlotry". Alamy is a photo archive and doesn't source its comment, but it also seems that in Sam's day the Folly was anchored in front of Somerset House, a much more central location than the faraway Twickenham where it may have had to decamp only later, when it became too much fun.
About Monday 13 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Westminster, 13 Apr. The Committee of Miscarriage to the Commissioners of the Navy: You are summoned to come and explain how it was that His Royal Highness the Duke of York, second biggest man in the Kingdom and commander in chief of the armed forces, had to personally take care of bedding for the soldiers aboard The Mermaid (if that's where the problem was, a 24-gun ship so large enough but not of HRH-drops-all-for-it caliber) at a time when the future of England and Europe hang in the balance.
Naah. Minor problem. In current circumstances it's still better to have soldiers with no beds than beds with no soldiers. HRH would have been only too happy to show the personal attention to common soldiers. May have had the hammocks emblazoned with his arms and "Personal Gift of York, with thanks for your service. Sweet dreams".