The Bridewell Palace/Prison was modified from the Whitefriars Priory, and was enormous. Therefore the precincts would be called Whitefriars -- just as Westminster includes the area around the Houses of Parliament, and Pepys lived at the Tower (not IN the Tower).
The precinct included: Whitefriars steps -- Whitefriars Stairs is located [a]t the south end of Waterman’s Lane on the Thames, west of Whitefriars Dock (Harben 626). The site became known as such by 1666 (Carlin and Belcher 98); the site [is] now covered by the Victoria Embankment (Harben 626).
For a great read on the history of the Whitefriars area, see British History Online: https://www.british-history.ac.uk… Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
The old Bridewell Palace/Prison in Whitefriars burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. So there was a "New" Bridewell built there during Diary times, but Pepys didn't go there. But both of these references are in 1664, so they refer to the Bridewell of Clerkenwell https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
I'm wrong -- Sandwich knew he was going OOT, and got permission the day before he saw Pepys (i.e. the 14th). I'd still like to know why he left -- maybe he had a significant exchange when he accompanied Charles II at lunch the other day, and decided to retire gracefully before anything escallated? Did he realize he was going to be challenging Lord High Admiral James, Duke of York, during Admiralty meetings, and chose not to play second fiddle? Maybe he ran out of money and needed his Navy bills to be paid?
Does anyone have his Memoires -- what do they say?
Wiki says: "..., on 12 July 1660, he was created Baron Montagu of St. Neots, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, and Earl of Sandwich. Charles II also made him a Knight of the Garter and appointed him Master of the Great Wardrobe, Admiral of the narrow seas (the English Channel and southern North Sea), and Lieutenant Admiral to The Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England."
In 1661: "He carried St. Edward's staff at Charles' subsequent coronation. Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, who liked and admired Sandwich, wrote that the conferring of these honours caused much resentment among those Royalists who had gone into exile with their King, and regarded Sandwich as a "diehard" Cromwellian; yet adds that his charm of manner made it almost impossible to dislike him." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edw… So that doesn't hint at a serious falling-out with Charles at least.
Maybe Sandwich has only gone for the weekend, and I'm reading way too much into this? ... we shall see.
Every kilderkin of butter shall contain 112 lbs., and every firkin 56 lbs. neat, or above; every pound containing 16 oz., besides the tare of the cask, of good and merchantable butter. -- A New and Complete Law-dictionary. T. Cunningham, 1764. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
'It can be hard to find evidence of exactly how potatoes were cooked for Shakespeare’s lifetime because not only are there not many surviving recipes, [as], “they often get confused with the sweet potato, Ipomea batatas.” When they are cooked: 'They were baked or "sodden with wine", boiled and eaten with oil, vinegar and pepper: or made into a pie, usually with the medieval seasoning of sugar, pepper, ginger, nutmeg and saffron.
'Even in 1719, they are described as being “of less note than horseradish, radish, scorzoners, beets and skirrets: but as they have their admirers, I will not pass them by in silence”.
'... a recipe from the 1650’s from Rabbisha’s Complet Cookebooke which put them in a pie with beef marrow, eryngyoes, spices and sugar with raisins …
'Ordinary people usually ate bread with things like oats or dried broad beans and dried peas made into pottage – probably mostly similar to Mushy Peas which is a traditional food in English pubs, usually eaten with faggots (little balls made from pig’s heart, liver and lights wrapped in caul fat) – usually served after some sort of sporting match such as darts or long-alley skittles. 'If you were rich you ate skirret as a root vegetable, with parsnips or turnips. 'Skirret is an umbelliferous plant with white flowers about 5 ft. tall, perennial – you can dig a root up, leave a bit and it grows again. It tastes good but has a little stringy bit in the middle which sticks in your teeth!'
Farewell thou noted Female, henceforth be Famed with Lais, Thais, Chorrinna, Rhodope. And yet so long as Luteners Lane stands still Dog and Bitch yard, Whetstones Park, and Saffron hill, Who listeth for to seek there he may find Though thou art gone, more whores are left behind.
Epitaph.
Pass by Reader, and forbear To inquire who lies here, We do not mean believe to cheat Within here lies virtuous, modest, great, And such like Epithets be spread, Cozen the living belie the dead, We boast no wonders beg no praise Let this suffice and go your ways.
Page 6
Some few Legacies which she bestowed by word of mouth a little before her departure. • Imprimis to all the Sisterhood in Nightingale Lane, Well close, Ratcliff Highway, and those petty places of Trading, two pence a piece, to buy thread to mend their stockings. • Item, I give to all those who having handsome Wives of their own yet follow whores, the sum of four pence a piece to buy them a book called Green's groatsworth of wit. • Item, I give to all the Dammee Hectorian blades about the Town, the sum of thirteen-pence half-penny a piece, to pay the successor of Squire Dun, his wages when they shall have need of him. • Item, I give to all Thieves, Cut-purses, and Pick-pockets, good counsel to leave off their damnable Trade, or else they will fall Gallows ripe into the Hangman's budget. • Item, To all rotten pockified Who (of which there is a great many) I give four-pence apiece, to buy them sweet powder, to keep them from stinking alive. • Item, I bequeath to all young Sm•ll▪ Smocks that intend to follow Whores, this counsel beforehand: that they provide Money for the Apothecary and Chyrurgion. • Item, I give to the Officers belonging to Fumblers Hall o.o.o.o. • Item, I bequeath to him that shall write my Life and death the sum of ten shillings to be paid him by the bookseller.
Her Elegy: And is it true; is Damaris dead indeed And hath put on Death's sable Ebbon Weed, Hath grizzly death instead of Beef and Cabbidge Trust her up deep in Grave both Bag and Baggage, Then mourn ye Mobbs of Venus, each bright spark That shines in Luteners Lane, and Whetstones Park, Blow forth deep sighs and let your groans be runners Let tears run from your eyes like drops through scummers Let your eyes Rain make in the ground Meanders And weep her Death like Hero's and Leanders. Death on her house of Clay at last did seize, And sack't the same worse then the Prentices; There many a Seaman hath sat with his Doxy And spent his Coin till he grew Foxy, Poxy: Boarding of Friggots, until at the last Lights of a fire-ship, and so spoils his Mast, Well might you think mischief would on it come Falling to rummaging her Powder-room, Thus Souldiers may get wounds though not in Wars, For Venus hurts do prove the greatest scars. But whether goes my Muse; come back again Sayl not thy lustre in a Pockey Vein, Thy task it was to tell of death's Fegaries, And nor of Surgeons and Apothecaries: To meddle with no idle lustful Wench, That takes in English, and pays back in French, Thy task it, was to make an Elegy, To show how, where, and when did Damaris dye How sickness did her body Carbanado And then death kill'd her with his great Granado, Her Mobbs could not make cruel Mors to faint He'd not be bribed with their Pox not Paint, He knew she was a bit for his own Trencher, They did mistake to think death was a Wencher, Now she is gone and laid in ground full cool The cheif being dead the rest may break up School, And yet oft-times we by experience know Great Oaks being gone, the Shrubs will faster grow,
But although she had some virtues, certainly she had more vices, then any Smith hath to work withal, for she would lie (in her bed) every night; she would scold, but that she learned of her neighbors; she would drink, and eat too, else could she not have lived so long: she would talk, for she was not tongue-tied, yet was she very just of her word, for if she promised to help a man with a wh— she would not help him to an honest woman.
And what can be desired more I pray, Then people for to do as they do say.
Page 3
And though some may think she got her living very lightly, and with much case, yet certainly they were greatly mistaken; for besides the rigor of the Laws which them of her occupation are liable unto, as Imprisonments, Cartings, and the like, there was besides great charges for Fines and Fees to Justices Clarks, Beadles, and such other inferior reliques of Authority; besides a great deal of charge for white and red to empayer decayed Nature, and to hide the furrows and wrinkles of old age, which should they have appeared, might have been very detrimental to one of her profession: and therefore whatsoever some may think, a B— doth not get her living with so much ease as the world supposeth, nor in that adventure of her danger of Carting to be slighted.
Now I would not have any one to be mistaken, to think because our Damaris died at Ratcliff Highway, that she was the old woman that was drowned there a Fortnight ago; No, be it known to you that she feared more burning then drowning; and besides too, wearing Cork-shoes, she was so light-heeled, that had she been thrown into the water, she would not have sunk.
No doubt but her ambition was very great in striving to imitate the examples of some former great Potentates and Noblemen, who upon the committing of some heinous Crimes, to expiate their sins, as they thought, would build Monasteries and Religious houses; which as that well-languages Historian Mr. Speed thinks, their foundations being lined in blood, or as bad matters was one great cause of their downfall in the time of King Henry VIII. So she was very charitable to the Poor while she lived, which yet I may speak not as any ways blaming her, and, as I am informed, at her death gave, amongst other Legacies, money to buy Smocks for 100 poor Seamen’s widows, an example of which I wish many that detested her life would practice at their Deaths.
She died on Saturday morning the 9th day of October, and was with a great concourse of people attending her Corp, buried at St. George’s in Southwark on Sunday following in the afternoon, where now she rests in the Grave secure from a Shrove Tuesday rouse, or Easter holy days vexation.
My best guess at an either damaged or censored report:
The life and death of Damaris Page (c. 1610 – 9 October 1669). That great, arch, metropolitan (old woman) of Ratcliff highway. Who (through age and sickness) departed this life at her manner of the Three Tuns in the parish of Stepney the 9th day of this present October, and was buried the Sunday following at St. George's in Southwark, with great lamentation of all the sister-hood. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
Damaris Page, as is conjectured, was born about the Year 1601, and as it is thought in the Month of March because she was used to sturdy storms and bitter blasts which that Month is much subject unto she was in her time a woman of very great fame, for the Seamen had spread her name abroad into all the countries of Europe, Asia, Africa and America, and the Isle of Pines also, in which Country she was had in very great repute and Veneration by the Inhabitants thereof, for those notable qualities with which she was endowed.
...
[DAMARIS PAGE] was most notably famous for keeping a house of, what shall I call it, for it had divers names, some called it the Seaman’s whirlpool, others Venus’ Bower, Cupid’s Pest-house, the Chyrurgion’s friend, the Hector’s Office, a Vaulting-School, the amorous Chace, a Brothel, a Stew the huck-strings’ Academy, the hole in the Wall, &c. But the down-right Seaman when he was gotten three quarters drunk, would call it in plain English, a Bawdy-house.
Page 2
And therefore although she kept great hospitality, she could not be said to keep a good house, and although she had many Female servants she kept few Maids, dealing much in brittle Ware that were often subject to cracks and flaws, whom the Chyrurgion was forced to play the Tinker with in mending them the other materials belonging to her house, were a close Box with a side bed to kennel in, clean linen, sweet powder, paint, patches, plaister, pint bottles of Wine at two shilling a bottle, Stepony, Raspberry ale, Cock ale, Cakes, a Barrel of Beer, a tub of new ale, a Gallon of Strong water, two Gallons of Brandy, Cans, Black pots, Pipes ready filled with stinking instead of Spanish Tobacco; Cards, a Pits-pot, and a piece of crotched chalk that should make two scores at once for the greater felicity in writing.
And although some have reported her to be of a very hasty froward, peevish disposition, yet we know contrarily that she was indued with a great stock of patience, as was evidently manifested when the unruly rabble on Easter Holy-days defaced her mansion of pleasure; breaking her goods, cutting in pieces her beds, making the feathers to fly about the streets, yet notwithstanding she were thus wronged, she was not heard to give them any bad words, but contrarily called them good gentlemen and pray gentlemen, with other Sugar-candy words, nothing savoring of scolding brangling, or impatiency at all.
Damaris Page was one of the most notorious women of 17th century England. She was born into severe poverty and hardship but rose to fame and riches. She was the subject of several Grub Street pamphlets in 1660, characterised as 'The Wandring Whore' and the 'Crafty Bawd', she may have been one of the inspirations for Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders.
Damaris Page was born in Stepney around 1610, and worked as a prostitute throughout her teens. In 1653 she married James Dry in a Bermondsey church, and in 1655 she was brought to court for bigamy. She was charged with having been married to a William Baker of Stepney for the previous 15 years, although there is no mention of this marriage in the parish records so it may have been fabricated. Page was acquitted, and after the death of James Dry some years later she remained single.
Damaris Page appeared in court again, charged with the death of an Eleanor Pooley, who had died after Page had tried to perform an abortion with a 2-pronged fork. She was convicted of manslaughter, and would have been hanged had she not been pregnant. Page was imprisoned in Newgate Gaol for 3 years.
Following her release, Damaris Page became a brothel owner. She ran the Three Tuns in Stepney for seamen and another brothel in Rosemary Lane (now Royal Mint Street), near the Tower of London, for the wealthier naval officers. She agreed to press-gang her dock worker clientele for a fee, which made her very unpopular, and her house was targeted in the 'Bawdy House Riots' of 1668. At this time Samuel Pepys described Page as "the most Famous Bawd in the Towne."
By the middle of the 17th century, Page had moved into property speculation, investing the money she had made into building new houses on the Ratcliffe Highway, north of Wapping, and around in residential areas near the Tower of London. The income from these properties supported her for the rest of her life, and by her death in 1669 she had amassed a large fortune.
"The Poor Whores’ Petition to the most splendid, illustrious, serene and eminent Lady of Pleasure the Countess of Castlemayne, &c., signed by us, Madam Cresswell and Damaris Page, this present 25th day of March, 1668.”
Wikipedia clarifies somewhat the above annotation:
Pepys records visiting Salisbury Court Theatre in early 1661 (often calling it the Whitefriars Theatre), where he saw: Fletcher's "The Mad Lover" on 9 February 1661; Middleton and Rowley's "The Changeling" on 23 February (Thomas Betterton played De Flores); Massinger's "The Bondman" on 1 March (Betterton again); Fletcher and Massinger's "The Spanish Curate" on 16 March; Heywood's "Love's Mistress" on 2 March; and Fletcher's "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife" on 1 April.
The building burned down in the Great Fire of 1666.
It was replaced in 1671 by the Dorset Garden Theatre, which was built slightly further south to a design by Christopher Wren. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal…
Largely taken from British History Online's pages on the disreputable Whitefriars neighborhood: https://www.british-history.ac.uk… Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
The first theater in Whitefriars seems to have been built in the hall of the old Whitefriars Monastery. It was in business from 1586 to 1613. A memorandum from the manuscript-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels to King Charles I, notes: "I committed Cromes, a broker in Long Lane, the 16th of February, 1634, to the Marshalsea, for lending a Church robe, with the name of Jesus upon it, to the players in Salisbury Court, to represent a flamen, a priest of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission and acknowledgment of his fault, I released him the 17th February, 1634."
From entries of the Wardmote Inquests of St. Dunstan's, it appears the Whitefriars Theater (erected in the precincts of the monastery, to be out of the jurisdiction of the mayor) had become disreputable by 1609, and ruinous in 1619, when it is said "the rain hath made its way in, and if it be not repaired it must soon be plucked down, or it will fall."
The Salisbury Court Theater, which took its place about 1629, when the Earl of Dorset somewhat illegally let it for a term of 61 years and £950 down.
The Salisbury Court Theater was destroyed by Puritan soldiers in 1649, and not rebuilt until the Restoration.
At the outbreak of pleasure and vice, after the Restoration, the actors, long starved and crestfallen, brushed up their plumes and burnished their tinsel.
Thomas Killigrew, a Court buffoon, with a troop called the King's Men, opened a new theater in Drury Lane, Covent Garden in 1663.
Sir William Davenant (rumored to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son) opened the long disused theater in Salisbury Court, the rebuilding of which commenced in 1660, on the site of the granary of Salisbury House, with a troop called The Opera, under the patronage of the Duke of York.
Later Davenant migrated to the old Tennis Court in Portugal Street, on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The Great Fire erased the Granary Theater [aka Salisbury Court Theater].
In 1671, on Sir William Davenant's death, the company (managed by his widow) returned to a new theater in Salisbury Court, designed by Wren and possibly decorated by Grinling Gibbons. It opened with Dryden's "Sir Martin Marall", which had already played in 1668.
On Thomas Killigrew's death, the King's and Duke's Servants united, and removed to Drury Lane, Covent Garden, in 1682; the Dorset Gardens Theater/Salisbury Court Theater only flourished for 11 years in all.
British History Online in its recounting of the history of Whitefriars, says: https://www.british-history.ac.uk… Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
At the Restoration, William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle, the author of a magnificent book on horsemanship and his pedantic wife [Margaret “Mad Madge” Lucas Cavendish, later the Duchess of Newcastle 1623 - 1673] … inhabited a part of Dorset House; but whether Great Dorset House or Little Dorset House, topographers do not record.
[I can't believe the Cavendishes stayed at Dorset House in Whitefriars for long -- not a nice neighborhood in Stuart times! The see of Winchester appears to have been at the heart of Tudor immorality, as British History Online at another point says:
[... when Whitefriars was at its grandest, and plumes moved about its narrow river-side streets, Dorset House was its central and most stately mansion. It was originally a mansion with gardens, belonging to a Bishop of Winchester; but about the year 1217 (Henry III) a lease was granted by William, Abbot of Westminster, to Richard, Bishop of Sarum, at the yearly rent of 20 shillings, the Abbot retaining the advowson of St. Bride's Church, and promising to impart to the said bishop any needful ecclesiastical advice.
[Dorset House afterwards fell into the hands of the Sackvilles, held at first by a long lease from the see of Winchester, but was eventually alienated by Bishop Jewel. A grant in 1611 (King James) confirmed the manor of Salisbury Court to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
[The Earl of Dorset (to whom Bishop Jewel alienated the Whitefriars House) was the father of the poet, Thomas Sackville, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth.]
There seems to be no record of where the Sackville family lived in London during the Restoration -- their Wikipedia and Parliamentary bios are silent on the subject. I think it's safe to guess it wasn't in Whitefriars.
British History Online has this review of Edward Kynaston's career: https://www.british-history.ac.uk… Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
Kynaston, ... was also a celebrity. As a handsome boy he had been renowned for playing heroines, and he afterwards acquired celebrity by his dignified impersonation of kings and tyrants. Betterton, the greatest of all the Charles II actors, also played occasionally at Dorset Gardens. Pope knew him; Dryden was his friend; Kneller painted him. He was probably the greatest Hamlet that ever appeared; and Cibber sums up all eulogy of him when he says, "I never heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton wherein my judgment my ear, and my imagination were not fully satisfied, which since his time I cannot equally say of any one actor whatsoever." The enchantment of his voice was such, adds the same excellent dramatic critic, that the multitude no more cared for sense in the words he spoke, "than our musical connoiseurs think it essential in the celebrated airs of an Italian opera."
British History Online has this review of Charles Hart's career: https://www.british-history.ac.uk… Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
"Hart had been a Cavalier captain during the Civil Wars, and was a pupil of Robinson, the actor, who was shot down at the taking of Basing House. Hart was a tragedian who excelled in parts that required a certain heroic and chivalrous dignity. As a youth, before the Restoration, when boys played female parts, Hart was successful as the Duchess, in Shirley's Cardinal. In Charles II's time he played Othello, by the king's command, and rivalled Betterton's Hamlet at the other house. He created the part of Alexander, was excellent as Brutus, and terribly and vigorously wicked as Ben Jonson's Cataline. Rymer, says Dr. Doran, styled Hart and Mohun the Æsopus and Roscius of their time. As Amintor and Melanthus, in The Maid's Tragedy, they were incomparable. Pepys is loud too in his praises of Hart. His salary, was, at the most, £3 a week, although he realized £1,000 yearly after he became a shareholder of the theater. Hart died in 1683, within a year of his being bought off."
The highlights to me are Walter Scott's description of the slums of Whitefriars. He lived from 1771 – 1832, so he was using his imagination when he wrote "The Fortunes of Nigel": "The wailing of children, ... the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linen hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed by the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinseled, and painted females looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers."
Thomas Shadwell’s play, “The Squire of Alsatia” (Alsatia being the nickname for Whitefriars) premiered on 3 May, 1688. It ends with a dignified protest, which doubtless proved effective with the audience, against the privileges of places that harbored such scoundrels. "Was ever,” Shadwell asks, "such impudence suffered in a Government? Ireland conquered; Wales subdued; Scotland united. But there are some few spots of ground in London, just in the face of the Government, unconquered yet, that hold in rebellion still. Mèthinks 'tis strange that places so near the king's palace should be no part of his dominions. 'Tis a shame in the society of law to countenance such practices. Should any place be shut against the king's writ or posse comitatus?" William III must have agreed with Shadwell, for at the end of his reign the privilege of sanctuary was taken from Whitefriars, and the dogs were at last let in on the rats for whom they had been so long waiting.
Thanks Plan B -- great pseudonym, by the way -- so far our first Tropical Storm in 90 years is boring. It's been drizzling big, warm drops for hours. The unofficial pool measurement is an inch so far. My plants are very happy. However, I live on the coastal plain and the eye is coming my way, so who knows what the midnight hours will bring. It's a very different story in the mountains and deserts where they are subject to landslides, and the winds and rains are blowing around the eye. For instance, I understand Las Vegas has lost power -- and they are 350 miles away.
As with so many things in life, throughout history -- bad news happens somewhere, but for the vast majority of people, nothing much happens. Also, the people in the eye of the storm feel the least -- it's people caught up on the fringes who suffer the biggest whiplash. (The scheming of Charles II is the eye, and he never misses a meal -- it's the [often un{der}paid] sailors fighting his wars who reap the whiplash, etc.)
As for annotations, I expect to be annotating my own humble first tries shortly. Hang out here for 9 years and you can't help but learn a lot.
Poor Rev. Ralph, the strain of not knowing whether or not he can keep his living is causing a crisis of faith. That must have been happening all over the country -- Parliament better get on with the Act of General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion; it's not just Charles II who needs it taken care of.
God's covenant with Noah was a commitment to maintain the inherent relationship between Creator and creation; his relationship with the natural order -– implicit in the act of creation -– whereby he promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood.
Josselin keeps telling us what a good harvest he's having, and he hasn't mentioned rain recently. Maybe this was a (1)666 millennial worry? As a Presbyterian could he fear Charles II is the anti-Christ? Apparently, some did: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
I hope God's covenant with Noah holds true today: San Diego is under threat of a Tropical Storm -- down from a stage 3 hurricane this morning. We haven't had one of those come on shore since 1936. It doesn't rain in August here!
Comments
Third Reading
About Bridewell (precinct)
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Bridewell Palace/Prison was modified from the Whitefriars Priory, and was enormous. Therefore the precincts would be called Whitefriars -- just as Westminster includes the area around the Houses of Parliament, and Pepys lived at the Tower (not IN the Tower).
The precinct included:
Whitefriars steps -- Whitefriars Stairs is located [a]t the south end of Waterman’s Lane on the Thames, west of Whitefriars Dock (Harben 626). The site became known as such by 1666 (Carlin and Belcher 98); the site [is] now covered by the Victoria Embankment (Harben 626).
St. Bride's Church
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
The Salisbury Court Theater
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Salisbury Court -- where Pepys was born
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Dorset House -- also burned in the Great Fire
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
For a great read on the history of the Whitefriars area, see
British History Online:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
Old and New London: Volume 1.
Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
About Bridewell Prison (Clerkenwell)
San Diego Sarah • Link
I think Terry's first annotation is correct.
The old Bridewell Palace/Prison in Whitefriars burned down in the Great Fire of 1666. So there was a "New" Bridewell built there during Diary times, but Pepys didn't go there.
But both of these references are in 1664, so they refer to the Bridewell of Clerkenwell https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Thursday 16 August 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I'm wrong -- Sandwich knew he was going OOT, and got permission the day before he saw Pepys (i.e. the 14th).
I'd still like to know why he left -- maybe he had a significant exchange when he accompanied Charles II at lunch the other day, and decided to retire gracefully before anything escallated?
Did he realize he was going to be challenging Lord High Admiral James, Duke of York, during Admiralty meetings, and chose not to play second fiddle?
Maybe he ran out of money and needed his Navy bills to be paid?
Does anyone have his Memoires -- what do they say?
Wiki says:
"..., on 12 July 1660, he was created Baron Montagu of St. Neots, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, and Earl of Sandwich. Charles II also made him a Knight of the Garter and appointed him Master of the Great Wardrobe, Admiral of the narrow seas (the English Channel and southern North Sea), and Lieutenant Admiral to The Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England."
In 1661: "He carried St. Edward's staff at Charles' subsequent coronation. Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, who liked and admired Sandwich, wrote that the conferring of these honours caused much resentment among those Royalists who had gone into exile with their King, and regarded Sandwich as a "diehard" Cromwellian; yet adds that his charm of manner made it almost impossible to dislike him."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edw…
So that doesn't hint at a serious falling-out with Charles at least.
Maybe Sandwich has only gone for the weekend, and I'm reading way too much into this? ... we shall see.
About Butter
San Diego Sarah • Link
How big were the barrels of butter?
Every kilderkin of butter shall contain 112 lbs., and every firkin 56 lbs. neat, or above; every pound containing 16 oz., besides the tare of the cask, of good and merchantable butter. -- A New and Complete Law-dictionary. T. Cunningham, 1764.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About About fruit and vegetables
San Diego Sarah • Link
'It can be hard to find evidence of exactly how potatoes were cooked for Shakespeare’s lifetime because not only are there not many surviving recipes, [as], “they often get confused with the sweet potato, Ipomea batatas.” When they are cooked:
'They were baked or "sodden with wine", boiled and eaten with oil, vinegar and pepper: or made into a pie, usually with the medieval seasoning of sugar, pepper, ginger, nutmeg and saffron.
'Even in 1719, they are described as being “of less note than horseradish, radish, scorzoners, beets and skirrets: but as they have their admirers, I will not pass them by in silence”.
'... a recipe from the 1650’s from Rabbisha’s Complet Cookebooke which put them in a pie with beef marrow, eryngyoes, spices and sugar with raisins …
'Ordinary people usually ate bread with things like oats or dried broad beans and dried peas made into pottage – probably mostly similar to Mushy Peas which is a traditional food in English pubs, usually eaten with faggots (little balls made from pig’s heart, liver and lights wrapped in caul fat) – usually served after some sort of sporting match such as darts or long-alley skittles.
'If you were rich you ate skirret as a root vegetable, with parsnips or turnips.
'Skirret is an umbelliferous plant with white flowers about 5 ft. tall, perennial – you can dig a root up, leave a bit and it grows again. It tastes good but has a little stringy bit in the middle which sticks in your teeth!'
https://www.cassidycash.com/potat…
About Damaris Page
San Diego Sarah • Link
Google Fumbler's Hall -- it was a often-used phrase that might give you some laughs. They were a ribald lot!
About Damaris Page
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 4
Page 5
Farewell thou noted Female, henceforth be
Famed with Lais, Thais, Chorrinna, Rhodope.
And yet so long as Luteners Lane stands still
Dog and Bitch yard, Whetstones Park, and Saffron hill,
Who listeth for to seek there he may find
Though thou art gone, more whores are left behind.
Epitaph.
Pass by Reader, and forbear
To inquire who lies here,
We do not mean believe to cheat
Within here lies virtuous, modest, great,
And such like Epithets be spread,
Cozen the living belie the dead,
We boast no wonders beg no praise
Let this suffice and go your ways.
Page 6
Some few Legacies which she bestowed by word of mouth a little before her departure.
• Imprimis to all the Sisterhood in Nightingale Lane, Well close, Ratcliff Highway, and those petty places of Trading, two pence a piece, to buy thread to mend their stockings.
• Item, I give to all those who having handsome Wives of their own yet follow whores, the sum of four pence a piece to buy them a book called Green's groatsworth of wit.
• Item, I give to all the Dammee Hectorian blades about the Town, the sum of thirteen-pence half-penny a piece, to pay the successor of Squire Dun, his wages when they shall have need of him.
• Item, I give to all Thieves, Cut-purses, and Pick-pockets, good counsel to leave off their damnable Trade, or else they will fall Gallows ripe into the Hangman's budget.
• Item, To all rotten pockified Who (of which there is a great many) I give four-pence apiece, to buy them sweet powder, to keep them from stinking alive.
• Item, I bequeath to all young Sm•ll▪ Smocks that intend to follow Whores, this counsel beforehand: that they provide Money for the Apothecary and Chyrurgion.
• Item, I give to the Officers belonging to Fumblers Hall o.o.o.o.
• Item, I bequeath to him that shall write my Life and death the sum of ten shillings to be paid him by the bookseller.
About Damaris Page
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
Page 4
Her Elegy:
And is it true; is Damaris dead indeed
And hath put on Death's sable Ebbon Weed,
Hath grizzly death instead of Beef and Cabbidge
Trust her up deep in Grave both Bag and Baggage,
Then mourn ye Mobbs of Venus, each bright spark
That shines in Luteners Lane, and Whetstones Park,
Blow forth deep sighs and let your groans be runners
Let tears run from your eyes like drops through scummers
Let your eyes Rain make in the ground Meanders
And weep her Death like Hero's and Leanders.
Death on her house of Clay at last did seize,
And sack't the same worse then the Prentices;
There many a Seaman hath sat with his Doxy
And spent his Coin till he grew Foxy, Poxy:
Boarding of Friggots, until at the last
Lights of a fire-ship, and so spoils his Mast,
Well might you think mischief would on it come
Falling to rummaging her Powder-room,
Thus Souldiers may get wounds though not in Wars,
For Venus hurts do prove the greatest scars.
But whether goes my Muse; come back again
Sayl not thy lustre in a Pockey Vein,
Thy task it was to tell of death's Fegaries,
And nor of Surgeons and Apothecaries:
To meddle with no idle lustful Wench,
That takes in English, and pays back in French,
Thy task it, was to make an Elegy,
To show how, where, and when did Damaris dye
How sickness did her body Carbanado
And then death kill'd her with his great Granado,
Her Mobbs could not make cruel Mors to faint
He'd not be bribed with their Pox not Paint,
He knew she was a bit for his own Trencher,
They did mistake to think death was a Wencher,
Now she is gone and laid in ground full cool
The cheif being dead the rest may break up School,
And yet oft-times we by experience know
Great Oaks being gone, the Shrubs will faster grow,
About Damaris Page
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
But although she had some virtues, certainly she had more vices, then any Smith hath to work withal, for she would lie (in her bed) every night; she would scold, but that she learned of her neighbors; she would drink, and eat too, else could she not have lived so long: she would talk, for she was not tongue-tied, yet was she very just of her word, for if she promised to help a man with a wh— she would not help him to an honest woman.
And what can be desired more I pray,
Then people for to do as they do say.
Page 3
And though some may think she got her living very lightly, and with much case, yet certainly they were greatly mistaken; for besides the rigor of the Laws which them of her occupation are liable unto, as Imprisonments, Cartings, and the like, there was besides great charges for Fines and Fees to Justices Clarks, Beadles, and such other inferior reliques of Authority; besides a great deal of charge for white and red to empayer decayed Nature, and to hide the furrows and wrinkles of old age, which should they have appeared, might have been very detrimental to one of her profession: and therefore whatsoever some may think, a B— doth not get her living with so much ease as the world supposeth, nor in that adventure of her danger of Carting to be slighted.
Now I would not have any one to be mistaken, to think because our Damaris died at Ratcliff Highway, that she was the old woman that was drowned there a Fortnight ago; No, be it known to you that she feared more burning then drowning; and besides too, wearing Cork-shoes, she was so light-heeled, that had she been thrown into the water, she would not have sunk.
No doubt but her ambition was very great in striving to imitate the examples of some former great Potentates and Noblemen, who upon the committing of some heinous Crimes, to expiate their sins, as they thought, would build Monasteries and Religious houses; which as that well-languages Historian Mr. Speed thinks, their foundations being lined in blood, or as bad matters was one great cause of their downfall in the time of King Henry VIII.
So she was very charitable to the Poor while she lived, which yet I may speak not as any ways blaming her, and, as I am informed, at her death gave, amongst other Legacies, money to buy Smocks for 100 poor Seamen’s widows, an example of which I wish many that detested her life would practice at their Deaths.
She died on Saturday morning the 9th day of October, and was with a great concourse of people attending her Corp, buried at St. George’s in Southwark on Sunday following in the afternoon, where now she rests in the Grave secure from a Shrove Tuesday rouse, or Easter holy days vexation.
About Damaris Page
San Diego Sarah • Link
My best guess at an either damaged or censored report:
The life and death of Damaris Page (c. 1610 – 9 October 1669). That great, arch, metropolitan (old woman) of Ratcliff highway. Who (through age and sickness) departed this life at her manner of the Three Tuns in the parish of Stepney the 9th day of this present October, and was buried the Sunday following at St. George's in Southwark, with great lamentation of all the sister-hood.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
Damaris Page, as is conjectured, was born about the Year 1601, and as it is thought in the Month of March because she was used to sturdy storms and bitter blasts which that Month is much subject unto she was in her time a woman of very great fame, for the Seamen had spread her name abroad into all the countries of Europe, Asia, Africa and America, and the Isle of Pines also, in which Country she was had in very great repute and Veneration by the Inhabitants thereof, for those notable qualities with which she was endowed.
...
[DAMARIS PAGE] was most notably famous for keeping a house of, what shall I call it, for it had divers names, some called it the Seaman’s whirlpool, others Venus’ Bower, Cupid’s Pest-house, the Chyrurgion’s friend, the Hector’s Office, a Vaulting-School, the amorous Chace, a Brothel, a Stew the huck-strings’ Academy, the hole in the Wall, &c. But the down-right Seaman when he was gotten three quarters drunk, would call it in plain English, a Bawdy-house.
Page 2
And therefore although she kept great hospitality, she could not be said to keep a good house, and although she had many Female servants she kept few Maids, dealing much in brittle Ware that were often subject to cracks and flaws, whom the Chyrurgion was forced to play the Tinker with in mending them the other materials belonging to her house, were a close Box with a side bed to kennel in, clean linen, sweet powder, paint, patches, plaister, pint bottles of Wine at two shilling a bottle, Stepony, Raspberry ale, Cock ale, Cakes, a Barrel of Beer, a tub of new ale, a Gallon of Strong water, two Gallons of Brandy, Cans, Black pots, Pipes ready filled with stinking instead of Spanish Tobacco; Cards, a Pits-pot, and a piece of crotched chalk that should make two scores at once for the greater felicity in writing.
And although some have reported her to be of a very hasty froward, peevish disposition, yet we know contrarily that she was indued with a great stock of patience, as was evidently manifested when the unruly rabble on Easter Holy-days defaced her mansion of pleasure; breaking her goods, cutting in pieces her beds, making the feathers to fly about the streets, yet notwithstanding she were thus wronged, she was not heard to give them any bad words, but contrarily called them good gentlemen and pray gentlemen, with other Sugar-candy words, nothing savoring of scolding brangling, or impatiency at all.
About Damaris Page
San Diego Sarah • Link
Damaris Page was one of the most notorious women of 17th century England.
She was born into severe poverty and hardship but rose to fame and riches.
She was the subject of several Grub Street pamphlets in 1660, characterised as 'The Wandring Whore' and the 'Crafty Bawd', she may have been one of the inspirations for Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders.
Damaris Page was born in Stepney around 1610, and worked as a prostitute throughout her teens.
In 1653 she married James Dry in a Bermondsey church, and in 1655 she was brought to court for bigamy. She was charged with having been married to a William Baker of Stepney for the previous 15 years, although there is no mention of this marriage in the parish records so it may have been fabricated.
Page was acquitted, and after the death of James Dry some years later she remained single.
Damaris Page appeared in court again, charged with the death of an Eleanor Pooley, who had died after Page had tried to perform an abortion with a 2-pronged fork. She was convicted of manslaughter, and would have been hanged had she not been pregnant.
Page was imprisoned in Newgate Gaol for 3 years.
Following her release, Damaris Page became a brothel owner. She ran the Three Tuns in Stepney for seamen and another brothel in Rosemary Lane (now Royal Mint Street), near the Tower of London, for the wealthier naval officers.
She agreed to press-gang her dock worker clientele for a fee, which made her very unpopular, and her house was targeted in the 'Bawdy House Riots' of 1668.
At this time Samuel Pepys described Page as "the most Famous Bawd in the Towne."
By the middle of the 17th century, Page had moved into property speculation, investing the money she had made into building new houses on the Ratcliffe Highway, north of Wapping, and around in residential areas near the Tower of London.
The income from these properties supported her for the rest of her life, and by her death in 1669 she had amassed a large fortune.
Source: Wikipedia - Damaris Page
https://eastendwomensmuseum.org/b…
About Monday 6 April 1668
San Diego Sarah • Link
"The Poor Whores’ Petition to the most splendid, illustrious, serene and eminent Lady of Pleasure the Countess of Castlemayne, &c., signed by us, Madam Cresswell and Damaris Page, this present 25th day of March, 1668.”
A bio with some obvious errors about "Madam" Elizabeth Cresswell
https://awomantoknow.substack.com…
Damaris Page bio, from Wikipedia
https://eastendwomensmuseum.org/b…
About Salisbury Court Theatre
San Diego Sarah • Link
Wikipedia clarifies somewhat the above annotation:
Pepys records visiting Salisbury Court Theatre in early 1661 (often calling it the Whitefriars Theatre), where he saw:
Fletcher's "The Mad Lover" on 9 February 1661;
Middleton and Rowley's "The Changeling" on 23 February (Thomas Betterton played De Flores);
Massinger's "The Bondman" on 1 March (Betterton again);
Fletcher and Massinger's "The Spanish Curate" on 16 March;
Heywood's "Love's Mistress" on 2 March;
and Fletcher's "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife" on 1 April.
The building burned down in the Great Fire of 1666.
It was replaced in 1671 by the Dorset Garden Theatre, which was built slightly further south to a design by Christopher Wren.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal…
About Salisbury Court Theatre
San Diego Sarah • Link
Largely taken from British History Online's pages on the disreputable Whitefriars neighborhood:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
The first theater in Whitefriars seems to have been built in the hall of the old Whitefriars Monastery. It was in business from 1586 to 1613.
A memorandum from the manuscript-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels to King Charles I, notes: "I committed Cromes, a broker in Long Lane, the 16th of February, 1634, to the Marshalsea, for lending a Church robe, with the name of Jesus upon it, to the players in Salisbury Court, to represent a flamen, a priest of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission and acknowledgment of his fault, I released him the 17th February, 1634."
From entries of the Wardmote Inquests of St. Dunstan's, it appears the Whitefriars Theater (erected in the precincts of the monastery, to be out of the jurisdiction of the mayor) had become disreputable by 1609, and ruinous in 1619, when it is said "the rain hath made its way in, and if it be not repaired it must soon be plucked down, or it will fall."
The Salisbury Court Theater, which took its place about 1629, when the Earl of Dorset somewhat illegally let it for a term of 61 years and £950 down.
The Salisbury Court Theater was destroyed by Puritan soldiers in 1649, and not rebuilt until the Restoration.
At the outbreak of pleasure and vice, after the Restoration, the actors, long starved and crestfallen, brushed up their plumes and burnished their tinsel.
Thomas Killigrew, a Court buffoon, with a troop called the King's Men, opened a new theater in Drury Lane, Covent Garden in 1663.
Sir William Davenant (rumored to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son) opened the long disused theater in Salisbury Court, the rebuilding of which commenced in 1660, on the site of the granary of Salisbury House, with a troop called The Opera, under the patronage of the Duke of York.
Later Davenant migrated to the old Tennis Court in Portugal Street, on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The Great Fire erased the Granary Theater [aka Salisbury Court Theater].
In 1671, on Sir William Davenant's death, the company (managed by his widow) returned to a new theater in Salisbury Court, designed by Wren and possibly decorated by Grinling Gibbons. It opened with Dryden's "Sir Martin Marall", which had already played in 1668.
On Thomas Killigrew's death, the King's and Duke's Servants united, and removed to Drury Lane, Covent Garden, in 1682; the Dorset Gardens Theater/Salisbury Court Theater only flourished for 11 years in all.
SEE NEXT ANNOTATION
About William Cavendish (1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
San Diego Sarah • Link
British History Online in its recounting of the history of Whitefriars, says:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
At the Restoration, William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle, the author of a magnificent book on horsemanship and his pedantic wife [Margaret “Mad Madge” Lucas Cavendish, later the Duchess of Newcastle 1623 - 1673] … inhabited a part of Dorset House; but whether Great Dorset House or Little Dorset House, topographers do not record.
[I can't believe the Cavendishes stayed at Dorset House in Whitefriars for long -- not a nice neighborhood in Stuart times! The see of Winchester appears to have been at the heart of Tudor immorality, as British History Online at another point says:
[... when Whitefriars was at its grandest, and plumes moved about its narrow river-side streets, Dorset House was its central and most stately mansion. It was originally a mansion with gardens, belonging to a Bishop of Winchester; but about the year 1217 (Henry III) a lease was granted by William, Abbot of Westminster, to Richard, Bishop of Sarum, at the yearly rent of 20 shillings, the Abbot retaining the advowson of St. Bride's Church, and promising to impart to the said bishop any needful ecclesiastical advice.
[Dorset House afterwards fell into the hands of the Sackvilles, held at first by a long lease from the see of Winchester, but was eventually alienated by Bishop Jewel. A grant in 1611 (King James) confirmed the manor of Salisbury Court to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
[The Earl of Dorset (to whom Bishop Jewel alienated the Whitefriars House) was the father of the poet, Thomas Sackville, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth.]
There seems to be no record of where the Sackville family lived in London during the Restoration -- their Wikipedia and Parliamentary bios are silent on the subject. I think it's safe to guess it wasn't in Whitefriars.
About Edward Kynaston
San Diego Sarah • Link
British History Online has this review of Edward Kynaston's career:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
Kynaston, ... was also a celebrity. As a handsome boy he had been renowned for playing heroines, and he afterwards acquired celebrity by his dignified impersonation of kings and tyrants. Betterton, the greatest of all the Charles II actors, also played occasionally at Dorset Gardens. Pope knew him; Dryden was his friend; Kneller painted him. He was probably the greatest Hamlet that ever appeared; and Cibber sums up all eulogy of him when he says, "I never heard a line in tragedy come from Betterton wherein my judgment my ear, and my imagination were not fully satisfied, which since his time I cannot equally say of any one actor whatsoever." The enchantment of his voice was such, adds the same excellent dramatic critic, that the multitude no more cared for sense in the words he spoke, "than our musical connoiseurs think it essential in the celebrated airs of an Italian opera."
About Charles Hart
San Diego Sarah • Link
British History Online has this review of Charles Hart's career:
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
Old and New London: Volume 1. Originally published by Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London, 1878.
"Hart had been a Cavalier captain during the Civil Wars, and was a pupil of Robinson, the actor, who was shot down at the taking of Basing House. Hart was a tragedian who excelled in parts that required a certain heroic and chivalrous dignity. As a youth, before the Restoration, when boys played female parts, Hart was successful as the Duchess, in Shirley's Cardinal. In Charles II's time he played Othello, by the king's command, and rivalled Betterton's Hamlet at the other house. He created the part of Alexander, was excellent as Brutus, and terribly and vigorously wicked as Ben Jonson's Cataline. Rymer, says Dr. Doran, styled Hart and Mohun the Æsopus and Roscius of their time. As Amintor and Melanthus, in The Maid's Tragedy, they were incomparable. Pepys is loud too in his praises of Hart. His salary, was, at the most, £3 a week, although he realized £1,000 yearly after he became a shareholder of the theater. Hart died in 1683, within a year of his being bought off."
About Whitefriars
San Diego Sarah • Link
British History Online describes the ribald story of Whitefriars at
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
The highlights to me are Walter Scott's description of the slums of Whitefriars. He lived from 1771 – 1832, so he was using his imagination when he wrote "The Fortunes of Nigel":
"The wailing of children, ... the scolding of their mothers, the miserable exhibition of ragged linen hung from the windows to dry, spoke the wants and distresses of the wretched inhabitants; while the sounds of complaint were mocked and overwhelmed by the riotous shouts, oaths, profane songs, and boisterous laughter that issued from the alehouses and taverns, which, as the signs indicated, were equal in number to all the other houses; and that the full character of the place might be evident, several faded, tinseled, and painted females looked boldly at the strangers from their open lattices, or more modestly seemed busied with the cracked flower-pots, filled with mignonette and rosemary, which were disposed in front of the windows, to the great risk of the passengers."
Thomas Shadwell’s play, “The Squire of Alsatia” (Alsatia being the nickname for Whitefriars) premiered on 3 May, 1688. It ends with a dignified protest, which doubtless proved effective with the audience, against the privileges of places that harbored such scoundrels.
"Was ever,” Shadwell asks, "such impudence suffered in a Government? Ireland conquered; Wales subdued; Scotland united. But there are some few spots of ground in London, just in the face of the Government, unconquered yet, that hold in rebellion still. Mèthinks 'tis strange that places so near the king's palace should be no part of his dominions. 'Tis a shame in the society of law to countenance such practices. Should any place be shut against the king's writ or posse comitatus?"
William III must have agreed with Shadwell, for at the end of his reign the privilege of sanctuary was taken from Whitefriars, and the dogs were at last let in on the rats for whom they had been so long waiting.
About Sunday 19 August 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thanks Plan B -- great pseudonym, by the way -- so far our first Tropical Storm in 90 years is boring. It's been drizzling big, warm drops for hours. The unofficial pool measurement is an inch so far. My plants are very happy. However, I live on the coastal plain and the eye is coming my way, so who knows what the midnight hours will bring.
It's a very different story in the mountains and deserts where they are subject to landslides, and the winds and rains are blowing around the eye.
For instance, I understand Las Vegas has lost power -- and they are 350 miles away.
As with so many things in life, throughout history -- bad news happens somewhere, but for the vast majority of people, nothing much happens.
Also, the people in the eye of the storm feel the least -- it's people caught up on the fringes who suffer the biggest whiplash. (The scheming of Charles II is the eye, and he never misses a meal -- it's the [often un{der}paid] sailors fighting his wars who reap the whiplash, etc.)
As for annotations, I expect to be annotating my own humble first tries shortly. Hang out here for 9 years and you can't help but learn a lot.
About Sunday 19 August 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Poor Rev. Ralph, the strain of not knowing whether or not he can keep his living is causing a crisis of faith. That must have been happening all over the country -- Parliament better get on with the Act of General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion; it's not just Charles II who needs it taken care of.
God's covenant with Noah was a commitment to maintain the inherent relationship between Creator and creation; his relationship with the natural order -– implicit in the act of creation -– whereby he promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood.
Josselin keeps telling us what a good harvest he's having, and he hasn't mentioned rain recently. Maybe this was a (1)666 millennial worry? As a Presbyterian could he fear Charles II is the anti-Christ? Apparently, some did: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
I hope God's covenant with Noah holds true today: San Diego is under threat of a Tropical Storm -- down from a stage 3 hurricane this morning. We haven't had one of those come on shore since 1936. It doesn't rain in August here!