For the third reading of the Diary, Phil Gyford made it easy by linking the daily records of the House of Commons and the House of Lords to our daily page (see box - top right - "ALSO ON THIS DAY")
And the House of Commons website is also helpful. (I have found a few inaccuracies, which I have reported to the Librarian. She explained to me that these are taken from biographical volumes no longer protected by copyright, so they cannot up-date them. However, she's collecting the information for a revised version which will be published "soon". But they, of course, will be under copyright, so we will probably have to live with the on-line inaccuracies for decades.)
Having said that, I still find it very interesting: analysis of MPs., Constituences, biographies, statistics, etc. Poke around: https://www.historyofparliamenton…
The 1640-1660 period includes some of the most turbulent events in British history: the 3 civil wars, the trial and execution of King Charles I and the interregnum regimes: The Short Parliament of 1640, the Long Parliament and 'Rump’ (1640-53, 1659-60), the Nominated or 'Barebones' Parliament of 1653, and the 3 Cromwellian Parliaments of 1654, 1656-8 and 1659. Thet were all difficult assemblies: the legitimacy of some of them was contested.
It was an exceptional period in parliamentary history, and it took place in the context of a rapidly-developing print culture, with the arrival of weekly newspapers bringing unprecedented and partisan commentary on proceedings and personalities.
There were republican experiments: the Long Parliament was for a time not only a legislative assembly but also provided executive government. Members of the Nominated Assembly of 1653 were not elected at all, but were appointed under the patronage of Oliver Cromwell. In 1653, MPs sat in an English Parliament for Scotland and Ireland, albeit as government nominees, and Irish and Scots constituencies returned MPs to Westminster in the Parliaments of 1654, 1656 and 1659. These were also constitutionally innovative times for the union between the then nations of Britain.
About 1,807 Members of Parliament are known to have been authorised to sit during the period, from 316 constituencies.
Because of the importance of executive authority vested in Parliament, the Long Parliament made use of Executive Committees, like the Committee of Safety (a body which took crucial political decisions), and its successor, the Committee of Both Kingdoms, which came into being after the alliance made between the English Parliament and the Scots Covenanters.
Parliament was subject to the prototype ‘party’ groupings of Independents and Presbyterians, ‘Country’ members and ‘Kinglings’, to name a few of the often pejorative, always contentious, labels of the day.
The extraordinary circumstances of the 1650s mean there were MPs drawn from previously under-represented ranks of society, who earned their way into public life from humble backgrounds usually through the army, the navy and government, and who sometimes brought socially or religiously radical perspectives into the Commons. Alongside them are some English peers who had previously sat in the Lords, abolished in 1649.
Sadly, for at least the next decade, the biographies of these extraordinary men will not be posted on the House of Commons blog as they only published their 3 volumes of biographies in hard copy in 2022 (for $900 or 700/.s). But sometimes they or their fathers served in the on-line published biography years of 1604-1629 https://www.historyofparliamenton… or they or their sons appear in the 1660-1690 selection which is, happily, the time which concerns us at https://www.historyofparliamenton…
John Matthews asks "Any ideas as what they would drink? I have never had the senses that Sam kept a bar at home."
Believe it or not, hard liquor as we know it hasn't really been invented yet. Maybe you could find something like Rum if you were in the Caribbean -- someone must be distilling something that has become Whiskey in Scotland -- the Dutch were bolstering their Dutch Courage with a drop of gin around now -- the Russians were probably chugging Vodka's home made forerunner by now, but not exporting it -- so cocktails were not on the agenda anywhere yet.
And beer -- maybe the Pepys will employ a cook who has the skill and time to do some home brew now he has an income and a real house, but he does seem to be quite happy going out for his beer, which he regards as food.
Interestingly, both sides taxed imported beer to pay for the Civil War, which caused a drop in consumption: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
"I wonder at how people arrange things for meeting up?"
In the time before telephones and email, young legs often did the work. (We were still using messenger "boys" when I worked in New York in the 1960's. Many rode bikes through traffic in suicidal haste.)
I was struck by Elizabeth and "her" boy going with John Pepys Snr. for the day. Will could carry the iron and packages, and do the go-fetch routine.
So who accompanied Pepys? Why, it must be "his" boy -- the newly-arrived Will Hewer.
Gerald is probably correct in thinking Pepys and his mother confirmed this arrangement when he visited with the haunch of deer. He probably didn't know the iron was broken then, but the house needed some things anyways, and John Pepys Snr., as a man in the trades, would have useful connections and be able to conduct the art of the deal. ("We've got some luverly venison -- how about throwing in that pillow and I'll send some over.")
'Rump' was the nickname given -- at the time (an example that British humor has always had an edge) -- to the Long Parliament (1648–1653) after 140 members were expelled. Unrepresentative and quarrelsome, Oliver Cromwell dissolved it in 1653.
It was recalled after the collapse of the Protectorate in 1659, and the expelled members who still alive reinstated, in order to call a new election and dissolve itself legally.
"... and did talk of our old discourse when we did use to talk of the King, in the time of the Rump, privately;"
'Rump' was the name given -- at the time (an example that British humor has always had an edge) -- to the Long Parliament (1648–53) after 140 members were expelled. Unrepresentative and quarrelsome, Oliver Cromwell dissolved it in 1653.
Interesting to see Pepys has been friends with the Mitchells and Mrs. Murford for so long. He graduated from Magdalene in 1653, so he must have known them as a schoolboy. As booksellers, they probably read a lot of things before they were banned, and enquiring teenage students have a way of asking pointed questions, so this makes sense.
"... after that to the Admiralty Office, in White Hall, where I staid and writ my last observations for these four days last past."
So he's been running around Whitehall, Westminster and pubs all day, with his notes, pen and clean paper, hoping for some peace and quiet, and found it at the Admiralty offices? He must have been waiting for something there.
"... after that to the Admiralty Office, in White Hall, where I staid and writ my last observations for these four days last past."
So he's been running around Whitehall, Westminster and pubs all day, with his notes, pen and clean paper, hoping for some peace and quiet, and found it at the Admiralty offices? He must have been waiting for something there.
After posting this I realized all the references came prior to 1640, so it's likely "Paul's Walk" had finally died out with the Puritans. But, as Pepys saw, St. Paul's was still a dry place for secular people with nothing particular to do to idly pass the day. And the booksellers were still outside, even if the news mongers were no longer pacing the aisle.
Chelsea College, which was given by Charles II to the Royal Society, had a glorious location on the Thames. It was a large property, which John Evelyn used as a prison during the third Anglo-Dutch War.
But Charles II (r. 1660–1685) had other plans. He had witnesed fighting during the Civil Wars. He was present as a 13-year-old at Edgehill in 1642 (the first battle in the conflict) and commanded the outnumbered Royalist forces at the second Battle of Worcester in 1651 at its military conclusion.
The fate of wounded and destitute soldiers must have been all too evident to him, not to mention the value of a magnificent gesture of charity towards the injured who had been loyal to his cause.
There were other reasons why the idea of a royal hospital appealed to the Crown. The place of the army was growing in importance; the Restoration was made possible by the military power of Gen. Monck. Politically, having a standing army was controversial and the Crown had to be carefully to avoid being seen building barracks outside the City of London. A royal hospital could prove useful as a place for billeting troops. In an emergency, the veterans living there might also do service (and muskets were kept in readiness for possible use by Pensioners until 1854).
In France, Louis XIV (r. 1643 –1715), whose military adventures dominated European politics, offered an example. The Hôtel Royal des Invalides, built 1670–1675, was the grandest new building in Paris. It housed 4,000 veterans in its splendid courtyards, designed by Mansart.
The Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s favorite son, who served gallantly alongside the French in the Low Countries, visited Les Invalides in 1672 as it was being built. One could regard Monmouth with his father as the Royal Hospital’s joint founder; he revisited Les Invalides in 1677 and requested plans from Louvois, Louis XIV’s Minister of War.
Most of the interiors are taken up with Long Wards: the living quarters for the original Pensioners, who occupied individual berths, were a mere 6 ft. sq. and screened off with curtains. Spartan as this was, it represented a big improvement to the accommodation most veterans were accustomed to.
Where did they build this beautiful hospital? It so happened that Sir Christopher Wren was the President of the Royal Society that year, and he handed back Chelsea College to the Crown, so the Royal Society had to relocate. Then he got the job of supervising the new buildings. But this is long after the Diary.
Pepys frequently stretches his legs around lunch time by going to the Exchange to hear the latest business gossips/news.
When he wants political inside information, Pepys goes to Westminster Hall.
When people wanted the society/Court gossip -- before September 1666 -- they went to St. Paul's Cathedral. They were referred to as Paul's Walkers, or they was doing the Paul Walk. The booksellers outside had leaflets and newsbooks for sale, and people bought these and then paraded up and down the aisle gossiping -- they were monikered News Mongers.
It's thought that no other Cathedral in Europe served in this way; and it went on for decades. Both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth passed ordinances against it, but the tradition held.
Old St. Paul's was people watching central.
Pepys sort of refers to it on one occasion, so I have posted a couple of links with more info at https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… but it does seem as if the activity had somewhat died out by the 1660's -- maybe the Puritan ethic of 20 years had cured people of gossip?
Nah -- I don't think so either -- but they just didn't do it in the falling down Cathedral any more.
'"... in my way I putting in at St. Paul’s, where I saw the quiristers in their surplices going to prayers, and a few idle poor people and boys to hear them, which is the first time I have seen them, and am sorry to see things done so out of order, ..." 'what is Sam sorry to see? poor idle people watching choristers going to prayers?'
It was more than idle poor people and boys; old St. Paul's was a very secular meeting place. Queens Mary and Elizabeth had both tried to stop this, but St. Paul's was convenient. People who met there were called Paul's Walkers, doing the Paul's Walk.
Outside were booksellers -- where pamphlets and newsbooks were sold. People bought them and went into St. Paul's to discuss the news. News and rumors were spread by people called to as News Mongers.
According to Francis Osborne (1593–1659): “It was the fashion of those times, ... for the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions not merely mechanic, to meet in Paul's Church by 11 and walk in the middle aisle till 12, and after dinner from 3 to 6, during which times some discoursed on business, others of news. ... And those news-mongers ... did not only take the boldness to weigh the public but most intrinsic actions of the state, which some courtier or other did betray to this society. Amongst whom divers being very rich had great sums owing them by such as stood next the throne, who by this means were rendered in a manner their pensioners. So as I have found little reason to question the truth of which I heard then, but much to confirm me in it.” -- Francis Osborne, Works (1689, 9th ed.), 449–451, quoted in Thomson, Chamberlain Letters, 1.
Ben Jonson set a pivotal scene of his play Every Man Out of His Humour (1599) in Paul's walk.
It's possible Shakespeare’s reference to The Temple Walk in Henry IV, Part 2, was a humorous pun.
Much as playwrights and satirists pilloried Paul's Walk, all levels of society participated. It was the center for people watching.
“Paul's Walk is the Land's Epitome, or you may call it the lesser Isle of Great Britain. It is more then this, the whole world's Map, which you may here discern in it's perfect'st motion justling and turning. It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of Languages and were the Steeple not sanctified nothing like Babel. The noise in it is like that of Bees, a strange humming or buzz-mix of walking, tongues and feet: It is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great Exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and afoot. It is the Synod of all pates politic, jointed and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the Parliament.” -- John Earle. Microcosmos (1628. Arber ed., 1868). 73.
John Matthews asks "Any ideas as what they would drink? I have never had the senses that Sam kept a bar at home."
Since Pepys doesn't tell us, we can't answer the question. But later we will learn that he kept a well-stocked wine cellar at Seething Lane, but obviously he hasn't had the time or money to get that organized yet.
"I met with Mr. Carter and Mr. Cooke coming to see me in a coach, and so I returned home."
On 12 June 1660 Pepys records "To my Lord’s [at Lincoln’s Inn Fields] and staid till 12 at night about business. So to my father’s, my father and mother in bed, ... But I found Mr. Cooke there, and so to bed." It sounds like Mr. Cooke is staying with Pepys' parents now, and was burning the midnight oil.
Maybe this is why Pepys' father thinks he could land a job at the Wardrobe -- he has had Montagu's servant(s) billetted on him recently. One good turn deserves another?
And I wonder how Cooke and Rev. Carter met up and discovered they both needed to see Pepys, and caught a coach together? Talk about the odd couple.
I don't know about cows licking chalk, but in Paris they were enjoying a craze for lemonade at this time. (How about that for a segue?)
This was very lucky, as the plague killed over 1,000,000 people in France during this epidemic, but "miraculously" Paris largely avoided the sickness.
Why? A book has come out linking the lemon rinds which were discarded in the Seine, in the gutters, in the trash -- and eaten by the rats. The rind contains a natural killer of flea larva. It broke the cycle and saved Paris,
Half a deer and a barrel of lemons -- a good day for perks! (How many lemons are in a barrel? Where did they come from? Did he give some to Mum as well?)
The cookbook "Le Cuisinier François," published in 1651, written by chef François Pierre La Varenne, is considered one of the founding texts of modern French cuisine. It included a recipe that combined lemon juice, water and sugar. This recipe contributed to the popularity of lemonade in France — and with lemonade came lots of lemon peels. "Lemon peels were in the garbage, in the gutter, in the Seine," says Nealon.
It was this combination of rats and lemon peels that may have stopped the spread of plague. The more people made lemonade and discarded the lemon peels, the more the rats nibbled on the peels, inadvertently ingesting limonene and killing fleas and their eggs.
"The limonene disrupted the spread of fleas from the rats to people. Because the plague kills so quickly, the fleas needed to move from rats to people and back to rats, over and over again, to keep it going as their hosts expired," says Nealon. "Limonene, a flea killer that is still broadly used in pet treatments, killed the fleas and prevented the chain from getting going."
If not for the Parisians' love of lemonade, many more may have died.
How a Parisian Lemonade Craze Fought the Plague -- BY LAURIE L. DOVE
While the plague ravaged Europe in the 17th century, a Parisian fascination with lemonade may have lessened the death toll in France's capital.
In the 17th century, a return of plague killed about 1,000,000 people in France. Oddly enough, the residents of Paris were largely unaffected, despite having the same rat problem as any other large city.
The rodents carried fleas that bore the plague. After the plague killed the rats, the fleas often hopped onto human hosts. In this way, the plague spread like wildfire, snuffing out life after life.
The Parisians' avoidance of the plague could have remained one of history's mysteries, but author Tom Nealon found an explanation from seemingly disparate events. A purveyor of rare books, Nealon is not only an history, but of the impact condiments and foodstuffs may have had on antiquity. His book "Food Fights and Culture Wars" follows the surprising influence food has had through time.
"Health and food were intimately connected for the longest time. Early collections of recipes frequently mixed medical and cookery receipts, so it's easy to start to conflate them when you are studying the period. Even after they started to separate, the Renaissance 'Book of Secrets' kept elements of food and home remedies together for centuries longer."
Paris and its largely unscathed population in the 1660s, and the timing of a lemonade fad and the timing of a plague coincided.
Up until the 1600s, lemons had been a rare and expensive fruit. Although lemon trees had been cultivated throughout Europe and Asia in the preceding decades, the citrus fruit was little-used in England and France because of cost and the idea that eating raw lemons was harmful. Then an increase in trade and a fascination with lemonade popularized the tart fruit in France.
Lemon peels contain limonene, which kills flea larvae and adult fleas. "During the Renaissance, lemons had been bred and domesticated enough and trade had become organized enough that lemons were sufficiently inexpensive in the mid-17th century to import in bulk," Nealon said.
"Lemonade was all the fashion in a number of cities in Italy at the time, especially Rome, and the fad spread directly from there."
The manuscript begins with a dedicatory letter, addressed to Elizabeth Tillotson*. Beale's 'Discourse' makes high claims for the status and origins of friendship, the opening sentence declaring: 'Friendship is the nearest Union which distinct Souls are capable of (and is as rare to be found in sincerity, as it is excellent in its quality) though next to the glorifying our Creator, man seems to be made for nothing more'. Beale justifies this with reference to the biblical Eve, who, she says was given by God to Adam 'for a friend, as well as for a wife'. She also argues that, until the Fall, Eve was 'always of equal dignity and honour' with Adam, and that although Eve's sin has brought a curse on her female posterity, 'a small number [of women] by Friendship's interposition, have restored the marriage bond to its first institution'. According to Beale, just as kingdoms and commonwealths become barbarous without the administration of laws, so friendship must be governed by rules; otherwise it 'degenerates into vice and becomes most destructive to the good of mankind, which it was designed chiefly to sustain'. The most important condition for a friendship is that it should be established between suitable partners. Therefore, Beale recommends anyone intending friendship should analyze his or her own character, as well as that of the friend. ... Furthermore, since 'Friendship is the most genuine light to discover virtue by', it 'makes us like the Deity'. Beale concludes as she began it, by linking earthly friendship with spiritual welfare: 'Love virtue for itself, and endeavor the propagating it in others; is the principal support of this life, and the happiness of the next'. https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu…
* Could this be Elizabeth French, niece of Oliver Cromwell, who in 1664 had married Dr. John Tillotson, later Archbishop of Canterbury? - SDS]
"That [Allbrook Farmhouse] was used by Beale as a studio was confirmed in the 1950s, when canvas-drying racks were found still in place in the dining-room," says Ms Draper.
In early 1671, the Beales returned to London to live in Pall Mall. Mary was not a fully professional painter until then, and thereafter the income from her portrait studio supported the family. Charles abandoned his civil service work, and became her manager.
That Mary Cradock Beale’s name is not widely known may be because in the "17th-century portraitists often failed to sign paintings, and much of her best work was ascribed to men, while a great quantity of their poorer efforts were attributed to her," says Helen Draper, a paintings conservator. https://www.independent.co.uk/new…
Comments
Third Reading
About Parliament
San Diego Sarah • Link
For the third reading of the Diary, Phil Gyford made it easy by linking the daily records of the House of Commons and the House of Lords to our daily page (see box - top right - "ALSO ON THIS DAY")
For an explanation of what was going on during the Interregnum, see
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
And the House of Commons website is also helpful.
(I have found a few inaccuracies, which I have reported to the Librarian. She explained to me that these are taken from biographical volumes no longer protected by copyright, so they cannot up-date them. However, she's collecting the information for a revised version which will be published "soon". But they, of course, will be under copyright, so we will probably have to live with the on-line inaccuracies for decades.)
Having said that, I still find it very interesting: analysis of MPs., Constituences, biographies, statistics, etc. Poke around:
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Long Parliament
San Diego Sarah • Link
For an explanation of some of the concerns of the Long Parliament, see
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Rump Parliament
San Diego Sarah • Link
The 1640-1660 period includes some of the most turbulent events in British history: the 3 civil wars, the trial and execution of King Charles I and the interregnum regimes:
The Short Parliament of 1640,
the Long Parliament and 'Rump’ (1640-53, 1659-60),
the Nominated or 'Barebones' Parliament of 1653,
and the 3 Cromwellian Parliaments of 1654, 1656-8 and 1659.
Thet were all difficult assemblies: the legitimacy of some of them was contested.
It was an exceptional period in parliamentary history, and it took place in the context of a rapidly-developing print culture, with the arrival of weekly newspapers bringing unprecedented and partisan commentary on proceedings and personalities.
There were republican experiments:
the Long Parliament was for a time not only a legislative assembly but also provided executive government.
Members of the Nominated Assembly of 1653 were not elected at all, but were appointed under the patronage of Oliver Cromwell.
In 1653, MPs sat in an English Parliament for Scotland and Ireland, albeit as government nominees, and Irish and Scots constituencies returned MPs to Westminster in the Parliaments of 1654, 1656 and 1659.
These were also constitutionally innovative times for the union between the then nations of Britain.
About 1,807 Members of Parliament are known to have been authorised to sit during the period, from 316 constituencies.
Because of the importance of executive authority vested in Parliament, the Long Parliament made use of Executive Committees, like the Committee of Safety (a body which took crucial political decisions), and its successor, the Committee of Both Kingdoms, which came into being after the alliance made between the English Parliament and the Scots Covenanters.
Parliament was subject to the prototype ‘party’ groupings of Independents and Presbyterians, ‘Country’ members and ‘Kinglings’, to name a few of the often pejorative, always contentious, labels of the day.
The extraordinary circumstances of the 1650s mean there were MPs drawn from previously under-represented ranks of society, who earned their way into public life from humble backgrounds usually through the army, the navy and government, and who sometimes brought socially or religiously radical perspectives into the Commons.
Alongside them are some English peers who had previously sat in the Lords, abolished in 1649.
Sadly, for at least the next decade, the biographies of these extraordinary men will not be posted on the House of Commons blog as they only published their 3 volumes of biographies in hard copy in 2022 (for $900 or 700/.s).
But sometimes they or their fathers served in the on-line published biography years of 1604-1629 https://www.historyofparliamenton… or they or their sons appear in the 1660-1690 selection which is, happily, the time which concerns us at https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Wednesday 18 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Matthews asks "Any ideas as what they would drink? I have never had the senses that Sam kept a bar at home."
Believe it or not, hard liquor as we know it hasn't really been invented yet. Maybe you could find something like Rum if you were in the Caribbean -- someone must be distilling something that has become Whiskey in Scotland -- the Dutch were bolstering their Dutch Courage with a drop of gin around now -- the Russians were probably chugging Vodka's home made forerunner by now, but not exporting it -- so cocktails were not on the agenda anywhere yet.
And beer -- maybe the Pepys will employ a cook who has the skill and time to do some home brew now he has an income and a real house, but he does seem to be quite happy going out for his beer, which he regards as food.
Interestingly, both sides taxed imported beer to pay for the Civil War, which caused a drop in consumption:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
There were domestic breweries:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Thursday 19 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I wonder at how people arrange things for meeting up?"
In the time before telephones and email, young legs often did the work. (We were still using messenger "boys" when I worked in New York in the 1960's. Many rode bikes through traffic in suicidal haste.)
I was struck by Elizabeth and "her" boy going with John Pepys Snr. for the day. Will could carry the iron and packages, and do the go-fetch routine.
So who accompanied Pepys? Why, it must be "his" boy -- the newly-arrived Will Hewer.
Gerald is probably correct in thinking Pepys and his mother confirmed this arrangement when he visited with the haunch of deer.
He probably didn't know the iron was broken then, but the house needed some things anyways, and John Pepys Snr., as a man in the trades, would have useful connections and be able to conduct the art of the deal. ("We've got some luverly venison -- how about throwing in that pillow and I'll send some over.")
About Rump Parliament
San Diego Sarah • Link
'Rump' was the nickname given -- at the time (an example that British humor has always had an edge) -- to the Long Parliament (1648–1653) after 140 members were expelled.
Unrepresentative and quarrelsome, Oliver Cromwell dissolved it in 1653.
It was recalled after the collapse of the Protectorate in 1659, and the expelled members who still alive reinstated, in order to call a new election and dissolve itself legally.
About Thursday 19 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... and did talk of our old discourse when we did use to talk of the King, in the time of the Rump, privately;"
'Rump' was the name given -- at the time (an example that British humor has always had an edge) -- to the Long Parliament (1648–53) after 140 members were expelled.
Unrepresentative and quarrelsome, Oliver Cromwell dissolved it in 1653.
Interesting to see Pepys has been friends with the Mitchells and Mrs. Murford for so long. He graduated from Magdalene in 1653, so he must have known them as a schoolboy. As booksellers, they probably read a lot of things before they were banned, and enquiring teenage students have a way of asking pointed questions, so this makes sense.
About Thursday 19 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... after that to the Admiralty Office, in White Hall, where I staid and writ my last observations for these four days last past."
So he's been running around Whitehall, Westminster and pubs all day, with his notes, pen and clean paper, hoping for some peace and quiet, and found it at the Admiralty offices? He must have been waiting for something there.
About Miles Mitchell
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... after that to the Admiralty Office, in White Hall, where I staid and writ my last observations for these four days last past."
So he's been running around Whitehall, Westminster and pubs all day, with his notes, pen and clean paper, hoping for some peace and quiet, and found it at the Admiralty offices? He must have been waiting for something there.
About Monday 18 November 1661
San Diego Sarah • Link
After posting this I realized all the references came prior to 1640, so it's likely "Paul's Walk" had finally died out with the Puritans.
But, as Pepys saw, St. Paul's was still a dry place for secular people with nothing particular to do to idly pass the day. And the booksellers were still outside, even if the news mongers were no longer pacing the aisle.
About Chelsea College
San Diego Sarah • Link
Chelsea College, which was given by Charles II to the Royal Society, had a glorious location on the Thames. It was a large property, which John Evelyn used as a prison during the third Anglo-Dutch War.
But Charles II (r. 1660–1685) had other plans. He had witnesed fighting during the Civil Wars. He was present as a 13-year-old at Edgehill in 1642 (the first battle in the conflict) and commanded the outnumbered Royalist forces at the second Battle of Worcester in 1651 at its military conclusion.
The fate of wounded and destitute soldiers must have been all too evident to him, not to mention the value of a magnificent gesture of charity towards the injured who had been loyal to his cause.
There were other reasons why the idea of a royal hospital appealed to the Crown.
The place of the army was growing in importance; the Restoration was made possible by the military power of Gen. Monck.
Politically, having a standing army was controversial and the Crown had to be carefully to avoid being seen building barracks outside the City of London.
A royal hospital could prove useful as a place for billeting troops. In an emergency, the veterans living there might also do service (and muskets were kept in readiness for possible use by Pensioners until 1854).
In France, Louis XIV (r. 1643 –1715), whose military adventures dominated European politics, offered an example. The Hôtel Royal des Invalides, built 1670–1675, was the grandest new building in Paris. It housed 4,000 veterans in its splendid courtyards, designed by Mansart.
The Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s favorite son, who served gallantly alongside the French in the Low Countries, visited Les Invalides in 1672 as it was being built. One could regard Monmouth with his father as the Royal Hospital’s joint founder; he revisited Les Invalides in 1677 and requested plans from Louvois, Louis XIV’s Minister of War.
Most of the interiors are taken up with Long Wards: the living quarters for the original Pensioners, who occupied individual berths, were a mere 6 ft. sq. and screened off with curtains. Spartan as this was, it represented a big improvement to the accommodation most veterans were accustomed to.
Where did they build this beautiful hospital? It so happened that Sir Christopher Wren was the President of the Royal Society that year, and he handed back Chelsea College to the Crown, so the Royal Society had to relocate. Then he got the job of supervising the new buildings. But this is long after the Diary.
Pictures of Wren's masterpiece, as improved by James II, Mary II and William III:
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/arc…
About St Paul's Cathedral
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys frequently stretches his legs around lunch time by going to the Exchange to hear the latest business gossips/news.
When he wants political inside information, Pepys goes to Westminster Hall.
When people wanted the society/Court gossip -- before September 1666 -- they went to St. Paul's Cathedral. They were referred to as Paul's Walkers, or they was doing the Paul Walk.
The booksellers outside had leaflets and newsbooks for sale, and people bought these and then paraded up and down the aisle gossiping -- they were monikered News Mongers.
It's thought that no other Cathedral in Europe served in this way; and it went on for decades. Both Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth passed ordinances against it, but the tradition held.
Old St. Paul's was people watching central.
Pepys sort of refers to it on one occasion, so I have posted a couple of links with more info at
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
but it does seem as if the activity had somewhat died out by the 1660's -- maybe the Puritan ethic of 20 years had cured people of gossip?
Nah -- I don't think so either -- but they just didn't do it in the falling down Cathedral any more.
About Monday 18 November 1661
San Diego Sarah • Link
'"... in my way I putting in at St. Paul’s, where I saw the quiristers in their surplices going to prayers, and a few idle poor people and boys to hear them, which is the first time I have seen them, and am sorry to see things done so out of order, ..."
'what is Sam sorry to see? poor idle people watching choristers going to prayers?'
It was more than idle poor people and boys; old St. Paul's was a very secular meeting place. Queens Mary and Elizabeth had both tried to stop this, but St. Paul's was convenient. People who met there were called Paul's Walkers, doing the Paul's Walk.
Outside were booksellers -- where pamphlets and newsbooks were sold. People bought them and went into St. Paul's to discuss the news. News and rumors were spread by people called to as News Mongers.
According to Francis Osborne (1593–1659):
“It was the fashion of those times, ... for the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions not merely mechanic, to meet in Paul's Church by 11 and walk in the middle aisle till 12, and after dinner from 3 to 6, during which times some discoursed on business, others of news. ... And those news-mongers ... did not only take the boldness to weigh the public but most intrinsic actions of the state, which some courtier or other did betray to this society. Amongst whom divers being very rich had great sums owing them by such as stood next the throne, who by this means were rendered in a manner their pensioners. So as I have found little reason to question the truth of which I heard then, but much to confirm me in it.” -- Francis Osborne, Works (1689, 9th ed.), 449–451, quoted in Thomson, Chamberlain Letters, 1.
Ben Jonson set a pivotal scene of his play Every Man Out of His Humour (1599) in Paul's walk.
It's possible Shakespeare’s reference to The Temple Walk in Henry IV, Part 2, was a humorous pun.
Much as playwrights and satirists pilloried Paul's Walk, all levels of society participated. It was the center for people watching.
“Paul's Walk is the Land's Epitome, or you may call it the lesser Isle of Great Britain. It is more then this, the whole world's Map, which you may here discern in it's perfect'st motion justling and turning. It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of Languages and were the Steeple not sanctified nothing like Babel. The noise in it is like that of Bees, a strange humming or buzz-mix of walking, tongues and feet: It is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great Exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and afoot. It is the Synod of all pates politic, jointed and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the Parliament.” -- John Earle. Microcosmos (1628. Arber ed., 1868). 73.
https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogsp…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pau…
About Wednesday 18 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Matthews asks "Any ideas as what they would drink? I have never had the senses that Sam kept a bar at home."
Since Pepys doesn't tell us, we can't answer the question. But later we will learn that he kept a well-stocked wine cellar at Seething Lane, but obviously he hasn't had the time or money to get that organized yet.
We have an Encyclopedia page on WINE which gives you an idea of the choices available:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Wednesday 18 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I met with Mr. Carter and Mr. Cooke coming to see me in a coach, and so I returned home."
On 12 June 1660 Pepys records "To my Lord’s [at Lincoln’s Inn Fields] and staid till 12 at night about business. So to my father’s, my father and mother in bed, ... But I found Mr. Cooke there, and so to bed."
It sounds like Mr. Cooke is staying with Pepys' parents now, and was burning the midnight oil.
Maybe this is why Pepys' father thinks he could land a job at the Wardrobe -- he has had Montagu's servant(s) billetted on him recently. One good turn deserves another?
And I wonder how Cooke and Rev. Carter met up and discovered they both needed to see Pepys, and caught a coach together? Talk about the odd couple.
About Tuesday 1 August 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
I don't know about cows licking chalk, but in Paris they were enjoying a craze for lemonade at this time. (How about that for a segue?)
This was very lucky, as the plague killed over 1,000,000 people in France during this epidemic, but "miraculously" Paris largely avoided the sickness.
Why? A book has come out linking the lemon rinds which were discarded in the Seine, in the gutters, in the trash -- and eaten by the rats. The rind contains a natural killer of flea larva. It broke the cycle and saved Paris,
See more at https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Wednesday 18 July 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Half a deer and a barrel of lemons -- a good day for perks!
(How many lemons are in a barrel? Where did they come from? Did he give some to Mum as well?)
About Lemons
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
The cookbook "Le Cuisinier François," published in 1651, written by chef François Pierre La Varenne, is considered one of the founding texts of modern French cuisine. It included a recipe that combined lemon juice, water and sugar. This recipe contributed to the popularity of lemonade in France — and with lemonade came lots of lemon peels.
"Lemon peels were in the garbage, in the gutter, in the Seine," says Nealon.
It was this combination of rats and lemon peels that may have stopped the spread of plague. The more people made lemonade and discarded the lemon peels, the more the rats nibbled on the peels, inadvertently ingesting limonene and killing fleas and their eggs.
"The limonene disrupted the spread of fleas from the rats to people. Because the plague kills so quickly, the fleas needed to move from rats to people and back to rats, over and over again, to keep it going as their hosts expired," says Nealon. "Limonene, a flea killer that is still broadly used in pet treatments, killed the fleas and prevented the chain from getting going."
If not for the Parisians' love of lemonade, many more may have died.
https://history.howstuffworks.com…
About Lemons
San Diego Sarah • Link
Talking about the Parisian's love of lemons:
How a Parisian Lemonade Craze Fought the Plague -- BY LAURIE L. DOVE
While the plague ravaged Europe in the 17th century, a Parisian fascination with lemonade may have lessened the death toll in France's capital.
In the 17th century, a return of plague killed about 1,000,000 people in France. Oddly enough, the residents of Paris were largely unaffected, despite having the same rat problem as any other large city.
The rodents carried fleas that bore the plague. After the plague killed the rats, the fleas often hopped onto human hosts. In this way, the plague spread like wildfire, snuffing out life after life.
The Parisians' avoidance of the plague could have remained one of history's mysteries, but author Tom Nealon found an explanation from seemingly disparate events. A purveyor of rare books, Nealon is not only an history, but of the impact condiments and foodstuffs may have had on antiquity. His book "Food Fights and Culture Wars" follows the surprising influence food has had through time.
"Health and food were intimately connected for the longest time. Early collections of recipes frequently mixed medical and cookery receipts, so it's easy to start to conflate them when you are studying the period. Even after they started to separate, the Renaissance 'Book of Secrets' kept elements of food and home remedies together for centuries longer."
Paris and its largely unscathed population in the 1660s, and the timing of a lemonade fad and the timing of a plague coincided.
Up until the 1600s, lemons had been a rare and expensive fruit. Although lemon trees had been cultivated throughout Europe and Asia in the preceding decades, the citrus fruit was little-used in England and France because of cost and the idea that eating raw lemons was harmful. Then an increase in trade and a fascination with lemonade popularized the tart fruit in France.
Lemon peels contain limonene, which kills flea larvae and adult fleas.
"During the Renaissance, lemons had been bred and domesticated enough and trade had become organized enough that lemons were sufficiently inexpensive in the mid-17th century to import in bulk," Nealon said.
"Lemonade was all the fashion in a number of cities in Italy at the time, especially Rome, and the fad spread directly from there."
About Friday 9 March 1665/66
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
The manuscript begins with a dedicatory letter, addressed to Elizabeth Tillotson*.
Beale's 'Discourse' makes high claims for the status and origins of friendship, the opening sentence declaring: 'Friendship is the nearest Union which distinct Souls are capable of (and is as rare to be found in sincerity, as it is excellent in its quality) though next to the glorifying our Creator, man seems to be made for nothing more'.
Beale justifies this with reference to the biblical Eve, who, she says was given by God to Adam 'for a friend, as well as for a wife'.
She also argues that, until the Fall, Eve was 'always of equal dignity and honour' with Adam, and that although Eve's sin has brought a curse on her female posterity, 'a small number [of women] by Friendship's interposition, have restored the marriage bond to its first institution'.
According to Beale, just as kingdoms and commonwealths become barbarous without the administration of laws, so friendship must be governed by rules; otherwise it 'degenerates into vice and becomes most destructive to the good of mankind, which it was designed chiefly to sustain'.
The most important condition for a friendship is that it should be established between suitable partners.
Therefore, Beale recommends anyone intending friendship should analyze his or her own character, as well as that of the friend.
... Furthermore, since 'Friendship is the most genuine light to discover virtue by', it 'makes us like the Deity'.
Beale concludes as she began it, by linking earthly friendship with spiritual welfare: 'Love virtue for itself, and endeavor the propagating it in others; is the principal support of this life, and the happiness of the next'.
https://catalog.libraries.psu.edu…
* Could this be Elizabeth French, niece of Oliver Cromwell, who in 1664 had married Dr. John Tillotson, later Archbishop of Canterbury? - SDS]
"That [Allbrook Farmhouse] was used by Beale as a studio was confirmed in the 1950s, when canvas-drying racks were found still in place in the dining-room," says Ms Draper.
In early 1671, the Beales returned to London to live in Pall Mall. Mary was not a fully professional painter until then, and thereafter the income from her portrait studio supported the family. Charles abandoned his civil service work, and became her manager.
That Mary Cradock Beale’s name is not widely known may be because in the "17th-century portraitists often failed to sign paintings, and much of her best work was ascribed to men, while a great quantity of their poorer efforts were attributed to her," says Helen Draper, a paintings conservator.
https://www.independent.co.uk/new…