Deal is 69 miles from London by train, which is a pretty straight line. Say 90 miles on horseback, because they did not enjoy a direct route.
A walking horse moves about 4 miles per hour. When urged to a trot, a horse's speed goes up to about 8 to 12 miles per hour. The next gait is a canter, where horses are clocked at going anywhere from 10 to 17 miles per hour. The fastest gait, called a gallop, is where a horse travels 25 to 30 miles per hour. I think Dunn trotted most of the way, walked when he had to (it was muddy and slippery), and cantered when he could, on a relay of horses.
Mr. Dunn must have ridden straight through (for about 8 hours) to bring the mail in such a timely manner, and the mail packet never left his person. That means he left London right after sunrise.
He probably left his last horse at Poole's Inn at Deal as the approved Post House. Now that makes sense. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
A breakfast of radishes -- no wonder Pepys remarked on this. Was food in short supply? Was this a fetish of the Purser, Andrew Pearse? Did the cook get fired for such an (un)imaginative offering? As so often is the case, Pepys leaves us hanging. Google to the rescue:
"Pickled radish seed pods were a delicacy in the 17th century and if you catch them right, they have all the crunch of a radish, but with a less fiery, somewhat greener flavour."
"Other radishes have been bred for winter eating, ... These tend to have much larger roots and need sowing in late summer, in order to put on enough growth before the winter. We grow the venerable ‘Black Spanish’ radish, first written about in 1548. As the name suggests, it has a jet black, rough outer skin, but the flesh is bright white. These are used for cooking in much the same way you’d use a turnip, but you can also eat them raw – a warning though – they can be very hot." https://www.richardjacksonsgarden…
"Black radishes provided vital nutrients during the barren winter months of the Middle Ages, and Europeans heavily relied on the root’s cold tolerance and extended storage capabilities as a filling food source."
"It is important to note that the skin contains most of the spicy, peppery flavor. The skin is edible, but if a milder taste is desired, it can be peeled before eating. Black radishes can also be roasted, braised, fried, and sauteed. When cooked, the roots can be mashed and mixed with cheeses or sour cream to make a dip for appetizer plates or spread over roasted meats. Black radishes can also be stirred into potato and egg-based dishes, sliced thin and fried into chips, or diced and tossed into soups and stews." https://specialtyproduce.com/prod…
This is a Reddit link, which I doubt will post -- IT DID! Basically it says that cucubers can be planted any time after the frosts are past. However, for the best results they should be planted before dawn on May 1 by a naked young man. Go for it.
My L&M says "Montagu’s letters were directed to Poole’s at this time. Cf Carte, 73, f 376r."
Nothing about holding letters for pickup to London. Pepys seems to use messengers for government communications with London; they arrive one afternoon, stay overnight, and return next morning.
Maybe this L&M comment referred to personal communications with Montagu from his family? The Poole's public system would not be secure, considering the delicacy of the times. Without looking at Carte, I cannot guess their context.
"Both Montagu and Pepys have already begun to express their low opinions [OF MONCK]."
This is the second time I've seen this kind of opinion expressed in annotations. If you think Montagu's shoulders shook in anger today, then it's justified. If you think Montagu's shoulders shook with mirth at how Monck out-maneuvered the Presbyterians (my opinion), then it's not.
I don't recall Pepys having a low opinion of Monck. I see him relieved this week to know that Monck wants to reinstate the monarchy, which he was confused about until now. Confusion and low opinions are not the same thing.
I think the Monck/Montagu/Manchester management team is working together remarkably well bringing about a peaceful change of direction. A bloodless coup by "popular" demand is in progress. Building that popular demand takes time and a lot of rubber chicken dinners (that's an American description of business association lunches).
Please correct me if I've forgotten/overlooked some quotes.
Thanks, Angela -- this confirms my impression that the Naseby and what part of the fleet is seaworthy is in the Downs, protected by the Goodwin Sands, for this month. I think the article inflates Pepys' power to make Naval decisions -- he was in no way Montagu's equal. But otherwise, good background info.
I wonder why Alexandre ended up being buried in Deal. Another detail we'll never know.
'I ate a good breakfast' Sounds like relief, or a note of hope, that his constitution has adjusted to life aboard. At dinner, a man who had just arrived, had to leave the table. That's another sign to Pepys that he is/has adjusting to sea life. I don't see smugness -- I see gratitude. That unfortunate man was him a few hours ago.
Proofreading Hhomboy again: "Once the restoration has been effected, the ruthless courtiers will emasculate self-important Presbyterian grandees such as Manchester, ..."
Not so: Manchester was born in 1602, so he's 58 now. As you can see from his Wikipedia bio: "He opposed the trial of the king, and retired from public life during the Commonwealth but after the Restoration, which he actively assisted, he was loaded with honours by Charles II. In 1660, he was nominated by the House of Lords to be one of the Commissioners for the Great Seal of England, In 1667 he was made a General [again, when the Dutch threatened London], and he died on 5 May 1671. Manchester was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1661, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667." https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
If you look at the references to him throughout the Diary, you'll see he is named 33 times, the only "quiet" year being 1664. That means he was active in the House of Lords and as a privy councillor and as lord chamberlain to Charles II. That's hardly "emasculation".
L&M Companion: Hatton, Sir Thomas, 2nd Bart. (1637-82). Of Long Stanton, Cambs., nephew of the 1st Baron Hatton. A royalist; in 1660 in some disfavor with Sir Edward Hyde for fighting a duel at Calais. M.P. for Cambridgeshire 1674-9.
L&M Companion: Sir Richard Mauleverer, 2nd Bart. (d. 1675). Royalist; twice imprisoned during the Interregnum; released in Sept. 1659; in 1660 made Gentleman of the Privy Bedchamber and Captain of the Horse. M.P. for Boroughbridge 1661-75; sheriff of Yorkshire 1667-8.
I reconcile the apparently contradictory stories about Lambert's capture like this: They were on their way to Edgehill to meet with the other anti-Monarchists. Ingoldsby caught up with Lambert's contingent near Daventry, so the battle field was not pre-selected. Lambert's men turned and prepared to fight. Lambert's horse became ensnared in mud, and he realized there was no way his men could win this skirmish in these conditions, so he called off the charge and told them to flee. Which they did. He was caught, and hoped his former colleague would take pity on him and let him escape. But noooo, Ingoldsby wanted a future life under Charles II, so Lambert's goose was cooked. Back to the Tower. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Thomas Hatton’s grandfather was the first of the family to reside at Long Stanton, Cambridgeshire. His father, a younger brother of the 1st Lord Hatton, was imprisoned at Cambridge as a Royalist from the outset of the Civil Wars. Thomas Hatton (1637 - 1682) paid no taxes to the county committee except under compulsion and steadfastly refused to take the Covenant, but he could not be fined or sequestrated, and he was certainly not short of money during the Interregnum.
He succeeded his father on 23 Sept. 1658. He married Bridget, da. of Sir William Goring, 1st Bt., of Burton, Sussex, in 1659. They had 2 sons and 4 daughters.
Thomas Hatton, 2nd Bart., crossed over to Flushing on the eve of the Restoration with Sir Richard Mauleverer, but apparently returned empty-handed from the exiled Court. Little is known of him until 1674, when he narrowly defeated Gerard Russell in a 3-cornered contest for Cambridge. He was expected, under the influence of Sir Thomas Chicheley, to support the Court. In 1676, Sir Richard Wiseman noted that Hatton had ‘voted ill last session’; but he had ‘good hopes’ of him. These hopes were fully justified, for next year Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury marked him ‘doubly vile’, and in "A Seasonable Argument" he was attacked as ‘a man of no estate but his pension’.
No pension can be traced, and Long Stanton remained in the family until the baronetcy became extinct in 1812.
His name appeared on both lists of the court party in 1678. He was appointed to only 7 committees in the Cavalier Parliament, none of which were of any political importance, and was sent for as a defaulter in December.
Richard Mauleverer’s ancestors had been seated at Allerton, 6 miles from Boroughbridge, North Yorks., since at least the 13th century, and first represented Yorkshire in 1334.
His father, who represented the borough in the Long Parliament, was a regicide, but Richard, to whom an annuity of £500 had been granted at his marriage, fought as a Royalist in both Civil Wars. (He married Anne in 1642, daughter of Sir Robert Clerke of Pleshey, Essex. They had 5 sons and 2 daughters.)
Richard Mauleverer was knighted on 27 Mar. 1645. His indignant father cut off his allowance, and consequently Richard escaped with a nominal fine of £4 6s. 8d.
He took part in the royalist rising in Yorkshire in 1655, after which he made a daring escape from Chester Castle. He was again imprisoned in 1659, but released on bail in September.
On the eve of the Restoration, Sir Richard Mauleverer crossed the Channel to visit the exiled Court, and was made a gentleman of the privy chamber.
Sir Richard Mauleverer was returned for Boroughbridge at the general election of 1661 on his own interest. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was appointed to 43 committees, including the committee of elections and privileges in 9 sessions; but the only measure of major political importance with which he was concerned was the corporations bill. His father had been posthumously excepted from the Act of Indemnity, but the baronetcy and the estate, valued at £1,200 p.a., were restored to Richard.
Mauleverer was listed as a court dependant in 1664, and appeared on both lists of 1669-71 among the Members to be engaged for the Court by the Duke of Buckingham.
He was a Capt. of Lord Gerard’s Horse 1666-7.
He again figured on the Paston list of 1673-4, and was described as a ‘committeeman in Temple cloisters with many more of his gang’. On 30 Apr. 1675 he was granted £200 as royal bounty.
I suspect Pepys' chat with the Purser was about stopping seamen from rowing Burr ashore whenever Burr requests it. The Naseby is anchored at sea, not moored in a harbor, so Burr needed enablers.
Good find, Stephane. The mouth of the Thames has silted up a lot since Pepys' times, so I think we are in agreement that they have anchored off the mouth of the River Lee or Lee-over-Sands, and not at Leigh-on-Sea.
Speaker Harbottle Grimston MP (1603-1685) has an extensive House of Commons biography, little of which applies to Diary issues. Mostly he stood for Colchester.
During the English Civil Wars he remained a Parliamentarian but was sympathetic to the Royalists.
Harbottle Grimston MP’s "principle was that allegiance and protection were mutual obligations and that the one went for the other. He thought the law was the measure of both and that when a legal protection was denied to one who paid a legal allegiance, the subject had a right to defend himself."
"All the afternoon I was writing of letters, among the rest one to W. Simons, Peter Luellin and Tom Doling, which because it is somewhat merry I keep a copy of."
These are all friends of Pepys, and my guess is that it was a slow day, so he was sending them his impressions of life aboard, and the funny things that had happened so far.
It sounds like Pepys sent these 3 friends one letter to share. Back when I used to write personal letters by hand, I frequently made a draft complete with arrows, insertions and changes, which I then copied fairly faithfully. Another way of doing this is to write a list of topics, but it's harder to write humerously from a list. "Merry" takes work.
An earlier annotation asked for clarification of codes, ciphers, and characters from annotators who had worked with codes. In my youth I was an Air Force codes officer. These days, the message encryption process is so highly automated that it bears no resemblance to the processes Pepys used. A few pen and paper ciphers remain, and they are so weak they are changed daily, and are used only to protect information that needs security for a brief period of time. For instance, you might want to tell someone that an aircraft has taken off, while concealing that fact from hostile eavesdroppers long enough for the plane to land.
In Pepys’ day they used nomenclators that were part code, part cipher. A box with a dot in it might mean “The Pope”. Two boxes one atop the other with a dot in the top might mean “The King” and a dot in the bottom might mean “The Duke of York”, and dots in both boxes “the King and Duke of York”. Special meanings were assigned to Greek letters, and all of these had to have a spelling table to encipher words and phrases for which no symbols were provided. You can see how Pepys would have trouble alphabetizing the list of entries. Does Theta come after T? Where do you put this symbol that looks like a backwards R?
If the lists were reasonably short – one or two pages – you could use the same “character” for both enciphering and deciphering messages. If the lists were long, you needed a two-part character, one part with the symbols in order, and the second with the meanings in order.
Again there were problems with alphabetizing the list. Suppose one entry was for the phrase “His Most Christian Majesty King Louis of France”, would you put the entry under H for “His”, L for “Louis” or F for “France”?
These characters were hard to use, slow and cumbersome both to send, and to receive. A trusted messenger with unenciphered text was often faster, and just as secure. They avoided transposition ciphers, in which the order of letters or words were scrambled, largely because almost any error would render the message gibberish from the point of the error to the end, and errors are very hard to avoid.
Steganography, which has seen a modern resurgence in use, was used in the 17th Century, but often as a one-time message. For example, if someone received a gift of two oranges, it might mean “burn your papers and get out of town, quick!” If the authorities intercepted the message, it would just be a snack.
I recommend David Kahn’s books if anyone is seriously interested in the subject.
Comments
Third Reading
About Wednesday 2 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Dunn arrives at dinner time -- say noonish.
Deal is 69 miles from London by train, which is a pretty straight line. Say 90 miles on horseback, because they did not enjoy a direct route.
A walking horse moves about 4 miles per hour. When urged to a trot, a horse's speed goes up to about 8 to 12 miles per hour. The next gait is a canter, where horses are clocked at going anywhere from 10 to 17 miles per hour. The fastest gait, called a gallop, is where a horse travels 25 to 30 miles per hour.
I think Dunn trotted most of the way, walked when he had to (it was muddy and slippery), and cantered when he could, on a relay of horses.
Mr. Dunn must have ridden straight through (for about 8 hours) to bring the mail in such a timely manner, and the mail packet never left his person. That means he left London right after sunrise.
He probably left his last horse at Poole's Inn at Deal as the approved Post House. Now that makes sense. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Radishes
San Diego Sarah • Link
A breakfast of radishes -- no wonder Pepys remarked on this. Was food in short supply? Was this a fetish of the Purser, Andrew Pearse? Did the cook get fired for such an (un)imaginative offering? As so often is the case, Pepys leaves us hanging. Google to the rescue:
"Pickled radish seed pods were a delicacy in the 17th century and if you catch them right, they have all the crunch of a radish, but with a less fiery, somewhat greener flavour."
"Other radishes have been bred for winter eating, ... These tend to have much larger roots and need sowing in late summer, in order to put on enough growth before the winter. We grow the venerable ‘Black Spanish’ radish, first written about in 1548. As the name suggests, it has a jet black, rough outer skin, but the flesh is bright white. These are used for cooking in much the same way you’d use a turnip, but you can also eat them raw – a warning though – they can be very hot."
https://www.richardjacksonsgarden…
"Black radishes provided vital nutrients during the barren winter months of the Middle Ages, and Europeans heavily relied on the root’s cold tolerance and extended storage capabilities as a filling food source."
"It is important to note that the skin contains most of the spicy, peppery flavor. The skin is edible, but if a milder taste is desired, it can be peeled before eating. Black radishes can also be roasted, braised, fried, and sauteed. When cooked, the roots can be mashed and mixed with cheeses or sour cream to make a dip for appetizer plates or spread over roasted meats. Black radishes can also be stirred into potato and egg-based dishes, sliced thin and fried into chips, or diced and tossed into soups and stews."
https://specialtyproduce.com/prod…
Fried radishes for breakfast? Delicious?
About Cucumbers
San Diego Sarah • Link
This is a Reddit link, which I doubt will post -- IT DID! Basically it says that cucubers can be planted any time after the frosts are past. However, for the best results they should be planted before dawn on May 1 by a naked young man.
Go for it.
No wonder all the naysayers hated them.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesV…
About Monday 30 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
It's correct: The House of Commons did not meet today.
About Monday 30 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
My L&M says "Montagu’s letters were directed to Poole’s at this time. Cf Carte, 73, f 376r."
Nothing about holding letters for pickup to London. Pepys seems to use messengers for government communications with London; they arrive one afternoon, stay overnight, and return next morning.
Maybe this L&M comment referred to personal communications with Montagu from his family? The Poole's public system would not be secure, considering the delicacy of the times. Without looking at Carte, I cannot guess their context.
About Sunday 29 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Both Montagu and Pepys have already begun to express their low opinions [OF MONCK]."
This is the second time I've seen this kind of opinion expressed in annotations. If you think Montagu's shoulders shook in anger today, then it's justified. If you think Montagu's shoulders shook with mirth at how Monck out-maneuvered the Presbyterians (my opinion), then it's not.
I don't recall Pepys having a low opinion of Monck. I see him relieved this week to know that Monck wants to reinstate the monarchy, which he was confused about until now. Confusion and low opinions are not the same thing.
I think the Monck/Montagu/Manchester management team is working together remarkably well bringing about a peaceful change of direction. A bloodless coup by "popular" demand is in progress. Building that popular demand takes time and a lot of rubber chicken dinners (that's an American description of business association lunches).
Please correct me if I've forgotten/overlooked some quotes.
About Monday 9 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thanks, Angela -- this confirms my impression that the Naseby and what part of the fleet is seaworthy is in the Downs, protected by the Goodwin Sands, for this month. I think the article inflates Pepys' power to make Naval decisions -- he was in no way Montagu's equal. But otherwise, good background info.
I wonder why Alexandre ended up being buried in Deal. Another detail we'll never know.
About Wednesday 11 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
'I ate a good breakfast'
Sounds like relief, or a note of hope, that his constitution has adjusted to life aboard.
At dinner, a man who had just arrived, had to leave the table. That's another sign to Pepys that he is/has adjusting to sea life.
I don't see smugness -- I see gratitude. That unfortunate man was him a few hours ago.
About Sunday 29 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Proofreading Hhomboy again:
"Once the restoration has been effected, the ruthless courtiers will emasculate self-important Presbyterian grandees such as Manchester, ..."
Not so: Manchester was born in 1602, so he's 58 now. As you can see from his Wikipedia bio:
"He opposed the trial of the king, and retired from public life during the Commonwealth but after the Restoration, which he actively assisted, he was loaded with honours by Charles II. In 1660, he was nominated by the House of Lords to be one of the Commissioners for the Great Seal of England, In 1667 he was made a General [again, when the Dutch threatened London], and he died on 5 May 1671. Manchester was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1661, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
If you look at the references to him throughout the Diary, you'll see he is named 33 times, the only "quiet" year being 1664. That means he was active in the House of Lords and as a privy councillor and as lord chamberlain to Charles II. That's hardly "emasculation".
About Sir Thomas Hatton (2nd Baronet)
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion: Hatton, Sir Thomas, 2nd Bart. (1637-82). Of Long Stanton, Cambs., nephew of the 1st Baron Hatton. A royalist; in 1660 in some disfavor with Sir Edward Hyde for fighting a duel at Calais. M.P. for Cambridgeshire 1674-9.
About Sir Richard Mauleverer (2nd Baronet)
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion: Sir Richard Mauleverer, 2nd Bart. (d. 1675). Royalist; twice imprisoned during the Interregnum; released in Sept. 1659; in 1660 made Gentleman of the Privy Bedchamber and Captain of the Horse. M.P. for Boroughbridge 1661-75; sheriff of Yorkshire 1667-8.
About Friday 27 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I reconcile the apparently contradictory stories about Lambert's capture like this:
They were on their way to Edgehill to meet with the other anti-Monarchists.
Ingoldsby caught up with Lambert's contingent near Daventry, so the battle field was not pre-selected.
Lambert's men turned and prepared to fight.
Lambert's horse became ensnared in mud, and he realized there was no way his men could win this skirmish in these conditions, so he called off the charge and told them to flee. Which they did.
He was caught, and hoped his former colleague would take pity on him and let him escape.
But noooo, Ingoldsby wanted a future life under Charles II, so Lambert's goose was cooked. Back to the Tower.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Sir Thomas Hatton (2nd Baronet)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thomas Hatton’s grandfather was the first of the family to reside at Long Stanton, Cambridgeshire.
His father, a younger brother of the 1st Lord Hatton, was imprisoned at Cambridge as a Royalist from the outset of the Civil Wars.
Thomas Hatton (1637 - 1682) paid no taxes to the county committee except under compulsion and steadfastly refused to take the Covenant, but he could not be fined or sequestrated, and he was certainly not short of money during the Interregnum.
He succeeded his father on 23 Sept. 1658.
He married Bridget, da. of Sir William Goring, 1st Bt., of Burton, Sussex, in 1659. They had 2 sons and 4 daughters.
Thomas Hatton, 2nd Bart., crossed over to Flushing on the eve of the Restoration with Sir Richard Mauleverer, but apparently returned empty-handed from the exiled Court.
Little is known of him until 1674, when he narrowly defeated Gerard Russell in a 3-cornered contest for Cambridge.
He was expected, under the influence of Sir Thomas Chicheley, to support the Court.
In 1676, Sir Richard Wiseman noted that Hatton had ‘voted ill last session’; but he had ‘good hopes’ of him. These hopes were fully justified, for next year Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury marked him ‘doubly vile’, and in "A Seasonable Argument" he was attacked as ‘a man of no estate but his pension’.
No pension can be traced, and Long Stanton remained in the family until the baronetcy became extinct in 1812.
His name appeared on both lists of the court party in 1678. He was appointed to only 7 committees in the Cavalier Parliament, none of which were of any political importance, and was sent for as a defaulter in December.
He was buried at Long Stanton on 19 Apr. 1682, the last of his family to sit in Parliament.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Sir Richard Mauleverer (2nd Baronet)
San Diego Sarah • Link
MAULEVERER, Sir Richard, 2nd Bt. (c.1623 - 1675)
About Sir Richard Mauleverer (2nd Baronet)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Richard Mauleverer’s ancestors had been seated at Allerton, 6 miles from Boroughbridge, North Yorks., since at least the 13th century, and first represented Yorkshire in 1334.
His father, who represented the borough in the Long Parliament, was a regicide, but Richard, to whom an annuity of £500 had been granted at his marriage, fought as a Royalist in both Civil Wars. (He married Anne in 1642, daughter of Sir Robert Clerke of Pleshey, Essex. They had 5 sons and 2 daughters.)
Richard Mauleverer was knighted on 27 Mar. 1645. His indignant father cut off his allowance, and consequently Richard escaped with a nominal fine of £4 6s. 8d.
He took part in the royalist rising in Yorkshire in 1655, after which he made a daring escape from Chester Castle.
He was again imprisoned in 1659, but released on bail in September.
On the eve of the Restoration, Sir Richard Mauleverer crossed the Channel to visit the exiled Court, and was made a gentleman of the privy chamber.
Sir Richard Mauleverer was returned for Boroughbridge at the general election of 1661 on his own interest.
An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was appointed to 43 committees, including the committee of elections and privileges in 9 sessions; but the only measure of major political importance with which he was concerned was the corporations bill.
His father had been posthumously excepted from the Act of Indemnity, but the baronetcy and the estate, valued at £1,200 p.a., were restored to Richard.
Mauleverer was listed as a court dependant in 1664, and appeared on both lists of 1669-71 among the Members to be engaged for the Court by the Duke of Buckingham.
He was a Capt. of Lord Gerard’s Horse 1666-7.
He again figured on the Paston list of 1673-4, and was described as a ‘committeeman in Temple cloisters with many more of his gang’.
On 30 Apr. 1675 he was granted £200 as royal bounty.
He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 25 July, 1675.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About John Burr
San Diego Sarah • Link
I suspect Pepys' chat with the Purser was about stopping seamen from rowing Burr ashore whenever Burr requests it. The Naseby is anchored at sea, not moored in a harbor, so Burr needed enablers.
About Thursday 5 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Good find, Stephane. The mouth of the Thames has silted up a lot since Pepys' times, so I think we are in agreement that they have anchored off the mouth of the River Lee or Lee-over-Sands, and not at Leigh-on-Sea.
About Sir Harbottle Grimston (2nd Baronet)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Speaker Harbottle Grimston MP (1603-1685) has an extensive House of Commons biography, little of which applies to Diary issues. Mostly he stood for Colchester.
During the English Civil Wars he remained a Parliamentarian but was sympathetic to the Royalists.
Harbottle Grimston MP’s "principle was that allegiance and protection were mutual obligations and that the one went for the other. He thought the law was the measure of both and that when a legal protection was denied to one who paid a legal allegiance, the subject had a right to defend himself."
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Thursday 26 April 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"All the afternoon I was writing of letters, among the rest one to W. Simons, Peter Luellin and Tom Doling, which because it is somewhat merry I keep a copy of."
These are all friends of Pepys, and my guess is that it was a slow day, so he was sending them his impressions of life aboard, and the funny things that had happened so far.
It sounds like Pepys sent these 3 friends one letter to share. Back when I used to write personal letters by hand, I frequently made a draft complete with arrows, insertions and changes, which I then copied fairly faithfully. Another way of doing this is to write a list of topics, but it's harder to write humerously from a list. "Merry" takes work.
About Codes and ciphers
San Diego Sarah • Link
In 2013 Dick Wilson shared:
An earlier annotation asked for clarification of codes, ciphers, and characters from annotators who had worked with codes. In my youth I was an Air Force codes officer.
These days, the message encryption process is so highly automated that it bears no resemblance to the processes Pepys used. A few pen and paper ciphers remain, and they are so weak they are changed daily, and are used only to protect information that needs security for a brief period of time. For instance, you might want to tell someone that an aircraft has taken off, while concealing that fact from hostile eavesdroppers long enough for the plane to land.
In Pepys’ day they used nomenclators that were part code, part cipher. A box with a dot in it might mean “The Pope”. Two boxes one atop the other with a dot in the top might mean “The King” and a dot in the bottom might mean “The Duke of York”, and dots in both boxes “the King and Duke of York”.
Special meanings were assigned to Greek letters, and all of these had to have a spelling table to encipher words and phrases for which no symbols were provided.
You can see how Pepys would have trouble alphabetizing the list of entries. Does Theta come after T?
Where do you put this symbol that looks like a backwards R?
If the lists were reasonably short – one or two pages – you could use the same “character” for both enciphering and deciphering messages. If the lists were long, you needed a two-part character, one part with the symbols in order, and the second with the meanings in order.
Again there were problems with alphabetizing the list. Suppose one entry was for the phrase “His Most Christian Majesty King Louis of France”, would you put the entry under H for “His”, L for “Louis” or F for “France”?
These characters were hard to use, slow and cumbersome both to send, and to receive.
A trusted messenger with unenciphered text was often faster, and just as secure. They avoided transposition ciphers, in which the order of letters or words were scrambled, largely because almost any error would render the message gibberish from the point of the error to the end, and errors are very hard to avoid.
Steganography, which has seen a modern resurgence in use, was used in the 17th Century, but often as a one-time message. For example, if someone received a gift of two oranges, it might mean “burn your papers and get out of town, quick!” If the authorities intercepted the message, it would just be a snack.
I recommend David Kahn’s books if anyone is seriously interested in the subject.