"I to White Hall to the Council chamber, where I was summoned about the business of paying of the seamen, where I heard my Lord Anglesey put to it by Sir W. Coventry before the King for altering the course set by the Council; which he like a wise man did answer in few words, that he had already sent to alter it according to the Council’s method, and so stopped it, whereas many words would have set the Commissioners of the Treasury on fire, who, I perceive, were prepared for it."
L&M: Anglesey had been examined by the Treasury Commissioners on the 5th. They held that the Navy Board had disobeyed the orders of both Council and Treasury in the matter of the tickets. CTB, ii. 139.
"He told me also a story of my Lord Cottington, who, wanting a son, intended to make his nephew his heir, a country boy; but did alter his mind upon the boy’s being persuaded by another young heir, in roguery, to crow like a cock at my Lord’s table, much company being there, and the boy having a great trick at doing that perfectly. My Lord bade them take away that fool from the table, and so gave over the thoughts of making him his heir, from this piece of folly."
L&M: Both Cottingham's son and daughter had died childless before their father, and the two young heirs were Francis and Charles Cottingham, sons of his brother. Francis was principal hair and administrator under a will of 16 June 1652 made on his deathbed; after Francis's death in 1665, Charles inherited the estate. (It consisted mainly of Fonthill, Wilts., later the home of William Beckford.) Lord Cottingham's love of birds and animals may possibly have inspired the cock-crowing. Sir R. C. Hoare et al., Hist. Mod. Wilts. (1822-37), iii. (Dunworth), pp. 29-1.
"This day, in coming home, Sir J. Mennes told me a pretty story of Sir Lewes Dives, whom I saw this morning speaking with him; that having escaped once out of prison through a house of office, and another time in woman's apparel, and leaping over a broad canal, a soldier in roguery put his hand towards her belly, and swore, says he, "This is a strong Jade, but I never felt a cunt with a handle to it before."
L&M: Sir Lewis Dyve (d. 1669) was a royalist soldier, of whom Evelyn said that he was 'a valiant gent: but not a little given to romance when he spake of himselfe'. He claimed to have made five escapes, and the second of the two here referred to here remains untraced. The first was a feat made famous by his own published account: on 30 January (the night after the King's execution) he dropped through the hole of a privy in the King's Bench prison in Whitehall, two storeys above the river, landed in the water and escaped in a waiting boat. See A letter from Sir L. D. written out of France to a gentleman, a friend of his in London. Giving him an account of the manner of his escape out of the Kings Bench, and the reasons that moved him thereunto. Dyre, Lewis, Sir, 1599-1669. [London: s.n.], Printed in the Yeare, 1648. Early English Books Online https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
"By and by home with Sir J. Minnes, who tells me that my Lord Clarendon did go away in a Custom-house boat, and is now at Callis (Calais): and, I confess, nothing seems to hang more heavy than his leaving of this unfortunate paper"
"However, the Duke of Buckingham and others did desire that the Bill might be read; and it, was for banishing my Lord Clarendon from all his Majesty’s dominions, and that it should be treason to have him found in any of them: the thing is only a thing of vanity, and to insult over him, which is mighty poor I think, and so do every body else, and ended in nothing, I think."
"Here I also heard Mr. Jermin, who was there in the chamber upon occasion of Sir Thomas Harvy’s telling him of his brother’s having a child, and thereby taking away his hopes (that is, Mr. Jermin’s) of 2000l. a year. He swore, God damn him, he did not desire to have any more wealth than he had in the world, which indeed is a great estate, having all his uncle’s, my Lord St. Alban’s, and my Lord hath all the Queen-Mother’s."
L&M: St Albans (once Master of the Horse to Henrietta-Maria and wrongly reported to be her second husband [cp. Queen Victoria's John Brown]) managed her finances and was commonly said to have embezzled her money. The two nephews mentioned here were Thomas ('Mr.') Jermyn (who had just had a son), and his younger brother, Henry, Master of the Horse to the Duke of York, and St Albans's adopted heir.
"And tells me of one particular, of a man that hath a piece of ground lieing in the very middle of the street that must be; which, when the street is cut out of it, there will remain ground enough, of each side, to build a house to front the street. He demanded 700l. for the ground, and to be excused paying any thing for the melioration of the rest of his ground that he was to keep. The Court consented to give him 700l., only not to abate him the consideration: which the man denied; but told them, and so they agreed, that he would excuse the City the 700l., that he might have the benefit of the melioration without paying any thing for it. "
L&M: The general effect of the clause providing for melioration (seect. 24 of the Rebuilding Act, 18-19 Car. II c. 7) is discussed in T. F. Reddaway, Rebuilding of London, pp. 165-7. For a somewhat similar case, concerning a property in the same street, see Philip E. Jones (ed.), Fire Court, i. 63-4.
"the Keeper of Newgate, at this day, hath made his house the only nursery of rogues, and whores, and pickpockets, and thieves in the world; where they were bred and entertained, and the whole society met: and that, for the sake of the Sheriffes, they durst not this day committ him, for fear of making him let out the prisoners, but are fain to go by artifice to deal with him."
L&M: The Keeper (Walter Cowdrey) was dismissed by the Court of Aldermen in February 1668 and died shortly afterwards. He had been guilty og cruelty to his prisoners as well as of other offenses. HMC., Rep., 15/7/102.
"Sir Richard Ford told us this evening an odd story of the basenesse of the late Lord Mayor, Sir W. Bolton, in cheating the poor of the City, out of the collections made for the people that were burned, of 1800l.; of which he can give no account, and in which he hath forsworn himself plainly, so as the Court of Aldermen have sequestered him from their Court till he do bring in an account, which is the greatest piece of roguery that they say was ever found in a Lord Mayor."
L&M: Bolton had been Lord Mayor in 1666-7; he surrendered his place as alderman in May 1668, and was eventually convicted in 1675 of misappropriation of funds by the Commissioners for Charitable Uses. Both he and his widow -- quite ruined by the affair -- were given a small pension by the city. CSPD 1667-8. p. 416. A, B. Beaven, Aldermen of London, i. 95: Sharpe, ii. 432, n. 2.
"By and by to Sir W. Pen’s, where Sir R. Ford and he and I met, with Mr. Young and Lewes, about our accounts with my Lady Batten,"
L&M: Sir William Batten had died in October, and John Young (with Ford himself) was an overseer of of his will. Together with Thomas Lewis of the Victualing Office they acted on the widow's behalf: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
"returned to Cary House, and there stayed and saw a pretty deception of the sight by a glass with water poured into it, with a stick standing up with three balls of wax upon it, one distant from the other. How these balls did seem double and disappear one after another, mighty pretty! "
L&M: For the study of refraction at this time , see Gunther, vol. i. pts, iii-iv,
"the first sound man that ever had it tried on him in England, and but one that we hear of in France, which was a porter hired by the virtuosos."
L&M: The French experiment was made in Paris bt Jean Denys on a madma a few months earlier: Boyle, Works (1744), v. 377, 379; Gunther, iii. 107. The Royal Society experiment appears to have been the first transfusion conducted on a human being in England. According to the minutes of the Society, the official report on it was made on 28 November: Birch, ii. 236. It had been conducted by Drs King and Lower on the 23rd , and was repeated on 12 December. Lower had in 1665 experimented on an animal: Gunther, ll. 130-2. See Birch, ii. 215; Philos. Trans. no. 30, 9 December 1667; Boyle, ii. 557+, , v. 638. For the history of tranfusion, see Gunther, iii. 127; Sir G. Keynes (ed.), Blood Transfusion, pp. pp. 1-40; M. H. Nicholson, Pepys diary and the new science, pp. 55+; illust. (1672) in G. Bankoff, Story of surgery, opp. p. 128.
"The company great, and the elections long, and then to Cary House, a house now of entertainment, next my Lord Ashly’s; and there, where I have heretofore heard Common Prayer in the time of Dr. Mossum,"
L&M: Dr Robert Mossom (now Bishop of Derry) had conducted illegal Anglican services there at the end of the Interregnum. Cary House was on the s. side of the Strand to the east of the Savoy Palace.
"It is one of the most extraordinary accidents in my life, and gives ground to think of Don Quixote’s adventures how people may be surprised,"
L&M: Pepys retained two copies of Don Quixote, one (Brussels, 1662) in Spanish, and the other in English (1670; trans. Thomas Shelton): PL 912-13, 2029.
"I to White Hall, there intending, with Lord Bruncker, Sir J. Minnes, and Sir T. Harvy to have seen the Duke of York, whom it seems the King and Queen have visited, and so we may now well go to see him."
Comments
Second Reading
About Friday 6 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"I to White Hall to the Council chamber, where I was summoned about the business of paying of the seamen, where I heard my Lord Anglesey put to it by Sir W. Coventry before the King for altering the course set by the Council; which he like a wise man did answer in few words, that he had already sent to alter it according to the Council’s method, and so stopped it, whereas many words would have set the Commissioners of the Treasury on fire, who, I perceive, were prepared for it."
L&M: Anglesey had been examined by the Treasury Commissioners on the 5th. They held that the Navy Board had disobeyed the orders of both Council and Treasury in the matter of the tickets. CTB, ii. 139.
About Friday 6 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"He told me also a story of my Lord Cottington, who, wanting a son, intended to make his nephew his heir, a country boy; but did alter his mind upon the boy’s being persuaded by another young heir, in roguery, to crow like a cock at my Lord’s table, much company being there, and the boy having a great trick at doing that perfectly. My Lord bade them take away that fool from the table, and so gave over the thoughts of making him his heir, from this piece of folly."
L&M: Both Cottingham's son and daughter had died childless before their father, and the two young heirs were Francis and Charles Cottingham, sons of his brother. Francis was principal hair and administrator under a will of 16 June 1652 made on his deathbed; after Francis's death in 1665, Charles inherited the estate. (It consisted mainly of Fonthill, Wilts., later the home of William Beckford.) Lord Cottingham's love of birds and animals may possibly have inspired the cock-crowing. Sir R. C. Hoare et al., Hist. Mod. Wilts. (1822-37), iii. (Dunworth), pp. 29-1.
About Friday 6 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"This day, in coming home, Sir J. Mennes told me a pretty story of Sir Lewes Dives, whom I saw this morning speaking with him; that having escaped once out of prison through a house of office, and another time in woman's apparel, and leaping over a broad canal, a soldier in roguery put his hand towards her belly, and swore, says he, "This is a strong Jade, but I never felt a cunt with a handle to it before."
L&M: Sir Lewis Dyve (d. 1669) was a royalist soldier, of whom Evelyn said that he was 'a valiant gent: but not a little given to romance when he spake of himselfe'. He claimed to have made five escapes, and the second of the two here referred to here remains untraced. The first was a feat made famous by his own published account: on 30 January (the night after the King's execution) he dropped through the hole of a privy in the King's Bench prison in Whitehall, two storeys above the river, landed in the water and escaped in a waiting boat. See A letter from Sir L. D. written out of France to a gentleman, a friend of his in London. Giving him an account of the manner of his escape out of the Kings Bench, and the reasons that moved him thereunto.
Dyre, Lewis, Sir, 1599-1669.
[London: s.n.], Printed in the Yeare, 1648. Early English Books Online
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
About Friday 6 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"By and by home with Sir J. Minnes, who tells me that my Lord Clarendon did go away in a Custom-house boat, and is now at Callis (Calais): and, I confess, nothing seems to hang more heavy than his leaving of this unfortunate paper"
L&M: See https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Friday 6 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"However, the Duke of Buckingham and others did desire that the Bill might be read; and it, was for banishing my Lord Clarendon from all his Majesty’s dominions, and that it should be treason to have him found in any of them: the thing is only a thing of vanity, and to insult over him, which is mighty poor I think, and so do every body else, and ended in nothing, I think."
L&M: 'An Act for banishing and discrediting' Clarendon was now given its first reading: LJ, XIII. 158. https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
:It was passed at the end of the session: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Wednesday 4 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"Here I also heard Mr. Jermin, who was there in the chamber upon occasion of Sir Thomas Harvy’s telling him of his brother’s having a child, and thereby taking away his hopes (that is, Mr. Jermin’s) of 2000l. a year. He swore, God damn him, he did not desire to have any more wealth than he had in the world, which indeed is a great estate, having all his uncle’s, my Lord St. Alban’s, and my Lord hath all the Queen-Mother’s."
L&M: St Albans (once Master of the Horse to Henrietta-Maria and wrongly reported to be her second husband [cp. Queen Victoria's John Brown]) managed her finances and was commonly said to have embezzled her money. The two nephews mentioned here were Thomas ('Mr.') Jermyn (who had just had a son), and his younger brother, Henry, Master of the Horse to the Duke of York, and St Albans's adopted heir.
About Tuesday 3 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"And tells me of one particular, of a man that hath a piece of ground lieing in the very middle of the street that must be; which, when the street is cut out of it, there will remain ground enough, of each side, to build a house to front the street. He demanded 700l. for the ground, and to be excused paying any thing for the melioration of the rest of his ground that he was to keep. The Court consented to give him 700l., only not to abate him the consideration: which the man denied; but told them, and so they agreed, that he would excuse the City the 700l., that he might have the benefit of the melioration without paying any thing for it. "
L&M: The general effect of the clause providing for melioration (seect. 24 of the Rebuilding Act, 18-19 Car. II c. 7) is discussed in T. F. Reddaway, Rebuilding of London, pp. 165-7. For a somewhat similar case, concerning a property in the same street, see Philip E. Jones (ed.), Fire Court, i. 63-4.
About Tuesday 3 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"the Keeper of Newgate, at this day, hath made his house the only nursery of rogues, and whores, and pickpockets, and thieves in the world; where they were bred and entertained, and the whole society met: and that, for the sake of the Sheriffes, they durst not this day committ him, for fear of making him let out the prisoners, but are fain to go by artifice to deal with him."
L&M: The Keeper (Walter Cowdrey) was dismissed by the Court of Aldermen in February 1668 and died shortly afterwards. He had been guilty og cruelty to his prisoners as well as of other offenses. HMC., Rep., 15/7/102.
About Tuesday 3 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"Sir Richard Ford told us this evening an odd story of the basenesse of the late Lord Mayor, Sir W. Bolton, in cheating the poor of the City, out of the collections made for the people that were burned, of 1800l.; of which he can give no account, and in which he hath forsworn himself plainly, so as the Court of Aldermen have sequestered him from their Court till he do bring in an account, which is the greatest piece of roguery that they say was ever found in a Lord Mayor."
L&M: Bolton had been Lord Mayor in 1666-7; he surrendered his place as alderman in May 1668, and was eventually convicted in 1675 of misappropriation of funds by the Commissioners for Charitable Uses. Both he and his widow -- quite ruined by the affair -- were given a small pension by the city. CSPD 1667-8. p. 416. A, B. Beaven, Aldermen of London, i. 95: Sharpe, ii. 432, n. 2.
About Tuesday 3 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"By and by to Sir W. Pen’s, where Sir R. Ford and he and I met, with Mr. Young and Lewes, about our accounts with my Lady Batten,"
L&M: Sir William Batten had died in October, and John Young (with Ford himself) was an overseer of of his will. Together with Thomas Lewis of the Victualing Office they acted on the widow's behalf: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Tuesday 3 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"I to Sir W. Coventry’s, the first time I have seen him at his new house"
L&M: In Pall Mall: see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Monday 2 December 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"Mr. Caesar followed me and told me that my boy Tom hath this day declared to him that he cared not for the French lute "
L&M: See https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
French baroque lute
https://www.the-night-watch.org.u…
French Baroque Lute Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z…
About Saturday 30 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
" Joseph Williamson I find mighty kind still, but close, not daring to say anything almost that touches upon news or state of affairs."
L&M: Williamson was Secretary to Arlington, whose political security was in jeopardy in this crisis.
About Saturday 30 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
" Joseph Williamson I find mighty kind still, but close, not daring to say anything almost that touches upon news or state of affairs."
L&M: Williamson was Secretary yo Aelington, whose political security was in jeopardy in this crisis,
About Saturday 30 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"returned to Cary House, and there stayed and saw a pretty deception of the sight by a glass with water poured into it, with a stick standing up with three balls of wax upon it, one distant from the other. How these balls did seem double and disappear one after another, mighty pretty! "
L&M: For the study of refraction at this time , see Gunther, vol. i. pts, iii-iv,
About Saturday 30 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"the first sound man that ever had it tried on him in England, and but one that we hear of in France, which was a porter hired by the virtuosos."
L&M: The French experiment was made in Paris bt Jean Denys on a madma a few months earlier: Boyle, Works (1744), v. 377, 379; Gunther, iii. 107. The Royal Society experiment appears to have been the first transfusion conducted on a human being in England. According to the minutes of the Society, the official report on it was made on 28 November: Birch, ii. 236. It had been conducted by Drs King and Lower on the 23rd , and was repeated on 12 December. Lower had in 1665 experimented on an animal: Gunther, ll. 130-2. See Birch, ii. 215; Philos. Trans. no. 30, 9 December 1667; Boyle, ii. 557+, , v. 638. For the history of tranfusion, see Gunther, iii. 127; Sir G. Keynes (ed.), Blood Transfusion, pp. pp. 1-40; M. H. Nicholson, Pepys diary and the new science, pp. 55+; illust. (1672) in G. Bankoff, Story of surgery, opp. p. 128.
About Saturday 30 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"But here was good company. I choosing to sit next Dr. Wilkins, Sir George Ent, and others whom I value,"
L&M: Wilkins (one of the principal founders of the Royal Society) was a mathematician; Ent a physiologist.
About Saturday 30 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"The company great, and the elections long, and then to Cary House, a house now of entertainment, next my Lord Ashly’s; and there, where I have heretofore heard Common Prayer in the time of Dr. Mossum,"
L&M: Dr Robert Mossom (now Bishop of Derry) had conducted illegal Anglican services there at the end of the Interregnum. Cary House was on the s. side of the Strand to the east of the Savoy Palace.
About Friday 29 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"It is one of the most extraordinary accidents in my life, and gives ground to think of Don Quixote’s adventures how people may be surprised,"
L&M: Pepys retained two copies of Don Quixote, one (Brussels, 1662) in Spanish, and the other in English (1670; trans. Thomas Shelton): PL 912-13, 2029.
About Thursday 28 November 1667
Terry Foreman • Link
"I to White Hall, there intending, with Lord Bruncker, Sir J. Minnes, and Sir T. Harvy to have seen the Duke of York, whom it seems the King and Queen have visited, and so we may now well go to see him."
L&M: For his illness, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…