SDS - you wanted ideas. Here are mine. Blount is in prison in Bruges. He is willing to betray Granger and says he (Blount) is the only one who knows where to find him and the false names he uses. There is only a civil action against Blount so the Bruges magistrates won’t deport him. The author of the letter is willing to help arrange the deal so long as it’s kept secret. Granger says he can corrupt all the postmasters. He is planning to invest £1,000 in a bill of exchange which he will use to make a counterfeit for £5,000 or £6,000 and has already sent an agent off to get it. Granger will soon go somewhere away from London for the winter and that’s when he could be arrested most easily.
Hodsden and Tibalds. Both local to me, and the road would probably have been what is now the A1010 which runs through Hoddesdon, Cheshunt, Waltham Cross and on through North London to Bishopsgate. What little remains of Tibalds (Theobalds Palace) is in what is now Cedars Park, where I used to walk in my lunch hour occasionally when I was working. Theobalds Park is on the other side of the dual carriageway of the A10, cut off from the site of the old palace. Until a few years ago, the original Temple Bar was in Theobalds Park, but it has now been returned to the City and is close to St Paul’s Cathedral.
The Palace of Theobalds was situated in what is now Cedars Park, which is now separated from Theobalds Park by the A10 dual carriageway. There are still a few ruined walls remaining at Cedars Park
My thanks too Phil. Always enjoy my daily trip to the past, especially as a Londoner now living out in the country - and as it’s now over a year since I travelled in to the City it reminds me of familiar places from my own past.
A couple of mentions above of ‘weighing’ the ships in the Medway. I assume this meaning is the same as ‘weighing the anchor’ ie lifting it and that these would have been the ships that are currently blocking the river.
James Morgan - Here in the U.K. the week between Palm Sunday and Easter is known as Holy Week hence Sam’s reference to ‘this holyday week’. This year, 2021, Palm Sunday was yesterday, so Holy Week started yesterday.
‘my Lord had fifty pieces of gold taken out of his pocket that night, after he was in bed’ Would this be wedding gifts slipped into my Lord’s pocket during the celebrations in the same way that modern Greek brides have notes pinned to their dress? Theft as suggested by Australian Susan seems unlikely.
SDS - today’s entry is dated 18 January, 2 days after the request for tickets. That suggests to me that the crew were being paid off, and maybe that is why Sam has decided the ship has to go too.
Above posted too quickly. I should also have said that ‘in our entry’ means somewhere close to the house or office, perhaps by a gate or path leading to it rather than actually inside. Mrs Bagwell was spotted but had gone before Sam could get to her.
SDS - Sed = but. Sam’s cryptic note re Mrs Bagwell translates more or less as ‘I wanted to try it on but she was gone’. Nothing happened at home or abroad as he couldn’t find her later on.
Sam had an office lunch and was crushed in a crowd of people at the Midnight Mass. This morning my husband and I will be masked in a socially distanced church with no more than 60 in the congregation then home to spend the day together instead of the house party with all of the family. What a difference. Still, Merry Christmas 2020 everyone! Keep safe.
Because Pepys designed a library of 3,000 books, with none added and none taken away (under pain of its transfer to Trinity), Luckett could not make suitable additions as he found them, even if they were books Pepys was known once to have read.
However, he intended parts of his own collection to form an annexe of suitable materials, including, for instance, his dozens of 17th-century musical scores and a contemporary manuscript of Purcell’s 1692 Ode to St Cecilia.
For years, Luckett helped the art dealer Neil Clayton to identify the subjects of portraits. One day Clayton invited him to look at a large canvas of a well-satisfied, profusely wigged gentleman leaning on his desk.
The view behind him of the Naval Yard at Harwich, where Pepys was MP, and a book from Pepys’s Library confirmed the resemblance. Luckett promptly acquired the picture for a fraction of its value and hung it in the Library. And so it remains – an addition, but not a book and so, he declared, not in breach of the rules.
Richard Luckett,who has died aged 75, was for 30 years Samuel Pepys’s Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
The diarist and eyewitness to the Great Fire of London is famous for chronicling the life of a young man all about town between 1660 and 1669. Less well-known is the Mr Pepys, MP, of later years, who served as Secretary to the Admiralty and President of the Royal Society, and who as a collector assembled 3,000 volumes of printed books and manuscripts, intended as a conspectus of human knowledge. Before he died in 1703, Pepys directed that his Library, including the six shorthand volumes of diary, go to Magdalene College, Cambridge. Arranged by height in his 12 glass-fronted bookcases, it was to live in a building to be renamed the Bibliotheca Pepysiana, and was to be a time-capsule. And so it remains. Luckett was the ideal Pepys Librarian (1982-2012). No one could better have matched Pepys’s interests in the Royal Navy (Drake’s personal almanac and an illustrated survey of his fleet are in the Library), music, street ballads, scientific history (Newton’s own copy of Principia Mathematica), architecture, mechanical trades, engravings … More than a curator, Luckett came to embody the Library. His passing claim to have “read it” – all – was disingenuous (surely not the bilingual dictionaries?), but he will never have a rival.
He oversaw the completion of the multi-volume published catalogue (1978-94) and contributed hundreds of pages to the Companion volume of the great Latham-Matthews edition of Pepys’s Diary (1970-83). His essay on music was later boiled down for Radio 4 under the improbable rubric “What would have been on Samuel Pepys’s iPod?”
Off topic for today’s entry but the Daily Telegraph of 17 December 2020 has the obituary of Richard Luckett, for 30 years Samuel Pepys’s Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge. It has some details of Samuel ‘s bequest.
Comments
Second Reading
About Wednesday 23 September 1668
JayW • Link
I think Stephane has done a great job on tomorrow’s post!
About Wednesday 23 September 1668
JayW • Link
SDS - you wanted ideas. Here are mine.
Blount is in prison in Bruges. He is willing to betray Granger and says he (Blount) is the only one who knows where to find him and the false names he uses.
There is only a civil action against Blount so the Bruges magistrates won’t deport him.
The author of the letter is willing to help arrange the deal so long as it’s kept secret.
Granger says he can corrupt all the postmasters. He is planning to invest £1,000 in a bill of exchange which he will use to make a counterfeit for £5,000 or £6,000 and has already sent an agent off to get it.
Granger will soon go somewhere away from London for the winter and that’s when he could be arrested most easily.
About Thursday 2 July 1668
JayW • Link
Yes please carry on with the correspondence Sarah. It does give an insight into the work of the Navy Office. Thanks!
About Tuesday 26 May 1668
JayW • Link
Hodsden and Tibalds. Both local to me, and the road would probably have been what is now the A1010 which runs through Hoddesdon, Cheshunt, Waltham Cross and on through North London to Bishopsgate. What little remains of Tibalds (Theobalds Palace) is in what is now Cedars Park, where I used to walk in my lunch hour occasionally when I was working. Theobalds Park is on the other side of the dual carriageway of the A10, cut off from the site of the old palace. Until a few years ago, the original Temple Bar was in Theobalds Park, but it has now been returned to the City and is close to St Paul’s Cathedral.
About Theobalds Palace (nr Cheshunt, Herts)
JayW • Link
The Palace of Theobalds was situated in what is now Cedars Park, which is now separated from Theobalds Park by the A10 dual carriageway. There are still a few ruined walls remaining at Cedars Park
About Daily diary emails update
JayW • Link
My thanks too Phil. Always enjoy my daily trip to the past, especially as a Londoner now living out in the country - and as it’s now over a year since I travelled in to the City it reminds me of familiar places from my own past.
About Monday 27 April 1668
JayW • Link
I agree with Dorothy. I also thought the ‘boy’ referred to was Mr John Parkhurst. A touch of ‘where did that time go?’
About Tuesday 14 April 1668
JayW • Link
Sam Ursu- the orange girl who became the mistress of Charles II was Nell Gwynn
About Friday 10 April 1668
JayW • Link
A couple of mentions above of ‘weighing’ the ships in the Medway. I assume this meaning is the same as ‘weighing the anchor’ ie lifting it and that these would have been the ships that are currently blocking the river.
About Saturday 28 March 1668
JayW • Link
James Morgan - Here in the U.K. the week between Palm Sunday and Easter is known as Holy Week hence Sam’s reference to ‘this holyday week’. This year, 2021, Palm Sunday was yesterday, so Holy Week started yesterday.
About Monday 6 January 1667/68
JayW • Link
SDS - I think you are correct about the quartet of players. Towards the end of the entry it says -
‘I paid the fiddlers 3l. among the four‘
About Wednesday 5 February 1667/68
JayW • Link
‘my Lord had fifty pieces of gold taken out of his pocket that night, after he was in bed’
Would this be wedding gifts slipped into my Lord’s pocket during the celebrations in the same way that modern Greek brides have notes pinned to their dress? Theft as suggested by Australian Susan seems unlikely.
About Sunday 19 January 1667/68
JayW • Link
Correction today’s entry is 19 January!
About Sunday 19 January 1667/68
JayW • Link
SDS - today’s entry is dated 18 January, 2 days after the request for tickets. That suggests to me that the crew were being paid off, and maybe that is why Sam has decided the ship has to go too.
About Monday 6 January 1667/68
JayW • Link
Above posted too quickly. I should also have said that ‘in our entry’ means somewhere close to the house or office, perhaps by a gate or path leading to it rather than actually inside. Mrs Bagwell was spotted but had gone before Sam could get to her.
About Monday 6 January 1667/68
JayW • Link
SDS - Sed = but. Sam’s cryptic note re Mrs Bagwell translates more or less as ‘I wanted to try it on but she was gone’. Nothing happened at home or abroad as he couldn’t find her later on.
About Tuesday 24 December 1667
JayW • Link
Sam had an office lunch and was crushed in a crowd of people at the Midnight Mass. This morning my husband and I will be masked in a socially distanced church with no more than 60 in the congregation then home to spend the day together instead of the house party with all of the family. What a difference. Still, Merry Christmas 2020 everyone! Keep safe.
About Monday 16 December 1667
JayW • Link
Extract from Daily Telegraph (2):
Because Pepys designed a library of 3,000 books, with none added and none taken away (under pain of its transfer to Trinity), Luckett could not make suitable additions as he found them, even if they were books Pepys was known once to have read.
However, he intended parts of his own collection to form an annexe of suitable materials, including, for instance, his dozens of 17th-century musical scores and a contemporary manuscript of Purcell’s 1692 Ode to St Cecilia.
For years, Luckett helped the art dealer Neil Clayton to identify the subjects of portraits. One day Clayton invited him to look at a large canvas of a well-satisfied, profusely wigged gentleman leaning on his desk.
The view behind him of the Naval Yard at Harwich, where Pepys was MP, and a book from Pepys’s Library confirmed the resemblance. Luckett promptly acquired the picture for a fraction of its value and hung it in the Library. And so it remains – an addition, but not a book and so, he declared, not in breach of the rules.
About Monday 16 December 1667
JayW • Link
Extract from Daily Telegraph (1):
Richard Luckett,who has died aged 75, was for 30 years Samuel Pepys’s Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
The diarist and eyewitness to the Great Fire of London is famous for chronicling the life of a young man all about town between 1660 and 1669. Less well-known is the Mr Pepys, MP, of later years, who served as Secretary to the Admiralty and President of the Royal Society, and who as a collector assembled 3,000 volumes of printed books and manuscripts, intended as a conspectus of human knowledge.
Before he died in 1703, Pepys directed that his Library, including the six shorthand volumes of diary, go to Magdalene College, Cambridge. Arranged by height in his 12 glass-fronted bookcases, it was to live in a building to be renamed the Bibliotheca Pepysiana, and was to be a time-capsule. And so it remains.
Luckett was the ideal Pepys Librarian (1982-2012). No one could better have matched Pepys’s interests in the Royal Navy (Drake’s personal almanac and an illustrated survey of his fleet are in the Library), music, street ballads, scientific history (Newton’s own copy of Principia Mathematica), architecture, mechanical trades, engravings … More than a curator, Luckett came to embody the Library.
His passing claim to have “read it” – all – was disingenuous (surely not the bilingual dictionaries?), but he will never have a rival.
He oversaw the completion of the multi-volume published catalogue (1978-94) and contributed hundreds of pages to the Companion volume of the great Latham-Matthews edition of Pepys’s Diary (1970-83). His essay on music was later boiled down for Radio 4 under the improbable rubric “What would have been on Samuel Pepys’s iPod?”
About Monday 16 December 1667
JayW • Link
Off topic for today’s entry but the Daily Telegraph of 17 December 2020 has the obituary of Richard Luckett, for 30 years Samuel Pepys’s Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge. It has some details of Samuel ‘s bequest.