Mary Mercer An attractive 17-year-old when hired as maid to Elizabeth Pepys 27 August 1664, Mary was daughter of William Mercer http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… in whose house Will Hewer had been living.
Being an encouragement for seamen and souldiers to serve his Majesty in his wars against the Dutch, etc.
Dutchmen beware, we have a fleet, Will make you tremble when you see't, Mann'd with brave Englishmen of high renown, Who can and will your peacock plumes pull down ; Then cease your boasting, it will nought availe, You know its but your duty to strike sayle.
To the tune of The stormy winds do blow.
Brave loyal hearted English-men, attend whilst I declare, What noble preparations is made for the Hollands war; For certain such a bloody fight hath never been before, As is near, you shall hear, when the cannons loud do roar.
Despite the cheap swill, the sailors' spirits are high:
SONGS AND BALLADS
Sometimes when we are sailing our victuals they grow scarse, Our wives at home bewailing and pittying of our case, In thinking of the dangers poore seamen undergo. For our King, still we sing, when the stormy winds do blow.
Yet we are still couragious with any foe to fight : If Turk or Jew ingage us we put them to the flight, And make them give us homage before we let them go: For our King, then we sing, when the stormy winds do blow.
We are the prop of trading, what kind so ere it be: The originall of lading youre ships with treasury. None goes beyond a sea-man in riches, gold, and store : For he brings, wealth to kings, when the stormy winds do blow.
We have some sneezing pouder, the Dutch-man fain would have, 'Twill make him speak the louder, if Kings he will not have. And cause him to remember the phisick taking so : When shall we, merry be, when the stormy winds do blow.
Great King wee'l make you famous, youre glory shall out-shine Romulus and Remus, Godolph or Constantine. Wee'l bring you gold and treasure by sailing to and fro : And will fight, day and night, to preserve you from your foe. http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk…
THE VALIANT SEAMAN'S CONGRATULATION TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY KING CHARLES II - With their wonderfull, heroical atchievements, and their fidelity, loyalty, and obedience. To the tune of Let us drink and sing, and merrily troul the bowl. Or, The stormy winds do Mow. Or, Hey Ho, my Hony.
Great Charles, your English seamen upon our bended knee, Present ourselves as freemen, unto your Majesty, Beseeching God to blesse you where-ever that you go, So we pray, night and day, when the stormy winds do blow.
In darkest nights, or shipwracks, alwayes we are on our guard : Of French or Turkish pirats, we never were afraid. But cal'd stout English sea-men where-ever that we go, For we make, them to quake, when the stormy winds do blow.
We are your valiant sea-men that brought you out of Spain : And will as war-like free-men your royal cause maintain. If you will give commission to wars with France wee'l go : Then shall we, merry be, when the stormy winds do blow.
'Twas we did sail you over to English ground agen ; And landed you at Dover, with all your noble men. For which we are renowned where-ever we do go : Honour will, tend us still, when the stormy winds do blow.
And now we are a ranging upon the ocean seas, The Frenchmen they are changing and cannot be at ease, For we will make their top-sailes unto our fleet shall bow : Then shall we, merry be, when the stormy winds do blow.
Sometimes our tacklings breaking, our masts are cut in two : Our ships are often leaking, great straits we're put unto. In great tempestuous weather, which few at home doth know, Thus do we, live at sea, when the stormy winds do blow.
When some at home are feeding and cheering up themselves, Then we at sea are bleeding amongst the rocks and shelves. Yet greater dangers ready, still we will undergo, For our King, and will sing, when the stormy winds do blow.
Pepys on Kirke (further down the page Pedro's link provides)
"Kirke was reputedly a drunken brute who commanded a drunken regiment, but this reputation might be somewhat exaggerated. Samuel Pepys was on Tangiers at this time, and although he was no prude the deepest impression he leaves on the reader of his Journal is disgust at the gross indecency and lurching loutishness of Kirke and his men. The endless dirty stories of the Governor's table-talk passed from the distasteful to the unendurable. In Pepys's view Kirke's manners and morals were reflected in the cruelty and corruption of his administration. There were ugly stories of soldiers beaten to death with no pretence of legality: of Jewish refugees returned to the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition because they could not raise the bribes that Kirke demanded: of rape and robbery and bullying of the citizens and their wives. Kirke personified what Pepys called 'the bestiality of this place'.
"During the truce which followed the siege of Tangier in 1680, Kirke made friends with the Emperor of Morocco, Ismail, who would rule his country for 55 years. 'He would excel all mankind in barbarity and murder, inventing every day a new pastime of cruelty' wrote an Embassy official. He would kill a slave to test the edge of a new weapon, spear a dozen negroes or strangle a woman or two from his harem as a divertissement, and even the lives of his sons were not safe from his cruelty. Despite his hatred of all foreigners, Ismail took a liking to Kirke and swore "there never would be Bullet shot against Tangier, so long as Kirke was in it". They exchanged gifts, the Emperor sending Kirke 12 cows and a Christian woman in return for some Irish greyhounds. Ismail confirmed his vow that if none but Kirke and his wife (Lady Mary Howard, daughter of the fourth Earl of Suffolk) should be left alone in Tangier, he would not betray Kirke.
"Pepys, who disliked Kirke intensely, recorded in colourful, if exaggerated, detail all the gossip and scandal associated with him. He thought he was the most foul mouthed man he had ever met, as he and his officers publicly boasted of their amorous affairs and how they defamed every woman who yielded to their invitations:
*The Governor, Kirke, is said to have got his wife's sister with child and, while he is with his whores at his bathing house, his wife, whom he keeps in by awe, sends for her gallants and plays the jade by herself at home.*
"According to Bishop Ken, the chaplain of Lord Dartmouth's fleet, Kirke caused a scandal by seeking to obtain the post of garrison chaplain at Tangier for a Mr Roberts, the brother of his current mistress. Kirke's morals may have been appalling, but probably no worse than those of many of his contemporaries (Pepys himself demanded sexual favours from women in return for better postings for their male relatives in the Navy!)...."
I'm shocked, shocked! And Kirke's poor little lambs, who had gobe astray, damned from Tangier to eternity.
"But do we know whom Sam actually met and went to Guardener's Lane with?" Alas, no, Todd. L&M note (complain?) that Pepys has not told us about *this* appointment to find a musical companion for Elizabeth.
"But before I went, this man that carried me, whose name I know not but they call him Sir John, a pitiful fellow, whose face I have long known but upon what score I know not --"
Here, Todd, methinks L&M fixed errors of more than one kind.
"There I could not get into the park; and so was fain to stay in the gallery over the gate to look to the passage into the park (into which the King hath forbid of late anybody's coming) to watch his [of him the] coming that had appointed me to come; which he did by and by with his lady. And we went to Guardener's Lane &c."
So L&M clarify it, Todd -- since punctuation is mostly editorial.
Those of such financial substance as would be liable to pay subsidy-taxes (L&M Select Glossary). "In the 1500s the subsidy was a tax invented in England by Thomas Wolsey in 1513 that taxed based on the ability to pay. It was created in order that Henry VIII could pay for war with France while maintaining his lifestyle." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subs…
A "poor pensioner in St. Bride's parish" (Pepys, 6 April 1664) who, for a time, boarded "Elizabeth Taylor," illegitimate daughter of Thomas (Tom) Pepys, for which he demanded money of Samuel, though -- lacking written proof of Tom's paternity -- was successfully resisted.
James, Duke of York to Sandwich Written from: St James's
Date: 23 August 1664
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 75, fol(s). 210 Document type: Original; subscribed & signed
Approves of the plans for the sailing of the Fleet, which Lord Sandwich has submitted.
-----------------
De Prata to Sandwich Written from: Lyons
Date: 23 August/2 September 1664
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 223, fol(s). 92-93 Document type: Holograph
The writer, and his companion, await the Earl's orders as to their further travel.
At Lyons, they have met with Lord Annesley and his tutor Mr Forbes, who are about to visit Italy; which Lord Hinchinbroke also desires to see, with the Earl's permission. The month's expenses have amounted to about 1,300 livres. http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…
Elizabeth Pepys's father had converted at age 21 to the faith of the survivors of the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Huguenots = Reformed or Calvinist Protestants. Disowned by his Catholic father, he fell into the Queen Mother's entourage and emigrated to England. I wonder how "Bartholomew's day" was regarded by Alexander Marchant, Sieur de St. Michel? Interesting that his son-in-law would use it as a deadline.
New Bridewell was a prison built c. 1617 next to Clerkenwell Bridewell, which was a prison located in Clerkenwell http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… named 'Bridewell' after the Bridewell Palace, which during the 16th century had become one of the City of London's most important prisons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cler…
"I went into New Bridewell...and there I saw the new model, and it is very handsome. Several at work"
L&M explain that New Bridewell was a house of correction in Clerkenwell; it had a new-model workroom for the inmates. Not quite Foucault's Panopticon, for seeing how behavior's being modified (corrected), but.... http://foucault.info/documents/di…
Comments
First Reading
About Monday 29 August 1664
Terry F • Link
Robert, methinks, alas, you ask whether late-17c servants expect to be treated like late-17c servants.
About Sunday 28 August 1664
Terry F • Link
Bradford, look at today's first post.
About William Mercer (sen.)
Terry F • Link
A "decayed merchant" http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… of St. Olave's parish; Will Hewer's sometime landlord; father of Mary Mercer. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
About Mary Mercer
Terry F • Link
Mary Mercer
An attractive 17-year-old when hired as maid to Elizabeth Pepys 27 August 1664, Mary was daughter of William Mercer http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… in whose house Will Hewer had been living.
About Saturday 27 August 1664
Terry F • Link
Small fleet? Hire a shanty composer:
ENGLAND'S VALOUR, AND HOLLANDS TERROUR.
Being an encouragement for seamen and souldiers to serve his Majesty in his wars against the Dutch, etc.
Dutchmen beware, we have a fleet,
Will make you tremble when you see't,
Mann'd with brave Englishmen of high renown,
Who can and will your peacock plumes pull down ;
Then cease your boasting, it will nought availe,
You know its but your duty to strike sayle.
To the tune of The stormy winds do blow.
Brave loyal hearted English-men, attend whilst I declare,
What noble preparations is made for the Hollands war;
For certain such a bloody fight hath never been before,
As is near, you shall hear, when the cannons loud do roar.
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk…
About Sunday 31 July 1664
Terry F • Link
Despite the cheap swill, the sailors' spirits are high:
SONGS AND BALLADS
Sometimes when we are sailing our victuals they grow scarse,
Our wives at home bewailing and pittying of our case,
In thinking of the dangers poore seamen undergo.
For our King, still we sing, when the stormy winds do blow.
Yet we are still couragious with any foe to fight :
If Turk or Jew ingage us we put them to the flight,
And make them give us homage before we let them go:
For our King, then we sing, when the stormy winds do blow.
We are the prop of trading, what kind so ere it be:
The originall of lading youre ships with treasury.
None goes beyond a sea-man in riches, gold, and store :
For he brings, wealth to kings, when the stormy winds do blow.
We have some sneezing pouder, the Dutch-man fain would have,
'Twill make him speak the louder, if Kings he will not have.
And cause him to remember the phisick taking so :
When shall we, merry be, when the stormy winds do blow.
Great King wee'l make you famous, youre glory shall out-shine
Romulus and Remus, Godolph or Constantine.
Wee'l bring you gold and treasure by sailing to and fro :
And will fight, day and night, to preserve you from your foe.
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk…
About Friday 25 May 1660
Terry F • Link
THE SEAMEN TO CHARLES II
THE VALIANT SEAMAN'S CONGRATULATION TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY KING CHARLES II - With their wonderfull, heroical atchievements, and their fidelity, loyalty, and obedience. To the tune of Let us drink and sing, and merrily troul the bowl. Or, The stormy winds do Mow. Or, Hey Ho, my Hony.
Great Charles, your English seamen upon our bended knee,
Present ourselves as freemen, unto your Majesty,
Beseeching God to blesse you where-ever that you go, So we pray, night and day, when the stormy winds do blow.
In darkest nights, or shipwracks, alwayes we are on our guard :
Of French or Turkish pirats, we never were afraid.
But cal'd stout English sea-men where-ever that we go,
For we make, them to quake, when the stormy winds do blow.
We are your valiant sea-men that brought you out of Spain :
And will as war-like free-men your royal cause maintain.
If you will give commission to wars with France wee'l go :
Then shall we, merry be, when the stormy winds do blow.
'Twas we did sail you over to English ground agen ;
And landed you at Dover, with all your noble men.
For which we are renowned where-ever we do go :
Honour will, tend us still, when the stormy winds do blow.
And now we are a ranging upon the ocean seas,
The Frenchmen they are changing and cannot be at ease,
For we will make their top-sailes unto our fleet shall bow :
Then shall we, merry be, when the stormy winds do blow.
Sometimes our tacklings breaking, our masts are cut in two :
Our ships are often leaking, great straits we're put unto.
In great tempestuous weather, which few at home doth know,
Thus do we, live at sea, when the stormy winds do blow.
When some at home are feeding and cheering up themselves,
Then we at sea are bleeding amongst the rocks and shelves.
Yet greater dangers ready, still we will undergo,
For our King, and will sing, when the stormy winds do blow.
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk…
About Friday 26 August 1664
Terry F • Link
Pepys on Kirke (further down the page Pedro's link provides)
"Kirke was reputedly a drunken brute who commanded a drunken regiment, but this reputation might be somewhat exaggerated. Samuel Pepys was on Tangiers at this time, and although he was no prude the deepest impression he leaves on the reader of his Journal is disgust at the gross indecency and lurching loutishness of Kirke and his men. The endless dirty stories of the Governor's table-talk passed from the distasteful to the unendurable. In Pepys's view Kirke's manners and morals were reflected in the cruelty and corruption of his administration. There were ugly stories of soldiers beaten to death with no pretence of legality: of Jewish refugees returned to the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition because they could not raise the bribes that Kirke demanded: of rape and robbery and bullying of the citizens and their wives. Kirke personified what Pepys called 'the bestiality of this place'.
"During the truce which followed the siege of Tangier in 1680, Kirke made friends with the Emperor of Morocco, Ismail, who would rule his country for 55 years. 'He would excel all mankind in barbarity and murder, inventing every day a new pastime of cruelty' wrote an Embassy official. He would kill a slave to test the edge of a new weapon, spear a dozen negroes or strangle a woman or two from his harem as a divertissement, and even the lives of his sons were not safe from his cruelty. Despite his hatred of all foreigners, Ismail took a liking to Kirke and swore "there never would be Bullet shot against Tangier, so long as Kirke was in it". They exchanged gifts, the Emperor sending Kirke 12 cows and a Christian woman in return for some Irish greyhounds. Ismail confirmed his vow that if none but Kirke and his wife (Lady Mary Howard, daughter of the fourth Earl of Suffolk) should be left alone in Tangier, he would not betray Kirke.
"Pepys, who disliked Kirke intensely, recorded in colourful, if exaggerated, detail all the gossip and scandal associated with him. He thought he was the most foul mouthed man he had ever met, as he and his officers publicly boasted of their amorous affairs and how they defamed every woman who yielded to their invitations:
*The Governor, Kirke, is said to have got his wife's sister with child and, while he is with his whores at his bathing house, his wife, whom he keeps in by awe, sends for her gallants and plays the jade by herself at home.*
"According to Bishop Ken, the chaplain of Lord Dartmouth's fleet, Kirke caused a scandal by seeking to obtain the post of garrison chaplain at Tangier for a Mr Roberts, the brother of his current mistress. Kirke's morals may have been appalling, but probably no worse than those of many of his contemporaries (Pepys himself demanded sexual favours from women in return for better postings for their male relatives in the Navy!)...."
I'm shocked, shocked! And Kirke's poor little lambs, who had gobe astray, damned from Tangier to eternity.
About Friday 26 August 1664
Terry F • Link
"But do we know whom Sam actually met and went to Guardener's Lane with?" Alas, no, Todd. L&M note (complain?) that Pepys has not told us about *this* appointment to find a musical companion for Elizabeth.
About Friday 26 August 1664
Terry F • Link
"But before I went, this man that carried me, whose name I know not but they call him Sir John, a pitiful fellow, whose face I have long known but upon what score I know not --"
Here, Todd, methinks L&M fixed errors of more than one kind.
About Friday 26 August 1664
Terry F • Link
"There I could not get into the park; and so was fain to stay in the gallery over the gate to look to the passage into the park (into which the King hath forbid of late anybody's coming) to watch his [of him the] coming that had appointed me to come; which he did by and by with his lady. And we went to Guardener's Lane &c."
So L&M clarify it, Todd -- since punctuation is mostly editorial.
About Friday 26 August 1664
Terry F • Link
Mr. Penn, Sir William's son, modish today at 20; in two years a Quaker convert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will…
About William Penn
Terry F • Link
William Penn, Sir William's son
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will…
About Thursday 25 August 1664
Terry F • Link
"subsidy men"
Those of such financial substance as would be liable to pay subsidy-taxes (L&M Select Glossary). "In the 1500s the subsidy was a tax invented in England by Thomas Wolsey in 1513 that taxed based on the ability to pay. It was created in order that Henry VIII could pay for war with France while maintaining his lifestyle." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subs…
About Mr Cave
Terry F • Link
A "poor pensioner in St. Bride's parish" (Pepys, 6 April 1664) who, for a time, boarded "Elizabeth Taylor," illegitimate daughter of Thomas (Tom) Pepys, for which he demanded money of Samuel, though -- lacking written proof of Tom's paternity -- was successfully resisted.
About Tuesday 23 August 1664
Terry F • Link
James, Duke of York to Sandwich
Written from: St James's
Date: 23 August 1664
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 75, fol(s). 210
Document type: Original; subscribed & signed
Approves of the plans for the sailing of the Fleet, which Lord Sandwich has submitted.
-----------------
De Prata to Sandwich
Written from: Lyons
Date: 23 August/2 September 1664
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 223, fol(s). 92-93
Document type: Holograph
The writer, and his companion, await the Earl's orders as to their further travel.
At Lyons, they have met with Lord Annesley and his tutor Mr Forbes, who are about to visit Italy; which Lord Hinchinbroke also desires to see, with the Earl's permission. The month's expenses have amounted to about 1,300 livres.
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…
About Tuesday 23 August 1664
Terry F • Link
Elizabeth Pepys's father had converted at age 21 to the faith of the survivors of the 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Huguenots = Reformed or Calvinist Protestants. Disowned by his Catholic father, he fell into the Queen Mother's entourage and emigrated to England. I wonder how "Bartholomew's day" was regarded by Alexander Marchant, Sieur de St. Michel? Interesting that his son-in-law would use it as a deadline.
About Tuesday 23 August 1664
Terry F • Link
"my oath of ending many businesses before Bartholomew's day, which is two days hence."
So writ he this night, but St. Bart's Day is tomorrow, 24 August.
About Bridewell Prison (Clerkenwell)
Terry F • Link
New Bridewell was a prison built c. 1617 next to Clerkenwell Bridewell, which was a prison located in Clerkenwell http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… named 'Bridewell' after the Bridewell Palace, which during the 16th century had become one of the City of London's most important prisons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cler…
About Tuesday 23 August 1664
Terry F • Link
"I went into New Bridewell...and there I saw the new model, and it is very handsome. Several at work"
L&M explain that New Bridewell was a house of correction in Clerkenwell; it had a new-model workroom for the inmates. Not quite Foucault's Panopticon, for seeing how behavior's being modified (corrected), but....
http://foucault.info/documents/di…