Claude Lamoral, 3rd Prince of Ligne. Born 8 October 1618 in Beloil, Belgium. Died 21 December 1679 in Madrid -- Statesman, Diplomat, Military leader, Governor of the Duchy of Milan, Viceroy of Sicily, Prince of Ligne, Prince of Epinoy, Marquis of Roubaix, Count of Fauquemberg, and Captain General of the Spanish Cavalry in the Spanish Netherlands.
James, Duke of York in 1655 had fought against the Prince of Ligne during the Battle of the Dunes, although York's memoirs report a conversation with him, so I presume they met and broke bread together some time later. For more about this, see The Memoirs of JAMES II His CAMPAIGNS AS DUKE OF YORK - 1652 - 1660 Translated by A. LYTTON SELLS from the Bouillon Manuscript http://archive.org/stream/memoirs…
I think the Prince was a curious choice for Ambassador. A message from Philip IV, King of Spain perhaps?
CORRECTION: "Vincent has added John Evelyn's more informative notes about attending the parade for the new Spanish Ambassador, Claude Lamoral, Prince de Ligne. "He was sent as the representative of the Spanish King to the Court of St. James's."
✹ Emilio on 19 Feb 2004 : This is the ambassador for the Spanish Netherlands in 1660. per Wheatley (Braybrooke): "Charles Lamoral, Prince de Ligne, had commanded the cavalry in the Low Countries, was afterwards Viceroy of Sicily and Governor of Milan. He died at Madrid in 1679. He had married, by dispensation, his cousin Maria Clara of Nassau, widow of his brother Albert Henry, who had died without issue."
The Spanish occupied half of the Netherlands in 1660, and the back-and-forth with the Dutch Republic and the French trying to kick out the Spanish will continue for years. So the Prince de Ligne was probably sent with the approval of the Spanish King. But to be crystal clear, he does NOT represent Spain.
In April, 1660, the Marquis of Caracena of the Spanish Netherlands tried to coax Charles II away from the Dutch Republic to Antwerp so they could stop him from sailing to England and the Restoration. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… [R.H.=Royal Highness=James, Duke of York H.M.=His Majesty=Charles II]
Therefore, the Prince de Ligne can prance all he likes with his coaches and matching horses -- Charles II knows the Spanish Netherlands (and therefore Spain} wish him no good. Bring on the Portuguese Princess, and where is Gen. Frederic Armand Mainhardt, Comte de Schomberg when you need him? -- Stay tuned!!!
"... I had looked over the things my wife had bought today, with which being not very well pleased, they costing too much ..."
What did you expect, Pepys? All the courtiers are suddenly buying the same things all at the same time. That's what happens -- it's called the law of supply and demand. Plus you've ordered a new suit, so what are these items: ribbons, or hat adornments or shoe buckles or ...?
I bet they discussed "... I met with Dr. Castles, who chidd me for some errors in our Privy-Seal business; among the rest, for letting the fees of the six judges pass unpaid, which I know not what to say to, till I speak to Mr. Moore. I was much troubled, for fear of being forced to pay the money myself." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Pockets -- the first of many discussions about pockets.
The best article I've found on the subject has great pictures of people going back to the 15th century with things that look just like patch pockets on their vests and leggings. Men and women. And sailors on Henry VIII's Mary Rose appear to have pockets in their recovered clothing -- they might be decorate, but why? Other people did use pocket bags with strings. There's even speculation about Henry VIII's famous codpiece being a pocket -- but I hope that's not true! Now I can't get the image of him fumbling around while trying to get his handkerchief out to blow his nose. Oh dear.
Hands Deep in History: Pockets in Men and Women's Dress in Western Europe, c. 1480–1630 By Rebecca Unsworth – Edinburgh University Press https://www.euppublishing.com/doi…
L&M Companion identifies as a Wine Cellar in the entry on Whitehall Palace. They describe it as "part of Woolsey's original palace; under the Guard Chamber. It was not wholly destroyed by the fire of 1698 and still survives. The King's or Privy cellar was separate."
This might be the Wine Cellar in the Old War Office Building. according to a web site on the history of the building.
The Wine Cellar is labelled as "King Henry VIII's Wine Cellar" and is described as "the only substantial part of the old "Whitehall Palace" that remained after the disastrous fire of 1698 and a fine example of a Tudor brick-vaulted roof some 70 ft long and 30 ft wide.”
"It is pretty amazing that the Cellar survived. Not only were the buildings above it razed several times by fire in the 16th and 17th century, and by 18th and 19th Century development, but the original plans for the new MoD buildings and the surrounding roads would have meant the destruction of the Cellar. It was another Queen Mary – the widow of George V – who requested they be saved.
So in 1949 they moved the whole cellar. They couldn’t dismantle it (Tudor brick is too soft) so they dug around and underneath it and encased the whole space in steel and concrete and shifted the thing 9 ft (about 3 metres) to the West and 19 ft (6 metres) lower." https://stuffaboutlondon.co.uk/lo…
Phil Gyford interviews Kate Loveman at another place in the Blog. Here she explains the way the Navy was [not] funded:
"The navy got its funds ultimately from acts passed by parliament, which levied taxes to cover costs. In the 1660s, the conventional method was to pass acts to supply the King with funds rather than to pass acts directly to supply the navy’s costs. " This caused problems, first because money intended for the war effort could be diverted elsewhere and, second, because parliament was aware that this diversion happened and so was reluctant to grant funds to the crown without the ability to scrutinize where those funds were going.
"Since passing parliamentary acts and collecting taxes took time to actually raise money, Pepys and his colleagues sought loans from wealthy City goldsmiths, which were borrowed in expectation of the tax arriving to pay them off. "There is quite a lot in the diary about Pepys dashing round London attempting to persuade goldsmiths to lend money, which the goldsmiths were understandably reluctant to do. When the navy had no cash to pay off sailors, they resorted to using ‘tickets’ (IOUs from the government), which led to riots.
"This was not a situation with easy solutions, though Pepys’s former boss George Downing can take some credit for regularizing the government’s payment systems in the later 1660s." https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
Phil Gyford interviews Kate Loveman at another place on this site. Now we near the end of the Diary it seems fitting to consider her take on Pepys religious beliefs:
"Pepys’s religious beliefs are a difficult question, so I’m going to take a few paragraphs to answer!
"On the one hand, there is a lot of evidence for Pepys’s taking religious commitments seriously: he was going to “Anglican” services before the Restoration, at a point when these were illegal; he regularly goes to church, often twice on Sundays; he thanks God for his health and for money; and in 1660 he argues with his mother in favour of ‘the Religion I was born in’ – apparently meaning the Church of England, as opposed to her more puritan inclinations. When he died in 1703, he did so with the last rites of the C of E.
"On the other hand, he is evidently not devout, skips communion for the entirety of the diary, makes numerous snarky comments about self-serving clergyman, and describes himself as agreeing with Lord Sandwich in being ‘wholly Scepticall’ about the authority of the Protestant churches (15 May 1660).
"My reading of all this is that Pepys believes God exists, but he is sceptical about the institutions that claim religious authority: in the 1660s, his church-going is much more about social obligation and sociability, rather than faith.
"There’s support for this interpretation from a document he wrote in the mid-1680s on the relationship between personal faith, church and state. Here he is profoundly sceptical about the claims of institutional religion to know divine truth and dictate beliefs; by this point, he also does not think the Bible is a clear source of God’s guidance. He concludes that, beyond the ‘plaine Morall Doctrine’ — which, he says, Christians, Jews, pagans and most religions agree on — little could be known. Therefore, a safe course was to follow the religion of the country. Personal beliefs did not have to tally with outward religious observance, and this was not blameworthy.
"Had Pepys voiced these statements publicly in the 1680s, they would certainly have led to him being called an ‘atheist’, because that term was used of anyone who seemed to attack the authority of Christianity, rather than just people who did not believe in God." https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
Valentine’s Day customs in the 1660s seem to have been primarily an opportunity for fun, friendship and presents, rather than a means of declaring sincere love. There are a couple of principal traditions for choosing your valentine: one is by drawing lots, the other dictates that the first man that a woman sees on Valentine’s Day became her valentine. People have fun manipulating these customs.
In 1661, Pepys cheerfully demands to know if the person behind his neighbour Sir William Batten’s door is a man or a woman so he doesn’t risk being matched to the wrong woman. He then takes Batten’s daughter as his valentine ‘only for complacency’ (i.e. to be civil), while Elizabeth takes Batten. The next year Elizabeth goes around her house shielding her eyes on Valentine’s Day morning to avoid seeing the painters who are working there – with success because she then claims a family friend as her valentine.
One of the reasons women are keen to get themselves a good valentine partner as that your valentine owes you a present – garters, gloves, stockings, jewellery. Pepys is Elizabeth’s valentine in 1667 and 1668 (years when she also has another valentine), and he records the cost to his purse each time. -- Kate Loveman https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
Mary Shrewsbury, wife of William the bookseller, gave birth in late November 1668. -- from church records found by Kate Loveman. https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
Pepys is pretty good at telling us Who, What, When and Where. But motivation and context are also important. Which leaves us with Why and How as our frequently mysterious challenges.
Stephane was kind enough to answer my appeal for an identification of the French Princess whose hand Wikipedia would have us believe Charles II was proposing for the hand of Prince Henry. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Wikipedia gives me indigestion too, Stephane! Thank you for sorting this out for us. Why do people make stuff up? It wastes all of our time. AI seems to be set to make matters worse for years to come. But I digress -- thank you.
In 1667 John Lacy appeared in Edward Howard's controversial satire on the court of Charles II, entitled The Change of Crowns (never published). Charles and Queen Catherine went to see the production on 15 April, 1667. Samuel Pepys tried to see it the next day the play had already been altered. Lacy, according to Pepys, 'did act the Country Gentleman come up to Court, who doth abuse the Court with all the imaginable wit and plainness, about selling of places and doing everything for money' (Pepys, 15 April 1667). Charles II is said to have been so angered by the play that he detained John Lacy in the porter's lodge. He was pardoned, but the play remained under censure. The dramatist Edward Howard (younger son of the Earl of Berkshire and brother to playwright Sir Robert Howard) and John Lacy are said to have quarreled shortly after.
In 1667, despite serious illness, John Lacy performed in a revival of The Changes. Subsequent parts included Bayes in Buckingham's The Rehearsal in 1671, Drench in his own play The Dumb Lady, or, The Farrier Made Physician (1672), an adaptation (not much liked) of Molière's Le médecin malgré lui and L'amour médecin (he also played the lead role in Molière's Tartuffe), Alderman Gripe in Wycherley's Love in a Wood, or, St. James's Park at Lincoln's Inn (still with Killigrew's company), and Intrigo in Sir Francis Fane's Love in the Dark, or The Man of Business. John Lacy may also have played Falstaff.
The Dumb Lady tells the story of a woman (Olinda) about to be married but who appears to have fallen mute. Some characters reflect this is unsurprising because she is to be married to a fop: the aptly named Squire Softhead. They inform her father who is anxious for the match: 'Do you think your daughter had not better be dumb and dead than marry such a ridiculous brute as this?' (i.i, p. 14). Once again, John Lacy's drama exhibits considerable empathy for its women characters. A physician is sent to attend to Olinda's ailment and Jarvis and Softhead are tricked by Isabel into believing her husband Drench (the part played by Lacy) to be a physician. A great deal of farce ensues. Farce in the French style appears to have been the form Lacy most favored in his own compositions.
Contemporaries alleged John Lacy had a relationship with Nell Gwyn. Certainly, he gave her acting and dancing lessons.
John Lacy kept up his dancing skills, adding dances to the entr'actes of, for example, Horace in 1668. ... John Lacy died on 17 September, 1681 at his home in Drury Lane and was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields 2 days later.
About this time John Lacy began to write plays, some of which were adaptations of existent texts. The Old Troop, or, Monsieur Raggou made use of his civil war experiences and influenced Sir Walter Scott's 19th-century novel Woodstock. Lacy is believed to have played the part of Raggou, a French servant, in the original 1664–5 production. The Old Troop, or, Monsieur Raggou was published in 1672. It deals with the resentment felt in the English countryside (justified in the play) towards the cavalier soldiers who were billeted on villages between 1642 and 1649.
In 1666, as well as speaking the 'Epilogue' in Sir Robert Howard's The Vestal Virgin, John Lacy played Sir Roger in a revival of Beaumont and Fletcher's The Scornful Lady.
John Lacy wrote an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, entitled Sauny the Scot. This was performed at the Theatre Royal in 1667. Lacy may have played Petruchio in an earlier revival of Shakespeare's drama which inspired his version. There is no evidence of this but Sauny the Scot stays close to its Shakespearian forebear until the final act. The influence of John Fletcher's version, The Woman's Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed (c.1611), can also be felt. Nevertheless, Lacy's appropriation of the play for the Restoration is significant. He turns a largely verse drama into prose, and relocates the story from Renaissance Italy to contemporary London. Lucentio, the Paduan student of the original, becomes Winlove, an Oxford graduate, and an opposition between town and country is established in the play. Margaret is the equivalent of Katherina and may represent the changing sexual and social mores of the Restoration times so her part is expanded to allow for a sustained rebellion against Petruchio in the final act. The title character, Sauny, is a Scottish version of Grumio, Petruchio's servant, and was probably played by John Lacy: Sauny makes comic matter of English niceties and is constantly 'Scratten and Scrubben' himself (ii.i.25).
Another dialect part was John Lacy's Sir Hercules Buffoon, or, The Poetical Squire, staged presumably in 1684. In this play, a Yorkshire heiress speaks in a dialect form like Lacy's native Doncaster: 'Marra, the devilst learn French for me. By my saul, ean Yorkshire word, nuncle, s'worth ten thousand French eans' (ii.ii). The title character is a country squire, the nephew of Alderman Buffoon. Anxious to see the players while in London, in the tradition of country gulls, he falls prey to wiser city folk who make him an apprentice of their poetical society by forcing him through an initiation ceremony. Buffoon exhibits his lack of judgement by preferring John Taylor the Water Poet over Ben Jonson, etc.
John Lacy (1615–1681), playwright and actor, born near Doncaster, Yorkshire, went in 1631 to London where he was apprenticed to the dancing-master John Ogilby, who ran a school in Gray's Inn Lane.
Later renowned for dialect-based performances, John Lacy is said to have furnished Ben Jonson with northern dialect terms and proverbs for his 1630s drama (copinions varies as to whether this was for A Tale of a Tub, c.1633, or The Sad Shepherd, 1637, although the north midlands setting of the latter makes that more likely).
In 1639 Lacy is recorded as acting in the company of the Cockpit Theatre.
John Lacy’s wife, Margaret, is referred to by contemporaries but little is known about her. Elias Ashmole's diary refers to the baptism of Lacy's second son on 17 March, 1665.
During the English civil wars John Lacy served as a lieutenant and quartermaster under Col. Charles Gerard, later the earl of Macclesfield.
At the Restoration, John Lacy was a founder member of Thomas Killigrew's King's Company at the Theatre Royal and became one of its star performers.
Like other early Restoration actors, John Lacy played some female parts, despite the introduction of actresses, taking the lead in The French Dancing Mistress in 1662.
Among other roles, John Lacy played Scruple the nonconformist in John Wilson's comedy The Cheats in 1662
John Lacy played Teague in Sir Robert Howard's The Committee in 1663. Samuel Pepys witnessed the performance, remarking it was 'a merry but an indifferent play' but Lacy's performance as an Irish footman was 'beyond imagination' (Pepys, 12 June 1663).
On seeing John Lacy in the part on another occasion, Pepys observed his role was 'so well performed that it would set off anything' (Pepys, 13 Aug 1667). John Evelyn also saw John Lacy perform this role, praising it in his diary. ... John Lacy also made a name for himself in several revivals of pre-civil war play texts, including James Shirley's The Changes, or, Love in a Maze — of which Pepys remarked 'The play is pretty good, but the life of the play is Lacy's part, the Clowne' (Pepys, 4.179, 10 June 1663) — and several plays by Ben Jonson: between 1664 and 1665, as well as Ananias, he played Captain Otter in Epicoene, or, The Silent Woman and Sir Politic Would-Be in Volpone.
Stephane, Charles II has been exploring the possibility of Henry, Duke of Gloucester marrying the Prince of Condé's niece. Do you know who that was? American Google tells me about Conde's daughter, but not his niece.
"Seems a little unfair to blame God for everything - or am I missing the point?"
Times and attitudes have changed, Frank G. We live after the Enlightenment.
The Old Testament is about a vengeful God, who punishes His people for not following His rules. The New Testament is about a loving God. You know, the guy with a white beard who worries abour falling sparrows.
The Stuart Puritans were Old Testament people. 1666 is almost here, and they were anxious about the end of the world. (You know, Revelations and 666.) Plagues, floods and fires, and even a child's birth defect, are divine punishments for misbehavior or imperfect faith. Many believed LITERALLY that Charles II and other monarchs were God's representatives on earth -- that's why the Touching for the King's Evil was such a powerful tool for so long. And they had executed their King 20 years ago. hhhmmmmm ... Anyone who suspected that such mystical thinking was odd would never say so because that was blasphomy -- and illegal. They were still prosecuting witches -- and occasionally executing them. Yes, their God was responsible for the nasty things in life -- the Godly's job was to interpret what the nasty things meant, and correct the offending people, behavior or situation. You know about the Salem Witch Trials -- they are 30 years in the future.
This is the century where the educated people go from magical thinking to logical and science-based thinking. Not everyone made that change quickly or easily. The Church did not give up its power lightly, and both CofE and RC like their miracles. Pepys will make the change before our eyes in the next few years, and it will frustrate him greatly. No one comprehends what an enormous change they are in the midst of, or how the brave new world will work. -- Come to that, we're still having trouble convincing people that democracies are better than dictatorships.
Comments
Third Reading
About Claude Lamoral (Prince de Ligne)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Claude Lamoral, 3rd Prince of Ligne. Born 8 October 1618 in Beloil, Belgium. Died 21 December 1679 in Madrid -- Statesman, Diplomat, Military leader, Governor of the Duchy of Milan, Viceroy of Sicily, Prince of Ligne, Prince of Epinoy, Marquis of Roubaix, Count of Fauquemberg, and Captain General of the Spanish Cavalry in the Spanish Netherlands.
His portrait at https://www.abebooks.com/Portrait…
Only Wiki biographies seem to exist on line.
James, Duke of York in 1655 had fought against the Prince of Ligne during the Battle of the Dunes, although York's memoirs report a conversation with him, so I presume they met and broke bread together some time later.
For more about this, see
The Memoirs of JAMES II
His CAMPAIGNS AS DUKE OF YORK - 1652 - 1660
Translated by A. LYTTON SELLS
from the Bouillon Manuscript
http://archive.org/stream/memoirs…
I think the Prince was a curious choice for Ambassador. A message from Philip IV, King of Spain perhaps?
About Cannon Street
San Diego Sarah • Link
A similar story, with pictures this time, of the London Stone and St. Swithin's Church at
https://alondoninheritance.com/lo…
About Monday 17 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
CORRECTION:
"Vincent has added John Evelyn's more informative notes about attending the parade for the new Spanish Ambassador, Claude Lamoral, Prince de Ligne.
"He was sent as the representative of the Spanish King to the Court of St. James's."
✹ Emilio on 19 Feb 2004 :
This is the ambassador for the Spanish Netherlands in 1660.
per Wheatley (Braybrooke): "Charles Lamoral, Prince de Ligne, had commanded the cavalry in the Low Countries, was afterwards Viceroy of Sicily and Governor of Milan. He died at Madrid in 1679. He had married, by dispensation, his cousin Maria Clara of Nassau, widow of his brother Albert Henry, who had died without issue."
The Spanish occupied half of the Netherlands in 1660, and the back-and-forth with the Dutch Republic and the French trying to kick out the Spanish will continue for years. So the Prince de Ligne was probably sent with the approval of the Spanish King. But to be crystal clear, he does NOT represent Spain.
In April, 1660, the Marquis of Caracena of the Spanish Netherlands tried to coax Charles II away from the Dutch Republic to Antwerp so they could stop him from sailing to England and the Restoration.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
[R.H.=Royal Highness=James, Duke of York
H.M.=His Majesty=Charles II]
Therefore, the Prince de Ligne can prance all he likes with his coaches and matching horses -- Charles II knows the Spanish Netherlands (and therefore Spain} wish him no good.
Bring on the Portuguese Princess, and where is Gen. Frederic Armand Mainhardt, Comte de Schomberg when you need him? -- Stay tuned!!!
About Monday 17 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... I had looked over the things my wife had bought today, with which being not very well pleased, they costing too much ..."
What did you expect, Pepys? All the courtiers are suddenly buying the same things all at the same time. That's what happens -- it's called the law of supply and demand.
Plus you've ordered a new suit, so what are these items: ribbons, or hat adornments or shoe buckles or ...?
About Monday 17 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Dined at home and Mr. Moore with me"
I bet they discussed "... I met with Dr. Castles, who chidd me for some errors in our Privy-Seal business; among the rest, for letting the fees of the six judges pass unpaid, which I know not what to say to, till I speak to Mr. Moore. I was much troubled, for fear of being forced to pay the money myself."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
So what was the outcome, Pepys?
About Monday 17 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pockets -- the first of many discussions about pockets.
The best article I've found on the subject has great pictures of people going back to the 15th century with things that look just like patch pockets on their vests and leggings. Men and women.
And sailors on Henry VIII's Mary Rose appear to have pockets in their recovered clothing -- they might be decorate, but why?
Other people did use pocket bags with strings.
There's even speculation about Henry VIII's famous codpiece being a pocket -- but I hope that's not true! Now I can't get the image of him fumbling around while trying to get his handkerchief out to blow his nose. Oh dear.
Hands Deep in History: Pockets in Men and Women's Dress in Western Europe, c. 1480–1630
By Rebecca Unsworth – Edinburgh University Press
https://www.euppublishing.com/doi…
About Richard Dalton
San Diego Sarah • Link
The possible location of Richard Dalton's cellar/office/dining room:
https://stuffaboutlondon.co.uk/lo…
About Whitehall Palace (general information)
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion identifies as a Wine Cellar in the entry on Whitehall Palace. They describe it as "part of Woolsey's original palace; under the Guard Chamber. It was not wholly destroyed by the fire of 1698 and still survives. The King's or Privy cellar was separate."
This might be the Wine Cellar in the Old War Office Building. according to a web site on the history of the building.
The Wine Cellar is labelled as "King Henry VIII's Wine Cellar" and is described as "the only substantial part of the old "Whitehall Palace" that remained after the disastrous fire of 1698 and a fine example of a Tudor brick-vaulted roof some 70 ft long and 30 ft wide.”
"It is pretty amazing that the Cellar survived. Not only were the buildings above it razed several times by fire in the 16th and 17th century, and by 18th and 19th Century development, but the original plans for the new MoD buildings and the surrounding roads would have meant the destruction of the Cellar. It was another Queen Mary – the widow of George V – who requested they be saved.
So in 1949 they moved the whole cellar. They couldn’t dismantle it (Tudor brick is too soft) so they dug around and underneath it and encased the whole space in steel and concrete and shifted the thing 9 ft (about 3 metres) to the West and 19 ft (6 metres) lower."
https://stuffaboutlondon.co.uk/lo…
About Eleven Months Tax
San Diego Sarah • Link
Phil Gyford interviews Kate Loveman at another place in the Blog. Here she explains the way the Navy was [not] funded:
"The navy got its funds ultimately from acts passed by parliament, which levied taxes to cover costs. In the 1660s, the conventional method was to pass acts to supply the King with funds rather than to pass acts directly to supply the navy’s costs.
" This caused problems, first because money intended for the war effort could be diverted elsewhere and, second, because parliament was aware that this diversion happened and so was reluctant to grant funds to the crown without the ability to scrutinize where those funds were going.
"Since passing parliamentary acts and collecting taxes took time to actually raise money, Pepys and his colleagues sought loans from wealthy City goldsmiths, which were borrowed in expectation of the tax arriving to pay them off.
"There is quite a lot in the diary about Pepys dashing round London attempting to persuade goldsmiths to lend money, which the goldsmiths were understandably reluctant to do. When the navy had no cash to pay off sailors, they resorted to using ‘tickets’ (IOUs from the government), which led to riots.
"This was not a situation with easy solutions, though Pepys’s former boss George Downing can take some credit for regularizing the government’s payment systems in the later 1660s."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
About Sunday 25 April 1669
San Diego Sarah • Link
Phil Gyford interviews Kate Loveman at another place on this site. Now we near the end of the Diary it seems fitting to consider her take on Pepys religious beliefs:
"Pepys’s religious beliefs are a difficult question, so I’m going to take a few paragraphs to answer!
"On the one hand, there is a lot of evidence for Pepys’s taking religious commitments seriously: he was going to “Anglican” services before the Restoration, at a point when these were illegal; he regularly goes to church, often twice on Sundays; he thanks God for his health and for money; and in 1660 he argues with his mother in favour of ‘the Religion I was born in’ – apparently meaning the Church of England, as opposed to her more puritan inclinations. When he died in 1703, he did so with the last rites of the C of E.
"On the other hand, he is evidently not devout, skips communion for the entirety of the diary, makes numerous snarky comments about self-serving clergyman, and describes himself as agreeing with Lord Sandwich in being ‘wholly Scepticall’ about the authority of the Protestant churches (15 May 1660).
"My reading of all this is that Pepys believes God exists, but he is sceptical about the institutions that claim religious authority: in the 1660s, his church-going is much more about social obligation and sociability, rather than faith.
"There’s support for this interpretation from a document he wrote in the mid-1680s on the relationship between personal faith, church and state. Here he is profoundly sceptical about the claims of institutional religion to know divine truth and dictate beliefs; by this point, he also does not think the Bible is a clear source of God’s guidance. He concludes that, beyond the ‘plaine Morall Doctrine’ — which, he says, Christians, Jews, pagans and most religions agree on — little could be known. Therefore, a safe course was to follow the religion of the country. Personal beliefs did not have to tally with outward religious observance, and this was not blameworthy.
"Had Pepys voiced these statements publicly in the 1680s, they would certainly have led to him being called an ‘atheist’, because that term was used of anyone who seemed to attack the authority of Christianity, rather than just people who did not believe in God."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
About St Valentine's Day
San Diego Sarah • Link
Valentine’s Day customs in the 1660s seem to have been primarily an opportunity for fun, friendship and presents, rather than a means of declaring sincere love. There are a couple of principal traditions for choosing your valentine: one is by drawing lots, the other dictates that the first man that a woman sees on Valentine’s Day became her valentine. People have fun manipulating these customs.
In 1661, Pepys cheerfully demands to know if the person behind his neighbour Sir William Batten’s door is a man or a woman so he doesn’t risk being matched to the wrong woman.
He then takes Batten’s daughter as his valentine ‘only for complacency’ (i.e. to be civil), while Elizabeth takes Batten.
The next year Elizabeth goes around her house shielding her eyes on Valentine’s Day morning to avoid seeing the painters who are working there – with success because she then claims a family friend as her valentine.
One of the reasons women are keen to get themselves a good valentine partner as that your valentine owes you a present – garters, gloves, stockings, jewellery.
Pepys is Elizabeth’s valentine in 1667 and 1668 (years when she also has another valentine), and he records the cost to his purse each time.
-- Kate Loveman
https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
About Mrs Shrewsbury
San Diego Sarah • Link
Mary Shrewsbury, wife of William the bookseller, gave birth in late November 1668. -- from church records found by Kate Loveman.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
About Sunday 16 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Glad you found that helpful, Plan B.
Pepys is pretty good at telling us Who, What, When and Where.
But motivation and context are also important.
Which leaves us with Why and How as our frequently mysterious challenges.
About Tuesday 11 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Stephane was kind enough to answer my appeal for an identification of the French Princess whose hand Wikipedia would have us believe Charles II was proposing for the hand of Prince Henry.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Wiki is what it is!
About Saturday 15 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Wikipedia gives me indigestion too, Stephane!
Thank you for sorting this out for us.
Why do people make stuff up? It wastes all of our time. AI seems to be set to make matters worse for years to come.
But I digress -- thank you.
About John Lacy
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
In 1667 John Lacy appeared in Edward Howard's controversial satire on the court of Charles II, entitled The Change of Crowns (never published).
Charles and Queen Catherine went to see the production on 15 April, 1667. Samuel Pepys tried to see it the next day the play had already been altered.
Lacy, according to Pepys, 'did act the Country Gentleman come up to Court, who doth abuse the Court with all the imaginable wit and plainness, about selling of places and doing everything for money' (Pepys, 15 April 1667).
Charles II is said to have been so angered by the play that he detained John Lacy in the porter's lodge. He was pardoned, but the play remained under censure.
The dramatist Edward Howard (younger son of the Earl of Berkshire and brother to playwright Sir Robert Howard) and John Lacy are said to have quarreled shortly after.
In 1667, despite serious illness, John Lacy performed in a revival of The Changes.
Subsequent parts included Bayes in Buckingham's The Rehearsal in 1671,
Drench in his own play The Dumb Lady, or, The Farrier Made Physician (1672), an adaptation (not much liked) of Molière's Le médecin malgré lui and L'amour médecin
(he also played the lead role in Molière's Tartuffe),
Alderman Gripe in Wycherley's Love in a Wood, or, St. James's Park at Lincoln's Inn (still with Killigrew's company),
and Intrigo in Sir Francis Fane's Love in the Dark, or The Man of Business.
John Lacy may also have played Falstaff.
The Dumb Lady tells the story of a woman (Olinda) about to be married but who appears to have fallen mute. Some characters reflect this is unsurprising because she is to be married to a fop: the aptly named Squire Softhead. They inform her father who is anxious for the match: 'Do you think your daughter had not better be dumb and dead than marry such a ridiculous brute as this?' (i.i, p. 14).
Once again, John Lacy's drama exhibits considerable empathy for its women characters.
A physician is sent to attend to Olinda's ailment and Jarvis and Softhead are tricked by Isabel into believing her husband Drench (the part played by Lacy) to be a physician. A great deal of farce ensues.
Farce in the French style appears to have been the form Lacy most favored in his own compositions.
Contemporaries alleged John Lacy had a relationship with Nell Gwyn. Certainly, he gave her acting and dancing lessons.
John Lacy kept up his dancing skills, adding dances to the entr'actes of, for example, Horace in 1668.
...
John Lacy died on 17 September, 1681 at his home in Drury Lane and was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields 2 days later.
This is an abbreviated version of the ODNB biography:
https://www.oxforddnb.com/display…
About John Lacy
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
About this time John Lacy began to write plays, some of which were adaptations of existent texts.
The Old Troop, or, Monsieur Raggou made use of his civil war experiences and influenced Sir Walter Scott's 19th-century novel Woodstock.
Lacy is believed to have played the part of Raggou, a French servant, in the original 1664–5 production.
The Old Troop, or, Monsieur Raggou was published in 1672. It deals with the resentment felt in the English countryside (justified in the play) towards the cavalier soldiers who were billeted on villages between 1642 and 1649.
In 1666, as well as speaking the 'Epilogue' in Sir Robert Howard's The Vestal Virgin, John Lacy played Sir Roger in a revival of Beaumont and Fletcher's The Scornful Lady.
John Lacy wrote an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, entitled Sauny the Scot. This was performed at the Theatre Royal in 1667.
Lacy may have played Petruchio in an earlier revival of Shakespeare's drama which inspired his version. There is no evidence of this but Sauny the Scot stays close to its Shakespearian forebear until the final act.
The influence of John Fletcher's version, The Woman's Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed (c.1611), can also be felt. Nevertheless, Lacy's appropriation of the play for the Restoration is significant.
He turns a largely verse drama into prose, and relocates the story from Renaissance Italy to contemporary London.
Lucentio, the Paduan student of the original, becomes Winlove, an Oxford graduate, and an opposition between town and country is established in the play.
Margaret is the equivalent of Katherina and may represent the changing sexual and social mores of the Restoration times so her part is expanded to allow for a sustained rebellion against Petruchio in the final act.
The title character, Sauny, is a Scottish version of Grumio, Petruchio's servant, and was probably played by John Lacy: Sauny makes comic matter of English niceties and is constantly 'Scratten and Scrubben' himself (ii.i.25).
Another dialect part was John Lacy's Sir Hercules Buffoon, or, The Poetical Squire, staged presumably in 1684. In this play, a Yorkshire heiress speaks in a dialect form like Lacy's native Doncaster: 'Marra, the devilst learn French for me. By my saul, ean Yorkshire word, nuncle, s'worth ten thousand French eans' (ii.ii).
The title character is a country squire, the nephew of Alderman Buffoon.
Anxious to see the players while in London, in the tradition of country gulls, he falls prey to wiser city folk who make him an apprentice of their poetical society by forcing him through an initiation ceremony.
Buffoon exhibits his lack of judgement by preferring John Taylor the Water Poet over Ben Jonson, etc.
About John Lacy
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Lacy (1615–1681), playwright and actor, born near Doncaster, Yorkshire, went in 1631 to London where he was apprenticed to the dancing-master John Ogilby, who ran a school in Gray's Inn Lane.
Later renowned for dialect-based performances, John Lacy is said to have furnished Ben Jonson with northern dialect terms and proverbs for his 1630s drama (copinions varies as to whether this was for A Tale of a Tub, c.1633, or The Sad Shepherd, 1637, although the north midlands setting of the latter makes that more likely).
In 1639 Lacy is recorded as acting in the company of the Cockpit Theatre.
John Lacy’s wife, Margaret, is referred to by contemporaries but little is known about her. Elias Ashmole's diary refers to the baptism of Lacy's second son on 17 March, 1665.
During the English civil wars John Lacy served as a lieutenant and quartermaster under Col. Charles Gerard, later the earl of Macclesfield.
At the Restoration, John Lacy was a founder member of Thomas Killigrew's King's Company at the Theatre Royal and became one of its star performers.
Like other early Restoration actors, John Lacy played some female parts, despite the introduction of actresses, taking the lead in The French Dancing Mistress in 1662.
Among other roles, John Lacy played Scruple the nonconformist in John Wilson's comedy The Cheats in 1662
John Lacy played Teague in Sir Robert Howard's The Committee in 1663. Samuel Pepys witnessed the performance, remarking it was 'a merry but an indifferent play' but Lacy's performance as an Irish footman was 'beyond imagination' (Pepys, 12 June 1663).
On seeing John Lacy in the part on another occasion, Pepys observed his role was 'so well performed that it would set off anything' (Pepys, 13 Aug 1667).
John Evelyn also saw John Lacy perform this role, praising it in his diary.
...
John Lacy also made a name for himself in several revivals of pre-civil war play texts, including James Shirley's The Changes, or, Love in a Maze — of which Pepys remarked 'The play is pretty good, but the life of the play is Lacy's part, the Clowne' (Pepys, 4.179, 10 June 1663) — and several plays by Ben Jonson: between 1664 and 1665, as well as Ananias, he played Captain Otter in Epicoene, or, The Silent Woman and Sir Politic Would-Be in Volpone.
About Saturday 15 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Stephane, Charles II has been exploring the possibility of Henry, Duke of Gloucester marrying the Prince of Condé's niece.
Do you know who that was? American Google tells me about Conde's daughter, but not his niece.
About Sunday 16 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Seems a little unfair to blame God for everything - or am I missing the point?"
Times and attitudes have changed, Frank G.
We live after the Enlightenment.
The Old Testament is about a vengeful God, who punishes His people for not following His rules.
The New Testament is about a loving God. You know, the guy with a white beard who worries abour falling sparrows.
The Stuart Puritans were Old Testament people.
1666 is almost here, and they were anxious about the end of the world. (You know, Revelations and 666.)
Plagues, floods and fires, and even a child's birth defect, are divine punishments for misbehavior or imperfect faith.
Many believed LITERALLY that Charles II and other monarchs were God's representatives on earth -- that's why the Touching for the King's Evil was such a powerful tool for so long.
And they had executed their King 20 years ago. hhhmmmmm ...
Anyone who suspected that such mystical thinking was odd would never say so because that was blasphomy -- and illegal.
They were still prosecuting witches -- and occasionally executing them.
Yes, their God was responsible for the nasty things in life -- the Godly's job was to interpret what the nasty things meant, and correct the offending people, behavior or situation.
You know about the Salem Witch Trials -- they are 30 years in the future.
This is the century where the educated people go from magical thinking to logical and science-based thinking. Not everyone made that change quickly or easily. The Church did not give up its power lightly, and both CofE and RC like their miracles.
Pepys will make the change before our eyes in the next few years, and it will frustrate him greatly.
No one comprehends what an enormous change they are in the midst of, or how the brave new world will work. -- Come to that, we're still having trouble convincing people that democracies are better than dictatorships.