The word “gargoyle” has its roots in the French word “gargouille,” which translates to “throat.”
Gargouille is also associated with an old French legend featuring a dragon named La Gargouille. This fearsome creature had a long, twisted neck, a gaping mouth with powerful jaws, terrifying eyes, and massive wings. It lived in a cave near the River Seine and wreaked havoc on the nearby town of Rouen. Eventually a Christian priest named Romanus defeated the dragon, and its head and neck were displayed at the village entrance as a warning. This legend inspired the carving of dragon heads on buildings and water spouts, leading to the creation of the gargoyles we see today.
Many people mistakenly believe that gargoyles and grotesques are the same thing. While grotesques encompass all decorative architectural creatures, gargoyles always have functioning drainage conduits. Thus, not all grotesques are gargoyles, but all gargoyles are grotesques.
John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse, 1615 - 1689, has a lengthy history of fighting for King Charles I in the first Civil War. I'm skipping past all that to his final stand:
At the end of November 1645, Parliamentarian and Scottish forces laid siege to Newark. Belasyse conducted a vigorous defence until May 1646 when he reluctantly surrendered on the orders of King Charles.
Belasyse spent the next 2 years abroad. He served with the Prince of Condé's army at the siege of Mardyke [and possibly met James, Duke of York there - James doesn't mention it, and there were many Englishmen dodging around The Dunes -- SDS], attended the French Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, and was granted a personal audience with Pope Innocent X. After the execution of King Charles, Belasyse became actively involved in Charles II's attempts to regain the throne of England. In 1651, he was intended to command forces raised in the north to support Charles' invasion from Scotland, but he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower in April so was unable to participate in the campaign leading up to the second battle of Worcester. He was released on bail in September 1651, and Belasyse continued to plot against the Commonwealth and Protectorate governments as the only Catholic member of the Sealed Knot conspiracy ring. He was arrested shortly before Booth's Uprising in 1659 and again imprisoned in the Tower of London.
After the Restoration in May 1660, Belasyse was appointed lord-lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire and governor of Hull. He also served as governor of Tangier from 1665-6. However, he was obliged to resign his offices when his Catholicism prevented him from taking the oaths required by the Test Acts of 1673.
Belasyse spent his fourth and lengthiest period of imprisonment in the Tower from 1678-84 on suspicion of involvement in the Popish Plot. Cleared of all charges in May 1685, he served as a privy councillor and first lord of the Treasury under James II.
He died at Whitton in Middlesex in September 1689.
Belasyse married three times. His first wife, the heiress Jane Boteler, died in 1657. He married Ann Armyne, daughter and co-heir of Sir Robert Crane in July 1659; she died in 1662. Belasyse lastly married Anne Paulet, daughter of the Marquis of Winchester. His eldest son was killed during a drunken brawl in 1667 and he was succeeded by his grandson, upon whose death in 1692 the Belasyse title became extinct. http://bcw-project.org/biography/…
"Pepys knew a fair amount of basic Spanish, although I don't know where he picked it up. Where and when did Pepys learn some Spanish?"
According to Bryant, 'Man in the Making,' 1943 ed., p. 34-5: In 1656 Montagu came home with treasure captured from a returning Spanish galleon off Cadiz. He also had care of a young orphan, the Marquis de Baides, who he left in Pepys' care until the ransom was paid. Bryant suggests that Pepys acquired his spoken Spanish from having long conversations with his charge.
Pepys' interest in Spanish didn't stop there: he collected books, plays and broadsides in the language. His collection of Spanish plays was sufficiently good that it was the subject of a monograph in 1980; Wilson, Edward M., and Cruickshank, Don W.; "Samuel Pepys's Spanish Plays". London: The Bibliographical Society, 1980.
I suspect this collection was made after the Diary years as most of his Diary Spanish appears to be phonetic
CONT In the second session of the Cavalier Parliament, Compton brought a reply from Charles II to the address against the Declaration of Indulgence. It is clear from his letters that he had little sympathy for the nonconformists. He was appointed to the committees to consider the petition of the loyal and indigent officers, and the bill for hindering the growth of Popery.
On 4 Apr. 1663 he was one of 12 Members ordered to join with the Lords in returning thanks for the proclamation against Popish priests and Jesuits. He served on the committee to consider defects in the law against sale of offices. On 12 May he was among the Members entrusted with an address on improving the revenue, and 4 days later he was appointed to the committee to consider amendments to the Bedford level bill. When Charles II revealed the proposal of Sir Richard Temple to act as ‘undertaker’, Compton was sent to thank him for his message and, a week later, to ask who had been the intermediary. He served on the committee for the bill for the loyal and indigent officers, and was one of 6 MPs appointed to draw up an additional clause on 10 July. He ... on 25 July was sent to ask the King to allow the export of horses to the plantations and to preserve the timber in the Forest of Dean. His last appearance in the Commons was to convey Charles II’s answer 2 days later.
Sir William Compton MP died after a short illness at his home in Drury Lane on 18 Oct. 1663, aged 38. Samuel Pepys wrote of the general, if transient, regret:
"all the world saying that he was one of the worthiest men and best officers of state now in England; and so in my conscience he was — of the best temper, value, abilities of mind, integrity, birth, fine person, and diligence of any one man he hath left behind him in the three kingdoms.
"Of not one courtier in a thousand," Pepys added, "could it be said, as of Compton, that no man spoke ill of him" and it is clear that with his death the Government lost a steadying influence in the House of Commons which would have been increasingly valuable in the subsequent sessions of the Cavalier Parliament.
Excerpted from his Parliamentary bio in which I see 2 errors! Another note to the House of Commons librarians -- they are getting to know me!: https://www.historyofparliamenton…
Of the six remarkable royalist brothers, Sir William Compton MP (1625 - 1663) was probably the ablest and of the highest character.
He was well-endowed for a younger son, his grandfather, the 1st Earl of Northampton, having settled on him the Kentish manor of Erith. His defence of Banbury Castle during a 3-month siege in 1644 (when still in his teens), was remarkable not only for physical determination and courage but for the simple Anglican piety which he enforced in the garrison.
His moral courage was no less; he alone dissented from his eldest brother’s unjust cashiering of one of his officers in 1645.
He surrendered honourably on 8 May 1646, but, as a Kentish landowner, he could not refuse to take up arms in the second Civil War and served during the siege of Colchester as a major-general. Cromwell is said to have described him as ‘the sober young man and godly Cavalier’, and he escaped with the moderate fine of £660.
He settled in Cambridgeshire on his marriage in 1651 to Elizabeth Tollemache Alington (she's daughter of Sir Lionel Tollemache, 2nd Bt. and Elizabeth Murray Tollemache [later Maitland] Countess of Dysart, of Helmingham, Suff., and widow of William, 1st Baron Alington, of Horseheath, Cambs. -- both families Pepys comes across later). As a member of the Sealed Knot, he was engaged in most Cavalier plots until the last phase of the Interregnum, when he refused to believe the treachery of Sir Richard Willys led to his exclusion.
At the Restoration he crossed to Holland, and led a troop in Charles II’s escort from Dover to London, and was appointed master of the Ordnance.
Compton was returned for Cambridge at the general election of 1661, probably without a contest.
He was an active Member in the first and second sessions of the Cavalier Parliament, in which he was appointed to 64 committees, managed 3 conferences, and carried 8 messages to Charles II.
In the summer of 1661 he was named to the committees for the security, ... and the bill of pains and penalties. Apart from these government measures, he also took part in considering the bill for drainage of the Bedford level. After the recess he was appointed to the committees considering the ... ways of relieving loyalists, and the militia bill. He was teller for candles in the debate on the Powell estate bill, and on 14 Mar. 1662 he carried the militia bill to the Upper House. When the militia bill returned in May, he was appointed to the small committee to consider a proviso about the assessment of peers, ... Also in May he attended Charles II with 2 messages, asking him to prevent a duel between Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory MP (1623-1680) in the Irish tradition, and also Baron Butler of Moor Park, and Philip Howard, and to arbitrate between the old and the new adventurers in the Bedford level.
The Compton family was quite extraordinary in their service to the Crown -- how William ended up as a Colonel of the Horse for the Parliamentarians, I don't know -- unless he was playing both sides at the same time, or spying for Charles II.
"Spencer Compton was succeeded as 3rd Earl of Northampton by his eldest son, James Compton (1622-81). Four of Spencer Compton's sons fought in the King's armies: James, Charles, William and Spencer Jr. His third son, William Compton (1625-63), was knighted for his defence of Banbury and became a founder member of the Sealed Knot conspiracy ring." http://bcw-project.org/biography/…
Yes Pepys does heighten our appreciation of all sorts of things, 3Lamps. I found an article about why the Coronation is relevant in 2023, and isn't just an indulgent medieval flashback on the part of the British with their desire for more tourists: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
What is so striking about this concept, the fruits of a view of the universe that was no longer mystical and hermetic but mechanistic, were to be enshrined in what remained a medieval ritual. In this way, the oath remains the foundation, even in 2013, of the post-1688 state.
Add to that the displacement in the oath of Holy Church by the phrase ‘the Protestant Reformed Religion Established by Law’. To reinforce that no monarch would ever again be Catholic, there was a separate Declaration, which was incorporated into the Coronation service. It was violently anti-Catholic and was first used at the Coronation of Queen Anne in 1702. ... Complex although this may seem, the Coronation Oath remains at the core of the British Constitution and belies anyone who regards the splendors of Coronation as nothing more than empty display. It is the foundation stone of the British system of government.
On this Coronation Day, 362 years later, I found one article that adds to our heap of Pepys-related knowledge:
With the arrival of the Stuarts in 1603, the Coronation Oath was to dramatically return to the center of the stage. James I and VI, who fervently believed and enunciated the Divine Right of Kings, had no difficulty in taking the oath but gave it his own gloss. In it, he wrote, the king ‘makes not his Crown stoup by this means to any power in the Pope, or in the Church, or in the People.’ The inclusion of the last named spelt out that the King and Parliament were on a collision course.
For King James, the king was the people’s overlord by birth ‘not by any right in the Coronation, commeth his crowne’ and so ‘it is like vnlawful… to displace him’. Indeed, it was rumored that his successor, King Charles I, wished to dispense with the Coronation all together so that he could ‘remain more absolute, avoiding the obligation to swear to the laws and without the discontent of his subjects’.
In this way, the Coronation Oath touched the heart of the constitutional conflict of the 17th century. In King Charles’ eyes, the oath was taken to God. For the republican opposition, it was one taken to the people, an oath that, once broken by the monarch, dissolved any obligation between the parties. In this light, the execution of the king was the outcome.
Although the Restoration of 1660 would seem to signal a return to early-Stuart mystical kingship, in the long run, that didn’t occur. Thanks to the rise to power of Parliament, new vigor was infused into the idea that the king was subject to the law and owed duties to his subjects.
That clash was to reach crisis point in the Revolution of 1688. As so often occurs in English history, what was a revolutionary position was to be dressed up in the pageantry of the medieval past. James II, who was ousted from the throne in favor of his daughter and son-in-law, Mary II and William III, was said to have ‘abdicated’ and, as the throne was vacant, it was offered to the couple by Parliament.
In January 1689, Parliament passed the Declaration of Rights, which framed what was, in essence, the principles of a constitutional monarchy of a kind that is still with us today. The Coronation Oath lay at the heart of this. The ruler was to be bound to observe the ancient laws of the realm, known as the laws of St. Edward, and also those that Parliament would make in the future. The latter was a radical reinterpretation of part of the Latin text of the oath, which refers to quas vulgus elegerit.
In the Coronation Oath that was used in 1689, any reference to ancient custom in the form of the Laws of St. Edward vanishes in favor of the philosopher John Locke’s position that the ultimate guarantee of protection against a sovereign lay in the principles of nature and reason which, both being outside the confines of history, were eternal.
A book about the RAC from 1660 - 1700 is: The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History. Making the Imperial Nation: Colonization, Politics, and English Identity, 1660-1700 – by Gabriel Glickman
Format: Hardback ISBN: 9780300255065 Published: 14th Feb 2023 Imprint: Yale University Press
After 1660, the English governments aimed to convert their scattered overseas dominions into a coordinated territorial power base. Stuart monarchs encouraged schemes for expansion in America, Africa, and Asia, tightened control over existing territories, and endorsed systems of slave labor to boost colonial prosperity. But English power was precarious, and colonial designs were subject to regular defeats and failed experimentation. Recovering from recent Civil Wars at home, England was shaken by unrest and upheaval through the later 17th century. Colonial policies emerged from a kingdom riven with inner tensions, which it exported to enclaves overseas.
Author Gabriel Glickman reinstates the colonies within the domestic history of Restoration England. He shows how the pursuit of empire raised moral and ideological controversies that divided political opinion and unsettled many ideas of English national identity. Overseas ambitions disrupted bonds in Europe and cast new questions about English relations with Scotland and Ireland. Vigorous debates were provoked by contact with non-Christian peoples and by changes brought to cultural tastes and consumer habits at home. England was becoming an imperial nation before it had acquired a secure territorial empire. The pressures of colonization exerted a decisive influence over the wars, revolutions, and party conflicts that destabilized the later Stuart kingdom. https://www.yalebooks.co.uk/page/…
And example of this in Diary times is that in December 1660 a committee of 6 men, Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, 2nd Earl of Montgomery; William Craven, Baron Craven of Hampstead Marshall; Sir George Carteret; William Coventry; Sir Ellis Leighton and Cornelius Vermuyden, were named to have charge of The Company of the Royal Adventurers into Africa's affairs. No mention was made of the office of governor or of any court of directors. It was thought a committee of 6 could direct all of the company's affairs.
And today at Wadham College, Oxford, the newly-appointed university Chancelor, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, has the honor of bestowing an honorary M.A. degree on his 14-year-old distant kinsman, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester,
During Rochester's 18-month stay at the university, three poems attributed to him appeared in two Oxford collections of encomium and consolation. Epicedia Academiæ Oxoniensis (1660) is a collection of poems expressing condolance to Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria, for the death by smallpox of her daughter Mary, the Princess Royal. Attributed to Rochester is a Latin poem, "In Obitum Serenissimae Mariae Principis Arausionensis," and an English poem, "To Her Sacred Majesty, the Queen Mother, on the Death of Mary, Princess of Orange." But it is the poem in Britannia Rediviva (1660) celebrating the restored Charles II, who is apostrophized as "Virtue's triumphant shrine," that is most striking for its ingenuity.
After Oxford, in the charge of Dr. Andrew Balfour, a 30-year-old Scottish physician and man of learning, Rochester set out on a grand tour of France and Italy on 21 November 1661. Little can be said with certainty of this period of Rochester's life and education, a period that was concluded in 1664, when he returned to England and presented himself to Charles II at Christmas time.
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester was sent to Wadham College, Oxford, on 18 January 1660, at aged 12. He was admitted as a Fellow commoner, where he "grew debauched". Rochester entered the school under the tutorship of the mathematician Phineas Bury, but a more influential tutor was the physician Robert Whitehall of Merton College, who may have inducted him into the life of debauchery. It is said that Dr. Whitehall doted on him and taught him to drink deeply at the Oxford taverns, where he gained admittance in the disguise provided by a borrowed master's gown. This is unsubstantiated storytelling, although it gains credibility by the fact that Rochester left 4 silver pint pots to his college on going down from university. Such gifts were common tokens of esteem from students to their colleges. On 9 September 1661 Rochester was awarded an honorary M.A. at age 14 by the newly elected Chancellor of the university, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, a family friend. How this could happen is described in an entry about the education of sons of noblemen: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl… https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Di… https://www.poetryfoundation.org/…
Queen Elizabeth freed the last English serfs in 1574. But serfdom remained in Scotland until the Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775 prevented the creation of the status, and 1799, when coal miners who had been kept in serfdom prior to the 1775 Act gained emancipation. However, most Scottish serfs had been freed by then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His… https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
"This day come to town Mr. Homewood, and I took him home in the evening to my chamber, and discoursed with him about my business of the Victualling, which I have a mind to employ him in, and he is desirous of also, but do very ingenuously declare he understands it not so well as other things, and desires to be informed in the nature of it before he attempts it, which I like well, and so I carried him to Mr. Gibson to discourse with him about it, and so home again to my accounts."
SPOILER: But we know Pepys decides to employ the other man for his knowledge of victualling and the Navy:
"Richard Gibson -- L&M Companion: One of the ablest and most experienced of Pepys' assistants; more than once commended by Pepys for his diligence, sobriety and honesty. Originally a purser (1652, 1655-65), he was given charge of the victualling at Great Yarmouth 1665-7 for the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
"From Aug. 1667 - Aug. 1670 he was clerk to Pepys in the Navy Office ..."
Now I take issue with Gibson's start date: The Diary doesn't record when Gibson begins work, but by mid-May 1667 Pepys records him as being of assistance in the office. Maybe the first time he gets paid is in August, and L&M took that as his start date? After all, that's a quarter.
But May 1667 is a year away, and Pepys seems to need help now. So perhaps Homewood makes it for a year, and is replaced by Gibson? Maybe Pepys hires them both? So many questions we cannot answer. If ever I access his accounts, I'll let you know what I find out.
Dear Alter Kacker -- never heard of knee-walking drunk before, so I used my Google library and learned:
The Spiritual Side Of Getting Knee-Walking Drunk -- by Alex Balk June 23, 2011 Your new excuse: “What? No, I’m not drinking, I’m doing yoga!”
and
knee walking commode hugging snot slinging drunk n.) a truly envious condition. To have consumed so much alcohol that most of one’s motor skills are severely impaired. One in this condition will walk on his or her knees to decrease the distance he or she may fall in the event of a tumble, thus limiting injury, and the commode hugging comes in when the individual prays to regurgitate, thereby alleviating some of the associated nausea. the snot-slinging simply appears to be a side-effect -– however when spoken to, a person in this condition will spray a combination of mucus and spit to who ever he or she is conversing with.
"Alex drank way too many tequia f-nnybangers and did too many jello shots last night and wound up knee walking commode hugging snot slinging drunk before half the party guests arrived." https://definithing.com/knee-walk…
But the most likely source is CHEERS: Frasier: "All right, let's review. Last night, I got knee walking drunk and now I am back this bar a mere seven and a half hours later, hung over... well, it's official. I have a problem" https://www.quotes.net/mquote/702…
Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, the royalists implement another expression of the change of power:
When Charles II came to power in England in 1660, he at once arranged for the arrest of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess and 8th Earl of Argyll for collaborating with the Commonwealth.
Argyll was sentenced to death, his execution by beheading on the 'Maiden' taking place on 27 May 1661, before the death warrant had even been signed by the king. https://www.britannica.com/biogra…
Comments
Third Reading
About Thursday 8 October 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
More about gargoyles, with pictures of the most grotesque:
https://streetartutopia.com/2023/…
The word “gargoyle” has its roots in the French word “gargouille,” which translates to “throat.”
Gargouille is also associated with an old French legend featuring a dragon named La Gargouille. This fearsome creature had a long, twisted neck, a gaping mouth with powerful jaws, terrifying eyes, and massive wings. It lived in a cave near the River Seine and wreaked havoc on the nearby town of Rouen. Eventually a Christian priest named Romanus defeated the dragon, and its head and neck were displayed at the village entrance as a warning. This legend inspired the carving of dragon heads on buildings and water spouts, leading to the creation of the gargoyles we see today.
Many people mistakenly believe that gargoyles and grotesques are the same thing.
While grotesques encompass all decorative architectural creatures, gargoyles always have functioning drainage conduits.
Thus, not all grotesques are gargoyles, but all gargoyles are grotesques.
About John Belasyse
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse, 1615 - 1689, has a lengthy history of fighting for King Charles I in the first Civil War. I'm skipping past all that to his final stand:
At the end of November 1645, Parliamentarian and Scottish forces laid siege to Newark. Belasyse conducted a vigorous defence until May 1646 when he reluctantly surrendered on the orders of King Charles.
Belasyse spent the next 2 years abroad. He served with the Prince of Condé's army at the siege of Mardyke [and possibly met James, Duke of York there - James doesn't mention it, and there were many Englishmen dodging around The Dunes -- SDS], attended the French Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, and was granted a personal audience with Pope Innocent X.
After the execution of King Charles, Belasyse became actively involved in Charles II's attempts to regain the throne of England.
In 1651, he was intended to command forces raised in the north to support Charles' invasion from Scotland, but he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower in April so was unable to participate in the campaign leading up to the second battle of Worcester.
He was released on bail in September 1651, and Belasyse continued to plot against the Commonwealth and Protectorate governments as the only Catholic member of the Sealed Knot conspiracy ring.
He was arrested shortly before Booth's Uprising in 1659 and again imprisoned in the Tower of London.
After the Restoration in May 1660, Belasyse was appointed lord-lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire and governor of Hull.
He also served as governor of Tangier from 1665-6.
However, he was obliged to resign his offices when his Catholicism prevented him from taking the oaths required by the Test Acts of 1673.
Belasyse spent his fourth and lengthiest period of imprisonment in the Tower from 1678-84 on suspicion of involvement in the Popish Plot.
Cleared of all charges in May 1685, he served as a privy councillor and first lord of the Treasury under James II.
He died at Whitton in Middlesex in September 1689.
Belasyse married three times.
His first wife, the heiress Jane Boteler, died in 1657.
He married Ann Armyne, daughter and co-heir of Sir Robert Crane in July 1659; she died in 1662.
Belasyse lastly married Anne Paulet, daughter of the Marquis of Winchester.
His eldest son was killed during a drunken brawl in 1667 and he was succeeded by his grandson, upon whose death in 1692 the Belasyse title became extinct.
http://bcw-project.org/biography/…
For James' action at The Battle of the Dunes and for Dunkirk start at page 254: http://archive.org/stream/memoirs…
About Sunday 6 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Pepys knew a fair amount of basic Spanish, although I don't know where he picked it up. Where and when did Pepys learn some Spanish?"
According to Bryant, 'Man in the Making,' 1943 ed., p. 34-5:
In 1656 Montagu came home with treasure captured from a returning Spanish galleon off Cadiz. He also had care of a young orphan, the Marquis de Baides, who he left in Pepys' care until the ransom was paid. Bryant suggests that Pepys acquired his spoken Spanish from having long conversations with his charge.
Pepys' interest in Spanish didn't stop there: he collected books, plays and broadsides in the language. His collection of Spanish plays was sufficiently good that it was the subject of a monograph in 1980; Wilson, Edward M., and Cruickshank, Don W.; "Samuel Pepys's Spanish Plays". London: The Bibliographical Society, 1980.
I suspect this collection was made after the Diary years as most of his Diary Spanish appears to be phonetic
About Sunday 6 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys' money has a page of its own, showing how he became a wealthy man in 9 years. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Sir William Compton
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONT
In the second session of the Cavalier Parliament, Compton brought a reply from Charles II to the address against the Declaration of Indulgence.
It is clear from his letters that he had little sympathy for the nonconformists.
He was appointed to the committees to consider the petition of the loyal and indigent officers, and the bill for hindering the growth of Popery.
On 4 Apr. 1663 he was one of 12 Members ordered to join with the Lords in returning thanks for the proclamation against Popish priests and Jesuits.
He served on the committee to consider defects in the law against sale of offices.
On 12 May he was among the Members entrusted with an address on improving the revenue, and 4 days later he was appointed to the committee to consider amendments to the Bedford level bill.
When Charles II revealed the proposal of Sir Richard Temple to act as ‘undertaker’, Compton was sent to thank him for his message and, a week later, to ask who had been the intermediary.
He served on the committee for the bill for the loyal and indigent officers, and was one of 6 MPs appointed to draw up an additional clause on 10 July.
He ... on 25 July was sent to ask the King to allow the export of horses to the plantations and to preserve the timber in the Forest of Dean.
His last appearance in the Commons was to convey Charles II’s answer 2 days later.
Sir William Compton MP died after a short illness at his home in Drury Lane on 18 Oct. 1663, aged 38. Samuel Pepys wrote of the general, if transient, regret:
"all the world saying that he was one of the worthiest men and best officers of state now in England; and so in my conscience he was — of the best temper, value, abilities of mind, integrity, birth, fine person, and diligence of any one man he hath left behind him in the three kingdoms.
"Of not one courtier in a thousand," Pepys added, "could it be said, as of Compton, that no man spoke ill of him" and it is clear that with his death the Government lost a steadying influence in the House of Commons which would have been increasingly valuable in the subsequent sessions of the Cavalier Parliament.
Excerpted from his Parliamentary bio in which I see 2 errors! Another note to the House of Commons librarians -- they are getting to know me!: https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Sir William Compton
San Diego Sarah • Link
Of the six remarkable royalist brothers, Sir William Compton MP (1625 - 1663) was probably the ablest and of the highest character.
He was well-endowed for a younger son, his grandfather, the 1st Earl of Northampton, having settled on him the Kentish manor of Erith.
His defence of Banbury Castle during a 3-month siege in 1644 (when still in his teens), was remarkable not only for physical determination and courage but for the simple Anglican piety which he enforced in the garrison.
His moral courage was no less; he alone dissented from his eldest brother’s unjust cashiering of one of his officers in 1645.
He surrendered honourably on 8 May 1646, but, as a Kentish landowner, he could not refuse to take up arms in the second Civil War and served during the siege of Colchester as a major-general.
Cromwell is said to have described him as ‘the sober young man and godly Cavalier’, and he escaped with the moderate fine of £660.
He settled in Cambridgeshire on his marriage in 1651 to Elizabeth Tollemache Alington (she's daughter of Sir Lionel Tollemache, 2nd Bt. and Elizabeth Murray Tollemache [later Maitland] Countess of Dysart, of Helmingham, Suff., and widow of William, 1st Baron Alington, of Horseheath, Cambs. -- both families Pepys comes across later).
As a member of the Sealed Knot, he was engaged in most Cavalier plots until the last phase of the Interregnum, when he refused to believe the treachery of Sir Richard Willys led to his exclusion.
At the Restoration he crossed to Holland, and led a troop in Charles II’s escort from Dover to London, and was appointed master of the Ordnance.
Compton was returned for Cambridge at the general election of 1661, probably without a contest.
He was an active Member in the first and second sessions of the Cavalier Parliament, in which he was appointed to 64 committees, managed 3 conferences, and carried 8 messages to Charles II.
In the summer of 1661 he was named to the committees for the security, ... and the bill of pains and penalties.
Apart from these government measures, he also took part in considering the bill for drainage of the Bedford level.
After the recess he was appointed to the committees considering the ... ways of relieving loyalists, and the militia bill.
He was teller for candles in the debate on the Powell estate bill, and on 14 Mar. 1662 he carried the militia bill to the Upper House.
When the militia bill returned in May, he was appointed to the small committee to consider a proviso about the assessment of peers, ...
Also in May he attended Charles II with 2 messages, asking him to prevent a duel between Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory MP (1623-1680) in the Irish tradition, and also Baron Butler of Moor Park, and Philip Howard,
and to arbitrate between the old and the new adventurers in the Bedford level.
About Sir William Compton
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Compton family was quite extraordinary in their service to the Crown -- how William ended up as a Colonel of the Horse for the Parliamentarians, I don't know -- unless he was playing both sides at the same time, or spying for Charles II.
"Spencer Compton was succeeded as 3rd Earl of Northampton by his eldest son, James Compton (1622-81).
Four of Spencer Compton's sons fought in the King's armies: James, Charles, William and Spencer Jr.
His third son, William Compton (1625-63), was knighted for his defence of Banbury and became a founder member of the Sealed Knot conspiracy ring."
http://bcw-project.org/biography/…
About Sunday 6 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Yes Pepys does heighten our appreciation of all sorts of things, 3Lamps.
I found an article about why the Coronation is relevant in 2023, and isn't just an indulgent medieval flashback on the part of the British with their desire for more tourists:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Coronation Day (Charles II)
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
What is so striking about this concept, the fruits of a view of the universe that was no longer mystical and hermetic but mechanistic, were to be enshrined in what remained a medieval ritual. In this way, the oath remains the foundation, even in 2013, of the post-1688 state.
Add to that the displacement in the oath of Holy Church by the phrase ‘the Protestant Reformed Religion Established by Law’. To reinforce that no monarch would ever again be Catholic, there was a separate Declaration, which was incorporated into the Coronation service. It was violently anti-Catholic and was first used at the Coronation of Queen Anne in 1702.
...
Complex although this may seem, the Coronation Oath remains at the core of the British Constitution and belies anyone who regards the splendors of Coronation as nothing more than empty display. It is the foundation stone of the British system of government.
Highlights excerpted from
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/cor…
Do you think Charles II took his oath seriously? Me neither.
About Coronation Day (Charles II)
San Diego Sarah • Link
On this Coronation Day, 362 years later, I found one article that adds to our heap of Pepys-related knowledge:
With the arrival of the Stuarts in 1603, the Coronation Oath was to dramatically return to the center of the stage. James I and VI, who fervently believed and enunciated the Divine Right of Kings, had no difficulty in taking the oath but gave it his own gloss. In it, he wrote, the king ‘makes not his Crown stoup by this means to any power in the Pope, or in the Church, or in the People.’ The inclusion of the last named spelt out that the King and Parliament were on a collision course.
For King James, the king was the people’s overlord by birth ‘not by any right in the Coronation, commeth his crowne’ and so ‘it is like vnlawful… to displace him’. Indeed, it was rumored that his successor, King Charles I, wished to dispense with the Coronation all together so that he could ‘remain more absolute, avoiding the obligation to swear to the laws and without the discontent of his subjects’.
In this way, the Coronation Oath touched the heart of the constitutional conflict of the 17th century. In King Charles’ eyes, the oath was taken to God. For the republican opposition, it was one taken to the people, an oath that, once broken by the monarch, dissolved any obligation between the parties. In this light, the execution of the king was the outcome.
Although the Restoration of 1660 would seem to signal a return to early-Stuart mystical kingship, in the long run, that didn’t occur. Thanks to the rise to power of Parliament, new vigor was infused into the idea that the king was subject to the law and owed duties to his subjects.
That clash was to reach crisis point in the Revolution of 1688. As so often occurs in English history, what was a revolutionary position was to be dressed up in the pageantry of the medieval past. James II, who was ousted from the throne in favor of his daughter and son-in-law, Mary II and William III, was said to have ‘abdicated’ and, as the throne was vacant, it was offered to the couple by Parliament.
In January 1689, Parliament passed the Declaration of Rights, which framed what was, in essence, the principles of a constitutional monarchy of a kind that is still with us today. The Coronation Oath lay at the heart of this. The ruler was to be bound to observe the ancient laws of the realm, known as the laws of St. Edward, and also those that Parliament would make in the future. The latter was a radical reinterpretation of part of the Latin text of the oath, which refers to quas vulgus elegerit.
In the Coronation Oath that was used in 1689, any reference to ancient custom in the form of the Laws of St. Edward vanishes in favor of the philosopher John Locke’s position that the ultimate guarantee of protection against a sovereign lay in the principles of nature and reason which, both being outside the confines of history, were eternal.
About English Royal Africa Company ("Guinea Company")
San Diego Sarah • Link
A book about the RAC from 1660 - 1700 is:
The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History.
Making the Imperial Nation: Colonization, Politics, and English Identity, 1660-1700 – by Gabriel Glickman
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9780300255065
Published: 14th Feb 2023
Imprint: Yale University Press
After 1660, the English governments aimed to convert their scattered overseas dominions into a coordinated territorial power base. Stuart monarchs encouraged schemes for expansion in America, Africa, and Asia, tightened control over existing territories, and endorsed systems of slave labor to boost colonial prosperity.
But English power was precarious, and colonial designs were subject to regular defeats and failed experimentation.
Recovering from recent Civil Wars at home, England was shaken by unrest and upheaval through the later 17th century. Colonial policies emerged from a kingdom riven with inner tensions, which it exported to enclaves overseas.
Author Gabriel Glickman reinstates the colonies within the domestic history of Restoration England. He shows how the pursuit of empire raised moral and ideological controversies that divided political opinion and unsettled many ideas of English national identity.
Overseas ambitions disrupted bonds in Europe and cast new questions about English relations with Scotland and Ireland.
Vigorous debates were provoked by contact with non-Christian peoples and by changes brought to cultural tastes and consumer habits at home.
England was becoming an imperial nation before it had acquired a secure territorial empire. The pressures of colonization exerted a decisive influence over the wars, revolutions, and party conflicts that destabilized the later Stuart kingdom.
https://www.yalebooks.co.uk/page/…
And example of this in Diary times is that in December 1660 a committee of 6 men,
Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, 2nd Earl of Montgomery;
William Craven, Baron Craven of Hampstead Marshall;
Sir George Carteret;
William Coventry;
Sir Ellis Leighton and
Cornelius Vermuyden,
were named to have charge of The Company of the Royal Adventurers into Africa's affairs. No mention was made of the office of governor or of any court of directors.
It was thought a committee of 6 could direct all of the company's affairs.
About Sir Edward Mountagu ("my Lord," Earl of Sandwich)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Edward Montagu and Samuel Pepys both attended the same Grammar school in Huntingdon, and they both went to University (some years apart). But the education they received was very different.
Pepys at University https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Montagu at University
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
That was followed for Montagu by a spell at the Middle Inns in London
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Pepys knew his Latin and Greek -- Montagu not so much, But he didn't have to. He could employ Pepys.
About Monday 9 September 1661
San Diego Sarah • Link
And today at Wadham College, Oxford, the newly-appointed university Chancelor, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, has the honor of bestowing an honorary M.A. degree on his 14-year-old distant kinsman, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester,
During Rochester's 18-month stay at the university, three poems attributed to him appeared in two Oxford collections of encomium and consolation.
Epicedia Academiæ Oxoniensis (1660) is a collection of poems expressing condolance to Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria, for the death by smallpox of her daughter Mary, the Princess Royal.
Attributed to Rochester is a Latin poem, "In Obitum Serenissimae Mariae Principis Arausionensis," and an English poem, "To Her Sacred Majesty, the Queen Mother, on the Death of Mary, Princess of Orange."
But it is the poem in Britannia Rediviva (1660) celebrating the restored Charles II, who is apostrophized as "Virtue's triumphant shrine," that is most striking for its ingenuity.
After Oxford, in the charge of Dr. Andrew Balfour, a 30-year-old Scottish physician and man of learning, Rochester set out on a grand tour of France and Italy on 21 November 1661.
Little can be said with certainty of this period of Rochester's life and education, a period that was concluded in 1664, when he returned to England and presented himself to Charles II at Christmas time.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About John Wilmot (2nd Earl of Rochester)
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester was sent to Wadham College, Oxford, on 18 January 1660, at aged 12. He was admitted as a Fellow commoner, where he "grew debauched".
Rochester entered the school under the tutorship of the mathematician Phineas Bury, but a more influential tutor was the physician Robert Whitehall of Merton College, who may have inducted him into the life of debauchery.
It is said that Dr. Whitehall doted on him and taught him to drink deeply at the Oxford taverns, where he gained admittance in the disguise provided by a borrowed master's gown. This is unsubstantiated storytelling, although it gains credibility by the fact that Rochester left 4 silver pint pots to his college on going down from university. Such gifts were common tokens of esteem from students to their colleges.
On 9 September 1661 Rochester was awarded an honorary M.A. at age 14 by the newly elected Chancellor of the university, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, a family friend.
How this could happen is described in an entry about the education of sons of noblemen:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Di…
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/…
About Wednesday 4 November 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
More on miners:
Queen Elizabeth freed the last English serfs in 1574. But serfdom remained in Scotland until the Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775 prevented the creation of the status, and 1799, when coal miners who had been kept in serfdom prior to the 1775 Act gained emancipation. However, most Scottish serfs had been freed by then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Thursday 3 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Never thought of that possibility, Eric the Bish -- just how suicidal were they?
About Samuel Pepys and Slaves
San Diego Sarah • Link
When James II lost the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, he funded his exile in France by selling his stock in the Royal Africa Corp.
https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18t…
About Thursday 31 May 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"This day come to town Mr. Homewood, and I took him home in the evening to my chamber, and discoursed with him about my business of the Victualling, which I have a mind to employ him in, and he is desirous of also, but do very ingenuously declare he understands it not so well as other things, and desires to be informed in the nature of it before he attempts it, which I like well, and so I carried him to Mr. Gibson to discourse with him about it, and so home again to my accounts."
SPOILER: But we know Pepys decides to employ the other man for his knowledge of victualling and the Navy:
"Richard Gibson -- L&M Companion: One of the ablest and most experienced of Pepys' assistants; more than once commended by Pepys for his diligence, sobriety and honesty. Originally a purser (1652, 1655-65), he was given charge of the victualling at Great Yarmouth 1665-7 for the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
"From Aug. 1667 - Aug. 1670 he was clerk to Pepys in the Navy Office ..."
Now I take issue with Gibson's start date: The Diary doesn't record when Gibson begins work, but by mid-May 1667 Pepys records him as being of assistance in the office. Maybe the first time he gets paid is in August, and L&M took that as his start date? After all, that's a quarter.
But May 1667 is a year away, and Pepys seems to need help now. So perhaps Homewood makes it for a year, and is replaced by Gibson? Maybe Pepys hires them both?
So many questions we cannot answer.
If ever I access his accounts, I'll let you know what I find out.
About Tuesday 1 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Dear Alter Kacker -- never heard of knee-walking drunk before, so I used my Google library and learned:
The Spiritual Side Of Getting Knee-Walking Drunk -- by Alex Balk June 23, 2011
Your new excuse: “What? No, I’m not drinking, I’m doing yoga!”
and
knee walking commode hugging snot slinging drunk
n.) a truly envious condition. To have consumed so much alcohol that most of one’s motor skills are severely impaired. One in this condition will walk on his or her knees to decrease the distance he or she may fall in the event of a tumble, thus limiting injury, and the commode hugging comes in when the individual prays to regurgitate, thereby alleviating some of the associated nausea. the snot-slinging simply appears to be a side-effect -– however when spoken to, a person in this condition will spray a combination of mucus and spit to who ever he or she is conversing with.
"Alex drank way too many tequia f-nnybangers and did too many jello shots last night and wound up knee walking commode hugging snot slinging drunk before half the party guests arrived."
https://definithing.com/knee-walk…
But the most likely source is CHEERS:
Frasier: "All right, let's review. Last night, I got knee walking drunk and now I am back this bar a mere seven and a half hours later, hung over... well, it's official. I have a problem"
https://www.quotes.net/mquote/702…
I feel so enlightened!
About Monday 27 May 1661
San Diego Sarah • Link
Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, the royalists implement another expression of the change of power:
When Charles II came to power in England in 1660, he at once arranged for the arrest of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess and 8th Earl of Argyll for collaborating with the Commonwealth.
Argyll was sentenced to death, his execution by beheading on the 'Maiden' taking place on 27 May 1661, before the death warrant had even been signed by the king.
https://www.britannica.com/biogra…