Annotations and comments

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

Comments

First Reading

About Friday 17 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Ooops, Aqua, I missed your earlier reference to the Peter P'ple; sorry to be so slow on the uptake: perhaps I just demonstrated it m'self once again.

About Friday 17 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"They would be better not meddling in Naval matters at all"

I'm not sure I agree, Aus.Susan: my earlier facetious remark aside, methinks Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Mennes are fish out of water, and the Peter Principle clearly holds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete… Of course, the "Pepys Solution" is equally facetious and a prize piece of invention (was it original?!). What the tars need is another war.

About Friday 17 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"the King had better give [Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Mennes] greater salaries to stand still and do nothing."

Did Samuel Pepys thus define "government work"? OED anyone?

About Wednesday 15 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Exact quotation from "The Caine Mutiny" -

"The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots." http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/cai…

Sparknotes observation: "Thomas Keefer makes this observation to Willie Keith while the two are sitting in the wardroom decoding messages. The quotation sums up Keefer's view of the Navy, and explains why he is so offended by the Navy. Keefer is a generous, smart person, employed in a task that a monkey could perform. When Keefer is later promoted to a position of command, however, he performs terribly, which suggests that even smart men are not automatically fit for command."

Not OT methinks. This sounds like a standard complaint in any bureacracy, not just the (fictional) USN; there were Keefers in the 17th century also.

About Wednesday 15 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"knowing how against their minds I was brought into the Navy."

Recall 25 June 1660 - "Thence to the Admiralty, where I met with Mr. Turner of the Navy-office, who did look after the place of Clerk of the Acts. He was very civil to me, and I to him, and shall be so. There came a letter from my Lady Monk to my Lord about it this evening, but he refused to come to her, but meeting in White Hall, with Sir Thomas Clarges, her brother, my Lord returned answer, that he could not desist in my business; and that he believed that General Monk would take it ill if my Lord should name the officers in his army; and therefore he desired to have the naming of one officer in the fleet" http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

29 June 1660 "I got my warrant from the Duke to be Clerk of the Acts."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Friday 10 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Re "Pepys’s account of the articles [of impeachment] is strange"

Next Tuesday it will be reported he spent part of the morning "making up my journal from Wednesday last to this day" - no wonder things are a bit askew 'today'. Cf. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Weddings

TerryF  •  Link

5 July 1663 - in Aqua epistula on Thu 6 Jul 2006, 8:05 pm | Link
“… Mrs. Martha being married already this morning to Mr. Castle, at this parish church. I could not rise soon enough to go with them, but got myself ready,…” or was it earlier,
“… now Mr. Castle and Mrs. Martha Batten do own themselves to be married, and have been this fortnight. Much good may it do him, for …”
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
6 week delay???????
Churched or not churched or would that be by a Cromwellian edict that be no longer valid, to get the Vicars ok to make Society happy.
So living in Sin, be not a modern gesture of the 20th Century. Twas done but the Common laws, be not good enough for ensuring that any offspring be able to get the heritage, note that Charlie two would like to invoke the Common law for his eldest to enjoy the benefits of being churched, rather than unchurche as be a swinging Batchelor..
When thee invoke one set of laws, the ones that thee don’t agree with, will hit thee beneath the belt or backside.
Did they Castle and Mistress Martha, get hitched officially to get some loot for the house, and did the maids of the Bride get any benefits to share with the grooms men.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Tuesday 14 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Of course the Lords do amaze French ambassador Cominges -
Jeannine, thanks very much for providing "A French Perspective on the Chancellor-Bristoll exchanges" yesterday, showing us how wide, in cultural terms, the *English* channel is in Pepys's day
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Tuesday 14 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Not just to amaze Gaston Jean Baptiste Comte de Cominges -

Resolutions concerning the E. of Bristol's Charge against the E. of Clarendon

From: 'House of Lords Journal Volume 11: 14 July 1663', Journal of the House of Lords: volume 11: 1660-1666, pp. 559-60. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/… Date accessed: 14 July 2006.

About Monday 13 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

"into the Queenes presence, where all the ladies walked, talking and fiddling with their hats and feathers, and trying one another's, but on another's heads, and laughing." - transcribe L&M.

So the other ladies try to deal with the tension of a new pecking-order at the top du jour (the King oblivious to that, as is his wont).

About Monday 13 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

Judges Opinion, concerning the E. of Bristol's Charge against the E. of Clarendon....:

This Day being appointed for the Judges to deliver their Opinion upon the Articles of High Treason exhibited by the Earl of Bristol against the Lord Chancellor; the Judges being all present, the House in order hereunto caused the said Articles to be read.

And then the Lord Chief Justice Bridgman, by the Agreement, and in the Name, of all the rest, delivered in this unanimous Answer following; videlicet,

"1. We conceive, That a Charge of High Treason cannot by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm be originally exhibited by any One Peer against another unto the House of Peers; and that therefore the Charge of High Treason by the Earl of Bristoll against the Lord Chancellor, mentioned in the Order of Reference to us of the Tenth of this Instant July, hath not been regularly and legally brought in.
"2. And if the Matters alledged in the said Charge were admitted to be true (although alledged to be traiterously done), yet there is not any Treason in it."...

Message from the King concerning it

The Lord Chamberlain acquainted the House, "That he had a Message to deliver to this House from the King; which, he said, he had written down from His Majesty, because he would not mistake; and desired Leave to read it."....

"His Majesty, having received from His House of Peers a Copy of the Writing which the Earl of Bristoll had delivered in, containing Articles of supposed High Treason and other Misdemeanors against the Chancellor of England, doth give your Lordships very many Thanks, for your great Care and Regard in transmitting the same to Him; upon View of which, His Majesty finds several Matters of Fact charged, which upon His own certain Knowledge are untrue. And His Majesty cannot but take Notice of the many scandalous Reflections in that Paper upon Himself and His Relations, which He looks upon as a Libel against His Person and Government; for which, and other Things, His Majesty will in due Time take such Course against him as shall be agreeable to Justice."

From: 'House of Lords Journal Volume 11: 13 July 1663', Journal of the House of Lords: volume 11: 1660-1666, pp. 558-59. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/… Date accessed: 13 July 2006.

About Sunday 12 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

LH, thanks for that.

Can it be that what is to be "hid" and a "mystery" are the "lines" = "bodys" themselves?
Yet Commissioner Pett is also showing them 'round - perhaps the "it" that Sam doesn't understand at all?

About Sunday 12 July 1663

TerryF  •  Link

L&M define “body: sectional drawing (of a ship)” - not model.

Many pronouns in that sentence - Who "seems to suppose great mystery in the nature of Lynes to be hid"? Are these lines to be hid when she is built? No wonder our man writes in resignation, "but I do not understand it at all."