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Terry Foreman has posted 16,447 annotations/comments since 28 June 2005.

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Second Reading

About Sir Nicholas Armourer (Equerry of the Great Horse to the King)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Sir Nicholas Armorer (c.1620–1686) was a Royalist army officer during the English Civil War. During the Interregnum he was an active Royalist conspirator who ran a spy network in England and helped to foment insurrection against the Commonwealth and the Protectorate. He took part in Booth's Rebellion in 1659 and was forced to flee back to the continent when the uprising failed.[1]

After the restoration of the monarchy as a reward for his services to Charles II he was made appointed equerry in ordinary to the hunting stable. In 1662 he was given several parcels of land confiscated from members of the former regime, and was granted the monopoly on the import of horses for the king's use. In the same year he was also knighted.[1]

Towards the end of the Civil War he had spent some time in Ireland, and after the Restoration he spent much of his time there, as he had been under the patronage of Duke of Ormond during his time in exile, and continued to do so under the Restoration: he was appointed a captain in the Irish Guards and lieutenant-governor of Fort Duncannon.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nic…

About Wednesday 31 December 1662

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I wonder what she said when she found out Sam had gone [to the ball] without her?"

I suspect she'd appreciate his report on Povy's introduction of her husband to the spectacle at the heart of the celebration of New Year's eve at the court (she was not in a social position to be invited or to see it).

"Mr. Povy and, I to White Hall; he carrying me thither on purpose to carry me into the ball this night before the King. All the way he talking very ingenuously, and I find him a fine gentleman, and one that loves to live nobly and neatly, as I perceive by his discourse of his house, pictures, and horses.

"He brought me first to the Duke’s chamber, where I saw him and the Duchess at supper; and thence into the room where the ball was to be, crammed with fine ladies, the greatest of the Court. By and by comes the King and Queen, the Duke and Duchess, and all the great ones: and after seating themselves, the King takes out the Duchess of York; and the Duke, the Duchess of Buckingham; the Duke of Monmouth, my Lady Castlemaine; and so other lords other ladies: and they danced the Bransle. After that, the King led a lady a single Coranto —[swift and lively]— and then the rest of the lords, one after another, other ladies very noble it was, and great pleasure to see. Then to country dances; the King leading the first, which he called for; which was, says he, “Cuckolds all awry,” the old dance of England. Of the ladies that danced, the Duke of Monmouth’s mistress, and my Lady Castlemaine, and a daughter of Sir Harry de Vicke’s, were the best. The manner was, when the King dances, all the ladies in the room, and the Queen herself, stand up: and indeed he dances rarely, and much better that the Duke of York. Having staid here as long as I thought fit, to my infinite content, it being the greatest pleasure I could wish now to see at Court, I went out, leaving them dancing, and to Mrs. Pierces, where I found the company had staid very long for my coming, but all gone but my wife, and so I took her home by coach and so to my Lord’s again, where after some supper to bed, very weary and in a little pain from my riding a little uneasily to-night in the coach."

Next year Pepys will hire a dancing master for his wife, a Mr. Pembleton: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

In three years Povy nominates Pepys to the Royal Society and he is admitted{ https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

About Saturday 13 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

THE HISTORY OF SABATAI SEVI, The Suppos'd Messiah OF THE JEWS

Sabbatai Zevi (Hebrew: שַׁבְּתַי צְבִי, other spellings include Shabbetai Ẓevi, Shabbeṯāy Ṣeḇī, Shabsai Tzvi, and Sabetay Sevi in Turkish) (August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676[1]) was a Sephardic ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey).[2][3] A kabbalist of Romaniote origin,[4] Zevi, who was active throughout the Ottoman Empire, claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Sabbatean movement, whose followers subsequently were to be known as Dönmeh "converts" or crypto-Jews.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sab…

About Saturday 13 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Mote and the Beam is a parable of Jesus given in the Sermon on the Mount[1] in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 1 to 5. The discourse is fairly brief, and begins by warning his followers of the dangers of judging others, stating that they too would be judged by the same standard. The Sermon on the Plain has a similar passage in Luke 6:37–42.[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…

About Tuesday 14 April 1663

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Napier didn't produce a calculating device using his logarithm, but, long before the slide rule, he published Napier's bones:

Napier's bones is a manually-operated calculating device created by John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland for the calculation of products and quotients of numbers. The method was based on lattice multiplication, and was also called 'rabdology', a word invented by Napier himself. Napier published his version in 1617 in Rabdologiæ[1], printed in Edinburgh, Scotland, dedicated to his patron Alexander Seton.

Using the multiplication tables embedded in the rods, multiplication can be reduced to addition operations and division to subtractions. More advanced use of the rods can even extract square roots. Napier's bones are not the same as logarithms, with which Napier's name is also associated, but are based on dissected multiplication tables.

The complete device usually includes a base board with a rim; the user places Napier's rods inside the rim to conduct multiplication or division. The board's left edge is divided into 9 squares, holding the numbers 1 to 9. In Napier's original design, the rods are made of metal, wood or ivory and have a square cross-section. Each rod is engraved with a multiplication table on each of the four faces. In some later designs, the rods may be flat and have two tables or only one table engraved on them, and may be made of plastic or heavy cardboard. A set of such bones might be enclosed in a convenient carrying case.

1 Multiplication
1.1 Example 1 – multiplication by a small single-digit number
1.2 Example 2 – multiplication by a larger single-digit number
1.3 Example 3 – multiplication by a multi-digit number
2 Division
3 Extracting square roots
3.1 Rounding up
4 Diagonal modification
5 Genaille–Lucas rulers
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

About Tuesday 9 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"saw “The Island Princesse,” which I like mighty well, as an excellent play: and here we find Kinaston to be well enough to act again,

L&M: According to Genest (i. 93), Kynaston played the King of Tidore) '

About Monday 8 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"This morning also, going to visit Roger Pepys, at the potticary’s in King’s Street, he tells me that Roger is gone to his wife’s, so that they have been married, as he tells me, ever since the middle of last week: it was his design, upon good reasons, to make no noise of it; but I am well enough contented that it is over."

L&M: Esther Dickenson, https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
She was his fourth wife.

About Monday 8 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"This day I was told by Mr. Wren, that Captain Cox, Master- Attendant at Deptford, is to be one of us very soon, he and Tippets being to take their turns for Chatham and Portsmouth, which choice I like well enough; and Captain Annesley is to come in his room at Deptford."

L&M: John Cox was made Commissioner at Chatham on 20 March 1669. John Tippets had served in the same office at Portsmouth since February 1668. Abraham Ansley had been Cox's deputy at Deptford.

About Monday 8 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the state of my Lord’s accounts of his embassy, which I find not so good as I thought: for, though it be passed the King and his [Cabinet]... , yet they have cut off from 9000l. full 8000l., and have now sent it to the Lords of the Treasury, who, though the Committee have allowed the rest, yet they are not obliged to abide by it."

L&M: The Treasury quickly confirmed the lower figure: CTB, iii. 22-4. For the subsequent disputes, see Harris, ii. 162-5. For a summary of the accounts, see CSPD 168-9, pp. 54, 191-3, 454. In August 1669 Sandwich agreed to the reductions, and the accounts passed. The A Foreign Affairs,Committee cut down his weekly allowance from £133 to £100, and agreed to pay £4000 (instead of £6000) for travelling and other costs.

About Monday 8 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Here I met with Mr. Moore, who tells me the state of my Lord’s accounts of his embassy, which I find not so good as I thought: for, though it be passed the King and his Cabal (the Committee for Foreign Affairs as they are called),"

L&M: A Committee for Foreign Affairs, nine in number, had been constituted in February 1668, an d served as a Cabinet.

About Wednesday 26 June 1667

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Thanks, Gerald Berg.

"As Time Goes By" is a song written by Herman Hupfeld in 1931. It became famous when it was featured in the 1942 Warner Bros. film Casablanca performed by Dooley Wilson as Sam. The song was voted No. 2 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs special, commemorating the best songs in film[1] (only surpassed by "Over the Rainbow" by Judy Garland). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_…

About Sunday 7 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"It was, that she did believe me false to her with Jane, and did rip up three or four silly circumstances of her not rising till I come out of my chamber, and her letting me thereby see her dressing herself; and that I must needs go into her chamber and was naught with her; which was so silly, and so far from truth, that I could not be troubled at it, though I could not wonder at her being troubled, if she had these thoughts, and therefore she would lie from me, and caused sheets to be put on in the blue room, and would have Jane to lie with her lest I should come to her [Jane]."

This is the bed Pepys has made, and now must lie in.

About Henry Wynne

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Henry Wynne, mathematical-instrument maker, at the Pope's Head, Chancery Lane: see Eva G.R. Taylor, Math. Practitioners, pp. 242-3.

About Wednesday 3 February 1668/69

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I may be able to do a great deal of business by dictating, if I do not read myself, or write"

I take it Pepys -- ever alert to inefficiencies -- had usually paused in his dictation to proof-read the results and then correct the text by writing it right.