Dorset Richard

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Dorset Richard has posted seven annotations/comments since 28 June 2024.

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Third Reading

About Saturday 2 November 1661

Dorset Richard  •  Link

A match, in the sense of a smouldering cord, was used to fire guns by igniting gunpowder in the 16th - 18th centuries (and into the 19th, as it could be more reliable than the flint replacements).

Initially the match was held in a ‘linstock’, a long stick so that the gun could be fired from a safe distance. By Sam’s time the matchlock gun held the cord ‘match’ in a hinged, curved device called a serpentine that swings it into the gunpowder when the trigger is pulled, making it the first gun that can be properly aimed and fired by one man. However the separate match and linstock were still used for larger artillery pieces and for naval guns.

As a naval administrator, Sam may have had to buy lengths of match of that sort. I can easily imagine him having bits of it lying around the house, pinched from work as a convenient way of lighting candles, first lighting the cord ‘match’ in the fire.

The matchlock mechanism was developed by 1475, as a form of arquebus, but the OED says that the actual term was not recorded until 1638.
www.oed.com/dictionary/matchlock_…

However ‘matchlock’ was a portmanteau word, so ‘match’ in the sense of a smouldering cord would have been in use earlier, so would have been in use as a technical term in Sam’s time, certainly for those in military or naval circles.

About Sunday 13 October 1661

Dorset Richard  •  Link

“ left off half skirts and put on a wastecoate”

Is ‘half skirts’ the flared coat that the King had brought into fashion from the continent? Fairly fitted down to the waist, and then flared out as ‘skirts’ to somewhere towards the knee?

So is not wearing that a sign that he is staying at home as an invalid, rather than dressing for going out or inviting company round? The waistcoat(s?) are smart enough for family dining and an unexpected visitor, but not ‘going out’ wear?

Or perhaps he is showing his fashionable side; the waistcoat is still quite new (again, a fashion the King brought back from the continent, replacing the doublet). So is Sam showing how fashionable he is, and making sure that people can admire his fancy waistcoat without it being hidden by the coat, and perhaps over-doing it by wearing two at once?

About Sunday 6 October 1661

Dorset Richard  •  Link

San Diego Sarah said:
“‘So up I went and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry.’
“Which made me question just how merry 'very merry' really was.”

I think Sam’s too jealous to indulge in wife-swapping; look at his reaction a few weeks ago to the man with feathers!
I wouldn’t be surprised if it went on; this is the era of the Earl of Rochester. But it’s something I’d associate more with the aristocracy than the middle classes.

About Saturday 31 August 1661

Dorset Richard  •  Link

I was trying to read more on the Benevolence, but the Wikipedia article on them says that the last one was under James I.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben…

Interesting, when Sam seems quite definite about this one under Charles II.

Just Wikipedia being wrong, or was the Charles II one somehow different? Possibly, since Mary (above, 1st reading) says that this one was voted in by Parliament, whereas previous ones were Royal initiatives designed to bypass Parliament.

About Tuesday 27 August 1661

Dorset Richard  •  Link

Sam finally sacked his own sister, Pall, just two days ago, and now his wife is trying to make him find a position for her brother Balty. Tactless timing!

About Monday 8 July 1661

Dorset Richard  •  Link

No diary entries for nearly a week? I’m diagnosing a humongous hangover after too much wine at his uncle’s funeral yesterday (Sam having been drowning either his grief or, more likely, his disappointment at not having been left anything substantial).

About Thursday 27 June 1661

Dorset Richard  •  Link

“ I could pay ready money 600l. and the rest by 150l. per annum, to make up as much as will buy 50l. per annum”

I read this as meaning that the seller, his Uncle Robert, wants to get enough money from the sale of the land to get himself an income of £50 per year.

Interest rates then were, from what I’ve been able to find online, around 4% to 5%, so his uncle would be looking to get something in the range £1,000 to £1,250 from Sam for the land, which he could invest and get around £50 per year in interest.

That roughly fits with Sam’s proposal of paying £600 up front and £150 per year until he’s paid the full price; if my figures above are right, it would take him about four years to pay it off, which sounds about right for this sort of informal arrangement.

That makes sense for his uncle as well; he’s getting older and would probably rather have an easy income from interest rather than the hassle of managing land, so rather than thinking directly of the price for the land, he’s thinking of how much interest he wants to get from investing the proceeds.