True, Ormonde took Richard back under his protection, but any rapprochement between the Talbots and the Old Royalists failed.
Peter Talbot’s politico-religious ambitions were uncontainable, and after the foiled assassination he renewed his pleas that Charles II should secretly become a Catholic, whereupon the pope and Philip IV of Spain would supposedly ‘engage themselves to get him all his own again’.
Hyde and Ormonde were aghast at the Jesuit’s incorrigible proselytizing, and Richard’s guilt by association (apart from his whiff of treachery) meant that he had no future in Old Royalist circles.
Opportunity soon beckoned at another Stuart court: The Anglo-French alliance pushed Philip IV of Spain and Charles II into a counter-alliance: Charles was promised a subsidy and allowed to move his court to the Spanish Netherlands.
This alignment with Spain widened the gap between Charles and his mother, and between the respective Louvrian and Old Royalist factions. Charles purged suspected ‘Louvrians’ from the household of James, Duke of York. In response York fled the court. Fearing this would undo his deal with the Spanish, Charles backed down and allowed York a position of power and some autonomy as master of what was almost a rival court, where York promptly dismissed all courtiers but ‘such as were absolutely his own’.
Peter Talbot found York more appreciative of his influence in Brussels and Madrid than Charles II, and he was well placed to insinuate brother Dick into this expanding court. Even Hyde could see why York appointed Talbot as a groom of the bedchamber: ‘He was a very handsome young man [who] wore good cloaths and was without Doubt of clear ready Courage which was Virtue enough to recommend a Man to the Duke’.
The clearest proof of Dick Talbot’s courage had been the bid to kill Cromwell. With this guise, Talbot forged an enduring connection which would shape his entire career.
Old Royalist disdain, so painfully apparent after the failed plot, began to push the Talbot brothers towards what became after the Restoration of 1660 an opposing faction of out-groups (such as Catholics and Presbyterians) and hungry opportunists.
Richard Talbot’s final disenchantment with Ormonde came in 1664, after the now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland put through an Act of Settlement that confirmed the Cromwellian land confiscations. Talbot accosted Ormonde at his apartments in Chelsea and abused him for selling out his Irish Catholic followers.
Ormonde hastened to Charles II to complain he had been insulted and implicitly challenged to fight a duel merely for carrying out his official duties. Charles was ‘incensed’ and punished Richard Talbot for his ‘insolent presumption’.
Nine years after the assassination plot, Richard Talbot finally got to experience life in the Tower.
Like everyone involved, “Dick” Talbot appealed to Ormonde. On 1 February 1656, Richard Talbot hinted at Col. Halsall’s ‘cowardice or some private end’ (he was not sure whether Halsall had been the one to point the finger at him -- he wasn’t). Talbot could not prove a negative (that he was not a spy) so instead reminded Ormonde of the long-standing Talbot family loyalty to him. Richard’s appeal did not recite his sufferings, but he had been gravely wounded, stripped and left for dead at the sack of Drogheda.
If the other two occasions when “Dick” Talbot was taken prisoner (in 1647 and 1650) are anything to go by, he fell because he was the last to flee, always fighting to the end.
Richard Talbot pointed to the ‘bare surmises’ rather than hard evidence against him and implored Ormonde to ignore it.
Ormonde show his confidence in Gilbert and Richard Talbot by having them accompany him to meet the Princess Royal, Mary Stuart, Charles II’s older sister and mother of William of Orange, later William III.
Were Hyde’s suspicions justified? Richard Talbot’s twice escaping from custody smacks of connivance with Parliament.
On the first occasion, a spy warned Thurloe to ‘Take a care of releasing the Irish Talbot’, but the tip-off came AFTER Talbot, along with page Robert Dongan and Col. John Stephens, had been released, probably as unwitting bait to net bigger fish.
The second escape seems implausibly theatrical until you remember royalists escaped from prison by scrambling out of windows, tying sheets together to make ropes, or dressing up in women’s clothes. The protectorate’s security was poor (Richard Talbot’s accuser, nephew Robert Dongan, had also broken out of gaol) and turnkeys often took bribes to look the other way.
In 1657, Dick Hopton, another would-be assassin, also broke out of Whitehall only to be wounded in a duel by Richard Talbot over a bet laid on a game of tennis.
Apart from unmasked traitors like Henry Manning and William Marston, there had been loose talk among royalists that ‘Cromwell shall not live long’. Page Robert Dongan was blamed for being indiscreet, so his insinuations may have been a bid to deflect blame.
Assassination plots like Richard Talbot’s must have given the Protector sleepless nights, but the main outcome was Talbot’s bid to gain credit with the Old Royalists backfired.
Luckily Richard Talbot’s name was not in Halsall’s captured cipher. Frustrated, Cromwell gave up but paused at the door to threaten that he would get at the truth even if he had to ‘spin it out of his bones’. Talbot retorted that even if he were to ‘spin him to a thread’ he could only invent lies.
Thurloe offered Talbot a lot of money before reminding him that he would be sent to the Tower of London the next day. Realizing escape would then be more difficult, Richard spent his last money and ‘bestowed much wine’ on Cromwell’s servants that night before slipping down a rope cast from a Whitehall Palace window to the Thames, where a river boat awaited.
Ten days later Richard Talbot disembarked at Calais and made his way with his brothers Peter and Gilbert to Antwerp, which they reached on 3 January 1656.
Richard Talbot wrote a report to Ormonde about his capture, interrogation and escape, but in retrospect it looked suspicious when, shortly afterwards, he was with his brother Gilbert when the latter was caught red-handed collecting correspondence from Thurloe at the Antwerp post-house.
Pointing out that Thurloe's letter grumbled about the lack of hard intelligence, Gilbert (AKA ‘Monsieur Burford’) pleaded he was pretending to spy for the Protector as a way to cadge money from Thurloe.
Chancellor Hyde promptly wrote off Richard, Peter and Gilbert Talbot as a pack of knaves.
Next their nephew, the page Robert Dongan (who had been sprung from prison in London by the Royalist underground) cited rumors to Ormonde that seemed to bolster Hyde’s suspicions.
Languishing in the Tower, Col. James Halsall brooded over who had betrayed him and concluded that his servant, William Marston, was the only one who knew ‘all his business’, including where he had hidden his papers. Halsall passed on a scribbled warning to Ormonde, but that this was not enough to exonerate Dick Talbot is clear from the tenor of a letter Peter Talbot wrote to Ormonde at the beginning of February 1656.
Richard Talbot’s biographer was disgusted at Peter Talbot’s less than ‘brotherly’ attitude and, on the face of it, his letter damns his younger brother with faint defense. A careful parsing of that letter suggests neutrality was a pose to let him argue all the more effectively on Richard’s behalf. Peter claimed it was really ‘Gilbert’s business’ that cast suspicion on Richard, implicitly discounting page Robert Dongan’s rumor-mongering, and concluded with a telling argument: ‘Truly I think [Gilbert] would have more credit with his correspondent than he hath if Dick were a knave’.
Richard Talbot was the youngest of 16 children of the Roman Catholic Sir William Talbot, 1st Baronet, of Carton, Co. Kildare, and his wife, Alison Netterville.
This story explains Talbot's good relationship with James, Duke of York, rather than Charles II, Hyde or Ormonde:
The Stuart court-in-exile tried to assassinate Oliver Cromwell throughout the 1650s. Most plans involved gunmen ambushing the Lord Protector and his mounted escorts as they wended through narrow streets between Whitehall Palace and Hampton Court, where the Protector liked to spend his weekends.
In 1655 Col. John Stephens (a client of James Butler, then the Marquis of Ormonde) and Daniel O’Neill set in motion an assassination plot. Richard Talbot volunteered for the mission.
On 13 July 1655, Henry Manning, Secretary Thurloe’s spy at Cologne, warned that Talbot, ‘a tall young man’, and Robert Dongan (Ormonde’s page and Talbot’s nephew) would pass through Dover on their way to help Col. John Stephens and Col. James Halsall assassinate the Protector.
Stephens and Richard Talbot were duly arrested sometime before the end of July 1655, but were soon released.
Stephens and Richard Talbot badgered Col. Halsall to press on, but Halsall temporized and a disillusioned Stephens crossed back over the Channel.
On 16 November, 1655 Halsall was seized in his lodgings and his cipher and papers were pulled from the lining of his hat. Richard Talbot and page Robert Dongan were also arrested.
Nine days later Thurloe interrogated Halsall, who denied there was any plot.
In December 1655 Henry Manning was unmasked as an informer and some royalists assumed he was to blame for the arrests. Chancellor Hyde interrogated the spy, who confessed he had warned Whitehall about Richard Talbot’s departure from Cologne but did not admit to knowing anything else, let alone Halsall’s hiding place in London.
Shortly afterwards some cavaliers took Manning to a secluded copse outside Cologne and executed him.
In mid-December, 1655, Thurloe interrogated Richard Talbot at Whitehall, with Cromwell present for some of it. The Protector began by offering ‘great preferments’ (he or Thurloe probably promised to excuse Talbot’s mother, eldest brother and sisters from transplantation to Connacht). Cromwell next claimed kinship through the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, and then abruptly demanded to know why Richard would kill a man who had ‘never prejudiced him in his life’.
Peter Talbot, recounting what Richard told him of the interrogation, snorted that ‘nothing made me laugh more’. Cromwell insinuated that Col. Halsall had cracked under interrogation and named Richard Talbot, but the cavalier kept his nerve and denied connection with any plot.
Household of Queen (from 1685 Queen Dowager) Catherine 1660-1705 (compiled by J.C. Sainty, Lydia Wassmann, and R. O. Bucholz) http://courtofficers.ctsdh.luc.ed…
Boynton (Bointon, Bainton), Catherine, Maid of Honour app. [1662-63] (TNA/PRO SP Dom. 29/47 no. 117, f. 213). Occ. Oct. 1664-1669 (PD V, 306; NLS Adv. MS 31.1.22; last occ. Chamberlayne [1669 3rd edn.], p. 301). Vac. 1669 on marriage to Richard Talbot (CSPD 1668- 69, p. 308).
L&M doesn't get much wrong, but the marriage to Richard "Dick" Talbot took place in 1669.
Unmet at Euston in a dream Of London under Turner’s steam Misting the iron gantries, I Found myself running away From Scotland into the golden city.
I ran down Gray’s Inn Road and ran Till I was under a black bridge. This was me at nineteen Late at night arriving between The buildings of the City of London.
And the I (O I have fallen down) Fell in my dream beside the Bank Of England’s wall to be, me With my money belt of Northern ice. I found Eliot and he said yes
And sprang into a Holmes cab. Boswell passed me in the fog Going to visit Whistler who Was with John Donne who had just seen Paul Potts shouting on Soho Green.
Midnight. I hear the moon Light chiming on St. Paul’s.
The City is empty. Night Watchmen are drinking their tea,
The Fire had burnt out. The Plague’s pits had closed And gone into literature.
Between the big buildings I sat like a flea crouched In the stopped works of a watch.
'Lord Carlisle, who (he says) told the King: "That those who engaged in the late rising were zealous hot-headed people, like our fifth-monarchy men, [but] incited by the gentry to try the issue & success; intending to follow when these had broke the ice" '
Not wishing to overly depress you during Christmas, I omitted to note that justice was being swiftly delivered by the Secretary for Scotland, John Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale to the Covenanters caught after the Penland Rising:
https://drmarkjardine.wordpress.c… A week after ten men were executed in Edinburgh for their part in the Pentland Rising, four more Covenanters were hanged in Edinburgh on 14 December, 1666.
You get the idea ... Presbyterians were being forced to become Anglicans and attend Church and obey the Bishops. Many were also deported to the Caribbean.
'H.R.H. [the Duke of York] "is indeed very ill, and disdaining the course of physic prescribed by his physicians for an inveterate calamity (incident to ancient lovers), is like to run much hazard". ...'
Sir Allen Broderick MP is implying James has the clap???
Sir Allen was a self-serving player, beloved by the Stuart brothers for his participation in The Sealed Knot. In the House of Commons, he was less useful to the Court party than Henry Coventry (whom he succeeded as commissioner for the Irish land settlement), consequently missing the 1663 session. It was said that of the seven commissioners three were for Charles II, three for the English interest, and ‘one for himself, viz. Brodrick’.
Listed as a court dependant in 1664 and 1665, in the Oxford session Sir Allen Brodrick MP spoke against the bill to prohibit the import of cattle from Ireland, but was appointed to the committee.
Sir Allen Brodrick MP returned from Ireland on 12 Oct. 1666, and in accordance with Charles II’s directions attended the House on the following day to speak and vote against the Irish cattle bill; but it was carried by 57 votes. Charles really did try to avoid this bill passing.
Reporting to Ormonde on the slow progress with supply, Brodrick declared himself ashamed “at our own folly who depend on the King and are in truth able to carry any vote we firmly resolve within these walls; but to deal frankly with your Grace we are not directed as formerly, it being left to that accident of wind and tide, [which] in a populous assembly, drive at random. The consequence will be fatal if not timely prevented.”
You'll remember Pepys note on 19 December 1666 about how Sir Allen and his cousin, Sir Allen Apsley MP, known as 'the two Allens’, were leaders of the drunkards in the Court party, a charge borne out by the account of their disorderly conduct in the House of Commons.
So this note is Brodrick checking in with his boss, Lord Lt., of Ireland, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde.
An article about Sir Christopher Merrett FRS's contribution to glass making and the champaign industry.
It makes the additional point that this breakthrough happened because of England's need for timber (Queen Elizabeth cut down so many trees that James I had to prohibit the burning of wood for industrial purposes ... creating an export for the North American colonies and Pepys' need to import masts from the Baltic states).
I found this article on climate change and this idea surprised me: "Climate change did pose severe challenges for the Dutch and, when it did, the Dutch often adapted creatively. When storms sparked a series of urban fires across Europe, for example, Dutch inventors developed and then exported new firefighting technologies and practices."
While I was aware of the hot dry summer of 1666 and of the Little Ice Age, I had not previously considered the Great Fire as being a symptom of climate change, or noticed that cities now burned so frequently that businesses creating fire fighting equipment became viable.
Pepys’ loyalty and hard work were rewarded after the Diary in 1673 when he was made Secretary to the Admiralty.
According to Arthur Bryant, Pepys was to become “The Saviour of the Navy” and ended his career as the British equivalent of the French Secretary of State for Marine Affairs, answerable only to the King [James II]. “He had begun his official career forty years before in an age when rank and birth counted infinitely more than they do today, as a subordinate clerk, ignorant of the first rudiments of the profession. He had attained to a unique mastery of its every aspect.
When Pepys ended his career the tonnage of the Navy was 101,032 tons as compared with 62,594 when he began it.” (A. Bryant, Samuel Pepys, The Saviour of the Navy. Collins 1949).
"... and there, after all staying above an hour for the players, the King and all waiting, which was absurd, ..."
I read this as the players arrived late, and Charles II and the audience all patiently sat there waiting for them. Someone probably ended up in the Tower or on the next impress!!!
"No business public or private minded all these two days."
How soon he forgets ... yesterday he met with the Duke of York and William Coventry, and took over Mennes' job of inspecting the Pursers' Accounts. Power grabs don't count as work???
Another Wikipedia page on the history of the Admiralty has this list, and so far as I can tell there was no Admiralty Board for the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Evidently James, Duke of York realized he needed help for the Third War (after the Diary). I include their names because it's likely these gents. gave James advice during the Second War too:
29 January 1661: The Duke of York and Albany, Lord High Admiral
9 July 1673: Admiralty Commission: Prince Rupert The Earl of Shaftesbury (ex officio as Lord Chancellor) The Viscount Osborne (ex officio as Lord High Treasurer) The Earl of Anglesey (ex officio as Lord Privy Seal) The Duke of Buckingham The Duke of Monmouth The Duke of Lauderdale The Duke of Ormonde The Earl of Arlington (ex officio as Secretary of State for the Southern Department) Sir George Carteret, Bt (ex officio as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household) The Hon. Henry Coventry (ex officio as Secretary of State for the Northern Department) Edward Seymour (ex officio as Treasurer of the Navy)
This page is about the BOARD OF THE ADMIRALTY and explains how it works, mostly after the 1850's but some mentions of the 17th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boa…
Ignore the direct to the ADMIRALTY BOARD as it was only created in the 1980's.
I don't think Pepys had syphilis ... no sign of dementia and he lived for many more years. It does support the theory he was more into masterbation than penetration. Poor old Rochester got it and was dead in ten years despite trying all the cures of the day.
Seems to me Pepys' behavior has become outright reckless in the last year. I agree his carriage behavior is outrageous; but other capers were with neighbors and with his own staff. Perhaps the Fire and the Plague and fear of invasion has dulled his sense of propriety. Being in the proximity of death does funny things to the libido. Still ... Yuck indeed.
Cross-dressing wasn't unheard of in those days. I came across this story today (abbreviated):
Lysons, in his Environs of London, has a memoir of one Russell, a native of Streatham, who is recorded in the Register as buried on 14 April, 1772: "This person was always known under the guise or habit of a woman, and answered to the name of Elizabeth, as registered in this parish Nov. 21, 1669, but at death proved to be a man."
John Russell, his father, had 3 daughters and 2 sons, William and John; who were baptized in 1668 and 1672. "There is little doubt, therefore, that the person here recorded was one of the two," and must have been either 100 or 104 years of age at the time of his death; but he himself used to aver that he was 108 years old.
Early in life young Russell associated with gipsies, and accompanied the celebrated Bampfylde Moore Carew in many of his rambles. He also visited most parts of the continent as a stroller and vagabond; and having acquired a knowledge of astrology and quackery, he returned to England, and practiced in both arts with much profit. This was after his assumption of the female garb; and Lysons remarks, that "his long experience gained him the character of a most infallible doctress": “Elizabeth” Russell was, likewise, "an excellent sempstress, and celebrated for making a good shirt."
In 1770, “Elizabeth” Russell applied for a certificate of his baptism, under the name of his sister Elizabeth, who had been christened here in November 1669. About the same time, he became a resident at his native place [Streatham]; where his extraordinary age obtained him the charitable notice of many respectable families; and among others, of that of Mr. Thrale, at whose house “Dr. Johnson, who found him a shrewd sensible person, with a good memory, was very fond of conversing with him."
“Elizabeth” Russell died suddenly, and his true sex was then discovered, to the surprise of all the neighborhood; "and the wonder was the greater, as he had lived much among women, and had frequently been his landlady's bedfellow when an unexpected lodger came to the house." — Environs, vol. i. pp. 489 — 491.
A TOPOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF SURREY. HUNDRED OF KINGSTON. By Edward Wedlake Brayley, John Britton, Edward William Brayley, Gideon Algernon Mantell
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About Col. Richard Talbot
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 4
True, Ormonde took Richard back under his protection, but any rapprochement between the Talbots and the Old Royalists failed.
Peter Talbot’s politico-religious ambitions were uncontainable, and after the foiled assassination he renewed his pleas that Charles II should secretly become a Catholic, whereupon the pope and Philip IV of Spain would supposedly ‘engage themselves to get him all his own again’.
Hyde and Ormonde were aghast at the Jesuit’s incorrigible proselytizing, and Richard’s guilt by association (apart from his whiff of treachery) meant that he had no future in Old Royalist circles.
Opportunity soon beckoned at another Stuart court: The Anglo-French alliance pushed Philip IV of Spain and Charles II into a counter-alliance: Charles was promised a subsidy and allowed to move his court to the Spanish Netherlands.
This alignment with Spain widened the gap between Charles and his mother, and between the respective Louvrian and Old Royalist factions.
Charles purged suspected ‘Louvrians’ from the household of James, Duke of York.
In response York fled the court. Fearing this would undo his deal with the Spanish, Charles backed down and allowed York a position of power and some autonomy as master of what was almost a rival court, where York promptly dismissed all courtiers but ‘such as were absolutely his own’.
Peter Talbot found York more appreciative of his influence in Brussels and Madrid than Charles II, and he was well placed to insinuate brother Dick into this expanding court. Even Hyde could see why York appointed Talbot as a groom of the bedchamber: ‘He was a very handsome young man [who] wore good cloaths and was without Doubt of clear ready Courage which was Virtue enough to recommend a Man to the Duke’.
The clearest proof of Dick Talbot’s courage had been the bid to kill Cromwell. With this guise, Talbot forged an enduring connection which would shape his entire career.
Old Royalist disdain, so painfully apparent after the failed plot, began to push the Talbot brothers towards what became after the Restoration of 1660 an opposing faction of out-groups (such as Catholics and Presbyterians) and hungry opportunists.
Richard Talbot’s final disenchantment with Ormonde came in 1664, after the now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland put through an Act of Settlement that confirmed the Cromwellian land confiscations. Talbot accosted Ormonde at his apartments in Chelsea and abused him for selling out his Irish Catholic followers.
Ormonde hastened to Charles II to complain he had been insulted and implicitly challenged to fight a duel merely for carrying out his official duties. Charles was ‘incensed’ and punished Richard Talbot for his ‘insolent presumption’.
Nine years after the assassination plot, Richard Talbot finally got to experience life in the Tower.
About Col. Richard Talbot
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
Like everyone involved, “Dick” Talbot appealed to Ormonde.
On 1 February 1656, Richard Talbot hinted at Col. Halsall’s ‘cowardice or some private end’ (he was not sure whether Halsall had been the one to point the finger at him -- he wasn’t). Talbot could not prove a negative (that he was not a spy) so instead reminded Ormonde of the long-standing Talbot family loyalty to him.
Richard’s appeal did not recite his sufferings, but he had been gravely wounded, stripped and left for dead at the sack of Drogheda.
If the other two occasions when “Dick” Talbot was taken prisoner (in 1647 and 1650) are anything to go by, he fell because he was the last to flee, always fighting to the end.
Richard Talbot pointed to the ‘bare surmises’ rather than hard evidence against him and implored Ormonde to ignore it.
Ormonde show his confidence in Gilbert and Richard Talbot by having them accompany him to meet the Princess Royal, Mary Stuart, Charles II’s older sister and mother of William of Orange, later William III.
Were Hyde’s suspicions justified? Richard Talbot’s twice escaping from custody smacks of connivance with Parliament.
On the first occasion, a spy warned Thurloe to ‘Take a care of releasing the Irish Talbot’, but the tip-off came AFTER Talbot, along with page Robert Dongan and Col. John Stephens, had been released, probably as unwitting bait to net bigger fish.
The second escape seems implausibly theatrical until you remember royalists escaped from prison by scrambling out of windows, tying sheets together to make ropes, or dressing up in women’s clothes. The protectorate’s security was poor (Richard Talbot’s accuser, nephew Robert Dongan, had also broken out of gaol) and turnkeys often took bribes to look the other way.
In 1657, Dick Hopton, another would-be assassin, also broke out of Whitehall only to be wounded in a duel by Richard Talbot over a bet laid on a game of tennis.
Apart from unmasked traitors like Henry Manning and William Marston, there had been loose talk among royalists that ‘Cromwell shall not live long’. Page Robert Dongan was blamed for being indiscreet, so his insinuations may have been a bid to deflect blame.
Assassination plots like Richard Talbot’s must have given the Protector sleepless nights, but the main outcome was Talbot’s bid to gain credit with the Old Royalists backfired.
About Col. Richard Talbot
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Luckily Richard Talbot’s name was not in Halsall’s captured cipher. Frustrated, Cromwell gave up but paused at the door to threaten that he would get at the truth even if he had to ‘spin it out of his bones’. Talbot retorted that even if he were to ‘spin him to a thread’ he could only invent lies.
Thurloe offered Talbot a lot of money before reminding him that he would be sent to the Tower of London the next day. Realizing escape would then be more difficult, Richard spent his last money and ‘bestowed much wine’ on Cromwell’s servants that night before slipping down a rope cast from a Whitehall Palace window to the Thames, where a river boat awaited.
Ten days later Richard Talbot disembarked at Calais and made his way with his brothers Peter and Gilbert to Antwerp, which they reached on 3 January 1656.
Richard Talbot wrote a report to Ormonde about his capture, interrogation and escape, but in retrospect it looked suspicious when, shortly afterwards, he was with his brother Gilbert when the latter was caught red-handed collecting correspondence from Thurloe at the Antwerp post-house.
Pointing out that Thurloe's letter grumbled about the lack of hard intelligence, Gilbert (AKA ‘Monsieur Burford’) pleaded he was pretending to spy for the Protector as a way to cadge money from Thurloe.
Chancellor Hyde promptly wrote off Richard, Peter and Gilbert Talbot as a pack of knaves.
Next their nephew, the page Robert Dongan (who had been sprung from prison in London by the Royalist underground) cited rumors to Ormonde that seemed to bolster Hyde’s suspicions.
Languishing in the Tower, Col. James Halsall brooded over who had betrayed him and concluded that his servant,
William Marston, was the only one who knew ‘all his business’, including where he had hidden his papers.
Halsall passed on a scribbled warning to Ormonde, but that this was not enough to exonerate Dick Talbot is clear from the tenor of a letter Peter Talbot wrote to Ormonde at the beginning of February 1656.
Richard Talbot’s biographer was disgusted at Peter Talbot’s less than ‘brotherly’ attitude and, on the face of it, his letter damns his younger brother with faint defense.
A careful parsing of that letter suggests neutrality was a pose to let him argue all the more effectively on Richard’s behalf.
Peter claimed it was really ‘Gilbert’s business’ that cast suspicion on Richard, implicitly discounting page Robert Dongan’s rumor-mongering, and concluded with a telling argument: ‘Truly I think [Gilbert] would have more credit with his correspondent than he hath if Dick were a knave’.
About Col. Richard Talbot
San Diego Sarah • Link
Richard Talbot was the youngest of 16 children of the Roman Catholic Sir William Talbot, 1st Baronet, of Carton, Co. Kildare, and his wife, Alison Netterville.
This story explains Talbot's good relationship with James, Duke of York, rather than Charles II, Hyde or Ormonde:
Highlights from
https://www.historyireland.com/vo…
The Stuart court-in-exile tried to assassinate Oliver Cromwell throughout the 1650s. Most plans involved gunmen ambushing the Lord Protector and his mounted escorts as they wended through narrow streets between Whitehall Palace and Hampton Court, where the Protector liked to spend his weekends.
In 1655 Col. John Stephens (a client of James Butler, then the Marquis of Ormonde) and Daniel O’Neill set in motion an assassination plot. Richard Talbot volunteered for the mission.
On 13 July 1655, Henry Manning, Secretary Thurloe’s spy at Cologne, warned that Talbot, ‘a tall young man’, and Robert Dongan (Ormonde’s page and Talbot’s nephew) would pass through Dover on their way to help Col. John Stephens and Col. James Halsall assassinate the Protector.
Stephens and Richard Talbot were duly arrested sometime before the end of July 1655, but were soon released.
Stephens and Richard Talbot badgered Col. Halsall to press on, but Halsall temporized and a disillusioned Stephens crossed back over the Channel.
On 16 November, 1655 Halsall was seized in his lodgings and his cipher and papers were pulled from the lining of his hat. Richard Talbot and page Robert Dongan were also arrested.
Nine days later Thurloe interrogated Halsall, who denied there was any plot.
In December 1655 Henry Manning was unmasked as an informer and some royalists assumed he was to blame for the arrests. Chancellor Hyde interrogated the spy, who confessed he had warned Whitehall about Richard Talbot’s departure from Cologne but did not admit to knowing anything else, let alone Halsall’s hiding place in London.
Shortly afterwards some cavaliers took Manning to a secluded copse outside Cologne and executed him.
In mid-December, 1655, Thurloe interrogated Richard Talbot at Whitehall, with Cromwell present for some of it. The Protector began by offering ‘great preferments’ (he or Thurloe probably promised to excuse Talbot’s mother, eldest brother and sisters from transplantation to Connacht). Cromwell next claimed kinship through the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, and then abruptly demanded to know why Richard would kill a man who had ‘never prejudiced him in his life’.
Peter Talbot, recounting what Richard told him of the interrogation, snorted that ‘nothing made me laugh more’. Cromwell insinuated that Col. Halsall had cracked under interrogation and named Richard Talbot, but the cavalier kept his nerve and denied connection with any plot.
About Katherine Boynton
San Diego Sarah • Link
Household of Queen (from 1685 Queen Dowager) Catherine 1660-1705 (compiled by J.C. Sainty, Lydia Wassmann, and R. O. Bucholz)
http://courtofficers.ctsdh.luc.ed…
Boynton (Bointon, Bainton), Catherine, Maid of Honour app. [1662-63] (TNA/PRO SP Dom. 29/47 no. 117, f. 213). Occ. Oct. 1664-1669 (PD V, 306; NLS Adv. MS 31.1.22; last occ. Chamberlayne [1669 3rd edn.], p. 301). Vac. 1669 on marriage to Richard Talbot (CSPD 1668- 69, p. 308).
L&M doesn't get much wrong, but the marriage to Richard "Dick" Talbot took place in 1669.
About Tuesday 1 January 1666/67
San Diego Sarah • Link
THE NIGHT CITY
By W. S. Graham
Unmet at Euston in a dream
Of London under Turner’s steam
Misting the iron gantries, I
Found myself running away
From Scotland into the golden city.
I ran down Gray’s Inn Road and ran
Till I was under a black bridge.
This was me at nineteen
Late at night arriving between
The buildings of the City of London.
And the I (O I have fallen down)
Fell in my dream beside the Bank
Of England’s wall to be, me
With my money belt of Northern ice.
I found Eliot and he said yes
And sprang into a Holmes cab.
Boswell passed me in the fog
Going to visit Whistler who
Was with John Donne who had just seen
Paul Potts shouting on Soho Green.
Midnight. I hear the moon
Light chiming on St. Paul’s.
The City is empty. Night
Watchmen are drinking their tea,
The Fire had burnt out.
The Plague’s pits had closed
And gone into literature.
Between the big buildings
I sat like a flea crouched
In the stopped works of a watch.
###
Happy New Year, Pepsyians
About Saturday 29 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
'Lord Carlisle, who (he says) told the King: "That those who engaged in the late rising were zealous hot-headed people, like our fifth-monarchy men, [but] incited by the gentry to try the issue & success; intending to follow when these had broke the ice" '
Not wishing to overly depress you during Christmas, I omitted to note that justice was being swiftly delivered by the Secretary for Scotland, John Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale to the Covenanters caught after the Penland Rising:
http://www.executedtoday.com/2011…
December 27, 1666: Nine Covenanters hanged in Ayr and Edinburgh
https://drmarkjardine.wordpress.c…
Six Covenanters executed in Edinburgh on 22 December, 1666:
https://drmarkjardine.wordpress.c…
A week after ten men were executed in Edinburgh for their part in the Pentland Rising, four more Covenanters were hanged in Edinburgh on 14 December, 1666.
You get the idea ... Presbyterians were being forced to become Anglicans and attend Church and obey the Bishops. Many were also deported to the Caribbean.
About Saturday 29 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
'H.R.H. [the Duke of York] "is indeed very ill, and disdaining the course of physic prescribed by his physicians for an inveterate calamity (incident to ancient lovers), is like to run much hazard". ...'
Sir Allen Broderick MP is implying James has the clap???
Sir Allen was a self-serving player, beloved by the Stuart brothers for his participation in The Sealed Knot.
In the House of Commons, he was less useful to the Court party than Henry Coventry (whom he succeeded as commissioner for the Irish land settlement), consequently missing the 1663 session. It was said that of the seven commissioners three were for Charles II, three for the English interest, and ‘one for himself, viz. Brodrick’.
Listed as a court dependant in 1664 and 1665, in the Oxford session Sir Allen Brodrick MP spoke against the bill to prohibit the import of cattle from Ireland, but was appointed to the committee.
Sir Allen Brodrick MP returned from Ireland on 12 Oct. 1666, and in accordance with Charles II’s directions attended the House on the following day to speak and vote against the Irish cattle bill; but it was carried by 57 votes. Charles really did try to avoid this bill passing.
Reporting to Ormonde on the slow progress with supply, Brodrick declared himself ashamed
“at our own folly who depend on the King and are in truth able to carry any vote we firmly resolve within these walls; but to deal frankly with your Grace we are not directed as formerly, it being left to that accident of wind and tide, [which] in a populous assembly, drive at random. The consequence will be fatal if not timely prevented.”
You'll remember Pepys note on 19 December 1666 about how Sir Allen and his cousin, Sir Allen Apsley MP, known as 'the two Allens’, were leaders of the drunkards in the Court party, a charge borne out by the account of their disorderly conduct in the House of Commons.
So this note is Brodrick checking in with his boss, Lord Lt., of Ireland, James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Friday 28 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Good point, Robert. On reflection I think you're right.
About Christopher Merrett
San Diego Sarah • Link
An article about Sir Christopher Merrett FRS's contribution to glass making and the champaign industry.
It makes the additional point that this breakthrough happened because of England's need for timber (Queen Elizabeth cut down so many trees that James I had to prohibit the burning of wood for industrial purposes ... creating an export for the North American colonies and Pepys' need to import masts from the Baltic states).
https://www.atlasobscura.com/arti…
About Great Fire of London
San Diego Sarah • Link
I found this article on climate change and this idea surprised me:
"Climate change did pose severe challenges for the Dutch and, when it did, the Dutch often adapted creatively. When storms sparked a series of urban fires across Europe, for example, Dutch inventors developed and then exported new firefighting technologies and practices."
While I was aware of the hot dry summer of 1666 and of the Little Ice Age, I had not previously considered the Great Fire as being a symptom of climate change, or noticed that cities now burned so frequently that businesses creating fire fighting equipment became viable.
https://aeon.co/essays/the-little…
About Admiralty
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys’ loyalty and hard work were rewarded after the Diary in 1673 when he was made Secretary to the Admiralty.
According to Arthur Bryant, Pepys was to become “The Saviour of the Navy” and ended his career as the British equivalent of the French Secretary of State for Marine Affairs, answerable only to the King [James II]. “He had begun his official career forty years before in an age when rank and birth counted infinitely more than they do today, as a subordinate clerk, ignorant of the first rudiments of the profession. He had attained to a unique mastery of its every aspect.
When Pepys ended his career the tonnage of the Navy was 101,032 tons as compared with 62,594 when he began it.” (A. Bryant, Samuel Pepys, The Saviour of the Navy. Collins 1949).
For more on Pepys’ career in the wider Naval context, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…
About Friday 28 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... and there, after all staying above an hour for the players, the King and all waiting, which was absurd, ..."
I read this as the players arrived late, and Charles II and the audience all patiently sat there waiting for them. Someone probably ended up in the Tower or on the next impress!!!
About Thursday 27 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"No business public or private minded all these two days."
How soon he forgets ... yesterday he met with the Duke of York and William Coventry, and took over Mennes' job of inspecting the Pursers' Accounts. Power grabs don't count as work???
About Admiralty
San Diego Sarah • Link
Another Wikipedia page on the history of the Admiralty has this list, and so far as I can tell there was no Admiralty Board for the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Evidently James, Duke of York realized he needed help for the Third War (after the Diary). I include their names because it's likely these gents. gave James advice during the Second War too:
29 January 1661: The Duke of York and Albany, Lord High Admiral
9 July 1673: Admiralty Commission:
Prince Rupert
The Earl of Shaftesbury (ex officio as Lord Chancellor)
The Viscount Osborne (ex officio as Lord High Treasurer)
The Earl of Anglesey (ex officio as Lord Privy Seal)
The Duke of Buckingham
The Duke of Monmouth
The Duke of Lauderdale
The Duke of Ormonde
The Earl of Arlington (ex officio as Secretary of State for the Southern Department)
Sir George Carteret, Bt (ex officio as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household)
The Hon. Henry Coventry (ex officio as Secretary of State for the Northern Department)
Edward Seymour (ex officio as Treasurer of the Navy)
This Board was replaced on 31 October 1674.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…
This page is about the BOARD OF THE ADMIRALTY and explains how it works, mostly after the 1850's but some mentions of the 17th century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boa…
Ignore the direct to the ADMIRALTY BOARD as it was only created in the 1980's.
About Monday 24 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
I don't think Pepys had syphilis ... no sign of dementia and he lived for many more years. It does support the theory he was more into masterbation than penetration. Poor old Rochester got it and was dead in ten years despite trying all the cures of the day.
About Wednesday 26 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
No mention of Mrs. Pemberton ...
About Monday 24 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Merry Christmas y'all ... have an extra mincepie in memory of Pepys.
About Sunday 23 December 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Seems to me Pepys' behavior has become outright reckless in the last year. I agree his carriage behavior is outrageous; but other capers were with neighbors and with his own staff. Perhaps the Fire and the Plague and fear of invasion has dulled his sense of propriety. Being in the proximity of death does funny things to the libido. Still ... Yuck indeed.
About Thursday 27 July 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
Cross-dressing wasn't unheard of in those days. I came across this story today (abbreviated):
Lysons, in his Environs of London, has a memoir of one Russell, a native of Streatham, who is recorded in the Register as buried on 14 April, 1772: "This person was always known under the guise or habit of a woman, and answered to the name of Elizabeth, as registered in this parish Nov. 21, 1669, but at death proved to be a man."
John Russell, his father, had 3 daughters and 2 sons, William and John; who were baptized in 1668 and 1672. "There is little doubt, therefore, that the person here recorded was one of the two," and must have been either 100 or 104 years of age at the time of his death; but he himself used to aver that he was 108 years old.
Early in life young Russell associated with gipsies, and accompanied the celebrated Bampfylde Moore Carew in many of his rambles. He also visited most parts of the continent as a stroller and vagabond; and having acquired a knowledge of astrology and quackery, he returned to England, and practiced in both arts with much profit. This was after his assumption of the female garb; and Lysons remarks, that "his long experience gained him the character of a most infallible doctress": “Elizabeth” Russell was, likewise, "an excellent sempstress, and celebrated for making a good shirt."
In 1770, “Elizabeth” Russell applied for a certificate of his baptism, under the name of his sister Elizabeth, who had been christened here in November 1669. About the same time, he became a resident at his native place [Streatham]; where his extraordinary age obtained him the charitable notice of many respectable families; and among others, of that of Mr. Thrale, at whose house “Dr. Johnson, who found him a shrewd sensible person, with a good memory, was very fond of conversing with him."
“Elizabeth” Russell died suddenly, and his true sex was then discovered, to the surprise of all the neighborhood; "and the wonder was the greater, as he had lived much among women, and had frequently been his landlady's bedfellow when an unexpected lodger came to the house." — Environs, vol. i. pp. 489 — 491.
A TOPOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF SURREY.
HUNDRED OF KINGSTON.
By Edward Wedlake Brayley, John Britton, Edward William Brayley, Gideon Algernon Mantell
https://books.google.com/books?pg…