In Tudor times, Spitalfields were fields beyond the City wall, although by the late Elizabethan days a sprinkle of individual wealthy gentlemen’s houses began to dot the roadside up to Shoreditch.
By the reign of King Charles’ reign, there were more of them – typical ribbon developments.
Building ceased during the Civil Wars, but once peace was established, even before the Cromwells were seen off or Charles II was restored, builders got busy again in this desirable – almost rural - setting.
In 1655 two brothers named Fossan (one of whom was a goldsmith) acquired an odd-shaped chunk of land not far from an ancient, muddy track to brick fields, now known as Brick Lane. Much of the ground was used for tenter fields, where woolen cloth woven locally was hung up to dry. The City clothing industry had started to impinge on the rural land.
The Fossans leased the land for 99 years to two builders, John Flower and Gowan Dean. Such was the system under which most of Greater London was created over the next 200 years. There Flower & Dean built Fossan Street, whose name a generation later came to be misunderstood as ‘Fashion Street,’ and gave their own surnames to the street just south of it.
Fashion Street still exists with the handsome early 18th century Christ Church, Spitalfields, and its graveyard just to the north, but its present buildings are of a later date.
It must have been a pretty street and a respectable one for much of the next century, when it was mainly occupied by Huguenot silk-spinners. These were Protestants who had come to England to find a more welcoming society than the Catholic France of Louis XIV. They arrived in far greater numbers in the 1680s when Louis tore up the legal agreement tolerating Protestantism and real persecution set in.
Some refugees crossed the Channel in dangerously small boats, making their way into the Thames estuary and up the river by night. Nothing in the life of nations really changes.
These hard-working spinners and weavers flourished, and by the mid-18th century many had established themselves in other businesses, entering prosperous British society.
Those who remained in Spitalfields began to do less well, imports of silk and cotton from India damaged the home trade. There were also questions about their stability: the brickies employer by Flower & Dean were said to have used inadequate mortar.
The Great North Road out of London to York, Edinburgh and all points in between, began at Smithfield Market.
Distances to the north were measured from Hicks’ Hall, the former courthouse of the Middlesex magistrates at the southern end of St. John Street, and marked by milestones along the road.
Travelers passed the first stone at Islington Green, milestones 2 and 3 were found at Highbury Corner and Holloway, before they met Four Mile Stone at the foot of Highgate Hill and then, after a steep climb, Five Mile Stone was to be discovered on North Hill. Next came the Six Mile Stone at what was known as Finchley Common, the most dangerous place in London for highwaymen.
At Six Mile Stone was a gibbet where the bodies of executed highwaymen were hung in chains and left to rot for the birds to feed upon, as a discouragement to other miscreants from attracted to this malevolent trade.
The Great North Road evolved in the early 17th century. At first the road was uneven, narrow, muddy, full of puddles, and wheels ruts. Inclement weather made communication difficult and often dangerous. It twisted, turned, shrank, expanded, and it changed its course, sometimes by design and occasionally by accident.
Passing along its length were pilgrims, soldiers, peasants, vagabonds, rebellious armies, cattle drovers, coaches, and highwaymen.
The first recorded stage coach operating from London to York was in 1658 taking 4 days. Faster mail coaches began using the route in 1786, providing a quicker service than the other passenger coaches.
THE ROUTE: London/Hicks' Hall on St. John’s Street, Clerkenwell – Islington Green - Highbury Corner – Holloway - Highgate Hill - North Hill – Finchley Common - Stamford – Grantham – Retford – Doncaster – York – Durham – Newcastle-Upon-Tyne – Morpeth – Alnwick – Berwick-Upon-Tweed - Edinburgh
No, I think Flora Masson is wrong; I prefer to believe the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. They are in Brussels:
At Monck's suggestion Charles II left Brussels for Dutch territory, freeing himself from the importunities of the Spanish and the French concerning his future policy towards Dunkirk and Portugal. On 4 April 1660 Charles II arrived at Breda …
In Ireland the Restoration had proceeded largely independently of, and even a little before, that in England. Having secured power at the end of 1659, a group of Cromwellian army officers, Sir Theophilus Jones, Sir Charles Coote, and Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, had opened negotiations with Charles II well before Monck had done, and in February 1660 called together a convention in Dublin. It declared for Charles II, who was proclaimed on 14 May.
L&M tells us that a "prophecy said to have been made in mid-February 1660 by James Harrington, the republican writer: 'Well, the King will come in. Let him come in, and call a Parliament of greatest Cavaliers in England, so they be men of estates, and let them set but 7 years, and they will all turn Commonwealth's men': Aubrey, i. 291"
MEANWHILE, at Court -- I think they were at Breda at this time:
"When on 24 February Lady Willoughby de Broke told [Charles' adviser and later Earl of Clarendon, Edward] Hyde that Ashley Cooper was 'his Majesty's fast friend', Hyde replied tartly that this was the first he had heard of it." -- Antonia Fraser, "Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration," 1979, pp 170
Early in 1660, Gen. George Monck in England and Sir Charles Coote and Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill in Ireland were in communication with Charles Stuart. Broghill's letter to Charles was carried to Breda by Francis "Frank" Boyle [later Viscount Shannon, as he married Elizabeth "Black Betty" Killigrew and brought up one of Charles' many illigitimate daughters]: it is said to have been in Charles II's hands before Monck's emissary had done his work.
Broghill's proposal was that Charles II should first land in Ireland.
Hhomeboy made two excellent entries on the state of Charles II's roads and how they were (not) maintained. I recommend them both highly. See https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
People did appreciate a lovely view -- look where the nobility built their houses. And then they groomed the view by planting trees, dropping the driveway into hahas, etc.
And the people above who expected Pepys to appreciate the February farmlands, clearly they have never riden a horse in the country in pouring rain. It is a cold, miserable experience, even when wearing 20th century rainwear, and all you're looking at is the way ahead, guessing how deep the next puddle might be, and looking to see if there is a dryer way around it.
The Society of Antiquarians: Salon: Issue 506 22 February 2023
"The role of the Church of England in the transatlantic slavery economy was complex and varied. Missionaries sent to work in the Caribbean and the Americas documented the harsh conditions of daily life on the plantations. Enslaved people were not allowed basic Christian rights such as baptism and marriage in case these rights damaged the property and legal rights of the owners.
"Some voices were raised against enslavement including Revd. Morgan Godwyn, an Anglican missionary to Virginia and Barbados. He wrote in 1680 appealing to William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow Anglican priests to baptize enslaved people."
After the Diary, yes, but in Pepys' lifetime. I wonder what Sancroft did with the letter besides file it?
Mrs. Turner's husband was Thomas Turner, and according to our Encyclopedia he became a Purser in 1642, at which time he could presumably afford to get married. Let's say he earned this position at aged 25, meaning he was born around 1617. He would look for a wife a few years younger than him -- so she might have been born around 1620. Or not.
I tried searching for her father, Sir John Holmden. He isn't listed as an MP, or turn up in any reliable blogs. So I have drawn a blank.
But she was old enough to have lost her teeth, poor lady.
Why are you confusing people, Ensign Tom? The Diary entry is about WILLIAM Hoare.
The bank was started by RICHARD Hoare (1648 –1719), so he is currently 12. Maybe they were relatives? I don't know and during the Diary years, nor does Pepys, who well might have gotten to know him after the Diary: "Our founder, Richard Hoare, completed his apprenticeship as a goldsmith and, as goldsmiths often did in those days, set up a business safeguarding gold and valuables under the sign of the Golden Bottle on Cheapside. "In 1690 the business moved to our current location in Fleet Street, where it continued to prosper. Richard was knighted by Queen Anne in 1702, and appointed Lord Mayor of London 10 years later." https://www.hoaresbank.co.uk/our-…
I agree that Major General Browne's full beard was probably an attempt at a disguise -- and also an economy for someone in hiding, probably without a valet to shave him.
However, Charles II's coronation portrait next year shows him with a very healthy moustache.
This article says Louis XIV kept his moustache until 1683, at which time he made the aristocratic transition to the clean-shaven era of wigs, stockings and knee-breeches. https://www.thebeardybeard.co/blo…
My guess is Pepys had a whispy, patchy growth, and chose to be clean shaven in order to not advertise his lack of sturdy whiskers. People speculated about your masculinity by such things.
Wigs -- this article covers everything from their history (started with Louis XIII, the Sun King's father) to how to clean them and in what colors they were available (including pink and blue).
They were ignored by Louis XIV until the royal head started to lose its voluptuness, at which time he embraced wigs with enthusiasm, and employed 40 wigmakers -- it took hair from 10 preferably country women to make one of his extravaganzas.
Charles II resisted until he started to go grey in 1663, and then he followed suit.
John Hutchinson (1674-1737) and Isaac Newton were both devout scholars who believed that the natural world and God were inextricably linked. The similarities ended there.
Newton’s entire life is shrouded in legend, making it hard to recognize that he has not always been universally admired.
Looking back, it can feel as if Newton were destined from birth to revolutionize the cosmos, but for many of his contemporaries he was an eccentric academic with a foul temper. Even the famous anecdote about being inspired by a falling apple only became popular a century after his death.
For decades after the publication of The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), sceptics savaged Isaac Newton’s theories on several grounds. Contrary to common belief, there was no overnight conversion to his notion that gravity extends out ineluctably through empty space.
Even the most dedicated of Newton’s followers repeatedly chipped away at his original formulation, which was very different from the version of Newtonian physics in use today. Yet at the same time, they boosted his reputation with almost religious fervor: as well as successfully concealing awkward evidence that might detract from his magnificence, such as his obsessive alchemical research or his unorthodox theological beliefs, they also seized every opportunity to advertise his achievements and suppress opposing voices.
Newton was still alive in 1724 when John Hutchinson, an avid but idiosyncratic fossil collector, published a hatchet job with a deliberately provocative title – Moses’s Principia. Like other religious critics – Bishop Berkeley, for instance – Hutchinson condemned the use of mathematics for deciphering God’s laws, accusing Newton of having woven a ‘Cobweb of Circles and Lines to catch Flies in’.
According to John Hutchinson, Newton approached knowledge the wrong way round: instead of trying to learn about God by measuring the world, he should peruse the Bible for its concealed information about nature. Divine truth, insisted Hutchinson, could only be derived by retrieving and studying the original unpointed Hebrew version of the Bible, which had been directly dictated by God before being corrupted over the centuries by translators and interpreters.
"Mr. Newburne (of whom the nickname came up among us forarse Tom Newburne)"
Pepys isn't one for sharing people's nicknames with us -- his Diary is very formal in this regard. But everyone had one -- makes sense in a society where the same first names were used in every generation by every branch of the family. You frequently read of this confusion in the Parliamentary biographies of the time. I wonder why Pepys never shared his private name for Adm. Penn? Anyways, nicknames are a very old custom: https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
This article takes a look at nicknames, and how they were used to identify people -- as we've discovered, names were used in families in every generation, and led to much confusion. Safe to say "Black Tom" was an affectionate nickname 90 per cent of the time: https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
The Socuety of Antiquarians: Salon: Issue 506 22 February 2023
The role of the Church of England in the transatlantic slavery economy was complex and varied. Missionaries sent to work in the Caribbean and the Americas documented the harsh conditions of daily life on the plantations. Enslaved people were not allowed basic Christian rights such as baptism and marriage in case these rights damaged the property and legal rights of the owners.
Some voices were raised against enslavement including Revd Morgan Godwyn, an Anglican missionary to Virginia and Barbados. He wrote in 1680 appealing to William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow Anglican priests to baptize enslaved people.
Gilbert Mabbott, son of a Nottingham cobbler and Rushworth’s clerk, was a leveller, and was removed from his post as licenser for this in 1649. He was the writer of The Moderate and of a scurrilous Mercurius Britannicus in 1649. He pretended to hold views in favour of the freedom of the press in 1649, when he found that he was to be removed, but he was restored to his post in 1653. https://www.bartleby.com/217/1505…
This sells him short: He worked for John Rushworth, MP who has an incredible body of work covering the Interregnum. https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
As a source of information, Pepys couldn't have gone drinking with a better source. And later Pepys reads Rushworth's work, and found it enlightening.
Gilbert Mabbott, son of a Nottingham cobbler and Rushworth’s clerk, was a leveller, and was removed from his post as licenser for this in 1649. He was the writer of The Moderate and of a scurrilous Mercurius Britannicus in 1649. He pretended to hold views in favour of the freedom of the press in 1649, when he found that he was to be removed, but he was restored to his post in 1653. https://www.bartleby.com/217/1505…
BEFORE THE DIARY: Montagu was given his large suite of rooms at Whitehall by Cromwell when he took up residence there as Lord Protector, some (including Montagu) wanted him to be a King. Stephen Coote notes: "the changing tone of Whitehall...Cromwell had taken on monarchical powers and these were now suggested by the increasing pomp with which he was surrounded. The palace was no longer a chaotic scrimmage, unregulated and swarming with people."
There was now ceremony which was usually associated with a king, Sir Gilbert Pickering was Lord Chamberlain, and Col. Jones, Controller, with his white staff of office. Montagu was a favored member of this new "court",
That remained true under Cromwell's son Richard ("Tumbledown Dick"), until he retired to the country.
Montagu did the same, but his apartment was never lost as there was no one authorized to take it away. One of Pepys' jobs was to look after these premises, and he was allocated his own room in the attic. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
L&M Companion: From 1653 until the date of his death, Adm. Edward Montagu had an official residence in Whitehall Palace. These lodgings comprised part (all?) of the gatehouse of the King's Gate together with rooms adjacent to it on both sides of the street.
He also had official lodgings at The Wardrobe in the years 1660-1668 and, from 1664 onwards, rented other premises in Lincoln's Inn Fields and Hampstead.
Thus, Sandwich had residences in both London and Westminster and also a 'country' residence in Hampstead as well as his country seat at Hinchingbrooke.
Shakespeare alludes to this well-known custom of having pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in the following string of comparisons put into the mouth of the clown in All’s Well That Ends Well: “As fit — as Tib’s rush for Tim’s forefinger, as a Pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a Morris for May-day,” &c.
Comments
Third Reading
About Spitalfields
San Diego Sarah • Link
In Tudor times, Spitalfields were fields beyond the City wall, although by the late Elizabethan days a sprinkle of individual wealthy gentlemen’s houses began to dot the roadside up to Shoreditch.
By the reign of King Charles’ reign, there were more of them – typical ribbon developments.
Building ceased during the Civil Wars, but once peace was established, even before the Cromwells were seen off or Charles II was restored, builders got busy again in this desirable – almost rural - setting.
In 1655 two brothers named Fossan (one of whom was a goldsmith) acquired an odd-shaped chunk of land not far from an ancient, muddy track to brick fields, now known as Brick Lane. Much of the ground was used for tenter fields, where woolen cloth woven locally was hung up to dry. The City clothing industry had started to impinge on the rural land.
The Fossans leased the land for 99 years to two builders, John Flower and Gowan Dean. Such was the system under which most of Greater London was created over the next 200 years. There Flower & Dean built Fossan Street, whose name a generation later came to be misunderstood as ‘Fashion Street,’ and gave their own surnames to the street just south of it.
Fashion Street still exists with the handsome early 18th century Christ Church, Spitalfields, and its graveyard just to the north, but its present buildings are of a later date.
It must have been a pretty street and a respectable one for much of the next century, when it was mainly occupied by Huguenot silk-spinners. These were Protestants who had come to England to find a more welcoming society than the Catholic France of Louis XIV. They arrived in far greater numbers in the 1680s when Louis tore up the legal agreement tolerating Protestantism and real persecution set in.
Some refugees crossed the Channel in dangerously small boats, making their way into the Thames estuary and up the river by night. Nothing in the life of nations really changes.
These hard-working spinners and weavers flourished, and by the mid-18th century many had established themselves in other businesses, entering prosperous British society.
Those who remained in Spitalfields began to do less well, imports of silk and cotton from India damaged the home trade. There were also questions about their stability: the brickies employer by Flower & Dean were said to have used inadequate mortar.
Taken from https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023…
About Hickes's Hall
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Great North Road out of London to York, Edinburgh and all points in between, began at Smithfield Market.
Distances to the north were measured from Hicks’ Hall, the former courthouse of the Middlesex magistrates at the southern end of St. John Street, and marked by milestones along the road.
Travelers passed the first stone at Islington Green, milestones 2 and 3 were found at Highbury Corner and Holloway, before they met Four Mile Stone at the foot of Highgate Hill and then, after a steep climb, Five Mile Stone was to be discovered on North Hill. Next came the Six Mile Stone at what was known as Finchley Common, the most dangerous place in London for highwaymen.
At Six Mile Stone was a gibbet where the bodies of executed highwaymen were hung in chains and left to rot for the birds to feed upon, as a discouragement to other miscreants from attracted to this malevolent trade.
The Great North Road evolved in the early 17th century.
At first the road was uneven, narrow, muddy, full of puddles, and wheels ruts. Inclement weather made communication difficult and often dangerous. It twisted, turned, shrank, expanded, and it changed its course, sometimes by design and occasionally by accident.
Passing along its length were pilgrims, soldiers, peasants, vagabonds, rebellious armies, cattle drovers, coaches, and highwaymen.
The first recorded stage coach operating from London to York was in 1658 taking 4 days. Faster mail coaches began using the route in 1786, providing a quicker service than the other passenger coaches.
THE ROUTE: London/Hicks' Hall on St. John’s Street, Clerkenwell – Islington Green - Highbury Corner – Holloway - Highgate Hill - North Hill – Finchley Common - Stamford – Grantham – Retford – Doncaster – York – Durham – Newcastle-Upon-Tyne – Morpeth – Alnwick – Berwick-Upon-Tweed - Edinburgh
Info from http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/…
and https://theyorkshirejournal.files…
About Friday 24 February 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
No, I think Flora Masson is wrong; I prefer to believe the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. They are in Brussels:
At Monck's suggestion Charles II left Brussels for Dutch territory, freeing himself from the importunities of the Spanish and the French concerning his future policy towards Dunkirk and Portugal. On 4 April 1660 Charles II arrived at Breda …
In Ireland the Restoration had proceeded largely independently of, and even a little before, that in England. Having secured power at the end of 1659, a group of Cromwellian army officers, Sir Theophilus Jones, Sir Charles Coote, and Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, had opened negotiations with Charles II well before Monck had done, and in February 1660 called together a convention in Dublin. It declared for Charles II, who was proclaimed on 14 May.
https://www.oxforddnb.com/display…
About James Harrington
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M tells us that a "prophecy said to have been made in mid-February 1660 by James Harrington, the republican writer: 'Well, the King will come in. Let him come in, and call a Parliament of greatest Cavaliers in England, so they be men of estates, and let them set but 7 years, and they will all turn Commonwealth's men': Aubrey, i. 291"
Harrington was almost right.
About Friday 24 February 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
MEANWHILE, at Court -- I think they were at Breda at this time:
"When on 24 February Lady Willoughby de Broke told [Charles' adviser and later Earl of Clarendon, Edward] Hyde that Ashley Cooper was 'his Majesty's fast friend', Hyde replied tartly that this was the first he had heard of it."
-- Antonia Fraser, "Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration," 1979, pp 170
###
Robert Boyle; a biography
By Masson, Flora, Publication date 1914
http://www.archive.org/details/cu…
Early in 1660, Gen. George Monck in England and Sir Charles Coote and Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill in Ireland were in communication with Charles Stuart. Broghill's letter to Charles was carried to Breda by Francis "Frank" Boyle [later Viscount Shannon, as he married Elizabeth "Black Betty" Killigrew and brought up one of Charles' many illigitimate daughters]: it is said to have been in Charles II's hands before Monck's emissary had done his work.
Broghill's proposal was that Charles II should first land in Ireland.
About Roads and Routes
San Diego Sarah • Link
Hhomeboy made two excellent entries on the state of Charles II's roads and how they were (not) maintained. I recommend them both highly. See
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Friday 24 February 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
People did appreciate a lovely view -- look where the nobility built their houses. And then they groomed the view by planting trees, dropping the driveway into hahas, etc.
And the people above who expected Pepys to appreciate the February farmlands, clearly they have never riden a horse in the country in pouring rain. It is a cold, miserable experience, even when wearing 20th century rainwear, and all you're looking at is the way ahead, guessing how deep the next puddle might be, and looking to see if there is a dryer way around it.
About Samuel Pepys and Slaves
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Society of Antiquarians: Salon: Issue 506
22 February 2023
"The role of the Church of England in the transatlantic slavery economy was complex and varied. Missionaries sent to work in the Caribbean and the Americas documented the harsh conditions of daily life on the plantations. Enslaved people were not allowed basic Christian rights such as baptism and marriage in case these rights damaged the property and legal rights of the owners.
"Some voices were raised against enslavement including Revd. Morgan Godwyn, an Anglican missionary to Virginia and Barbados. He wrote in 1680 appealing to William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow Anglican priests to baptize enslaved people."
After the Diary, yes, but in Pepys' lifetime. I wonder what Sancroft did with the letter besides file it?
About Sunday 20 September 1668
San Diego Sarah • Link
"How old would Mrs Turner be at this time?"
Mrs. Turner's husband was Thomas Turner, and according to our Encyclopedia he became a Purser in 1642, at which time he could presumably afford to get married. Let's say he earned this position at aged 25, meaning he was born around 1617. He would look for a wife a few years younger than him -- so she might have been born around 1620. Or not.
I tried searching for her father, Sir John Holmden. He isn't listed as an MP, or turn up in any reliable blogs. So I have drawn a blank.
But she was old enough to have lost her teeth, poor lady.
About Saturday 7 January 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
Why are you confusing people, Ensign Tom? The Diary entry is about WILLIAM Hoare.
The bank was started by RICHARD Hoare (1648 –1719), so he is currently 12. Maybe they were relatives? I don't know and during the Diary years, nor does Pepys, who well might have gotten to know him after the Diary:
"Our founder, Richard Hoare, completed his apprenticeship as a goldsmith and, as goldsmiths often did in those days, set up a business safeguarding gold and valuables under the sign of the Golden Bottle on Cheapside.
"In 1690 the business moved to our current location in Fleet Street, where it continued to prosper. Richard was knighted by Queen Anne in 1702, and appointed Lord Mayor of London 10 years later."
https://www.hoaresbank.co.uk/our-…
About Wednesday 22 February 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
I agree that Major General Browne's full beard was probably an attempt at a disguise -- and also an economy for someone in hiding, probably without a valet to shave him.
However, Charles II's coronation portrait next year shows him with a very healthy moustache.
This article says Louis XIV kept his moustache until 1683, at which time he made the aristocratic transition to the clean-shaven era of wigs, stockings and knee-breeches.
https://www.thebeardybeard.co/blo…
My guess is Pepys had a whispy, patchy growth, and chose to be clean shaven in order to not advertise his lack of sturdy whiskers. People speculated about your masculinity by such things.
About Wigs
San Diego Sarah • Link
Wigs -- this article covers everything from their history (started with Louis XIII, the Sun King's father) to how to clean them and in what colors they were available (including pink and blue).
They were ignored by Louis XIV until the royal head started to lose its voluptuness, at which time he embraced wigs with enthusiasm, and employed 40 wigmakers -- it took hair from 10 preferably country women to make one of his extravaganzas.
Charles II resisted until he started to go grey in 1663, and then he followed suit.
https://medium.com/@nicolvalentin…
About Mathematics
San Diego Sarah • Link
John Hutchinson (1674-1737) and Isaac Newton were both devout scholars who believed that the natural world and God were inextricably linked. The similarities ended there.
Newton’s entire life is shrouded in legend, making it hard to recognize that he has not always been universally admired.
Looking back, it can feel as if Newton were destined from birth to revolutionize the cosmos, but for many of his contemporaries he was an eccentric academic with a foul temper. Even the famous anecdote about being inspired by a falling apple only became popular a century after his death.
For decades after the publication of The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687), sceptics savaged Isaac Newton’s theories on several grounds. Contrary to common belief, there was no overnight conversion to his notion that gravity extends out ineluctably through empty space.
Even the most dedicated of Newton’s followers repeatedly chipped away at his original formulation, which was very different from the version of Newtonian physics in use today. Yet at the same time, they boosted his reputation with almost religious fervor: as well as successfully concealing awkward evidence that might detract from his magnificence, such as his obsessive alchemical research or his unorthodox theological beliefs, they also seized every opportunity to advertise his achievements and suppress opposing voices.
Newton was still alive in 1724 when John Hutchinson, an avid but idiosyncratic fossil collector, published a hatchet job with a deliberately provocative title – Moses’s Principia. Like other religious critics – Bishop Berkeley, for instance – Hutchinson condemned the use of mathematics for deciphering God’s laws, accusing Newton of having woven a ‘Cobweb of Circles and Lines to catch Flies in’.
According to John Hutchinson, Newton approached knowledge the wrong way round: instead of trying to learn about God by measuring the world, he should peruse the Bible for its concealed information about nature. Divine truth, insisted Hutchinson, could only be derived by retrieving and studying the original unpointed Hebrew version of the Bible, which had been directly dictated by God before being corrupted over the centuries by translators and interpreters.
[Note the importance of Hebrew again.]
Exerpted from https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
About Saturday 22 August 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Mr. Newburne (of whom the nickname came up among us forarse Tom Newburne)"
Pepys isn't one for sharing people's nicknames with us -- his Diary is very formal in this regard. But everyone had one -- makes sense in a society where the same first names were used in every generation by every branch of the family. You frequently read of this confusion in the Parliamentary biographies of the time. I wonder why Pepys never shared his private name for Adm. Penn? Anyways, nicknames are a very old custom:
https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
About Sir Thomas Fairfax (3rd Baron Fairfax)
San Diego Sarah • Link
This article takes a look at nicknames, and how they were used to identify people -- as we've discovered, names were used in families in every generation, and led to much confusion. Safe to say "Black Tom" was an affectionate nickname 90 per cent of the time:
https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
About Barbados
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Socuety of Antiquarians: Salon: Issue 506
22 February 2023
The role of the Church of England in the transatlantic slavery economy was complex and varied. Missionaries sent to work in the Caribbean and the Americas documented the harsh conditions of daily life on the plantations. Enslaved people were not allowed basic Christian rights such as baptism and marriage in case these rights damaged the property and legal rights of the owners.
Some voices were raised against enslavement including Revd Morgan Godwyn, an Anglican missionary to Virginia and Barbados. He wrote in 1680 appealing to William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow Anglican priests to baptize enslaved people.
About Gilbert Mabbott
San Diego Sarah • Link
Gilbert Mabbott, son of a Nottingham cobbler and Rushworth’s clerk, was a leveller, and was removed from his post as licenser for this in 1649. He was the writer of The Moderate and of a scurrilous Mercurius Britannicus in 1649. He pretended to hold views in favour of the freedom of the press in 1649, when he found that he was to be removed, but he was restored to his post in 1653.
https://www.bartleby.com/217/1505…
This sells him short: He worked for John Rushworth, MP who has an incredible body of work covering the Interregnum.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
As a source of information, Pepys couldn't have gone drinking with a better source. And later Pepys reads Rushworth's work, and found it enlightening.
About Gilbert Mabbott
San Diego Sarah • Link
Gilbert Mabbott, son of a Nottingham cobbler and Rushworth’s clerk, was a leveller, and was removed from his post as licenser for this in 1649. He was the writer of The Moderate and of a scurrilous Mercurius Britannicus in 1649. He pretended to hold views in favour of the freedom of the press in 1649, when he found that he was to be removed, but he was restored to his post in 1653.
https://www.bartleby.com/217/1505…
About Sir Edward Mountagu ("my Lord," Earl of Sandwich)
San Diego Sarah • Link
BEFORE THE DIARY: Montagu was given his large suite of rooms at Whitehall by Cromwell when he took up residence there as Lord Protector, some (including Montagu) wanted him to be a King. Stephen Coote notes: "the changing tone of Whitehall...Cromwell had taken on monarchical powers and these were now suggested by the increasing pomp with which he was surrounded. The palace was no longer a chaotic scrimmage, unregulated and swarming with people."
There was now ceremony which was usually associated with a king, Sir Gilbert Pickering was Lord Chamberlain, and Col. Jones, Controller, with his white staff of office. Montagu was a favored member of this new "court",
That remained true under Cromwell's son Richard ("Tumbledown Dick"), until he retired to the country.
Montagu did the same, but his apartment was never lost as there was no one authorized to take it away. One of Pepys' jobs was to look after these premises, and he was allocated his own room in the attic.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
L&M Companion: From 1653 until the date of his death, Adm. Edward Montagu had an official residence in Whitehall Palace. These lodgings comprised part (all?) of the gatehouse of the King's Gate together with rooms adjacent to it on both sides of the street.
He also had official lodgings at The Wardrobe in the years 1660-1668 and, from 1664 onwards, rented other premises in Lincoln's Inn Fields and Hampstead.
Thus, Sandwich had residences in both London and Westminster and also a 'country' residence in Hampstead as well as his country seat at Hinchingbrooke.
About Shrove Tuesday
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Shakespeare alludes to this well-known custom of having pancakes on Shrove Tuesday in the following string of comparisons put into the mouth of the clown in All’s Well That Ends Well: “As fit — as Tib’s rush for Tim’s forefinger, as a Pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a Morris for May-day,” &c.
From Brand's Popular Antiquities