Annotations and comments

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

Comments

First Reading

About Friday 5 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

Samuel sallies forth to meet Elizabeth's coach

"by night to Stevenage" -- nearly halfway to Brampton on the western road from London -- ", and there to my great trouble, find that my wife was not come, nor any Stamford coach gone down this week, so that she cannot come." Stamford, in Lincolnshire, is north by northwest of Huntingdon, probably where she would usually have boarded it. "So...after a little sleep, W. Joyce comes in his shirt into my chamber, with a note and a messenger from my wife, that she was come by Yorke coach to Bigglesworth, and would be with us to-morrow morning." York, the county seat of Yorkshire, of course, is far to the north of Huntingdon. She is now at Biggleswade (or Bigglesworth), Bedfordshire, not terribly far north of Stevenage, where Samuel will stay. Delightful that she sends a note to him on this dark and stormy night!

About Thursday 4 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

"a Lord to be made a Marquis! Some days life is a Lot Like That."

Ah, Bradford, L&M reassure such a day never comes. As consolation, poor Sir Charles Berkeley will be made Earl of Falmouth and Baron Bototort of Langport.

About Thursday 4 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

Paul, I've come to believe there was a book of oaths, listing amendments, with the penalties for their breakings listed; in another column a list of penalties incurred; another column indicating what has been paid. From this book Pepys "reads" the oaths each Lord's Day, as we are sometimes told in the Diary.

About Thursday 4 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

"fitting myself against a great dispute about the East India Company"

What was this about? The note L&M provide here is a conjecture, and in my edition begins with a question-mark: "? about the convoying of the E. Indiaman which was just about to sail: CSPD 1663-4, p. 671."

About Thursday 4 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

"it being given me, I look upon it as no breach to my oathe"

as it would have been, had Sir W. Penn not paid for the ducats. Elegant casuistry!

About Wednesday 3 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

And, Pedro, there is the continuing matter of national honor (flags are a theme): Dirk absent - from the Carte Calendar:

James, Duke of York, to Sandwich
Written from: St James's

Date: 3 August 1664

Shelfmark: MS. Carte 75, fol(s). 199
Document type: Original subscribed & signed [with seal]

Has conferred with the King as to the course which Lord Sandwich should take in the event of the United Dutch Fleet entering the Channel, "in a bravado". If, upon summons, they refuse to strike topsails, and his Lordship should be of opinion that his own strength is fairly adequate to an encounter, he is to attack; if his opinion be otherwise, he is to report the entrances of the Enemy & to await further orders. http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

About Wednesday 3 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

How the Navy Board make good on their promise to the widow of Mr. Falconer. Here's a first try at the pronouns. Any help is welcome!

"visited Mrs. Falconer, who tells me odd stories of how Sir W. Pen was rewarded by her husband [the late clerk of the Woolwich ropeyard] with a gold watch (but seems not certain of what Sir W. Batten told me, of his [Mr. Falconer's] daughter [from a previous marriage] having a life given her in 80l. per ann.) for his [Penn's] helping him [Falconer] to his place, and yet cost him 150l. to Mr. Coventry besides. He [Penn] did much advise it seems Mr. Falconer not to marry again, expressing that he would have him make his daughter his [Penn's] heire, or words to that purpose, and that that makes him, she thinks, so cold in giving her [Falconer's second widow] any satisfaction, and that W. Boddam hath publickly said, since he came down thither to be clerke of the ropeyard, that it hath this week cost him 100l., and would be glad that it would cost him but half as much more for the place, and that he was better before than now, and that if he had been to have bought it, he would not have given so much for it."

About Tuesday 2 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

Jesse, what I inferred Killigrew projected *today* -- to breed "operas" from the planned importation of Italian singers -- might have failed for lack of funds in favor of a school to train actors. Today is the vision; the reality is future.

About Monday 1 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

After the Truce of Vasvár (spoilers -- but no surprises: c'est Louis XIV)

"This treaty formally divided Hungary, which, though nominally a Habsburg principality, had long enjoyed semi-independence as a border region between the two great powers. When the Turks renewed the war in 1683 with an army of 200,000 men, the Hungarians, preferring the Ottoman yoke to what they have seen of the Habsburg, joined forces with the invaders. The Turks were also assisted by Louis XIV, who saw the attack as a welcome opportunity to divert Leopold's attention from his own aggression on the Rhine, though he temporarily suspended aid as a gesture to European public opinion when the Turks stormed up to the very gates of Vienna, subjecting it to a two month siege."
http://hungarian-history.hu/lib/h…

About James Ley (3rd Earl of Marlborough)

Terry F  •  Link

Ley, in Beer Ferrers, [Devons.] is said to have been the original seat of this family, and to have been repurchased by Sir James Ley, who was, in 1624, created Baron Ley of Ley, and in 1626, Earl of Marlborough. These titles became extinct, in 1679, by the death of William, the fourth earl. His daughter and heir married Tristram.

From: 'General history: Extinct noble families', Magna Britannia: volume 6: Devonshire (1822), pp. XCV-CVIII. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/… Date accessed: 03 August 2007.

About Tuesday 2 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

nurs·er·y
-noun, plural -er·ies.
1. a room or place set apart for young children.
2. a nursery school or day nursery.
3. a place where young trees or other plants are raised for transplanting, for sale, or for experimental study.
4. any place in which something is bred, nourished, or fostered: The art institute has been the nursery of much great painting.
5. any situation, condition, circumstance, practice, etc., serving to breed or foster something: Slums are nurseries for young criminals.

------------------------------------------------------[Origin: 1350-1400; ME norcery. See nurse, -ery]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
http://dictionary.reference.com/b…

Tom Killigrew, the impresario, has a project for an opera breeding-facility.

About Monday 1 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

"having prepared with some industry every man a part this morning and no sooner (for fear they should either consider of it or discourse of it one to another)"

What an interesting, Tolstoian conjecture on Pepys's part! Did the presentations seem 11th-hour? and the rationale for this that he proposes. Was the proposal by Mr. Coventry so surprising? others spur-of-the-moment?

About Monday 1 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

William Coventry to Sandwich

Date: 1 August 1664

Shelfmark: MS. Carte 75, fol(s). 195
Document type: Holograph

Will give the instructions desired in Lord Sandwich's letters as to the provisioning and armament of certain ships specified. Adds: "I am apt to think the Dutch intended nothing in setting out their Fleet but to secure their E. India ships; and the rest only for a bravado". The writer has spoken with H. R. H. the Lord Admiral as to the establishment of a correspondence with Sir George Downing. It is thought that this may best be done by sending a confidential agent to Scheveling.
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

About Monday 1 August 1664

Terry F  •  Link

Memorial of the Case of James Lincoln, Matthew Everard, and others
Written from: S. Malo

Date: 1 August 1664

Shelfmark: MS. Carte 33, fol(s). 587
Document type: Original [with eight signatures]

Memorial of the Case of James Lincoln, Matthew Everard, and others, in relation to their proposals for setting forth [Privateer] Frigates, "for the King's Service", in the event of the "breaking out of War between his Majesty & the Hollanders".

Addressed to Sir Nicholas Plunkett, "one of the Agents, for the affairs of Ireland".
------------------------
Subjoined 1

Certificate by Lord Lieutenant the Duke of Ormond that Matthew Everard, James Lincoln, and other persons, herein named, submitted to the Peace of 1648 in Ireland
Written from: Dublin

Date: 6 April 1661

Shelfmark: MS. Carte 33, fol(s). 589
Document type: Original
----------------
Subjoined 1

Notification [or, "Form of Notification", as solicited?] of the King's approval of the Propositions above-described. With a list of persons [to be furnished with Letters of Marque, under circumstances stated].

Date:

Shelfmark: MS. Carte 33, fol(s). 591
Document type: Copy http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

About Sunday 31 July 1664

Terry F  •  Link

Eric, mean you that Pepys will begin "'investigative journalism') in Fleet Alley? I wot he will, he will, but not because he couldn't afford it financially until now: he's not been able to afford it morally -- it's dirty --, and so Betty's safer all around (and that's a lot).

About Leghorn (Livorno), Italy

Terry F  •  Link

"Livorno (archaic English: Leghorn) is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy.... The 'Leggi Livornine' were laws that ruled between 1590 and 1603. These laws helped the trading activity of the merchant, freedom of religion and amnesty for some penance. Thanks to these laws, many foreigners people moved to Livorno, which became a cosmopolitan city. Hebrews, Armenians, Greeks, Netherlanders, and some English people were among them. Livorno became one of the most important port[s] of the Mediterranean area....There is a breed of chicken called leghorn, named after the city. This in turn gave its name to the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legh…