Sir Walter Montagu (1619?-1706) was a lawyer, and sat in 1640 for the Short Parliament for the family borough of Huntingdon.
During the Civil Wars his father, Edward Montagu MP, 1st Baron Montagu of Boughton, was imprisoned as a Royalist; his older brother, Edward, 2nd Baron Montagu, supported Parliament, while Walter remained neutral but was not appointed to local office until 1657.
As a cousin of Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, chancellor of Cambridge University, Walter was returned to the Convention Parliament at the 1660 Cambridge by-election.
Montagu probably served on 21 committees and made 4 recorded speeches. On 11 July 1660 he seconded the motion to except Queen Mother Henrietta Maria’s lands from the bill for confirming sales.
In the second session Montagu was appointed to the committee for attainting Oliver Cromwell.
At the 1661 general election, Montagu was returned at Stamford, 15 miles from his Northants. home.
Montagus record cannot be reliably distinguished from those of the Edward Montagu MP and George Montagu MP, especially in the early Cavalier Parliament; he was an active Member, and may have sat on 20 committees, taking the chair in 7. 26 of his speeches were recorded. He was in favor of the execution of those under attainder, and was appointed to the committee for the bill.
On Charles II’s marriage, Montagu was appointed attorney-general to Queen Catherine.
Montagu was appointed to the conventicles committee and for a bill to prevention profanity in 1664.
In the 1665 Oxford session Montagu was on the committee for the five mile bill, and prepared reasons for a conference on the plague bill.
After the 1666 Great Fire, Montagu introduced a bill to prevent suits between landlords and tenants.
Although the proposed divorce of Lady Roos was detrimental to Queen Catherine’s interests, John Manners, Lord Roos was Montagu’s nephew, and on 12 Nov. 1666 he moved to allow Heneage Finch MP and Robert Milward MP to appear as Roos' counsel in the Lords. Montagu acted as chairman of the bill to illegitimate Lady Roos’ children.
On 22 Jan. 1667 Walter Montagu MP was a manager of Lord Mordaunt’s impeachment. On the fall of Clarendon he was ordered to search for precedents of impeachments, but took no further part.
In 1668 Montagu helped to amend the articles of impeachment against Henry Brouncker MP.
On 18 Nov. 1669 Walter Montagu MP was given responsibility for the private bill to settle the differences between Anne St.John Lee Wilmot, Dowager Countess of Rochester and the coheirs of Sir Thomas Pope.
After the Diary he was active in Parliament, for Queen Catherine, and as a judge - he worked on the Bloody Assizes with Judge Jeffries - Sir Walter Montagu MP lived to 88, dying on 26 Aug. 1706.
"Strange how these people do now promise me anything; one a rapier, the other a vessel of wine or a gun, and one offered me his silver hatband to do him a courtesy." These were bribes, trying to obligate Pepys to do something for them.
'One the other hand, last week (18th), he was not too proud to accept a piece of gold and 20s. in silver from Captain Williamson as compensation for getting him "him his commission to be Captain of the Harp."' This was a gratuity for services rendered.
I suspect Pepys made a differential here -- as he usually does later in the Diary. His "enemies" were not above sending shills to test his ethics, and he was always careful not to step over the line.
No need to discuss foy, Martin -- it's highlighted in blue so you can click through to the Encyclopedia to find it's definition. But thank you for the link to the longer set of annotations which escaped the Encyclopedia. 8-)
L&M: "A decoction of tobacco. There was at this time some controversy about whether tobacco produced paralysis: Birch, ii 9, 41."
The 16th-century physician–alchemist Paracelsus, considered to be the father of toxicology, once wrote: “What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.” By this adage, any substance can be a poison with the appropriate amount.
Apparently Charles II and Louis XIV were involved in a scientific race at this time. Harvey had proved that blood circulated through the heart, and Rene Descartes had sold the French on that idea in the 1630's. But Galen still held the day, while Descartes argued that animal blood was better than humans, because they were pure.
For more about the French experiments, and a murder originally blamed on a transfusion until it was proved the wife had poisoned the poor victim, see:
"Jean Denis and the “Transfusion Affair” PUBLISHED March 22, 2023 By Peter Sahlins
"During the late 1660s in Paris, transfusing the blood of calves and lambs into human veins held the promise of renewed youth and vigor. Peter Sahlins explores Jean Denis’ controversial experiments driven by his belief in the moral superiority of animal blood: a substance that could help redeem the fallen state of humanity.
"Beginning in the spring of 1667, public opinion in Paris was rocked by a remarkable affair involving domesticated animals: the first practical experiments to transfuse animal blood into humans for therapeutic purposes. The experiments that came to be known as the “Transfusion Affair” were shrouded in the competing claims of a highly public controversy in which consensus and truth, alongside the animal subjects themselves, were the first victims. “There was never anything that divided opinion as much as we presently witness with the transfusions”, wrote the Parisian lawyer at Parlement, Louis de Basril, late in the affair, in February 1668. “It is a topic of the salons, an amusement at the court, the subject of philosophical dissertations; and doctors talk incessantly about it in all their consultations.”
At the center of the controversy was the young Montpellier physician and “most able Cartesian philosopher” Jean Denis, recently established in Paris, who experimented with animal blood to cure sickness, especially madness, and to prolong life. With the talented surgeon Paul Emmerez, Denis transfused small amounts of blood from the carotid arteries of calves, lambs, and kid goats into the veins of 5 ailing human patients between June 1667 and January 1668. Two died, but 3 were purportedly cured and rejuvenated.
The experiments divided the medical establishment and engaged a Parisian public avid for scientific discoveries, especially medical therapies to cure disease and to stay forever young.
@@@
Ah, the desire to stay forever young.
The illustrations are informative, if a bit graphic. Poor dogs!
“… “The Rival Ladies,” a very innocent and most pretty witty play.”
Well, this gives us one measurable idea of how times and values have changed. The Rival Ladies was John Dryden’s first success, in which two women spent most of the play disguised as men.
According to James Winn, such plays permitted “a more psychological kind of titillation: they allowed the audience to imagine what it would be like to change sex, to play at the kind of game [Barbara Villiers Palmer, Countess of] Castlemaine may have organized at court.” 40
40 James Anderson Winn, “When Beauty Fires the Blood”: Love and the Arts in the Age of Dryden (Ann Arbor, MI, 1992), 65.
Traub suggested that cross-dressing plays may have blinded contemporaries to “the eroticism evident in their language of desire.” Valerie Traub, “The (In)Significance of ‘Lesbian’Desire in Early Modern England,” in Queering the Renaissance, ed. Jonathan Goldberg (Durham, NC,1994), 80. @@@ This reference comes from a paper attempting to unravel the relationships of the Princesses Mary and Anne with courtier Frances Apsley. Were they physically acting out their relationships or was their correspondence just teenage girls' expressions of repression and desire? Frances kept her letters but, unlike her distant cousin Sarah Jennings, did not blackmail the Queens, write her memoires or publish the letters.
Since Pepys found the play innocent and amusing, it must reflect a tollerance reasonably common in its time, which we 21st century people find questionable.
Love, Friendship, and Power: Queen Mary II’s Letters to Frances Apsley By Molly McClain https://www.academia.edu/5932658/… You may have to subscribe.
The origins of the Mayflower pub need clarification. I found this version, along with some photos of Rotherhithe today:
"It was from Rotherhithe that the Mayflower first set off on its journey to America, and it was also in Rotherhithe that it was scrapped for timber at the end of its life. According to local legend, part of the Mayflower Pub was built from the ship’s remains, and only a stone’s throw away lies the remains of its captain, Christopher Jones, who is buried in St. Mary’s Church."
By 1775, England’s love affair with tea had become too expensive. Most of the tea was imported from China. The British were so obsessed with the beverage that the fast “clipper’ ships were invented to get the freshest tea leaves back to the home country.
The famous Cutty Sark could transport over 1,000,000 lbs. of tea to England in less than 100 days.
In a mercantile world, the problem was this created a trade imbalance for England. Chinese citizens were not interested in British products. To pay for the imports, England was drained of gold and silver. What was needed was an export that Chinese had to have. Starting around 1775 the British East India Company started exporting opium from India to Canton, China to help with the balance of payments. This exploded into such a problem for the Chinese, they declared war on England during Victoria’s reign. https://www.historyanecdotesforte…
Of course, it wasn’t just the Chinese being addicted: “Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a poet and an opium addict. One day in 1797, he went to sleep under the influence, after having read about Kubla Khan’s palace at Zanadu. When he awoke, he began to feverishly copy down a poem he had dreamed. It began with the famous line: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan build a stately Pallace…”
When he reached the 54th line (one sixth of the way through the planned poem), his writing was interrupted by the infamous “person on business from Porlock” and by the time he got back to work, he had forgotten the rest of his most famous poem.” https://www.historyanecdotesforte…
Ensign Tom tells us stubble was common in Pepys' day:
Historian Richard Holmes describing the death of Charles II in his 2008 work, "Marlborough: England's Fragile Genius", writes: "On the morning of 2 February 1685 he [the King] rose after a restless night, and sat down to the barber, 'it being shaving day' -- even monarchs were shaved only two or three times a week."
So being clean shaven meant something a bit different to them than it does to us. Otherwise, Charles II would have asked Pepys how he achieved his clean appearance, and started scrubbing himself every day as well.
Yes they have, Ensign Tom -- at the top of this page is a black band with the words: THE DIARY - LETTERS - ENCYCLOPEDIA - ARTICLES - SITE NEWS - RECENT ACTIVITY - ABOUT
Under ARTICLES, our recent efforts have been book reviews, but if you go back further you'll find that Jeannine, Sue Nicholson, Phil Gyford, and others from the First Reading contributed in-depth articles about different aspects of the Diary. One concerns the garden at Seething Lane, and the other is about how Pepys' home there evolved during the Diary years.
I wonder where Autumnbreeze got the idea that Dorothea St.Michel was of Irish origin. One of the more tantalizing possibilities about Elizabeth's lineage is:
"Another interesting point of debate has to do with the parentage of Elizabeth’s mother, Dorethea. "Marjorie Astin’s biography of Elizabeth, which differs on this point from all others ..., states that Dorethea was the “daughter of Lavinia and Matthew Penneford of Gort, and widow of Thomas Fleetwood. She was closely connected with the Kingsmills, a family of considerable worth and consequence, who had resided at Basingstoke, Hants, from the12th to 16th century; they had received a grant from the Royal Mill there, from which they derived their name.” (Astin, p.10). Perhaps it is best to put these “details of debate” into the broader perspective, where through this letter we will see that the results infer that Elizabeth had a “curious childhood, full of poverty and unrest, for her father was often abroad earning his bread as a soldier.” (Astin, p.12)."
The letter from Balty St.Michel to Pepys as part of his Popish Plot defense gives all the details.
Balty says he and Elizabeth were born in Bideford, Devon. His letter is about 1/3 of the way through an article at https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
Pepys sounds depressed -- not only did he omit mention of Will Bowyer escorting Elizabeth to his parents' home, but he also forgot to say that the dog and Jane Booth left as well. The house must have been very empty when he went back for the final look around.
She was a Devonian -- and anyone familiar with that dialect will atest she might as well have been speaking French for most Londoners -- in fact, so many Londoners had spent time in France, they would probably have preferred that she did speak French.
Ensign Tom -- later I discovered an Encyclopedia page for Pepys' house at Axe Yard, and I've copied in the L&M Companion description of the arrangements there. They overlooked Pepys' description of his living arrangements on Day One! https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
L&M Companion: Pepys lived here from c. Aug. 1658 until July 1660. The house was probably on the north side, and was the fourth from King Street. It had 8 hearths, which was about average for a street which also included a house with 36 (probably a rooming house), one with 3, and the others ranged from 4 to 15.
It appears from the rate book of 1657/8 to have been divided, the Pepyses occupying 2/3 (assessed on 5 hearths). Before the Diary begins, the Beales (who had occupied the rest of the house) had moved along the street to the Axe Inn, and Pepys (now presumably in sole occupancy) was paying rent to both Francis Beale and the freeholder, Valentine Wanley of Lambeth.
HMMM ... that's not what Pepys says on the first day of the Diary: "... (we living lately in the garret) ..." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
A garret: garret -- noun Synonyms of garret: a room or unfinished part of a house just under the roof. https://www.merriam-webster.com/d…
Perhaps after Pepys gets a better-paid job in March, he, Elizabeth and Jane take over more space?
Francis Beale is identified as Landlord Beale on 20 September, 1660.
L&M: Francis Beale was Pepys' landlord 1658-1660. Beale had lived in Axe Yard since at least 1627/8 in a house whose freehold was owned by Valentine Wanley. Sometime before the beginning of the Diary, Beale moved to the Axe Inn. He dies in 1662, and his widow, Alice Whittney Beale, lived on until 1666.
John Bernard was descended from a younger son of the Northamptonshire family.
His father, Robert Bernard MP of Huntingdon, was recorder of that town and represented the borough in the Short Parliament.
John Bernard bought the Brampton estate, 2 miles from the town, in 1653. A domineering lord of the manor, he used his legal training to drive the smaller freeholders out.
With his brother-in-law, Nicholas Pedley, he defeated the Montagu candidates for Huntingdon at the general election of 1660.
in Apr. John Bernard MP obtained a pass for Holland, where he hoped to counteract the influence of Adm. Edward Montagu MP at Court, and perhaps to solicit the baronetcy (which was granted to his father in 1662).
He was not an active Member of the Convention Parliament, serving only on the committee of elections and privileges and on two others of minor importance, and making no recorded speeches. He is likely to have voted with the Opposition.
It is not known whether John Bernard stood again at Huntingdon, where his father continued as recorder until removed by the commissioners for corporations.
John had the courage to shelter his first wife’s father (Elizabeth was the daughter of Oliver St.John) before the Cromwellian Lord Chief Justice fled the country, and the longstanding conventicle at Brampton may have owed something to his protection, as well as the bishop of Lincoln’s tolerance.
John Bernard succeeded his father as the 2nd Bart. on 18 Apr. 1666.
He either resigned or was removed from the commission of the peace in July 1670, presumably because of his opposition to the Conventicles Act.
Comments
Third Reading
About Sir William Mountagu
San Diego Sarah • Link
During the Diary years, Sir George Montagu MP had chambers at Lincoln's Inn.
About Sir William Mountagu
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sir Walter Montagu (1619?-1706) was a lawyer, and sat in 1640 for the Short Parliament for the family borough of Huntingdon.
During the Civil Wars his father, Edward Montagu MP, 1st Baron Montagu of Boughton, was imprisoned as a Royalist; his older brother, Edward, 2nd Baron Montagu, supported Parliament, while Walter remained neutral but was not appointed to local office until 1657.
As a cousin of Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, chancellor of Cambridge University, Walter was returned to the Convention Parliament at the 1660 Cambridge by-election.
Montagu probably served on 21 committees and made 4 recorded speeches. On 11 July 1660 he seconded the motion to except Queen Mother Henrietta Maria’s lands from the bill for confirming sales.
In the second session Montagu was appointed to the committee for attainting Oliver Cromwell.
At the 1661 general election, Montagu was returned at Stamford, 15 miles from his Northants. home.
Montagus record cannot be reliably distinguished from those of the Edward Montagu MP and George Montagu MP, especially in the early Cavalier Parliament; he was an active Member, and may have sat on 20 committees, taking the chair in 7. 26 of his speeches were recorded.
He was in favor of the execution of those under attainder, and was appointed to the committee for the bill.
On Charles II’s marriage, Montagu was appointed attorney-general to Queen Catherine.
Montagu was appointed to the conventicles committee and for a bill to prevention profanity in 1664.
In the 1665 Oxford session Montagu was on the committee for the five mile bill, and prepared reasons for a conference on the plague bill.
After the 1666 Great Fire, Montagu introduced a bill to prevent suits between landlords and tenants.
Although the proposed divorce of Lady Roos was detrimental to Queen Catherine’s interests, John Manners, Lord Roos was Montagu’s nephew, and on 12 Nov. 1666 he moved to allow Heneage Finch MP and Robert Milward MP to appear as Roos' counsel in the Lords.
Montagu acted as chairman of the bill to illegitimate Lady Roos’ children.
On 22 Jan. 1667 Walter Montagu MP was a manager of Lord Mordaunt’s impeachment.
On the fall of Clarendon he was ordered to search for precedents of impeachments, but took no further part.
In 1668 Montagu helped to amend the articles of impeachment against Henry Brouncker MP.
On 18 Nov. 1669 Walter Montagu MP was given responsibility for the private bill to settle the differences between Anne St.John Lee Wilmot, Dowager Countess of Rochester and the coheirs of Sir Thomas Pope.
After the Diary he was active in Parliament, for Queen Catherine, and as a judge - he worked on the Bloody Assizes with Judge Jeffries - Sir Walter Montagu MP lived to 88, dying on 26 Aug. 1706.
For more information, see https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Thursday 22 March 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Strange how these people do now promise me anything; one a rapier, the other a vessel of wine or a gun, and one offered me his silver hatband to do him a courtesy." These were bribes, trying to obligate Pepys to do something for them.
'One the other hand, last week (18th), he was not too proud to accept a piece of gold and 20s. in silver from Captain Williamson as compensation for getting him "him his commission to be Captain of the Harp."' This was a gratuity for services rendered.
I suspect Pepys made a differential here -- as he usually does later in the Diary. His "enemies" were not above sending shills to test his ethics, and he was always careful not to step over the line.
About Tuesday 20 March 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
No need to discuss foy, Martin -- it's highlighted in blue so you can click through to the Encyclopedia to find it's definition. But thank you for the link to the longer set of annotations which escaped the Encyclopedia. 8-)
About Wednesday 19 April 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M: "A decoction of tobacco. There was at this time some controversy about whether tobacco produced paralysis: Birch, ii 9, 41."
The 16th-century physician–alchemist Paracelsus, considered to be the father of toxicology, once wrote: “What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.”
By this adage, any substance can be a poison with the appropriate amount.
https://theconversation.com/poiso…
About Arthur Coga
San Diego Sarah • Link
Apparently Charles II and Louis XIV were involved in a scientific race at this time. Harvey had proved that blood circulated through the heart, and Rene Descartes had sold the French on that idea in the 1630's. But Galen still held the day, while Descartes argued that animal blood was better than humans, because they were pure.
For more about the French experiments, and a murder originally blamed on a transfusion until it was proved the wife had poisoned the poor victim, see:
"Jean Denis and the “Transfusion Affair”
PUBLISHED March 22, 2023 By Peter Sahlins
https://publicdomainreview.org/es…
"During the late 1660s in Paris, transfusing the blood of calves and lambs into human veins held the promise of renewed youth and vigor. Peter Sahlins explores Jean Denis’ controversial experiments driven by his belief in the moral superiority of animal blood: a substance that could help redeem the fallen state of humanity.
"Beginning in the spring of 1667, public opinion in Paris was rocked by a remarkable affair involving domesticated animals: the first practical experiments to transfuse animal blood into humans for therapeutic purposes. The experiments that came to be known as the “Transfusion Affair” were shrouded in the competing claims of a highly public controversy in which consensus and truth, alongside the animal subjects themselves, were the first victims. “There was never anything that divided opinion as much as we presently witness with the transfusions”, wrote the Parisian lawyer at Parlement, Louis de Basril, late in the affair, in February 1668. “It is a topic of the salons, an amusement at the court, the subject of philosophical dissertations; and doctors talk incessantly about it in all their consultations.”
At the center of the controversy was the young Montpellier physician and “most able Cartesian philosopher” Jean Denis, recently established in Paris, who experimented with animal blood to cure sickness, especially madness, and to prolong life.
With the talented surgeon Paul Emmerez, Denis transfused small amounts of blood from the carotid arteries of calves, lambs, and kid goats into the veins of 5 ailing human patients between June 1667 and January 1668. Two died, but 3 were purportedly cured and rejuvenated.
The experiments divided the medical establishment and engaged a Parisian public avid for scientific discoveries, especially medical therapies to cure disease and to stay forever young.
@@@
Ah, the desire to stay forever young.
The illustrations are informative, if a bit graphic. Poor dogs!
About The Rival Ladies (John Dryden)
San Diego Sarah • Link
“… “The Rival Ladies,” a very innocent and most pretty witty play.”
Well, this gives us one measurable idea of how times and values have changed. The Rival Ladies was John Dryden’s first success, in which two women spent most of the play disguised as men.
According to James Winn, such plays permitted “a more psychological kind of titillation: they allowed the audience to imagine what it would be like to change sex, to play at the kind of game [Barbara Villiers Palmer, Countess of] Castlemaine may have organized at court.” 40
40 James Anderson Winn, “When Beauty Fires the Blood”: Love and the Arts in the Age of Dryden (Ann Arbor, MI, 1992), 65.
Traub suggested that cross-dressing plays may have blinded contemporaries to “the eroticism evident in their language of desire.” Valerie Traub, “The (In)Significance of ‘Lesbian’Desire in Early Modern England,” in Queering the Renaissance, ed. Jonathan Goldberg (Durham, NC,1994), 80.
@@@
This reference comes from a paper attempting to unravel the relationships of the Princesses Mary and Anne with courtier Frances Apsley. Were they physically acting out their relationships or was their correspondence just teenage girls' expressions of repression and desire? Frances kept her letters but, unlike her distant cousin Sarah Jennings, did not blackmail the Queens, write her memoires or publish the letters.
Since Pepys found the play innocent and amusing, it must reflect a tollerance reasonably common in its time, which we 21st century people find questionable.
Love, Friendship, and Power: Queen Mary II’s Letters to Frances Apsley
By Molly McClain
https://www.academia.edu/5932658/…
You may have to subscribe.
About Rotherhithe (Redriffe)
San Diego Sarah • Link
The origins of the Mayflower pub need clarification. I found this version, along with some photos of Rotherhithe today:
"It was from Rotherhithe that the Mayflower first set off on its journey to America, and it was also in Rotherhithe that it was scrapped for timber at the end of its life. According to local legend, part of the Mayflower Pub was built from the ship’s remains, and only a stone’s throw away lies the remains of its captain, Christopher Jones, who is buried in St. Mary’s Church."
https://www.atlasobscura.com/plac…
About Tea
San Diego Sarah • Link
By 1775, England’s love affair with tea had become too expensive. Most of the tea was imported from China. The British were so obsessed with the beverage that the fast “clipper’ ships were invented to get the freshest tea leaves back to the home country.
The famous Cutty Sark could transport over 1,000,000 lbs. of tea to England in less than 100 days.
In a mercantile world, the problem was this created a trade imbalance for England. Chinese citizens were not interested in British products. To pay for the imports, England was drained of gold and silver. What was needed was an export that Chinese had to have. Starting around 1775 the British East India Company started exporting opium from India to Canton, China to help with the balance of payments. This exploded into such a problem for the Chinese, they declared war on England during Victoria’s reign.
https://www.historyanecdotesforte…
Of course, it wasn’t just the Chinese being addicted: “Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a poet and an opium addict. One day in 1797, he went to sleep under the influence, after having read about Kubla Khan’s palace at Zanadu. When he awoke, he began to feverishly copy down a poem he had dreamed. It began with the famous line: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan build a stately Pallace…”
When he reached the 54th line (one sixth of the way through the planned poem), his writing was interrupted by the infamous “person on business from Porlock” and by the time he got back to work, he had forgotten the rest of his most famous poem.”
https://www.historyanecdotesforte…
About Sunday 25 May 1662
San Diego Sarah • Link
Ensign Tom tells us stubble was common in Pepys' day:
Historian Richard Holmes describing the death of Charles II in his 2008 work, "Marlborough: England's Fragile Genius", writes: "On the morning of 2 February 1685 he [the King] rose after a restless night, and sat down to the barber, 'it being shaving day' -- even monarchs were shaved only two or three times a week."
Holmes' quoted source was the two volume "Memoirs of Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury" published in 1890.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
So being clean shaven meant something a bit different to them than it does to us. Otherwise, Charles II would have asked Pepys how he achieved his clean appearance, and started scrubbing himself every day as well.
About Tuesday 14 February 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
Yes they have, Ensign Tom -- at the top of this page is a black band with the words: THE DIARY - LETTERS - ENCYCLOPEDIA - ARTICLES - SITE NEWS - RECENT ACTIVITY - ABOUT
Under ARTICLES, our recent efforts have been book reviews, but if you go back further you'll find that Jeannine, Sue Nicholson, Phil Gyford, and others from the First Reading contributed in-depth articles about different aspects of the Diary. One concerns the garden at Seething Lane, and the other is about how Pepys' home there evolved during the Diary years.
Poke around; it's fun. The price is right!
If you're in a hurry, this is the article you're looking for:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
About Saturday 17 March 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
I wonder where Autumnbreeze got the idea that Dorothea St.Michel was of Irish origin.
One of the more tantalizing possibilities about Elizabeth's lineage is:
"Another interesting point of debate has to do with the parentage of Elizabeth’s mother, Dorethea.
"Marjorie Astin’s biography of Elizabeth, which differs on this point from all others ..., states that Dorethea was the “daughter of Lavinia and Matthew Penneford of Gort, and widow of Thomas Fleetwood. She was closely connected with the Kingsmills, a family of considerable worth and consequence, who had resided at Basingstoke, Hants, from the12th to 16th century; they had received a grant from the Royal Mill there, from which they derived their name.” (Astin, p.10). Perhaps it is best to put these “details of debate” into the broader perspective, where through this letter we will see that the results infer that Elizabeth had a “curious childhood, full of poverty and unrest, for her father was often abroad earning his bread as a soldier.” (Astin, p.12)."
The letter from Balty St.Michel to Pepys as part of his Popish Plot defense gives all the details.
Balty says he and Elizabeth were born in Bideford, Devon. His letter is about 1/3 of the way through an article at https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
About Saturday 17 March 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys sounds depressed -- not only did he omit mention of Will Bowyer escorting Elizabeth to his parents' home, but he also forgot to say that the dog and Jane Booth left as well. The house must have been very empty when he went back for the final look around.
About Saturday 17 March 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
If anyone is, like Autumnbreeze, confused about Elizabeth's background, a good summary is at
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
She was a Devonian -- and anyone familiar with that dialect will atest she might as well have been speaking French for most Londoners -- in fact, so many Londoners had spent time in France, they would probably have preferred that she did speak French.
About Tuesday 14 February 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
Ensign Tom -- later I discovered an Encyclopedia page for Pepys' house at Axe Yard, and I've copied in the L&M Companion description of the arrangements there. They overlooked Pepys' description of his living arrangements on Day One!
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Pepys’ home in Axe Yard
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion: Pepys lived here from c. Aug. 1658 until July 1660. The house was probably on the north side, and was the fourth from King Street. It had 8 hearths, which was about average for a street which also included a house with 36 (probably a rooming house), one with 3, and the others ranged from 4 to 15.
It appears from the rate book of 1657/8 to have been divided, the Pepyses occupying 2/3 (assessed on 5 hearths). Before the Diary begins, the Beales (who had occupied the rest of the house) had moved along the street to the Axe Inn, and Pepys (now presumably in sole occupancy) was paying rent to both Francis Beale and the freeholder, Valentine Wanley of Lambeth.
HMMM ... that's not what Pepys says on the first day of the Diary: "... (we living lately in the garret) ..."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
A garret:
garret -- noun
Synonyms of garret: a room or unfinished part of a house just under the roof.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/d…
Perhaps after Pepys gets a better-paid job in March, he, Elizabeth and Jane take over more space?
About Francis Beale
San Diego Sarah • Link
Francis Beale is identified as Landlord Beale on 20 September, 1660.
L&M: Francis Beale was Pepys' landlord 1658-1660. Beale had lived in Axe Yard since at least 1627/8 in a house whose freehold was owned by Valentine Wanley. Sometime before the beginning of the Diary, Beale moved to the Axe Inn. He dies in 1662, and his widow, Alice Whittney Beale, lived on until 1666.
So Tim's information looks quite likely.
About Wednesday 14 March 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
David Bell's annotation on the Huntingdon elections referenced in the first annotation is at
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Wednesday 14 March 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
Oooops -- William Bernard's page is https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
You will note that not all of them came from the same family.
About Sir John Bernard
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Bernard was descended from a younger son of the Northamptonshire family.
His father, Robert Bernard MP of Huntingdon, was recorder of that town and represented the borough in the Short Parliament.
John Bernard bought the Brampton estate, 2 miles from the town, in 1653. A domineering lord of the manor, he used his legal training to drive the smaller freeholders out.
With his brother-in-law, Nicholas Pedley, he defeated the Montagu candidates for Huntingdon at the general election of 1660.
in Apr. John Bernard MP obtained a pass for Holland, where he hoped to counteract the influence of Adm. Edward Montagu MP at Court, and perhaps to solicit the baronetcy (which was granted to his father in 1662).
He was not an active Member of the Convention Parliament, serving only on the committee of elections and privileges and on two others of minor importance, and making no recorded speeches. He is likely to have voted with the Opposition.
It is not known whether John Bernard stood again at Huntingdon, where his father continued as recorder until removed by the commissioners for corporations.
John had the courage to shelter his first wife’s father (Elizabeth was the daughter of Oliver St.John) before the Cromwellian Lord Chief Justice fled the country, and the longstanding conventicle at Brampton may have owed something to his protection, as well as the bishop of Lincoln’s tolerance.
John Bernard succeeded his father as the 2nd Bart. on 18 Apr. 1666.
He either resigned or was removed from the commission of the peace in July 1670, presumably because of his opposition to the Conventicles Act.
Sir John Bernard, 2nd Bart., died on 25 June 1679, and was buried at Brampton.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…