Stephane, we know that Evelyn either wrote his Diaries from contemporary notes, or edited his entries in his old age. I've found quite a few times he has the wrong date on his entries. This slip from OS to NS is unique so far as I know, but he had many friends abroad so maybe he had just written a letter to someone in France, or something? We will never know. I think we have to allow for a little mental confusion.
One of the most important places in Pepys' London; on the main route between The City and Westminster; at the junction of The Strand, Haymarket and Whitehall, and taking its name from one of the stone crosses built at the staging places of the funeral procession of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I.
The cross itself -- along with the one at Cheapside -- was destroyed in 1647 by order of Parliament, but its site, marked by rails, was chosen as the execution place of Maj. Gen. John Harrison and other regicides in 1660.
The area which passed as Charing Cross was ill-defined. A house might be at the south end of St. Martin's Lane, or at the north end of what is now Whitehall and in common parlance it would be described (as Pepys does with Elizabeth's tailor, Mr. Unthank's) as being at Charing Cross. (R; La) -- L&M Companion
In February 1679, during the Popish Plot uproar, Judge Sir William Wilde sentenced 3 persons for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey JP on evidence provided by William Bedloe, but in March he caught Bedlow altering his sworn evidence from these trials, and he told him ‘he was a perjured man and ought to come no more into courts but to go home and repent’. His plain speaking cost him his place, but he was given a pension of £500 p.a. ‘in consideration of his good service’ on the bench.
Sir William Wilde, MP, 1st Bart. died on 23 Nov. 1679, aged 68, and was buried in the Temple Church.
Wilde married 3 times: (1) 6 July 1630, Hannah (d. Sept. 1630), da. of Matthew Terry, vintner, of London; (2) by 1652, Jane (d. 23 Aug. 1661), da. of Felix Wilson of Hanwell, Mdx., 1s.; (3) lic. 30 Oct. 1662, Frances, da. of Thomas Barcroft of London, 1s. d.v.p. 3da.
William Wilde (1611 - 1679) was the son of a London merchant, who became a professional lawyer, and was elected recorder shortly after the military coup d’état in 1659. On 3 Dec. he was commissioned to see Gen. Charles Fleetwood ‘to prevent any misunderstanding between the army and the City’.
He was one of the London Presbyterians believed to favor a Restoration, and in Feb. 1660 it was suggested that Charles II should write to him.
At the general election of 1660, he was returned unopposed for London, and was granted an allowance for diet and boat-hire by the corporation. He was included in Lord Wharton’s list of friends to be managed by Sir Thomas Widdrington; he was sufficiently acceptable to Anglicans to be sent to ask Dr, Gauden to preach before the Convention Parliament.
A moderately active Member, he was appointed to 17 committees, including one considering the answer to the declaration of Breda, and made 8 recorded speeches. He brought in the ordinance for the 3 months’ assessment on 7 May, and took the chair in the committee.
William Wilde was knighted May 16, 1660, on presenting the loyal address from the City, which he had helped to draft. On his return he was put on the committees to consider Queen Mother Henrietta Maria’s jointure, and the petition from the City against the naturalization bill.
On 9 Aug. when it was proposed to send a committee of Members into the City to seek a loan of £100,000, he ‘said he thought the City would not lend it until the bill of indemnity was passed’. As one of those Members, he made ‘a long speech’ opposing the loan because of the delay in passing the bill of indemnity, the uncertainty of those who had purchased lands during the Interregnum, the innovations in church government, and the sudden decay of trade. On 17 Aug. on a report of a conference between the two Houses on the Lords’ amendments to the bill of indemnity, he declared he could not agree with the Lords ‘to except all the King’s judges for life’. On 22 Aug. he moved successfully that Sir Arthur Hesilrige might be spared, as Gen. Monck had undertaken.
On the adjournment he was given a baronetcy, and in the second session he was appointed to the committees to bring in a bill for modified episcopacy, and to insert the excise clause in the bill for the abolition of feudal tenures.
Wilde was nominated for London by the court party in 1661, but there was answer made, ‘We have been too wild already’, because he had failed to oppose the excise, and he did not go to the poll. It was reported Sir George Booth would recommend him at Chester, but he is not known to have stood.
Sir Richard Pepys MP (1588?–1659), barrister and chief justice of Ireland, was born in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, second son of John Pepys, of the Middle Temple, and Elizabeth Bendish Pepys. He was an uncle of Samuel Pepys.
He entered the Middle Temple in Nov. 1609 and was called to the bar in Feb. 1617. In 1640 he was elected a bencher and reader at the Middle Temple and became an influential member in the society's council meetings.
He was elected MP for Sudbury, Suffolk (1640), and sat in the Short Parliament.
In 1648 he was elected treasurer of the Middle Temple.
He was a supporter of Oliver Cromwell and held high office during the interregnum, despite often protesting about arbitrariness court decisions.
In 1654 he was appointed serjeant-at-law and baron of the exchequer of England, and also served as an assize judge in the midland counties .
In Aug. 1654 he was appointed to the council of the lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood, in Ireland. He was also appointed chief justice of the upper bench and later served as keeper of the great seal of Ireland (1655–6).
His selection as chief justice of Ireland was surprising. He was in his 60's and faced a massive workload because he was the only judge of the upper bench most of the time, and also had to attend council meetings.
During his brief time as an English judge, he often protested to Cromwell about the erosion of court powers and the expansion of military power.
He was quite conservative in his religious opinions and opposed Fleetwood's plans to grant baptists greater freedoms. After Fleetwood's recall in 1655, he supported the more cautious policies of Henry Cromwell and was sympathetic to the Old Protestant faction. Throughout this period he clashed with the more radical council members, especially Miles Corbet whom he described as being ‘provoking and extreme and unjust’ (Barnard, 286).
He died in Dublin 2 Jan., 1659 and was buried in Christ Church cathedral. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Edward Worth, later bishop of Killaloe. This was published as "The servant doing and the Lord blessing" (1659).
He married 1st Judith, daughter of Sir William Cutte; 2nd Mary (d. 1660), daughter of Capt. Gosnold. During these 2 marriages he had 4 sons and 2 daughters.
Some of his letters are in the Carte manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
PUBLISHING INFORMATION DOI: https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.00727… Originally published October 2009 as part of the Dictionary of Irish Biography -- Last revised October 2009
"... we were sworn justices of peace for Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Southampton ..."
Why Middlesex? The office is in the City of London. Essex includes Harwich which became an important Naval base during the first Anglo-Dutch war -- Kent is full of important ports like Dover and the Cinque Ports -- Southampton was/is one of the largest naval port in England.
Maybe Whitehall and Westminster were in Middlesex at the time?
Stephane -- Pepys tells us they went by barge to Margate, which would probably have been a difficult river/sea voyage. They used shallow barges on the River Thames when they needed access to the banks and inlets. (Think of the beautiful barges we saw at the Queen's Jubilee with rowers and a capony covered seating area at the back, which is over a cabin in case of "inclement weather".)
The Kentish Knock is one of several impressive sandbanks lying relatively far offshore between Kent and Essex, out from the mouth of the River Thames.
The predominantly sand and gravel seabed contains a diversity of animals living within the sediment, while hermit crabs scuttle across the surface among small sand goby fish and foraging rays and catsharks.
There are deeply gouged channels in the coarse sediment, ancient remnants of when the glacial floodwaters broke through from the North Sea.
The battle of Kentish Knock in 1652 was a naval encounter on 28 September during the first Anglo-Dutch War between Robert Blake and a Dutch fleet under de Ruyter and de With. The Dutch suffered considerable losses and were forced to retire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat…
You can draw a line between North Foreland, Margate, Kent via the Kentish Knock lighthouse to Harwich in Essex. Here begin sandbanks of the bight of this shallow sea, in which the Dutch should have avoided at all costs. They defend the mouth of the Thames.
Provision of buoys and beacons for the purpose of navigation came relatively late to England (compared to the Netherlands, for example). Instead, coastal navigators and pilots relied on the use of transits (the alignment of prominent structures or natural features on land) for guidance. In 1566 Trinity House of Deptford (which oversaw pilotage on the Thames) was empowered to 'make, erect and set up [...] beacons, marks and signs for the sea' (albeit at its own expense). Not long afterwards, the decay of the steeple of Margate Church (an important landmark for negotiating 'the Narrows', a complex route between sandbanks used by vessels sailing to or from London along the North Kent coast) led to Trinity House marking the Narrows with buoys in the late 16th century.
In his coastal survey of 1682-93, Greenvile Collins records five buoys around the Narrows, just north of Reculver, on the southern approach to the Thames. The Swin (the northern approach) was marked with buoys at the easternmost points of the Gunfleet, Middle and Buxey sands, and by beacons on the Whitaker, Shoe and Blacktail spits. A buoy marked the easternmost point of the Nore sandbank at this time, and 3 more buoys marked sandbanks in the middle part of the estuary (Spaniard, Red Sand and the Oaze).
The Nore Lightship, the world's first lightvessel, was established in the Estuary as a private venture in 1732 to mark the 'best position for entering the Thames and Medway, and to clear the Nore Sand'. ...
Prior to 1684 beacons were set up on the mudflats north of the Swin channel, to help vessels approaching the Thames from the north to navigate the sands. ...
On 14 March, 1660 John Rowe DD was appointed one of the approvers of ministers.
But the Restoration deprived Rowe of his offices.
John Rowe DD migrated with his church to Bartholomew Close, and later to Holborn (probably Baker's Court), where Theophilus Gale was his assistant.
John Rowe DD died on 12 Oct. 1677, and was buried in Bunhill Fields.
In person Rowe was tall and dignified, with a pleasing manner. He left two sons — Thomas and Benoni. His sister became the mother of Henry Grove.
John Rowe DD published, besides a sermon before parliament (1656) and his father's life (see above): 1. ‘Tragi-Comœdia … a Brief Relation of the … Hand of God … at Witney … with … three Sermons,’ &c., Oxford, 1653, 4to. 2. ‘Heavenly-mindedness and Earthly-mindedness,’ &c., 1672, 16mo, 2 parts. 3. ‘The Saints' Temptation … also the Saints' Great Fence,’ &c., 1675, 8vo. 4. ‘Emmanuel, or the Love of Christ,’ &c., 1680, 8vo, thirty sermons, edited by Samuel Lee [q. v.] – published posthumous John Rowe DD edited works by William Strong (1656 and 1657, 12mo) and by E. Pearse (1674 and 1683, 8vo).
ROWE, JOHN (1626–1677), nonconformist divine, son of John Rowe Sr. (1588–1660), and grandson of Lawrence Rowe, was born at Crediton, Devonshire, in 1626.
John Rowe Jr.’s religious biography of his father, published in 1673, is included in Clarke's ‘Lives,’ 1683.
On 1 April, 1642, Rowe entered as a batler at New Inn Hall, Oxford. AGED 16
In 1643, Oxford being garrisoned for King Charles, and New Inn Hall used as a mint, Rowe removed to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1646.
On 8 Dec. 1648 John Rowe was incorporated B.A. at Oxford; on 12 Dec. 1648 he was admitted M.A., and on 11 Oct. 1649 he was made fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, by the parliamentary visitors. AGED 23
John Rowe was a good patristic scholar, well read in philosophy and jurisprudence, and versed in the schoolmen. From his youth to the last he made a practice of keeping a diary in Greek.
John Rowe DD’s first preferment was a lectureship at Witney, Oxfordshire; this had once been a Puritan place, but Rowe's congregation was thin.
On 3 Feb. 1653 the ‘most pleasant comedy of Mucedorus’ was acted in a room of the inn at Witney, before 300 or 400 spectators, by a company of amateurs from Stanton-Harcourt. After the second act the floor broke down, and 5 persons were killed. Rowe made this catastrophe the topic of a series of sermons.
John Rowe DD soon became lecturer at Tiverton, Devonshire, vacating his fellowship, and was made assistant-commissioner to the ‘expurgators’ (August 1654) for Devonshire, but can hardly have acted as such, ...
... for in the same year John Rowe DD succeeded William Strong (d. June 1654) as preacher at Westminster Abbey and pastor of an independent church which met in the abbey. Among its members was John Bradshaw (1602–1659), the regicide, whose funeral sermon was preached by Rowe.
"... the King having news of the Princess being come to Margate, he and the Duke of York went down thither in barges to her."
I blew up American Google asking how far is was from Whitehall Steps to Margate, Kent by boat. The best it could do is the Tower of London to Margate by car via the M-2 -- 77.5 miles.
But I'd say this was at least a 8 hour row/sail, and considerably more if it was against the tide and/or wind. And it has been windy recently. [English bargemen were not mistreated the way French ones were. No doubt Louis XIV would have been there first if it was a race.]
"For me, it is interesting to see, here in the very heart of the Church of England, and with the Restoration in full swing, a puritan-type clerk still getting away with puritan-type extemporary (and heavily scripture-based, as one poster has pointed out) prayer instead of the set petitions (also Scriptural but perhaps less comical) of the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER."
John Rowe, Westminster Abbey's second minister after 1654 and Richard Baxter, leader of the moderate Puritans and a guest preacher of great renown, must have been informed of the name(s) of their replacement(s), and were moving along. Parliament is getting ready to do that across the nation.
No one was really happy with the old Book of Common Prayer, so Rowe not using it isn't really surprising. But I'm sure it will be used next Sunday by the incoming regime.
[On a practical note, since the Book of Common Prayer had been banned in 1642, there was probably a shortage of them. Many had probably been destroyed.]
Richard Baxter was all about ecumenism. He would have fit in perfectly in the 1960's. 'When preaching before Parliament on April 30, 1660, Richard Baxter had asserted that “it was easy for moderate men to come to a fair agreement, that the late Reverend Primate of Ireland (Usher) and myself had agreed in a half an hour,” and that “he and many with him made no exception to the doctrines of the Prayer Book.” 'Since in England, episcopacy could be had without error or superstition, Baxter had no sympathy with the extreme Presbyterian who clamored for its “utter extirpation”.
'It was shortly after this that Richard Baxter was offered a bishopric, which he refused, not because he objected to the office, but because he felt that by so doing he would be in a more disinterested position in his efforts to persuade other members of his party to submit to episcopal government. He was appointed a Royal Chaplain and preached before Charles II.'
Compare Pepys' practical concern for his safety and the safety of the people near him in the Abbey, compared to Rev. Ralph's reaction to his wood pile falling down. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
No mention of this being a sign from God, in need of interpretation. So clearly Pepys mentally wasn't a Presbyterian now.
Bear in mind, MartinVY, that the Navy is a vast landowner, with Britain's first military-industrial complex located thereon, and was Britain's largest employer at the time. This gave the Commissioners legal powers -- which were exactly I don't know what, but Pepys will find it useful in the future (specifically when he's tracking down John Scott during the Popish Plot). Also, I believe it gave them some immunity from prosecution for doing their jobs.
In another place I found this: "When a ratepayer thought he was paying too much, he went to the local Justice of the Peace. When two parishes clashed over their boundaries, which particular cottage was the responsibility of which parish, or over the relief of a specific migrant pauper, they went to the local JPs. When one parish felt it was too poor to look after its own needy, and wanted support from neighboring parishes, the issue was thrashed out in front of local JPs."
The Google librarian says: "As early as the 1600's, Justices of the Peace were commissioned to handle minor civil and criminal cases. Along with a host of other duties, the administering of local government in the 17th and 18th Centuries on behalf of the English Crown was a primary duty of the Justices of the Peace."
I've been thinking about Plan B's and my exchange about 17th century thinking, and I hope I didn't offend people by calling miracles "magical thinking".
As St. Augustine taught in I believe the 3rd century: "Miracles strictly so called are those which occur beyond the order of all created nature. However, since we do not know all the forces of created nature, when something happens beyond the order of created nature known to us, through created forces unknown to us, the occurrence is a miracle for us. Consequently when the demons do something by their natural power, these are called miracles not in the strict sense, but miracles relative to us."
By the 17th century all sorts of things we take for granted were complete mysteries to everyone. Take birds -- we accept as small children that birds can migrate thousands of miles every year, returning to the same pond at roughly the same time annually. Pepys and Co. had no idea birds migrated. A Swedish bishop wrote a paper stating as a fact that they hibernated. https://www.reformer.com/local-ne…
This lack of information about everyday things is about to be tackled by the Royal Society. It was an exciting time to live with new information changing people's assumptions. I think St. Augustine would have welcomed the new information. He was open to not uderstanding everything he called nature.
Saturday 15 September 1660 Called at my father’s going home, and bespoke mourning for myself, for the death of the Duke of Gloucester. [I take this to be a new suit.]
Monday 17 September 1660 I did give my wife 15/. this morning to go to buy mourning things for her and me, which she did. ... So to bed after I had looked over the things my wife had bought to-day, with which being not very well pleased, they costing too much...
Tuesday 18 September 1660 So on foot home, by the way buying a hat band and other things for my mourning to-morrow.
Saturday 22 September 1660 I bought a pair of short black stockings, to wear over a pair of silk ones for mourning;
Plus we have this miscellaneous item:
Sunday 23 September 1660 This morning came one from my father’s with a black cloth coat, made of my short cloak, to walk up and down in. [So not for mourning, apparently. Just keeping warm in a black coat as Pepys cools his heels, waiting for one of the Stuart brothers, at Whitehall.]
@@@
I found the Princely color for mourning -- from a Wheatley annotation: “The Queen-mother of France,” says Ward, in his Diary, p. 177, “died at Agrippina, 1642, and her son Louis, 1643, for whom King Charles mourned in Oxford in purple, which is Prince’s mourning.” ↩ https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Comments
Third Reading
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Stephane, we know that Evelyn either wrote his Diaries from contemporary notes, or edited his entries in his old age. I've found quite a few times he has the wrong date on his entries. This slip from OS to NS is unique so far as I know, but he had many friends abroad so maybe he had just written a letter to someone in France, or something? We will never know.
I think we have to allow for a little mental confusion.
About Charing Cross
San Diego Sarah • Link
One of the most important places in Pepys' London; on the main route between The City and Westminster; at the junction of The Strand, Haymarket and Whitehall, and taking its name from one of the stone crosses built at the staging places of the funeral procession of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I.
The cross itself -- along with the one at Cheapside -- was destroyed in 1647 by order of Parliament, but its site, marked by rails, was chosen as the execution place of Maj. Gen. John Harrison and other regicides in 1660.
The area which passed as Charing Cross was ill-defined. A house might be at the south end of St. Martin's Lane, or at the north end of what is now Whitehall and in common parlance it would be described (as Pepys does with Elizabeth's tailor, Mr. Unthank's) as being at Charing Cross. (R; La)
-- L&M Companion
About Sir William Wilde
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
In 1668 Sir William Wilde MP became a judge.
In February 1679, during the Popish Plot uproar, Judge Sir William Wilde sentenced 3 persons for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey JP on evidence provided by William Bedloe,
but in March he caught Bedlow altering his sworn evidence from these trials, and he told him ‘he was a perjured man and ought to come no more into courts but to go home and repent’.
His plain speaking cost him his place, but he was given a pension of £500 p.a. ‘in consideration of his good service’ on the bench.
Sir William Wilde, MP, 1st Bart. died on 23 Nov. 1679, aged 68, and was buried in the Temple Church.
Wilde married 3 times:
(1) 6 July 1630, Hannah (d. Sept. 1630), da. of Matthew Terry, vintner, of London;
(2) by 1652, Jane (d. 23 Aug. 1661), da. of Felix Wilson of Hanwell, Mdx., 1s.;
(3) lic. 30 Oct. 1662, Frances, da. of Thomas Barcroft of London, 1s. d.v.p. 3da.
From his Parliamentary biography:
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Sir William Wilde
San Diego Sarah • Link
William Wilde (1611 - 1679) was the son of a London merchant, who became a professional lawyer, and was elected recorder shortly after the military coup d’état in 1659.
On 3 Dec. he was commissioned to see Gen. Charles Fleetwood ‘to prevent any misunderstanding between the army and the City’.
He was one of the London Presbyterians believed to favor a Restoration, and in Feb. 1660 it was suggested that Charles II should write to him.
At the general election of 1660, he was returned unopposed for London, and was granted an allowance for diet and boat-hire by the corporation.
He was included in Lord Wharton’s list of friends to be managed by Sir Thomas Widdrington; he was sufficiently acceptable to Anglicans to be sent to ask Dr, Gauden to preach before the Convention Parliament.
A moderately active Member, he was appointed to 17 committees, including one considering the answer to the declaration of Breda, and made 8 recorded speeches.
He brought in the ordinance for the 3 months’ assessment on 7 May, and took the chair in the committee.
William Wilde was knighted May 16, 1660, on presenting the loyal address from the City, which he had helped to draft.
On his return he was put on the committees to consider Queen Mother Henrietta Maria’s jointure, and the petition from the City against the naturalization bill.
On 9 Aug. when it was proposed to send a committee of Members into the City to seek a loan of £100,000, he ‘said he thought the City would not lend it until the bill of indemnity was passed’.
As one of those Members, he made ‘a long speech’ opposing the loan because of the delay in passing the bill of indemnity, the uncertainty of those who had purchased lands during the Interregnum, the innovations in church government, and the sudden decay of trade.
On 17 Aug. on a report of a conference between the two Houses on the Lords’ amendments to the bill of indemnity, he declared he could not agree with the Lords ‘to except all the King’s judges for life’.
On 22 Aug. he moved successfully that Sir Arthur Hesilrige might be spared, as Gen. Monck had undertaken.
On the adjournment he was given a baronetcy, and in the second session he was appointed to the committees to bring in a bill for modified episcopacy, and to insert the excise clause in the bill for the abolition of feudal tenures.
Wilde was nominated for London by the court party in 1661, but there was answer made, ‘We have been too wild already’, because he had failed to oppose the excise, and he did not go to the poll.
It was reported Sir George Booth would recommend him at Chester, but he is not known to have stood.
About Richard Pepys (cousin)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sir Richard Pepys MP (1588?–1659), barrister and chief justice of Ireland, was born in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, second son of John Pepys, of the Middle Temple, and Elizabeth Bendish Pepys.
He was an uncle of Samuel Pepys.
He entered the Middle Temple in Nov. 1609 and was called to the bar in Feb. 1617.
In 1640 he was elected a bencher and reader at the Middle Temple and became an influential member in the society's council meetings.
He was elected MP for Sudbury, Suffolk (1640), and sat in the Short Parliament.
In 1648 he was elected treasurer of the Middle Temple.
He was a supporter of Oliver Cromwell and held high office during the interregnum, despite often protesting about arbitrariness court decisions.
In 1654 he was appointed serjeant-at-law and baron of the exchequer of England, and also served as an assize judge in the midland counties .
In Aug. 1654 he was appointed to the council of the lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood, in Ireland.
He was also appointed chief justice of the upper bench and later served as keeper of the great seal of Ireland (1655–6).
His selection as chief justice of Ireland was surprising. He was in his 60's and faced a massive workload because he was the only judge of the upper bench most of the time, and also had to attend council meetings.
During his brief time as an English judge, he often protested to Cromwell about the erosion of court powers and the expansion of military power.
He was quite conservative in his religious opinions and opposed Fleetwood's plans to grant baptists greater freedoms.
After Fleetwood's recall in 1655, he supported the more cautious policies of Henry Cromwell and was sympathetic to the Old Protestant faction.
Throughout this period he clashed with the more radical council members, especially Miles Corbet whom he described as being ‘provoking and extreme and unjust’ (Barnard, 286).
He died in Dublin 2 Jan., 1659 and was buried in Christ Church cathedral.
His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Edward Worth, later bishop of Killaloe. This was published as "The servant doing and the Lord blessing" (1659).
He married 1st Judith, daughter of Sir William Cutte;
2nd Mary (d. 1660), daughter of Capt. Gosnold.
During these 2 marriages he had 4 sons and 2 daughters.
Some of his letters are in the Carte manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
PUBLISHING INFORMATION
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.00727…
Originally published October 2009 as part of the Dictionary of Irish Biography -- Last revised October 2009
About Monday 24 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... we were sworn justices of peace for Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Southampton ..."
Why Middlesex?
The office is in the City of London.
Essex includes Harwich which became an important Naval base during the first Anglo-Dutch war -- Kent is full of important ports like Dover and the Cinque Ports -- Southampton was/is one of the largest naval port in England.
Maybe Whitehall and Westminster were in Middlesex at the time?
About Wednesday 26 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Good points, Martin VT -- or they might have ended up in the kitchen with Jane, sampling Pepys' lunch and sharing a beer and a smoke.
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Stephane -- Pepys tells us they went by barge to Margate, which would probably have been a difficult river/sea voyage. They used shallow barges on the River Thames when they needed access to the banks and inlets.
(Think of the beautiful barges we saw at the Queen's Jubilee with rowers and a capony covered seating area at the back, which is over a cabin in case of "inclement weather".)
We have a page for the Kentish Knock.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Kentish Knock
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Kentish Knock is one of several impressive sandbanks lying relatively far offshore between Kent and Essex, out from the mouth of the River
Thames.
The predominantly sand and gravel seabed contains a diversity of animals living within the sediment, while hermit crabs scuttle across the surface among small sand goby fish and foraging rays and catsharks.
There are deeply gouged channels in the coarse sediment, ancient remnants of when the glacial floodwaters broke through from the North Sea.
More -- with a map -- at https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/si…
The battle of Kentish Knock in 1652 was a naval encounter on 28 September during the first Anglo-Dutch War between Robert Blake and a Dutch fleet under de Ruyter and de With. The Dutch suffered considerable losses and were forced to retire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat…
You can draw a line between North Foreland, Margate, Kent via the Kentish Knock lighthouse to Harwich in Essex. Here begin sandbanks of the bight of this shallow sea, in which the Dutch should have avoided at all costs. They defend the mouth of the Thames.
Provision of buoys and beacons for the purpose of navigation came relatively late to England (compared to the Netherlands, for example). Instead, coastal navigators and pilots relied on the use of transits (the alignment of prominent structures or natural features on land) for guidance. In 1566 Trinity House of Deptford (which oversaw pilotage on the Thames) was empowered to 'make, erect and set up [...] beacons, marks and signs for the sea' (albeit at its own expense).
Not long afterwards, the decay of the steeple of Margate Church (an important landmark for negotiating 'the Narrows', a complex route between sandbanks used by vessels sailing to or from London along the North Kent coast) led to Trinity House marking the Narrows with buoys in the late 16th century.
In his coastal survey of 1682-93, Greenvile Collins records five buoys around the Narrows, just north of Reculver, on the southern approach to the Thames.
The Swin (the northern approach) was marked with buoys at the easternmost points of the Gunfleet, Middle and Buxey sands, and by beacons on the Whitaker, Shoe and Blacktail spits.
A buoy marked the easternmost point of the Nore sandbank at this time, and 3 more buoys marked sandbanks in the middle part of the estuary (Spaniard, Red Sand and the Oaze).
The Nore Lightship, the world's first lightvessel, was established in the Estuary as a private venture in 1732 to mark the 'best position for entering the Thames and Medway, and to clear the Nore Sand'. ...
Prior to 1684 beacons were set up on the mudflats north of the Swin channel, to help vessels approaching the Thames from the north to navigate the sands. ...
Lots more about Trinity House's efforts to keep ships safe at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tha…
About John Rowe
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
On 14 March, 1660 John Rowe DD was appointed one of the approvers of ministers.
But the Restoration deprived Rowe of his offices.
John Rowe DD migrated with his church to Bartholomew Close, and later to Holborn (probably Baker's Court), where Theophilus Gale was his assistant.
John Rowe DD died on 12 Oct. 1677, and was buried in Bunhill Fields.
In person Rowe was tall and dignified, with a pleasing manner.
He left two sons — Thomas and Benoni.
His sister became the mother of Henry Grove.
John Rowe DD published, besides a sermon before parliament (1656) and his father's life (see above):
1. ‘Tragi-Comœdia … a Brief Relation of the … Hand of God … at Witney … with … three Sermons,’ &c., Oxford, 1653, 4to.
2. ‘Heavenly-mindedness and Earthly-mindedness,’ &c., 1672, 16mo, 2 parts.
3. ‘The Saints' Temptation … also the Saints' Great Fence,’ &c., 1675, 8vo.
4. ‘Emmanuel, or the Love of Christ,’ &c., 1680, 8vo, thirty sermons, edited by Samuel Lee [q. v.] – published posthumous
John Rowe DD edited works by William Strong (1656 and 1657, 12mo) and by E. Pearse (1674 and 1683, 8vo).
It's a Wiki article, but taken from the 1900 ODNB, so it should be fairly reliable.
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/…
About John Rowe
San Diego Sarah • Link
ROWE, JOHN (1626–1677), nonconformist divine, son of John Rowe Sr. (1588–1660), and grandson of Lawrence Rowe, was born at Crediton, Devonshire, in 1626.
John Rowe Jr.’s religious biography of his father, published in 1673, is included in Clarke's ‘Lives,’ 1683.
On 1 April, 1642, Rowe entered as a batler at New Inn Hall, Oxford. AGED 16
In 1643, Oxford being garrisoned for King Charles, and New Inn Hall used as a mint, Rowe removed to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1646.
On 8 Dec. 1648 John Rowe was incorporated B.A. at Oxford;
on 12 Dec. 1648 he was admitted M.A.,
and on 11 Oct. 1649 he was made fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, by the parliamentary visitors. AGED 23
John Rowe was a good patristic scholar, well read in philosophy and jurisprudence, and versed in the schoolmen. From his youth to the last he made a practice of keeping a diary in Greek.
John Rowe DD’s first preferment was a lectureship at Witney, Oxfordshire; this had once been a Puritan place, but Rowe's congregation was thin.
On 3 Feb. 1653 the ‘most pleasant comedy of Mucedorus’ was acted in a room of the inn at Witney, before 300 or 400 spectators, by a company of amateurs from Stanton-Harcourt. After the second act the floor broke down, and 5 persons were killed.
Rowe made this catastrophe the topic of a series of sermons.
John Rowe DD soon became lecturer at Tiverton, Devonshire, vacating his fellowship, and was made assistant-commissioner to the ‘expurgators’ (August 1654) for Devonshire, but can hardly have acted as such, ...
... for in the same year John Rowe DD succeeded William Strong (d. June 1654) as preacher at Westminster Abbey and pastor of an independent church which met in the abbey.
Among its members was John Bradshaw (1602–1659), the regicide, whose funeral sermon was preached by Rowe.
About Richard Baxter
San Diego Sarah • Link
Richard Baxter -- by C Sydney Carter
Published by Church Book Room Press
https://reformationanglicanism.bl…
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Now the SPOILER link doesn't work, but I found the article posted elsewhere:
Richard Baxter -- by C Sydney Carter
Published by Church Book Room Press
https://reformationanglicanism.bl…
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... the King having news of the Princess being come to Margate, he and the Duke of York went down thither in barges to her."
I blew up American Google asking how far is was from Whitehall Steps to Margate, Kent by boat. The best it could do is the Tower of London to Margate by car via the M-2 -- 77.5 miles.
But I'd say this was at least a 8 hour row/sail, and considerably more if it was against the tide and/or wind. And it has been windy recently.
[English bargemen were not mistreated the way French ones were. No doubt Louis XIV would have been there first if it was a race.]
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
not "soilers" ... SPOILERS!
Funny how you see what you want to see, until it's in print -- and there it is.
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"For me, it is interesting to see, here in the very heart of the Church of England, and with the Restoration in full swing, a puritan-type clerk still getting away with puritan-type extemporary (and heavily scripture-based, as one poster has pointed out) prayer instead of the set petitions (also Scriptural but perhaps less comical) of the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER."
John Rowe, Westminster Abbey's second minister after 1654 and Richard Baxter, leader of the moderate Puritans and a guest preacher of great renown, must have been informed of the name(s) of their replacement(s), and were moving along.
Parliament is getting ready to do that across the nation.
No one was really happy with the old Book of Common Prayer, so Rowe not using it isn't really surprising. But I'm sure it will be used next Sunday by the incoming regime.
[On a practical note, since the Book of Common Prayer had been banned in 1642, there was probably a shortage of them. Many had probably been destroyed.]
Richard Baxter was all about ecumenism. He would have fit in perfectly in the 1960's.
'When preaching before Parliament on April 30, 1660, Richard Baxter had asserted that “it was easy for moderate men to come to a fair agreement, that the late Reverend Primate of Ireland (Usher) and myself had agreed in a half an hour,” and that “he and many with him made no exception to the doctrines of the Prayer Book.”
'Since in England, episcopacy could be had without error or superstition, Baxter had no sympathy with the extreme Presbyterian who clamored for its “utter extirpation”.
'It was shortly after this that Richard Baxter was offered a bishopric, which he refused, not because he objected to the office, but because he felt that by so doing he would be in a more disinterested position in his efforts to persuade other members of his party to submit to episcopal government. He was appointed a Royal Chaplain and preached before Charles II.'
So Baxter was far from an extremist or radical.
IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SOILERS, DON'T CHECK THESE QUOTES!
http://www.churchsociety.org/issu…
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Compare Pepys' practical concern for his safety and the safety of the people near him in the Abbey, compared to Rev. Ralph's reaction to his wood pile falling down.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
No mention of this being a sign from God, in need of interpretation. So clearly Pepys mentally wasn't a Presbyterian now.
About Monday 24 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Bear in mind, MartinVY, that the Navy is a vast landowner, with Britain's first military-industrial complex located thereon, and was Britain's largest employer at the time.
This gave the Commissioners legal powers -- which were exactly I don't know what, but Pepys will find it useful in the future (specifically when he's tracking down John Scott during the Popish Plot). Also, I believe it gave them some immunity from prosecution for doing their jobs.
In another place I found this:
"When a ratepayer thought he was paying too much, he went to the local Justice of the Peace.
When two parishes clashed over their boundaries, which particular cottage was the responsibility of which parish, or over the relief of a specific migrant pauper, they went to the local JPs.
When one parish felt it was too poor to look after its own needy, and wanted support from neighboring parishes, the issue was thrashed out in front of local JPs."
FROM How to Survive Being Poor -- Paupers and Petitioners in 17th Century England
By Jonathan Healey
https://www.academia.edu/8910564/…
The Google librarian says:
"As early as the 1600's, Justices of the Peace were commissioned to handle minor civil and criminal cases. Along with a host of other duties, the administering of local government in the 17th and 18th Centuries on behalf of the English Crown was a primary duty of the Justices of the Peace."
About Sunday 16 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I've been thinking about Plan B's and my exchange about 17th century thinking, and I hope I didn't offend people by calling miracles "magical thinking".
As St. Augustine taught in I believe the 3rd century:
"Miracles strictly so called are those which occur beyond the order of all created nature. However, since we do not know all the forces of created nature, when something happens beyond the order of created nature known to us, through created forces unknown to us, the occurrence is a miracle for us. Consequently when the demons do something by their natural power, these are called miracles not in the strict sense, but miracles relative to us."
By the 17th century all sorts of things we take for granted were complete mysteries to everyone.
Take birds -- we accept as small children that birds can migrate thousands of miles every year, returning to the same pond at roughly the same time annually.
Pepys and Co. had no idea birds migrated. A Swedish bishop wrote a paper stating as a fact that they hibernated.
https://www.reformer.com/local-ne…
This lack of information about everyday things is about to be tackled by the Royal Society. It was an exciting time to live with new information changing people's assumptions.
I think St. Augustine would have welcomed the new information. He was open to not uderstanding everything he called nature.
About Wednesday 19 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Saturday 15 September 1660
Called at my father’s going home, and bespoke mourning for myself, for the death of the Duke of Gloucester. [I take this to be a new suit.]
Monday 17 September 1660
I did give my wife 15/. this morning to go to buy mourning things for her and me, which she did. ... So to bed after I had looked over the things my wife had bought to-day, with which being not very well pleased, they costing too much...
Tuesday 18 September 1660
So on foot home, by the way buying a hat band and other things for my mourning to-morrow.
Saturday 22 September 1660
I bought a pair of short black stockings, to wear over a pair of silk ones for mourning;
Plus we have this miscellaneous item:
Sunday 23 September 1660
This morning came one from my father’s with a black cloth coat, made of my short cloak, to walk up and down in. [So not for mourning, apparently. Just keeping warm in a black coat as Pepys cools his heels, waiting for one of the Stuart brothers, at Whitehall.]
@@@
I found the Princely color for mourning -- from a Wheatley annotation:
“The Queen-mother of France,” says Ward, in his Diary, p. 177, “died at Agrippina, 1642, and her son Louis, 1643, for whom King Charles mourned in Oxford in purple, which is Prince’s mourning.” ↩
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…