By an order of 17 May, 1660 all purchasers of those goods not disposed of to pay King Charles I’s debts had to restore either the property or its value to the Crown. https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
Much gnashing of Interregnum teeth was heard throughout the land. The Great Hall looked so nice with those Rembrandts around the fireplace.
Ah -- Ormonde is introduced as the Earl of Brecknock. Ormonde is an Irish title, and as such cannot sit in this Parliament, so Charles II made him an English/Welsh Earl while he was about it, and it is in this capacity that he joins the House of Lords. (Wales and England have a "special relationship" older than Scotland and Ireland, so they did sit in the Lords. Please don't ask me explain. I can't. Just is. Tradition.)
And look who's seated next to Sandwich in the House of Lords:
"Upon Information to the House, "That His Majesty hath conferred a Title of Honour upon the Lord Steward, the Marquis of Ormonde;" and his Lordship being in the Lobby, the House appointed the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Earl of Bedford, and the Earl of Strafford, with Garter at Arms, to introduct him in the usual Manner. And his Lordship delivering his Patent to the Lord Chancellor, it was read publicly by the Clerk of the Parliament. The said Patent bears Date the 20th Day of July, 12 Car'l. II. and creates his Lordship Baron De Lanthony, and Earl of Brecknock. Which done, he was brought to his Place and Seat, next below the Earl of Sandwich."
So James Butler is the Marquis of Ormonde now. Well deserved.
From today's House of Lord's entry: "The Earl of Pembrooke reported from the Committee for Privileges, "That the Opinion of the Committee was, That the King's Counsel be appointed to bring in a Charge against the Lord Viscount Purbeck within a short Time, or else that he be discharged:" "It is Ordered, That he be bailed, giving his own Security of Ten Thousand Pounds for his Appearance. To this Purpose, the Gentleman Usher is to bring him to this Bar Tomorrow Morning."
BUT: Viscount Purbeck was a title in the Peerage of England that was created on 19 July, 1619, for John Villiers, the brother of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham and the 1st Earl of Angelsey. It became extinct upon his death without legitimate issue on 18 February, 1657.
(In 1621 Purbeck's wife had deserted him and went to live with Sir Robert Howard. On 19 October, 1624, she gave birth to a son, known as Robert Danvers, and in October she was convicted of adultery. She died at Oxford on 4 June, 1645.)
The peerage became extinct, although the claim to it was put forward by Robert Danvers, and was for many years a cause célèbre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh…
So don't Google "1660 Purbeck" or "the 2nd Viscount Purbeck" because you won't find anything.
"W. Bowyer to bring me 100/., being that he had in his hands of my Lord’s."
Will Bowyer works at the Exchequer, which was also at Whitehall. So the government owed Adm. Montagu 100/., and Clerk Pepys takes what he's owed for the voyage from that to pay off his personal running balance with Cousin Edward. Or something.
I was wondering why Pepys and Hewer did his accounts at Sandwich's apartments at Whitehall, until I realized they were probably settling up from the voyage in March-April-May, and Sandwich must have had the books.
Pepys lost a lot of games of ninepins if I remember correctly.
@@@
"A sort of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, but Peter and Paul are just agents for the same man. ?"
Yes, Admiral Montagu's official expenses are Peter, and Cousin Edward's winnings at ninepins are Paul, Pauline.
"And did link boys lounge about the streets, looking for trade? How hard was it to find one when you wanted one?"
I think it's much like finding a taxi today -- if you're in a busy area, there were lots of them. If you needed one from your home on a back street, better hire your local teenager to help you.
1660 "where D. Scobell with his wife, a pretty and rich woman." She seems to be a good sport and is party to the games which Pepys and the gang from the Excise enjoy when they were young and had nothing to lose.
1660 "Mrs. Symons, a very fine woman, very merry after dinner ..." and she is at several parties held by Pepys' crowd of friends from the Excise, and always seems to be full of fun. 1661 "After dinner by agreement to visit Mrs. Symonds, but she is abroad, which I wonder at, ..." It appears Mrs. Symons doesn't feel that friendly towards you, Mr. Pepys. I wonder why???? 1662 a note that Mr. Chetwynd had given her some money, but Pepys only mentions seeing husband Will. 1663 "W. Symon’s wife is dead, for which I am sorry, she being a good woman, and tells me an odde story of her saying before her death, being in good sense, that there stood her uncle Scobell." (I guess she was halucinating) 1664: "... and from thence by appointment took Luellin, Mount, and W. Symons, and Mr. Pierce, the chirurgeon, home to dinner with me and were merry. But, Lord! to hear how W. Symons do commend and look sadly and then talk bawdily and merrily, though his wife was dead but the other day, would make a dogg laugh."
Pepys doesn't mention going to her funeral. I'm glad he had Will Symons to lunch with friends at that difficult time, despite not understanding how grief takes you. Your turn will come, Pepys, and then you won't be so judgmental.
Pepys struggles with remembering Mr. Hooper's name! William Hooper was a minor canon of Westminster Abbey. L&M: Cf. the entry at 9 December 1660. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
In October 1633, Lady Eleanor Touchet Davies Douglas was imprisoned and fined £3,000 for illegally publishing some of her books abroad and smuggling copies into the country. Lady Eleanor was released from the Gatehouse Prison in June 1635 but within the year had created new trouble in Lichfield, where she sprinkled her own version of holy water (made with tar) on the hangings in the Cathedral.
In 1634 Frances Coke Villiers, Viscountess Purbeck moved to Westminster, and openly continued her relationship with Sir Robert Howard. The defiant couple were imprisoned; Lady Frances at the Gatehouse prison and Sir Robert at the Fleet. Astonishingly, Lady Frances escaped, dressed as a man, fled to Jersey and France where she lived in exile in Paris for several years.
In 1663, Mary Carleton went on trial for bigamy. Born in Canterbury of humble parents, she married a shoemaker and gave birth to 2 children before disappearing to Cologne. There she had a torrid affair with a nobleman, turning down his offer of marriage but kept his rich gifts and some money besides. Mary returned to England, claiming to be an orphaned German princess and married John Carleton. A discovered letter betrayed her first marriage and she was arrested. Mary was acquitted of bigamy after a spirited defense and went on to marry, steal from, and abandon a string of new husbands before being transported to Jamaica and, finally, hanged for theft in 1673.
In the late 17th century, there were two famous prisoners condemned to the Gatehouse Prison:
The former court dwarf, Sir Jeffrey Hudson. As a child of 18 ins., he was given to Queen Henrietta Maria as a surprise by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham: he emerged from a pie, dressed in armor. Hudson became a cherished member of the royal household and traveled with the Queen to French exile. Hudson tired of jokes about his size and responded to a taunt from the queen's master of horse, he entered a duel and shot his opponent in the head. He then fled France. Sometime later, Hudson was on a boat seized by Barbary pirates and it took him many years to escape and make his way to England. He returned during The Popish Plot, and Hudson was arrested for being a "Roman Catholic." He died in 1682, 2 years after being released from the Gatehouse.
The last illustrious prisoner of the Gatehouse prison was Samuel Pepys, jailed in 1690. A longtime civil servant, wit and bibliophile, he fell foul of anti-Catholic paranoia. He was suspected of being a secret Jacobite in contact with the exiled James II; because of his poor health, he was given bail.
Another Tudor troublemaker, Giles Wigginton, a Cambridge-educated clergyman, was twice confined in the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster, once for refusing to swear he was not the author of "The Marprelate Tracts" (pamphlets attacking the kingdom's traditional Anglican leaders). While imprisoned in the 1590s, Wigginton was joined by other Puritans (e.g. William Hacket, who claimed to be the Messiah), called for the removal of Queen Elizabeth, and on the way to his execution insulted the clergyman trying to comfort him.
The first "celebrity" prisoner of the Westminster Gatehouse was Sir Walter Raleigh. After a lengthy imprisonment in the Tower under King James, he was released to lead a disastrous expedition to Venezuela to find gold. On his return, he was re-imprisoned in the Gatehouse, perhaps because he was to be executed in the Old Palace Yard in Westminster.
Tradition has it that Raleigh wrote this poem shortly before he met his end on Oct. 29, 1618, which was found later in his Bible in the Gatehouse at Westminster: "Even such is time, that takes in trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with earth and dust; Who, in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust."
On the scaffold, Ralegh was shown the ax, and he said, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries." Ralegh was buried in St. Margaret's Church nearby, without his head, which wasa taken by his wife, and never moved.
Another poet held at the Gatehouse prison was Richard Lovelace, a wealthy knight's son who at the age of 13 became a "gentleman wayter extraordinary" to King Charles. In his 20s, Lovelace was arrested for destroying a pro-parliamentary petition. During his several months' stay in the Gatehouse, he is believed to have written his most famous poem: To Althea, From Prison "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an Hermitage. If I have freedom in my love, and in my soul am free, angels alone that soar above, enjoy such liberty."
Ruined by his undaunted support of the Royalist cause, Lovelace died in poverty in 1658.
In the reign of Edward III a gatehouse quite close to Westminster Abbey was converted into a prison. A description of it written in 1768, says it "is situated near the west end of the abbey, entering into Tuttle Street, and the Almery ... it is the chief prison for the City of Westminster liberties, not only for debt, but treason, theft and other criminal matters."
The prison was originally connected to Westminster Abbey. Documents point to William Warfield, the cellarer of Westminster Abbey, who transformed the gatehouse into a prison. In 1370 he arranged for the gatehouse’s upper storey to house a jail.
By the reign of Edward III, Westminster was in full medieval throttle. William Rufus' majestic Great Hall (where Parliament met and kings sat on marble thrones), was raised near the spectacular Westminster Abbey, founded by Edward the Confessor in 1065.
In Walter Thornbury's Old and New London (1878), he speculates about the preeminence in Plantagenet times of Westminster Abbey: "A magnificent apex to a royal palace, the abbey church was surrounded by its own greater and lesser sanctuaries and almonries; it's bell towers (the principal one 72 ft 6 ins square, with walls 20 ft thick), chapels, gatehouses, boundary walls, and many other buildings, which we can cannot imagine today. In addition to all the land around it, extending from the Thames to Oxford Street, the Abbey possessed 97 towns and villages, 17 hamlets and 216 manors. Its officers fed hundreds of people daily, and a priests (not the Abbot) entertained the king and queen, with so large a party that 700 dishes did not suffice for the first table, and even the abbey butler, in the reign of Edward III, rebuilt at his own expense the stately gatehouse which gave entrance to Tothill Street." (The "butler" was probably the same William Warfield.)
Tudor-era historian John Stow wrote that the eastern part of the north gate was used as the bishop of London's prison for "clarks convict." So was it originally an ecclesiastical prison? That's contradicted by a report that, during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, rioters set the Westminster prisoners free. It's hard to think peasant rebels were fired up about liberating errant clerks.
A 16th century prisoner of opposite views was Nicholas Vaux, a chorister of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, imprisoned for "propagating the Romish religion." He died in the Gatehouse "of cold and hunger" in 1571.
In 1596, a Southwark preacher confined in the Gatehouse wrote an abject letter to Lord Burghley "for keeping Wednesday a fast, and transferring the observation of it unto Thursday." Hardly a violent felon.
Vincent made some good guesses, but according to this article, the Butlers were a well-connected Irish family, and Mons. L'impertinent was a Protestant minister.
Sadly Frances didn't marry Cary Dillon, or she would have ended up being the Countess of Roscommon. Hopefully it wasn't prevented by Mons. L'impertinent hubris. But we'll probably never find out, unless something turns up misfiled in a library somewhere.
Dillon’s career was almost ruined in 1662 when he acted as second to Col. Thomas Howard in his duel with Henry Jermyn, 1st Baron Dover (Howard and Dover being rivals for the affections of Anna Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury). Howard left Dover for dead, and Dillon killed Dover's second, Giles Rawlings.
Lt. Cary Dillon MP and Col. Thomas Howard initially fled, but returned to stand trial. They were both acquitted, as killing a man in a duel was then generally regarded as an act of self-defense.
This was temporary, and after 1670 his rise in Irish public life was rapid.
Lt. Cary Dillon MP was sworn a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1673, and also became Master of the Irish Mint, Commissary-Gen. of the Horse of Ireland, Surveyor-Gen. forIrish Customs and Excise, and a Governor of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
In 1685, on the death of his nephew, the poet Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, Dillon succeeded to the Earldom.
In 1686, Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon clashed with the Duke of Tyrconnel, the rising R.C. Royal favorite. Tyrconnel, as Lt-Gen. of the Irish Army, removed all the Protestant officers of the regiment stationed at Kilkenny. Roscommon challenged his legal right to do so, and when the matter came before the Lord Lt. of Ireland, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, called Tyrconnel a liar: a shrewd blow, as Tyrconnel was nicknamed "Lying Dick Talbot".
Having served the Stuart dynasty loyaly during the Civil Wars and after the Restoration, Lord Roscommon and many of the Irish Protestant ruling class changed sides after James II fled to France in 1688.
In 1689, James II tried to reconquer England by occupying Ireland, Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon offered his services to William III.
Roscommon was commissioned to raise troops on William III's behalf, and was present at the crucial first step in William's campaign, the taking of Carrickfergus in August 1689. Consequently Col. Cary Dillon, Lord Roscommon was attainted for treason by James II's Patriot Parliament held in Dublin.
Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon died in November 1689.
Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon married Katherine Werden (D 1683), daughter of John Werden of Chester, by whom he had a son and heir, Robert Dillon, 6th Earl of Roscommon (D 1715), who is said to have been a young child when his father died. Roscommon also had 2 daughters: Anne, who married Sir Thomas Nugent in about 1675, and Catherine (D 1674), who married Hugh Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Mount Alexander. The Dillon sisters were much older than Robert, so it's likely they were children of an earlier marriage: if so, their mother died before 1660, since it is clear from the Diary that Dillon was free to marry between 1660 and 1668.
Carey or Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon (1627–1689) was an Irish nobleman and professional soldier. He held Court offices under Charles II and James II, and fought for William III.
Pepys was a friend of Cary Dillon in the 1660s. Pepys evidently liked "Col. Dillon", whom he first seems to have met in 1660, when he called him "a very merry and witty companion".
At the start of the Diary, one of Pepys' closest friends was a young clergyman called Butler (nicknamed "Monsieur l'Impertinent", because he never stopped talking), who was probably also an Irishman.
Pepys admired both Butler sisters, especially Frances (nicknamed "la belle Boteler"), whom he thought one of the greatest beauties in London.
Cary Dillon courted Frances Butler, as far as an engagement, but this was broken off in 1662, apparently after a violent quarrel between Dillon and Frances' brother, Rev. Butler, "Monsiuer l'Impertinent", who complained of Dillon's "knavery" to him.
In the summer of 1668, Dillon apparently renewed his proposal of marriage -- Pepys saw him and Frances Butler riding in a carriage together -- but it seems Frances declined the offer.
It is not known whether Frances Butler ever married.
Cary Dillon was a younger son of Robert Dillon, 2nd Earl of Roscommon (died 1642), by his third wife Anne Strode, daughter of Sir William Strode of Somerset.
Anne Strode Folliott Dillon, who died about 1650, was the widow of Henry Folliott, 1st Baron Folliott, by whom she had several children.
As a younger son with his livelihood to earn in the war-torn Ireland of the 1640s and 1650s, a military career was an obvious choice for Cary Dillon: he was made a Captain by the age of 17.
Although Samuel Pepys always called him "Col. Dillon" he was apparently only a Lieutenant until 1684, when he became a Major, and subsequently a Colonel.
In the 1630s Robert Dillon, 2nd Earl of Roscommon was a supporter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the virtually all-powerful Lord Deputy of Ireland, as was his half-brother James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon, and a family tie between the Dillons and the Wentworths was created when James married Strafford's sister, Elizabeth Wentworth.
During the English Civil Wars, both brothers were staunch Royalists: James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon, who died in 1649, was posthumously listed in the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 as one of the 10 leaders of the Royalist cause in Ireland who were excluded from pardon, and thus liable to forfeiture of their estates.
Following the Restoration, Lt. Dillon entered politics, sitting in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Banagher in the Parliament of 1661-1666.
Correct, MartinVT -- and the same logic applied when the Rump Parliament recalls were made in the Spring, and the Long Parliament legally dissolved itself and declared new elections. They were making Charles II's reign as legitimate and consistent as possible.
And this led to all the disputes about which minister should legally have the parish living, and who legally owned sequestered property.
Comments
Third Reading
About Thursday 17 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Back at the Palace of Westminster:
By an order of 17 May, 1660 all purchasers of those goods not disposed of to pay King Charles I’s debts had to restore either the property or its value to the Crown.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
Much gnashing of Interregnum teeth was heard throughout the land. The Great Hall looked so nice with those Rembrandts around the fireplace.
About Friday 27 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Ah -- Ormonde is introduced as the Earl of Brecknock.
Ormonde is an Irish title, and as such cannot sit in this Parliament, so Charles II made him an English/Welsh Earl while he was about it, and it is in this capacity that he joins the House of Lords.
(Wales and England have a "special relationship" older than Scotland and Ireland, so they did sit in the Lords. Please don't ask me explain. I can't. Just is. Tradition.)
About Friday 27 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
And look who's seated next to Sandwich in the House of Lords:
"Upon Information to the House, "That His Majesty hath conferred a Title of Honour upon the Lord Steward, the Marquis of Ormonde;" and his Lordship being in the Lobby, the House appointed the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Earl of Bedford, and the Earl of Strafford, with Garter at Arms, to introduct him in the usual Manner.
And his Lordship delivering his Patent to the Lord Chancellor, it was read publicly by the Clerk of the Parliament. The said Patent bears Date the 20th Day of July, 12 Car'l. II. and creates his Lordship Baron De Lanthony, and Earl of Brecknock.
Which done, he was brought to his Place and Seat, next below the Earl of Sandwich."
So James Butler is the Marquis of Ormonde now. Well deserved.
About Friday 27 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
From today's House of Lord's entry:
"The Earl of Pembrooke reported from the Committee for Privileges, "That the Opinion of the Committee was, That the King's Counsel be appointed to bring in a Charge against the Lord Viscount Purbeck within a short Time, or else that he be discharged:"
"It is Ordered, That he be bailed, giving his own Security of Ten Thousand Pounds for his Appearance. To this Purpose, the Gentleman Usher is to bring him to this Bar Tomorrow Morning."
BUT: Viscount Purbeck was a title in the Peerage of England that was created on 19 July, 1619, for John Villiers, the brother of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham and the 1st Earl of Angelsey. It became extinct upon his death without legitimate issue on 18 February, 1657.
(In 1621 Purbeck's wife had deserted him and went to live with Sir Robert Howard. On 19 October, 1624, she gave birth to a son, known as Robert Danvers, and in October she was convicted of adultery. She died at Oxford on 4 June, 1645.)
The peerage became extinct, although the claim to it was put forward by Robert Danvers, and was for many years a cause célèbre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh…
So don't Google "1660 Purbeck" or "the 2nd Viscount Purbeck" because you won't find anything.
About Friday 27 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"W. Bowyer to bring me 100/., being that he had in his hands of my Lord’s."
Will Bowyer works at the Exchequer, which was also at Whitehall. So the government owed Adm. Montagu 100/., and Clerk Pepys takes what he's owed for the voyage from that to pay off his personal running balance with Cousin Edward.
Or something.
About Friday 27 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I was wondering why Pepys and Hewer did his accounts at Sandwich's apartments at Whitehall, until I realized they were probably settling up from the voyage in March-April-May, and Sandwich must have had the books.
Pepys lost a lot of games of ninepins if I remember correctly.
@@@
"A sort of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, but Peter and Paul are just agents for the same man. ?"
Yes, Admiral Montagu's official expenses are Peter, and Cousin Edward's winnings at ninepins are Paul, Pauline.
About Friday 27 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"And did link boys lounge about the streets, looking for trade? How hard was it to find one when you wanted one?"
I think it's much like finding a taxi today -- if you're in a busy area, there were lots of them. If you needed one from your home on a back street, better hire your local teenager to help you.
About Thursday 26 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I suspect Pepys didn't walk alone" -- no he certainly didn't. He had the strapping big teenager, Will Hewer, with him.
About Mrs Scobell
San Diego Sarah • Link
1660 "where D. Scobell with his wife, a pretty and rich woman." She seems to be a good sport and is party to the games which Pepys and the gang from the Excise enjoy when they were young and had nothing to lose.
About Margaret Symons
San Diego Sarah • Link
1660 "Mrs. Symons, a very fine woman, very merry after dinner ..." and she is at several parties held by Pepys' crowd of friends from the Excise, and always seems to be full of fun.
1661 "After dinner by agreement to visit Mrs. Symonds, but she is abroad, which I wonder at, ..."
It appears Mrs. Symons doesn't feel that friendly towards you, Mr. Pepys. I wonder why????
1662 a note that Mr. Chetwynd had given her some money, but Pepys only mentions seeing husband Will.
1663 "W. Symon’s wife is dead, for which I am sorry, she being a good woman, and tells me an odde story of her saying before her death, being in good sense, that there stood her uncle Scobell." (I guess she was halucinating)
1664: "... and from thence by appointment took Luellin, Mount, and W. Symons, and Mr. Pierce, the chirurgeon, home to dinner with me and were merry. But, Lord! to hear how W. Symons do commend and look sadly and then talk bawdily and merrily, though his wife was dead but the other day, would make a dogg laugh."
Pepys doesn't mention going to her funeral.
I'm glad he had Will Symons to lunch with friends at that difficult time, despite not understanding how grief takes you.
Your turn will come, Pepys, and then you won't be so judgmental.
About Mr Hooper
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys struggles with remembering Mr. Hooper's name!
William Hooper was a minor canon of Westminster Abbey.
L&M: Cf. the entry at 9 December 1660. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Privy Seal Office
San Diego Sarah • Link
Terry Foreman tried to explain the difference in responsibilities between the Privy Seal and Signet Offices:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Thursday 26 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Without being chastized for revealing a spoiler, we can't answer you, David G -- if you're on the Pepys Group email I'll answer you that way?
I suspect Pepys didn't walk alone, and he didn't dress in a splashy way, so the thieves probably thought there were better victims.
About The Gatehouse (Westminster)
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
In October 1633, Lady Eleanor Touchet Davies Douglas was imprisoned and fined £3,000 for illegally publishing some of her books abroad and smuggling copies into the country. Lady Eleanor was released from the Gatehouse Prison in June 1635 but within the year had created new trouble in Lichfield, where she sprinkled her own version of holy water (made with tar) on the hangings in the Cathedral.
In 1634 Frances Coke Villiers, Viscountess Purbeck moved to Westminster, and openly continued her relationship with Sir Robert Howard. The defiant couple were imprisoned; Lady Frances at the Gatehouse prison and Sir Robert at the Fleet. Astonishingly, Lady Frances escaped, dressed as a man, fled to Jersey and France where she lived in exile in Paris for several years.
In 1663, Mary Carleton went on trial for bigamy. Born in Canterbury of humble parents, she married a shoemaker and gave birth to 2 children before disappearing to Cologne. There she had a torrid affair with a nobleman, turning down his offer of marriage but kept his rich gifts and some money besides.
Mary returned to England, claiming to be an orphaned German princess and married John Carleton. A discovered letter betrayed her first marriage and she was arrested.
Mary was acquitted of bigamy after a spirited defense and went on to marry, steal from, and abandon a string of new husbands before being transported to Jamaica and, finally, hanged for theft in 1673.
In the late 17th century, there were two famous prisoners condemned to the Gatehouse Prison:
The former court dwarf, Sir Jeffrey Hudson. As a child of 18 ins., he was given to Queen Henrietta Maria as a surprise by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham: he emerged from a pie, dressed in armor.
Hudson became a cherished member of the royal household and traveled with the Queen to French exile.
Hudson tired of jokes about his size and responded to a taunt from the queen's master of horse, he entered a duel and shot his opponent in the head. He then fled France.
Sometime later, Hudson was on a boat seized by Barbary pirates and it took him many years to escape and make his way to England. He returned during The Popish Plot, and Hudson was arrested for being a "Roman Catholic."
He died in 1682, 2 years after being released from the Gatehouse.
The last illustrious prisoner of the Gatehouse prison was Samuel Pepys, jailed in 1690. A longtime civil servant, wit and bibliophile, he fell foul of anti-Catholic paranoia. He was suspected of being a secret Jacobite in contact with the exiled James II; because of his poor health, he was given bail.
Mostly excerpted from
http://nancybilyeau.blogspot.com/…
About The Gatehouse (Westminster)
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Another Tudor troublemaker, Giles Wigginton, a Cambridge-educated clergyman, was twice confined in the Gatehouse Prison, Westminster, once for refusing to swear he was not the author of "The Marprelate Tracts" (pamphlets attacking the kingdom's traditional Anglican leaders).
While imprisoned in the 1590s, Wigginton was joined by other Puritans (e.g. William Hacket, who claimed to be the Messiah), called for the removal of Queen Elizabeth, and on the way to his execution insulted the clergyman trying to comfort him.
The first "celebrity" prisoner of the Westminster Gatehouse was Sir Walter Raleigh. After a lengthy imprisonment in the Tower under King James, he was released to lead a disastrous expedition to Venezuela to find gold. On his return, he was re-imprisoned in the Gatehouse, perhaps because he was to be executed in the Old Palace Yard in Westminster.
Tradition has it that Raleigh wrote this poem shortly before he met his end on Oct. 29, 1618, which was found later in his Bible in the Gatehouse at Westminster:
"Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust."
On the scaffold, Ralegh was shown the ax, and he said, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries." Ralegh was buried in St. Margaret's Church nearby, without his head, which wasa taken by his wife, and never moved.
Another poet held at the Gatehouse prison was Richard Lovelace, a wealthy knight's son who at the age of 13 became a "gentleman wayter extraordinary" to King Charles.
In his 20s, Lovelace was arrested for destroying a pro-parliamentary petition. During his several months' stay in the Gatehouse, he is believed to have written his most famous poem:
To Althea, From Prison
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
and in my soul am free,
angels alone that soar above,
enjoy such liberty."
Ruined by his undaunted support of the Royalist cause, Lovelace died in poverty in 1658.
About The Gatehouse (Westminster)
San Diego Sarah • Link
In the reign of Edward III a gatehouse quite close to Westminster Abbey was converted into a prison. A description of it written in 1768, says it "is situated near the west end of the abbey, entering into Tuttle Street, and the Almery ... it is the chief prison for the City of Westminster liberties, not only for debt, but treason, theft and other criminal matters."
The prison was originally connected to Westminster Abbey. Documents point to William Warfield, the cellarer of Westminster Abbey, who transformed the gatehouse into a prison. In 1370 he arranged for the gatehouse’s upper storey to house a jail.
By the reign of Edward III, Westminster was in full medieval throttle. William Rufus' majestic Great Hall (where Parliament met and kings sat on marble thrones), was raised near the spectacular Westminster Abbey, founded by Edward the Confessor in 1065.
In Walter Thornbury's Old and New London (1878), he speculates about the preeminence in Plantagenet times of Westminster Abbey: "A magnificent apex to a royal palace, the abbey church was surrounded by its own greater and lesser sanctuaries and almonries; it's bell towers (the principal one 72 ft 6 ins square, with walls 20 ft thick), chapels, gatehouses, boundary walls, and many other buildings, which we can cannot imagine today.
In addition to all the land around it, extending from the Thames to Oxford Street, the Abbey possessed 97 towns and villages, 17 hamlets and 216 manors.
Its officers fed hundreds of people daily, and a priests (not the Abbot) entertained the king and queen, with so large a party that 700 dishes did not suffice for the first table, and even the abbey butler, in the reign of Edward III, rebuilt at his own expense the stately gatehouse which gave entrance to Tothill Street."
(The "butler" was probably the same William Warfield.)
Tudor-era historian John Stow wrote that the eastern part of the north gate was used as the bishop of London's prison for "clarks convict."
So was it originally an ecclesiastical prison?
That's contradicted by a report that, during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, rioters set the Westminster prisoners free. It's hard to think peasant rebels were fired up about liberating errant clerks.
A 16th century prisoner of opposite views was Nicholas Vaux, a chorister of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, imprisoned for "propagating the Romish religion." He died in the Gatehouse "of cold and hunger" in 1571.
In 1596, a Southwark preacher confined in the Gatehouse wrote an abject letter to Lord Burghley "for keeping Wednesday a fast, and transferring the observation of it unto Thursday." Hardly a violent felon.
About Mr Butler (Mons. L'impertinent)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Vincent made some good guesses, but according to this article, the Butlers were a well-connected Irish family, and Mons. L'impertinent was a Protestant minister.
https://military-history.fandom.c…
Sadly Frances didn't marry Cary Dillon, or she would have ended up being the Countess of Roscommon. Hopefully it wasn't prevented by Mons. L'impertinent hubris. But we'll probably never find out, unless something turns up misfiled in a library somewhere.
About Col. Cary Dillon
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Dillon’s career was almost ruined in 1662 when he acted as second to Col. Thomas Howard in his duel with Henry Jermyn, 1st Baron Dover (Howard and Dover being rivals for the affections of Anna Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury). Howard left Dover for dead, and Dillon killed Dover's second, Giles Rawlings.
Lt. Cary Dillon MP and Col. Thomas Howard initially fled, but returned to stand trial. They were both acquitted, as killing a man in a duel was then generally regarded as an act of self-defense.
This was temporary, and after 1670 his rise in Irish public life was rapid.
Lt. Cary Dillon MP was sworn a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1673, and also became Master of the Irish Mint, Commissary-Gen. of the Horse of Ireland, Surveyor-Gen. forIrish Customs and Excise, and a Governor of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
In 1685, on the death of his nephew, the poet Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, Dillon succeeded to the Earldom.
In 1686, Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon clashed with the Duke of Tyrconnel, the rising R.C. Royal favorite.
Tyrconnel, as Lt-Gen. of the Irish Army, removed all the Protestant officers of the regiment stationed at Kilkenny.
Roscommon challenged his legal right to do so, and when the matter came before the Lord Lt. of Ireland, Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, called Tyrconnel a liar: a shrewd blow, as Tyrconnel was nicknamed "Lying Dick Talbot".
Having served the Stuart dynasty loyaly during the Civil Wars and after the Restoration, Lord Roscommon and many of the Irish Protestant ruling class changed sides after James II fled to France in 1688.
In 1689, James II tried to reconquer England by occupying Ireland, Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon offered his services to William III.
Roscommon was commissioned to raise troops on William III's behalf, and was present at the crucial first step in William's campaign, the taking of Carrickfergus in August 1689.
Consequently Col. Cary Dillon, Lord Roscommon was attainted for treason by James II's Patriot Parliament held in Dublin.
Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon died in November 1689.
Col. Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon married Katherine Werden (D 1683), daughter of John Werden of Chester, by whom he had a son and heir, Robert Dillon, 6th Earl of Roscommon (D 1715), who is said to have been a young child when his father died.
Roscommon also had 2 daughters: Anne, who married Sir Thomas Nugent in about 1675, and Catherine (D 1674), who married Hugh Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Mount Alexander.
The Dillon sisters were much older than Robert, so it's likely they were children of an earlier marriage: if so, their mother died before 1660, since it is clear from the Diary that Dillon was free to marry between 1660 and 1668.
For the references, see
https://military-history.fandom.c…
About Col. Cary Dillon
San Diego Sarah • Link
Carey or Cary Dillon, 5th Earl of Roscommon (1627–1689) was an Irish nobleman and professional soldier. He held Court offices under Charles II and James II, and fought for William III.
Pepys was a friend of Cary Dillon in the 1660s. Pepys evidently liked "Col. Dillon", whom he first seems to have met in 1660, when he called him "a very merry and witty companion".
At the start of the Diary, one of Pepys' closest friends was a young clergyman called Butler (nicknamed "Monsieur l'Impertinent", because he never stopped talking), who was probably also an Irishman.
Pepys admired both Butler sisters, especially Frances (nicknamed "la belle Boteler"), whom he thought one of the greatest beauties in London.
Cary Dillon courted Frances Butler, as far as an engagement, but this was broken off in 1662, apparently after a violent quarrel between Dillon and Frances' brother, Rev. Butler, "Monsiuer l'Impertinent", who complained of Dillon's "knavery" to him.
In the summer of 1668, Dillon apparently renewed his proposal of marriage -- Pepys saw him and Frances Butler riding in a carriage together -- but it seems Frances declined the offer.
It is not known whether Frances Butler ever married.
Cary Dillon was a younger son of Robert Dillon, 2nd Earl of Roscommon (died 1642), by his third wife Anne Strode, daughter of Sir William Strode of Somerset.
Anne Strode Folliott Dillon, who died about 1650, was the widow of Henry Folliott, 1st Baron Folliott, by whom she had several children.
As a younger son with his livelihood to earn in the war-torn Ireland of the 1640s and 1650s, a military career was an obvious choice for Cary Dillon: he was made a Captain by the age of 17.
Although Samuel Pepys always called him "Col. Dillon" he was apparently only a Lieutenant until 1684, when he became a Major, and subsequently a Colonel.
In the 1630s Robert Dillon, 2nd Earl of Roscommon was a supporter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the virtually all-powerful Lord Deputy of Ireland, as was his half-brother James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon, and a family tie between the Dillons and the Wentworths was created when James married Strafford's sister, Elizabeth Wentworth.
During the English Civil Wars, both brothers were staunch Royalists: James Dillon, 3rd Earl of Roscommon, who died in 1649, was posthumously listed in the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 as one of the 10 leaders of the Royalist cause in Ireland who were excluded from pardon, and thus liable to forfeiture of their estates.
Following the Restoration, Lt. Dillon entered politics, sitting in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Banagher in the Parliament of 1661-1666.
About Thursday 26 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Correct, MartinVT -- and the same logic applied when the Rump Parliament recalls were made in the Spring, and the Long Parliament legally dissolved itself and declared new elections. They were making Charles II's reign as legitimate and consistent as possible.
And this led to all the disputes about which minister should legally have the parish living, and who legally owned sequestered property.
Great time to be a lawyer.