About Friday 11 January 1660/61

Fougasse on 12 Jan 2024  •  Link

Very interesting to read the earlier discussions about Sam's likeability. My feelings about him are on a par with my feelings about Dickens, who also behaved appallingly to his wife, was (so it's said) something of a martinet with his children, if not an outright control-freak, and had all manner of character-flaws.

He still fascinates me despite all that, because through his words he bursts forth as so absolutely alive, connecting through the centuries with every one of us, living and breathing, laughing and arguing and working too hard and nursing a hangover and complaining just as we do. And in exactly the same way, so does Samuel Pepys. My fantasy dinner-party would have both of them as guests of honour. Although whether they’d get on, I’m not at all sure. Possibly both a bit too alpha-male…

About Thursday 16 February 1659/60

Fougasse on 21 Feb 2023  •  Link

Tally-sticks

Looking forward into the future, the fire that destroyed the Houses of Parliament in 1834 was started when the Clerk of Works decided it would be a good idea to burn the old wooden tally-sticks belonging to the Exchequer that were cluttering up the place.

Cue a conflagration that was the biggest since the Great Fire of Sam's day, and that caused devastation to both Lords and Commons, utterly destroying parts of the ancient Palace of Westminster which Sam would have known well. The blaze could be seen from Windsor Castle, 20 miles away. Westminster Hall, by some miracle, escaped.

About Saturday 11 February 1659/60

Fougasse on 12 Feb 2023  •  Link

Sam and his pockets:

I recently read a fascinating book, 'The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives, 1660-1900, by Barbara Burman & Ariane Fennetaux.

https://yalebooks.co.uk/page/deta…

While the focus is primarily on the clothes and accessories of women, it does make clear that writing materials were carried in pockets - the practice is described in ‘Pamela’ by Richardson, and ink spots on surviving pockets bear this out. Special travelling writing sets survive from the 18thc (one is pictured in the book) so it might be feasible that Sam was carrying writing material with him in his pockets at that earlier date. A footnote in the book mentions a ‘pocket ink-horne’ (belonging to a woman) at the time of the civil war.

About Friday 3 February 1659/60

Fougasse on 8 Feb 2023  •  Link

I was interested in Sam's comments about the posy ring - I have one as my wedding ring, bought from an antique jewellery dealer in London who dated it as 17thc. The incised motto reads 'Let God us blefs [long 's' which I can’t replicate on this keyboard!] with good succes' (relatively few stock phrases like this tended to be popular). I often wonder about its history…it’s quite something to think that someone in Pepys's time might have worn it just as I wear it every day now.

About Wednesday 11 March 1667/68

Fougasse on 12 Mar 2021  •  Link

'L&M: Thomas Chicheley was M.P. for Cambridgeshire; later (1670) Master-General of the Ordinance and a knight. He was rich but extravagant, and in 1686 was force to sell his country house in Wimpole, Cambs.'

Wimpole still stands and is now owned by the National Trust. Thomas Chicheley demolished the existing ancient manor house in the 1640's and built a splendid new house - parts of this survive in the Wimpole of today.
After his debts forced him to sell the house in 1686, it passed through several noble families and, by 1937, it was rented to Captain and Mrs Bambridge, who bought it in 1942. Elsie Bambridge was Rudyard Kipling's only surviving child. She bequeathed Wimpole to the National Trust on her death in 1976, by which point she was living frugally in only a few of the many rooms. It's been beautifully restored and - if we ever get to visit anywhere ever again - makes a great and fascinating place to visit.