"Sir W. Coventry did acquaint the Duke of Yorke how the world do discourse of the ill method of our books, and that we would consider how to answer any enquiry which shall be made after our practice therein, which will I think concern the Controller most, but I shall make it a memento to myself."
Pepys worked hard on his victualing accounts, but Rupert and Albemarle's complaint was that what he sent was substandard and inadequate. Pepys has worked with Carteret the Treasurer on improving his record keeping; he has never mentioned Mennes, the Controller, as not being on top of his affairs.
But when you are out of money, do bookkeeping practice matter that much? It sounds like Coventry is closing a stable door after the horses next door have bolted. Procedures are something they can work on which won't cost anything extra, and might save the Navy some money down the line. But they are no solution for the Crown's most immediate problem.
"I fear the Parliament may find faults enough with the office to remove us all, ..."
Perhaps this was a result of Controller Peter Pett's visit? He's a shipbuilder not a businessman ... and I presume Chatham's and the other shipyards' budgets would not be in Pepys' purview. But obviously a shake up is imminent if Pepys thinks they all could be fired.
The King and Parliament need an immediate fall guy, and Monck and Rupert are national treasures. They can't undermine the fleet's self-confidence any more than it has fallen already as they have to be ready to fight again soon.
I think Penn's comment yesterday about needing to teach the captains how to sail better is the solution, not bookkeeping.
"... had a meeting before the Duke of Yorke, complaining of want of money, but nothing done to any purpose, for want we shall, so that now our advices to him signify nothing."
Everyone is out of money, except for Pepys, and he's not advertising.
Why didn't Charles organize serious lotteries? They had been held by Queen Elizabeth, James VI and I, and Charles I:
After the Restoration lotteries became popular. They were started under pretense of aiding poor royalists who had suffered in the civil wars. Gifts of plate, supposedly from the Crown, were disposed of 'on the behalf of the truly loyal indigent officers.' Lotteries became a patent monopoly, were farmed by speculators, with drawings held in theaters.
'The Royal Oak Lottery' caused the most comment. It continued to the end of the century, and met with lots of criticism. The organization was frequently the subject for the satirists.
In 1699, a lottery was proposed with a capital prize of 1,000l. pounds, which could be won for risking one penny.
Speculation characterized the English in the early 18th century, culminating in the South Sea Bubble, favored all kinds of lotteries. There were 'great goes' in whole tickets, and 'little goes' in their subdivisions; the lottery speculators took out insurance; fortune tellers sold 'lucky numbers.'
A writer in The Spectator reported, 'I know a well-meaning man that is very well pleased to risk his good-fortune upon the number 1711, because it is the year of our Lord. ... a certain zealous dissenter, who, being a great enemy to popery, and believing that bad men are the most fortunate in this world, will lay two to one on the number 666 against any other number ...'
The Guildhall was a scene of great excitement when the drawing were held there, and poor medical practitioners attended, ready to let blood when the sudden proclaiming of the winning tickets had an overpowering effect.
Lotteries were not confined to money prizes: Plate and jewels were favorites; books were common; but the strangest was for deer from Sion Park.
Henry Fielding wrote a farce produced at Drury Lane Theater in 1731, set in a lottery office, and the action ridiculed the office keepers and the credulity of their victims.
A whimsical pamphlet was published about the same time, purporting to be a prospectus of 'a lottery for ladies;' with the chief prize being a husband and coach and six, for 5 pounds (the price of each share). Husbands of inferior grade, in purse and person, were the second, third, and fourth rate prizes. A similar lottery for wives was soon advertised. This was legitimate satire, but despite reason and ridicule, they continued to be patronized by a gullible public.
Some legitimate lotteries were held. In 1736 an act was passed to build a bridge at Westminster by lottery, consisting of 125,000 tickets at £5 each.
This article only mentions the Goodwin Sands in passing, but the photos demonstrate how inconvenient (an understatement) the sandbanks in the Channel are to shipping, and how a fleet could "hide" behind one and the opposing fleet would be unable to get to them.
Playing cricket on one and having to be rescued by the lifeboats sounds very Victorian!
"... [Lord Hinchingbrooke] who is also come to town ..."
According to A PROFANE WIT, The Life of JOHN WILMOT, Earl of Rochester by James William Johnson, University of Rochester Press, page 85, ISBN 978-1-58046-336-2.
In July and August 1666, Lord Hawley was in the retinue of Queen Catherine when she went to Tunbridge Wells to take the waters. Lady Warre and Elizabeth Mallet (his niece) were also there, as was Lord Hinchingbrooke. While Hawley wrote letters expressing pleasure about being attendant on the Queen, Elizabeth was breaking up with Hinchingbrooke -- and she showed a discernible measure of satisfaction in so doing. Apparently the previous February she had offered herself as his wife, and he had not exhibited any enthusiasm or romantic attention since, and she was no longer interested.
Meanwhile Lord Rochester has made himself a hero once again during the St. James's Day fight. I wonder what will happen next ...
No -- Pepys means Esther Watts St. Michael. They didn't use the "-in-law" bit back then.
When a noun is in blue, it means there are annotations and information attached to that word or concept. Hover over "my sister" and you'll see Esther's name.
More than half the joy of the annotations is hidden back there!
In number 38 of the Gazette of that year the following notice was printed: "[March 25, 1670] Messire Gaston Jean Baptiste de Cominges, Knight of the Orders of the King, Lieutenant-General in his Majesty's armies, Governor and Lieutenant-General of the town, castle, and Senechaussee of Saumur, died here, in his hostel, aged 57, after having received the last sacraments with all the signs of the most sincere piety. He is deeply regretted in this Court, as well for the many qualities for which he was noticeable as for the great services rendered by him to the Crown, not only in the above-named functions, but also as an Ambassador extraordinary to England and to Portugal."
Cominges now sleeps in St. Roch's Church, Rue St. Honore, beside Crequi, Le Notre, Mignard, and several other illustrious servants of the Grand Roi.
As for "Cesonie," she survived her husband for many years, and she had long ceased to be "la belle Cominges" when she died in 1709.
The first ambassador Louis XIV sent to London after the Restoration, Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades, was "a tall, cold person, with a fine figure. Few men," wrote Tallemant des Reaux in his "Historiettes," "are better endowed with cold-blooded valor; he has fought several fine duels. One day, it is reported, he fought against a certain bravado who placed himself on the brink of a little ditch saying to d'Estrades, 'I won't pass the ditch.' 'And I,' answered d'Estrades, marking a line behind him with his sword, ‘I will not pass this line.' They fought; d'Estrades kills the other."
Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades had been a page to Louis XIII, and made war in Holland and Italy. He has a taste for fighting, but it had not prevented him from entering the diplomatic service. He was entrusted with missions to England, to Piedmont, to the Dutch States, and he took part in the conferences at Munster, 1646.
Ambassador Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades reached England in July, 1661, and established himself at Chelsea.
The instructions with which he had been supplied told him to prepare a treaty with England, and contained strict guidelines as to the care he must pay to all questions of etiquette and precedence.
Louis XIV recommends "jealously to preserve the dignity of his Crown in the Court whither he is going; because any insult he may receive would in reality reflect on his master, who is bound to resent it to the utmost. ... The Sieur d'Estrades will in all occasions preserve the pre-eminence to which the King is entitled, allowing no ambassador to go before him, except the Emperor's in case he were to send one to England.
"He will allow to his left the Spanish ambassador as well as the representatives of the other kings who hold their crown direct from God alone. As for those of Venice ... he will allow them only to go behind."' -- 1 May 13, 1661.
Louis XIV’s main preoccupation was with Spain, a dreaded rival in the past, a possible prey in the future. The Most Christian King was bent upon asserting publicly, as he did privately in his instructions, his right of precedence over his Catholic brother. The fiction according to which an ambassador's person is a duplicate of the king's person was paramount and believed, so it was of great importance to Louis that Spanish Ambassador Baron de Watteville,1 the London duplicate of the King of Spain, should not be allowed to go before his Ambassador Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades. 1 From Wattenveil in Thurgovia; his name is often spelt Bateville; he died in 1670.
Spanish Ambassador Watteville lived brilliantly in York House, not far from Whitehall, spent much money, and was popular in London.
It was obvious that both were resolved, and supplied with means to maintain their pretensions, so a fight was inevitable.
Bill has confused Johan's brother, Cornelis Evertsen the Elder, who was killed in the Four Days' fight. After his death, Johan Evertsen joined the fleet for the first time in years and took command of the van for De Ruyter. He was killed on the first day of the St. James's Day fight.
Pepys' friend, Capt. Harman is home nursing an injured leg at this time, so he didn't participate in the St. James Day fight. But he'll be back next year.
The Evertsens are another incredible family of seafarers from Flushing / Vlissingen.
"But this morning, getting Sir W. Pen to read over the Narrative with me, he did sparingly, yet plainly, say that we might have intercepted their Zealand squadron coming home, if we had done our parts; and more, that we might have spooned before the wind as well as they, and have overtaken their ships in the pursuit, in all the while."
Beware of backseat drivers, Pepys. Penn was sitting at Sheerness, handing out spare parts. The Channel is very tricky. Rupert and Monck could just as easily have lost the entire exhausted fleet aground on a sandbank in the dark.
But the need to train the officers on how to sail better ... especially the gentlemanly ones ... that's a good idea. Is Penn volunteering?
50-year-old Ambassador Cominges reached London on 23 December, 1662 (O.S.), after having had a very bad crossing "in the yacht of Monsieur le duc d'York."
In his first letter to Louis XIV, Cominges describes his journey in his Court style: "Sire, I would not mention to your Majesty the inconveniences I suffered in my journey on account of the floods, if I were not bound to do so to explain the length of the time I spent on the way. Not that I failed to constrain, so to say, the very elements to submit to your Majesty's wishes; but all I could do, after having avoided two or three land-wrecks and escaped a tempest by sea, was to reach this place on December 23, English style." 1 1 To Louis XIV. January 4, 1663.
From then on a double, and frequently treble, correspondence begins: an official letter to Louis XIV, a familiar one to Secretary Hugues de Lionne, and often a third one, containing only Court news, sent to the King, but not in his kingly capacity.
Young Louis appreciated those separate sheets of worldly information, and Lionne several times begs Cominges not to forget them. No wonder this was so with a prince of 24; the real wonder is the personal attention with which the official correspondence was attended to by Louis, to the extent of his being jealous of the private letters sent to Lionne by Cominges: "Though I always show to the King," Lionne writes, "the private letters with which you honor me, and that it might appear that it comes to the same, as his Majesty is equally well-informed, be the letter for him or for me, you must always, if you please, write direct to his Majesty, even when you have nothing else to say than that you have nothing to say. ... I clearly saw the advantage of this plan when I read to his Majesty the last letter with which you favored me; for he then inquired why you did not write rather to himself. I answered that the cause was probably the want of any matter of sufficient importance. ... But I think his Majesty did not hold this reason a sufficient one, and that he prefers you to do otherwise. You will also please him very much in continuing what you so handsomely began, and forwarding in a separate sheet the most curious of the Court news."
The Comte de Cominges was a good soldier by profession: this accounts for his roughness and pride. For the same reason, when he bowed, he bowed very low, and according to rule; when he stood, he stood very stiff: men of this sort were numerous; they wore ribbons on their cuirasses.
Several of Ambassador Cominges’ judgments are rather bitter. Some excuse for this is to be found in the fact that England was unsettled; maladministration was breeding discontent, and if the English people chose means different from those Cominges would recommend, they agreed with him on the inconveniencies of the Stuart regime.
When a touch of ill-humor appears here and there, remember Ambassadors have good reason now and again to be ill-humored. Besides the fogs, the French Ambassador could not ignore that he was very unpopular. Contrary to custom, he was not bowed to in the streets, and he keenly felt the want of bows. He was twice besieged in his house by the mob, and had his windows broken. His predecessor, Ambassador d'Estrades, had been shot at, and received a bullet in his hat. Such were the unpleasantnesses of ambassadorial life.
Although Cominges is usually speaking first about Charles II to Louis XIV, and of courtly affairs and intrigues, he felt England was a nation with qualities of its own, fickle in religion, stubborn in foreign policy, endowed with an indomitable courage, and with an irrepressible fondness for liberty -- at which he crossed himself. If he sometimes misinterpreted their meaning and misunderstood their manners, he never misjudged England's strength. He admired their navy, and their Parliament, which he does not hesitate to call "auguste."
Despite the fogs, and unpopular for being a subject of the Sun-king, Cominges was wise enough to disprove the insulting rumors current in both countries on the character of the other.
"... Tom, his footman, whatever the matter was, was lothe to desire me to come in, but I walked a great while in the Piatza till I was going away, but by and by my Lord himself comes down and coldly received me. So I soon parted, having enough for my over officious folly in troubling myself to visit him, and I am apt to think that he was fearful that my coming was out of design to see how he spent his time [rather] than to enquire after his health."
Well, yes, Pepys. You and Creed had been told by Tom that now wasn't a good time to visit. Doesn't matter if you were there to enquire about his health, or to do business -- bad timing is bad timing.
You two had no business walking "a great while" in Covent Garden Piazza watching the coach and house. Did you two ambush him when he came out of the house, or did he have to walk across the Piazza to shame you two stalkers?
If you'd gone back to the office and written your letters you could have avoided burning the midnight oil -- and thus would have pissed off only one fellow Commissioners for no good reason in one day. Two in one day is a record.
"... my over officious folly in troubling myself to visit him ..." -- how childish can you get, even if it's just to Dear Diary?
"Manners maketh man." -- 14th-century bishop William of Wykeham.
On August 6, 1654 Charles II wrote to his aunt, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, 'I am just now beginning this letter in my sister's chamber, where there is such a noise that I never hope to end it, and much less write sense. ... I shall only tell your Majesty that we are now thinking how to pass our time, and in the first place of dancing, in which we find to (sic) difficulties, the one for want of fiddlers, the other for somebody both to teach and to assist at the new dances. I have got my sister to send for Gabriel Silvius as one that is able to perform both. For the fideldedies my Theobald, 2nd Viscount Taaffe of Corren does promise to be their convoy, and in the meantime we must content ourselves with those that make no difference between a himme [a HYMN?] and a coranto.' [A DANCE] The Index says he was "a dance master".
After Mary Stuart, the Princess Royal and of Orange, died, Sylvius moved to London and became an under-Secretary to Secretary of State Arlington, and acted as his Dutch liaison with the court of young William of Orange.
He wrote the ill-fated letter to Henri Buat after the St. James Day fight. I suspect he's a very busy man behind the scenes, and has been exiled from his homeland.
As one who supported the Stuarts during their exile, Charles is probably predisposed to help him.
Another example of Charles II's negotiations with the Dutch:
During 1666, Henri de Fleury de Coulan, Sieur de Buat, St. Sire et La Forest de Gay (A.K.A. Capt. Henri Buat) became a messenger in secret correspondence between Sir Gabriel Sylvius, then living at the court in London, and a former member of the court of the late Mary Stuart, the Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, and members of the entourage of the young Prince William of Orange.
Sylvius was acting on behalf of Secretary of State, Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington (who, in April 1666 married another Orangist, Isabella van Beverweerd).
This exchange was originally a diplomatic "back channel" way for the Dutch and English governments to explore possibilities of peace. Grand Pensionary De Witt was therefore aware of it, and it had his tacit approval.
However, Arlington and Sylvius had ideas in case the peace negotiations failed. They wanted an Orangist coup d'état to overthrow the De Witt regime, restore the stadtholderate, end the war, and renew the Anglo-Dutch friendship.
Sylvius foolishly wrote full details of this plan in a letter to Capt. Henri Buat, which he sent in a packet together with letters intended for the eyes of De Witt.
Henri Buat got confused and handed all the correspondence over to De Witt.
When Buat discovered his mistake he went to De Witt asking for the "wrong" letter back, but it was too late: De Witt had given it to the States of Holland for further action.
Buat was arrested for what was called "the Buat Conspiracy." In the criminal proceedings it transpired that two Rotterdam regents, Johan Kievit and Ewout van der Horst, had compromised themselves enough to also be charged. They escaped to England, and were tried in absentia.
Henri Buat had the misfortune to be tried for treason by the Hof van Holland (the main court of the province of Holland).
This was controversial, as the treason was against the Generality, so that the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (the federal supreme court) would have been more appropriate. Also, the Executive -- in the form of the States of Holland -- exerted undue influence in the proceedings.
Arguably, Capt. Henri Buat did not intented to commit treason; he was the naive lackey of the principals making war.
Nevertheless, the facts were clear; he was convicted, and the sentence of public execution by Christiaan Hals, the headsman from The Hague, was carried out on October 11, 1666.
And as for Johan Kievit -- he was knighted by Charles II, and we'll meet up with him again in Evelyn's Diary next year.
Charles II needs information from behind enemy lines, and all year he has been communicating in more-or-less good faith with De Witt, encouraging the Orangists to rise up (but one of their leaders was Van Tromp), and reaching out to ex-pats who might exchange intelligence for pardons or money.
One such intelligencer was the 24-year-old widow, Aphra Johnson Behn:
The facts about Aphra Johnson's life after her return to England from Surinam in 1664 are unclear. She is known to have met and taken the name of the man considered to be her husband, who was perhaps a Dutch merchant whose name was either "Ben," "Beane," "Bene," or "Behn." From then on she was known as "Mrs. Behn," the name she later used for her professional writing.
(Aphra Behn was propelled into writing for a living by the death of her husband in 1665, and her indebtedness as a result of her employment as a spy for Charles II.)
When her husband died, Aphra Behn was left with no income. Possibly because of her association, through him, with the Dutch community, she was appointed an intelligence gatherer for Charles II, who was, at least, to pay for her trip to Antwerp as his spy.
But Charles II did not respond to Aphra Behn's repeated requests for money so in December 1666 she was forced to borrow for her passage back to England. Charles continued to refuse payment, and in 1668 Behn was thrown into debtor's prison.
“A Memoir of Mrs. Behn” by Montague Summers is considered the definitive biography of Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to earn her livelihood by authorship. It is interesting, but difficult to unravel. In it he tells us that Aphra's "... chief business was to establish an intimacy with William Scott [son of Thomas Scott, the regicide who was executed 17 October, 1660]. This William ... was quite ready to become a spy in the English service and to report on the doings of the English exiles who were not only holding treasonable correspondence with traitors at home and plotting against Charles II, but even joining with the Dutch foe to injure their native land. Scott was extremely anxious for his own pardon and, in addition, eager to earn any money he could.
"Aphra then, taking with her some 40 pounds in cash, all she had, set sail with Sir Anthony Desmarces either at the latter end of July or early in August, 1666, ..." [Sir Anthony Desmarces was an ally of Aphra Behn, and had something to do with the lotteries and the Fishmongers Guild in 1663] ... So around now, the beautiful, traveled, widow Behn is about to take Antwerp by storm.
"This passage eludes me. Could someone kindly elucidate?"
I think you need to ask Pepys. There are too many him's for my brain to untangle. It seems to report an irritating conversation ... but that Pepys now has enough money to give up 50l. and not overly care is the meat of it to me.
“I was a little sorry in my heart before lest it might give occasion of too much glory to the Duke of Albemarle.” AND
“Thence to Westminster Hall and walked an hour with Creed talking of the late fight, and observing the ridiculous management thereof and success of the Duke of Albemarle.” AND
“we having a victory over the Dutch just such as I could have wished, and as the kingdom was fit to bear, enough to give us the name of conquerors, and leave us masters of the sea, but without any such great matters done as should give the Duke of Albemarle any honour at all, or give him cause to rise to his former insolence.”
This answers my confusion about which Duke was being referred to on Thursday 12 July, 1666, when Pepys, after listened to Coventry's dejected appraisal of where things stood, concluded: "In fine, I do observe, he [COVENTRY] hath no esteem nor kindness for the Duke’s matters, but, contrarily, do slight him and them; and I pray God the Kingdom do not pay too dear by this jarring; though this blockheaded Duke I did never expect better from."
Albemarle is the blockheaded Duke, not James, Duke of York.
Now they know the fight ended up with the Dutch hemmed into Flushing / Vlissingen harbor, until the wind changed and the Dutch were able to limp home.
I wonder if Monck and Rupert discussed rescuing the English POWs there who had urgently needed supplies earlier this month?
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… Wednesday 11 July 1666 Up, and by water to Sir G. Downing’s, there to discourse with him about the relief of the prisoners in Holland; which I did, and we do resolve of the manner of sending them some. L&M note: Those in the gaol at Flushing/Vlissingen were in need of food and medical attention.
Michael Mitchell marries Betty Howlett in 1666, and they become the owners of the Old Swan tavern which is (conveniently) close to the steps to the Thames frequently used by Pepys to find a boatman.
Michael Mitchell marries Betty Howlett in 1666, and they become the owners of the Old Swan tavern which is (conveniently) close to the steps to the Thames frequently used by Pepys to find a boatman.
Comments
Second Reading
About Sunday 5 August 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Sir W. Coventry did acquaint the Duke of Yorke how the world do discourse of the ill method of our books, and that we would consider how to answer any enquiry which shall be made after our practice therein, which will I think concern the Controller most, but I shall make it a memento to myself."
Pepys worked hard on his victualing accounts, but Rupert and Albemarle's complaint was that what he sent was substandard and inadequate. Pepys has worked with Carteret the Treasurer on improving his record keeping; he has never mentioned Mennes, the Controller, as not being on top of his affairs.
But when you are out of money, do bookkeeping practice matter that much? It sounds like Coventry is closing a stable door after the horses next door have bolted. Procedures are something they can work on which won't cost anything extra, and might save the Navy some money down the line. But they are no solution for the Crown's most immediate problem.
"I fear the Parliament may find faults enough with the office to remove us all, ..."
Perhaps this was a result of Controller Peter Pett's visit? He's a shipbuilder not a businessman ... and I presume Chatham's and the other shipyards' budgets would not be in Pepys' purview. But obviously a shake up is imminent if Pepys thinks they all could be fired.
The King and Parliament need an immediate fall guy, and Monck and Rupert are national treasures. They can't undermine the fleet's self-confidence any more than it has fallen already as they have to be ready to fight again soon.
I think Penn's comment yesterday about needing to teach the captains how to sail better is the solution, not bookkeeping.
About Sunday 5 August 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... had a meeting before the Duke of Yorke, complaining of want of money, but nothing done to any purpose, for want we shall, so that now our advices to him signify nothing."
Everyone is out of money, except for Pepys, and he's not advertising.
Why didn't Charles organize serious lotteries? They had been held by Queen Elizabeth, James VI and I, and Charles I:
After the Restoration lotteries became popular. They were started under pretense of aiding poor royalists who had suffered in the civil wars. Gifts of plate, supposedly from the Crown, were disposed of 'on the behalf of the truly loyal indigent officers.' Lotteries became a patent monopoly, were farmed by speculators, with drawings held in theaters.
'The Royal Oak Lottery' caused the most comment. It continued to the end of the century, and met with lots of criticism. The organization was frequently the subject for the satirists.
In 1699, a lottery was proposed with a capital prize of 1,000l. pounds, which could be won for risking one penny.
Speculation characterized the English in the early 18th century, culminating in the South Sea Bubble, favored all kinds of lotteries. There were 'great goes' in whole tickets, and 'little goes' in their subdivisions; the lottery speculators took out insurance; fortune tellers sold 'lucky numbers.'
A writer in The Spectator reported, 'I know a well-meaning man that is very well pleased to risk his good-fortune upon the number 1711, because it is the year of our Lord. ... a certain zealous dissenter, who, being a great enemy to popery, and believing that bad men are the most fortunate in this world, will lay two to one on the number 666 against any other number ...'
The Guildhall was a scene of great excitement when the drawing were held there, and poor medical practitioners attended, ready to let blood when the sudden proclaiming of the winning tickets had an overpowering effect.
Lotteries were not confined to money prizes: Plate and jewels were favorites; books were common; but the strangest was for deer from Sion Park.
Henry Fielding wrote a farce produced at Drury Lane Theater in 1731, set in a lottery office, and the action ridiculed the office keepers and the credulity of their victims.
A whimsical pamphlet was published about the same time, purporting to be a prospectus of 'a lottery for ladies;' with the chief prize being a husband and coach and six, for 5 pounds (the price of each share). Husbands of inferior grade, in purse and person, were the second, third, and fourth rate prizes. A similar lottery for wives was soon advertised. This was legitimate satire, but despite reason and ridicule, they continued to be patronized by a gullible public.
Some legitimate lotteries were held. In 1736 an act was passed to build a bridge at Westminster by lottery, consisting of 125,000 tickets at £5 each.
More from
http://www.thebookofdays.com/mont…
About Goodwin Sands
San Diego Sarah • Link
This article only mentions the Goodwin Sands in passing, but the photos demonstrate how inconvenient (an understatement) the sandbanks in the Channel are to shipping, and how a fleet could "hide" behind one and the opposing fleet would be unable to get to them.
Playing cricket on one and having to be rescued by the lifeboats sounds very Victorian!
https://www.theguardian.com/trave…
About Saturday 4 August 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... [Lord Hinchingbrooke] who is also come to town ..."
According to A PROFANE WIT, The Life of JOHN WILMOT, Earl of Rochester by James William Johnson, University of Rochester Press, page 85, ISBN 978-1-58046-336-2.
In July and August 1666, Lord Hawley was in the retinue of Queen Catherine when she went to Tunbridge Wells to take the waters. Lady Warre and Elizabeth Mallet (his niece) were also there, as was Lord Hinchingbrooke. While Hawley wrote letters expressing pleasure about being attendant on the Queen, Elizabeth was breaking up with Hinchingbrooke -- and she showed a discernible measure of satisfaction in so doing. Apparently the previous February she had offered herself as his wife, and he had not exhibited any enthusiasm or romantic attention since, and she was no longer interested.
Meanwhile Lord Rochester has made himself a hero once again during the St. James's Day fight. I wonder what will happen next ...
About Friday 3 August 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
No -- Pepys means Esther Watts St. Michael. They didn't use the "-in-law" bit back then.
When a noun is in blue, it means there are annotations and information attached to that word or concept. Hover over "my sister" and you'll see Esther's name.
More than half the joy of the annotations is hidden back there!
About Gaston Jean-Baptiste, Comte de Cominges
San Diego Sarah • Link
From the same site:
The Count de Cominges survived only until 1670.
In number 38 of the Gazette of that year the following notice was printed: "[March 25, 1670] Messire Gaston Jean Baptiste de Cominges, Knight of the Orders of the King, Lieutenant-General in his Majesty's armies, Governor and Lieutenant-General of the town, castle, and Senechaussee of Saumur, died here, in his hostel, aged 57, after having received the last sacraments with all the signs of the most sincere piety. He is deeply regretted in this Court, as well for the many qualities for which he was noticeable as for the great services rendered by him to the Crown, not only in the above-named functions, but also as an Ambassador extraordinary to England and to Portugal."
Cominges now sleeps in St. Roch's Church, Rue St. Honore, beside Crequi, Le Notre, Mignard, and several other illustrious servants of the Grand Roi.
As for "Cesonie," she survived her husband for many years, and she had long ceased to be "la belle Cominges" when she died in 1709.
About Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades
San Diego Sarah • Link
The first ambassador Louis XIV sent to London after the Restoration, Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades, was "a tall, cold person, with a fine figure. Few men," wrote Tallemant des Reaux in his "Historiettes," "are better endowed with cold-blooded valor; he has fought several fine duels. One day, it is reported, he fought against a certain bravado who placed himself on the brink of a little ditch saying to d'Estrades, 'I won't pass the ditch.' 'And I,' answered d'Estrades, marking a line behind him with his sword, ‘I will not pass this line.' They fought; d'Estrades kills the other."
Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades had been a page to Louis XIII, and made war in Holland and Italy. He has a taste for fighting, but it had not prevented him from entering the diplomatic service. He was entrusted with missions to England, to Piedmont, to the Dutch States, and he took part in the conferences at Munster, 1646.
Ambassador Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades reached England in July, 1661, and established himself at Chelsea.
The instructions with which he had been supplied told him to prepare a treaty with England, and contained strict guidelines as to the care he must pay to all questions of etiquette and precedence.
Louis XIV recommends "jealously to preserve the dignity of his Crown in the Court whither he is going; because any insult he may receive would in reality reflect on his master, who is bound to resent it to the utmost. ... The Sieur d'Estrades will in all occasions preserve the pre-eminence to which the King is entitled, allowing no ambassador to go before him, except the Emperor's in case he were to send one to England.
"He will allow to his left the Spanish ambassador as well as the representatives of the other kings who hold their crown direct from God alone. As for those of Venice ... he will allow them only to go behind."' -- 1 May 13, 1661.
Louis XIV’s main preoccupation was with Spain, a dreaded rival in the past, a possible prey in the future. The Most Christian King was bent upon asserting publicly, as he did privately in his instructions, his right of precedence over his Catholic brother. The fiction according to which an ambassador's person is a duplicate of the king's person was paramount and believed, so it was of great importance to Louis that Spanish Ambassador Baron de Watteville,1 the London duplicate of the King of Spain, should not be allowed to go before his Ambassador Godefroy, Comte d'Estrades.
1 From Wattenveil in Thurgovia; his name is often spelt Bateville; he died in 1670.
Spanish Ambassador Watteville lived brilliantly in York House, not far from Whitehall, spent much money, and was popular in London.
It was obvious that both were resolved, and supplied with means to maintain their pretensions, so a fight was inevitable.
Notes taken from https://books.google.com/books?id…
About Lt-Adm. Jan Evertsen
San Diego Sarah • Link
Bill has confused Johan's brother, Cornelis Evertsen the Elder, who was killed in the Four Days' fight. After his death, Johan Evertsen joined the fleet for the first time in years and took command of the van for De Ruyter. He was killed on the first day of the St. James's Day fight.
Pepys' friend, Capt. Harman is home nursing an injured leg at this time, so he didn't participate in the St. James Day fight. But he'll be back next year.
The Evertsens are another incredible family of seafarers from Flushing / Vlissingen.
A current link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh…
About Friday 3 August 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"But this morning, getting Sir W. Pen to read over the Narrative with me, he did sparingly, yet plainly, say that we might have intercepted their Zealand squadron coming home, if we had done our parts; and more, that we might have spooned before the wind as well as they, and have overtaken their ships in the pursuit, in all the while."
Beware of backseat drivers, Pepys. Penn was sitting at Sheerness, handing out spare parts. The Channel is very tricky. Rupert and Monck could just as easily have lost the entire exhausted fleet aground on a sandbank in the dark.
But the need to train the officers on how to sail better ... especially the gentlemanly ones ... that's a good idea. Is Penn volunteering?
About Gaston Jean-Baptiste, Comte de Cominges
San Diego Sarah • Link
50-year-old Ambassador Cominges reached London on 23 December, 1662 (O.S.), after having had a very bad crossing "in the yacht of Monsieur le duc d'York."
In his first letter to Louis XIV, Cominges describes his journey in his Court style:
"Sire, I would not mention to your Majesty the inconveniences I suffered in my journey on account of the floods, if I were not bound to do so to explain the length of the time I spent on the way. Not that I failed to constrain, so to say, the very elements to submit to your Majesty's wishes; but all I could do, after having avoided two or three land-wrecks and escaped a tempest by sea, was to reach this place on December 23, English style." 1
1 To Louis XIV. January 4, 1663.
From then on a double, and frequently treble, correspondence begins: an official letter to Louis XIV, a familiar one to Secretary Hugues de Lionne, and often a third one, containing only Court news, sent to the King, but not in his kingly capacity.
Young Louis appreciated those separate sheets of worldly information, and Lionne several times begs Cominges not to forget them. No wonder this was so with a prince of 24; the real wonder is the personal attention with which the official correspondence was attended to by Louis, to the extent of his being jealous of the private letters sent to Lionne by Cominges:
"Though I always show to the King," Lionne writes, "the private letters with which you honor me, and that it might appear that it comes to the same, as his Majesty is equally well-informed, be the letter for him or for me, you must always, if you please, write direct to his Majesty, even when you have nothing else to say than that you have nothing to say. ... I clearly saw the advantage of this plan when I read to his Majesty the last letter with which you favored me; for he then inquired why you did not write rather to himself. I answered that the cause was probably the want of any matter of sufficient importance. ... But I think his Majesty did not hold this reason a sufficient one, and that he prefers you to do otherwise. You will also please him very much in continuing what you so handsomely began, and forwarding in a separate sheet the most curious of the Court news."
Notes from https://books.google.com/books?id…
About Gaston Jean-Baptiste, Comte de Cominges
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Comte de Cominges was a good soldier by profession: this accounts for his roughness and pride. For the same reason, when he bowed, he bowed very low, and according to rule; when he stood, he stood very stiff: men of this sort were numerous; they wore ribbons on their cuirasses.
Several of Ambassador Cominges’ judgments are rather bitter. Some excuse for this is to be found in the fact that England was unsettled; maladministration was breeding discontent, and if the English people chose means different from those Cominges would recommend, they agreed with him on the inconveniencies of the Stuart regime.
When a touch of ill-humor appears here and there, remember Ambassadors have good reason now and again to be ill-humored. Besides the fogs, the French Ambassador could not ignore that he was very unpopular. Contrary to custom, he was not bowed to in the streets, and he keenly felt the want of bows. He was twice besieged in his house by the mob, and had his windows broken. His predecessor, Ambassador d'Estrades, had been shot at, and received a bullet in his hat. Such were the unpleasantnesses of ambassadorial life.
Although Cominges is usually speaking first about Charles II to Louis XIV, and of courtly affairs and intrigues, he felt England was a nation with qualities of its own, fickle in religion, stubborn in foreign policy, endowed with an indomitable courage, and with an irrepressible fondness for liberty -- at which he crossed himself. If he sometimes misinterpreted their meaning and misunderstood their manners, he never misjudged England's strength. He admired their navy, and their Parliament, which he does not hesitate to call "auguste."
Despite the fogs, and unpopular for being a subject of the Sun-king, Cominges was wise enough to disprove the insulting rumors current in both countries on the character of the other.
SEE NEXT POST
About Thursday 2 August 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... Tom, his footman, whatever the matter was, was lothe to desire me to come in, but I walked a great while in the Piatza till I was going away, but by and by my Lord himself comes down and coldly received me. So I soon parted, having enough for my over officious folly in troubling myself to visit him, and I am apt to think that he was fearful that my coming was out of design to see how he spent his time [rather] than to enquire after his health."
Well, yes, Pepys. You and Creed had been told by Tom that now wasn't a good time to visit. Doesn't matter if you were there to enquire about his health, or to do business -- bad timing is bad timing.
You two had no business walking "a great while" in Covent Garden Piazza watching the coach and house. Did you two ambush him when he came out of the house, or did he have to walk across the Piazza to shame you two stalkers?
If you'd gone back to the office and written your letters you could have avoided burning the midnight oil -- and thus would have pissed off only one fellow Commissioners for no good reason in one day. Two in one day is a record.
"... my over officious folly in troubling myself to visit him ..." -- how childish can you get, even if it's just to Dear Diary?
"Manners maketh man." -- 14th-century bishop William of Wykeham.
About Tuesday 28 February 1664/65
San Diego Sarah • Link
I've got an answer for Terry: "Who are ... Gabriel de Sylvius and why should THEY fall heir to any of the spoils?"
In THE TRAVELS OF THE KING Charles II in Germany and Flanders 1654-1660
BY EVA SCOTT -- http://archive.org/stream/travels…
On August 6, 1654 Charles II wrote to his aunt, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, 'I am just now beginning this letter in my sister's chamber, where there is such a noise that I never hope to end it, and much less write sense. ... I shall only tell your Majesty that we are now thinking how to pass our time, and in the first place of dancing, in which we find to (sic) difficulties, the one for want of fiddlers, the other for somebody both to teach and to assist at the new dances. I have got my sister to send for Gabriel Silvius as one that is able to perform both. For the fideldedies my Theobald, 2nd Viscount Taaffe of Corren does promise to be their convoy, and in the meantime we must content ourselves with those that make no difference between a himme [a HYMN?] and a coranto.' [A DANCE] The Index says he was "a dance master".
After Mary Stuart, the Princess Royal and of Orange, died, Sylvius moved to London and became an under-Secretary to Secretary of State Arlington, and acted as his Dutch liaison with the court of young William of Orange.
He wrote the ill-fated letter to Henri Buat after the St. James Day fight. I suspect he's a very busy man behind the scenes, and has been exiled from his homeland.
As one who supported the Stuarts during their exile, Charles is probably predisposed to help him.
About Tuesday 31 July 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Another example of Charles II's negotiations with the Dutch:
During 1666, Henri de Fleury de Coulan, Sieur de Buat, St. Sire et La Forest de Gay (A.K.A. Capt. Henri Buat) became a messenger in secret correspondence between Sir Gabriel Sylvius, then living at the court in London, and a former member of the court of the late Mary Stuart, the Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, and members of the entourage of the young Prince William of Orange.
Sylvius was acting on behalf of Secretary of State, Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington (who, in April 1666 married another Orangist, Isabella van Beverweerd).
This exchange was originally a diplomatic "back channel" way for the Dutch and English governments to explore possibilities of peace. Grand Pensionary De Witt was therefore aware of it, and it had his tacit approval.
However, Arlington and Sylvius had ideas in case the peace negotiations failed. They wanted an Orangist coup d'état to overthrow the De Witt regime, restore the stadtholderate, end the war, and renew the Anglo-Dutch friendship.
Sylvius foolishly wrote full details of this plan in a letter to Capt. Henri Buat, which he sent in a packet together with letters intended for the eyes of De Witt.
Henri Buat got confused and handed all the correspondence over to De Witt.
When Buat discovered his mistake he went to De Witt asking for the "wrong" letter back, but it was too late: De Witt had given it to the States of Holland for further action.
Buat was arrested for what was called "the Buat Conspiracy." In the criminal proceedings it transpired that two Rotterdam regents, Johan Kievit and Ewout van der Horst, had compromised themselves enough to also be charged. They escaped to England, and were tried in absentia.
Henri Buat had the misfortune to be tried for treason by the Hof van Holland (the main court of the province of Holland).
This was controversial, as the treason was against the Generality, so that the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (the federal supreme court) would have been more appropriate.
Also, the Executive -- in the form of the States of Holland -- exerted undue influence in the proceedings.
Arguably, Capt. Henri Buat did not intented to commit treason; he was the naive lackey of the principals making war.
Nevertheless, the facts were clear; he was convicted, and the sentence of public execution by Christiaan Hals, the headsman from The Hague, was carried out on October 11, 1666.
And as for Johan Kievit -- he was knighted by Charles II, and we'll meet up with him again in Evelyn's Diary next year.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen…
About Tuesday 31 July 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Charles II needs information from behind enemy lines, and all year he has been communicating in more-or-less good faith with De Witt, encouraging the Orangists to rise up (but one of their leaders was Van Tromp), and reaching out to ex-pats who might exchange intelligence for pardons or money.
One such intelligencer was the 24-year-old widow, Aphra Johnson Behn:
The facts about Aphra Johnson's life after her return to England from Surinam in 1664 are unclear. She is known to have met and taken the name of the man considered to be her husband, who was perhaps a Dutch merchant whose name was either "Ben," "Beane," "Bene," or "Behn." From then on she was known as "Mrs. Behn," the name she later used for her professional writing.
(Aphra Behn was propelled into writing for a living by the death of her husband in 1665, and her indebtedness as a result of her employment as a spy for Charles II.)
When her husband died, Aphra Behn was left with no income. Possibly because of her association, through him, with the Dutch community, she was appointed an intelligence gatherer for Charles II, who was, at least, to pay for her trip to Antwerp as his spy.
But Charles II did not respond to Aphra Behn's repeated requests for money so in December 1666 she was forced to borrow for her passage back to England. Charles continued to refuse payment, and in 1668 Behn was thrown into debtor's prison.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/…
“A Memoir of Mrs. Behn” by Montague Summers is considered the definitive biography of Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to earn her livelihood by authorship. It is interesting, but difficult to unravel. In it he tells us that Aphra's "... chief business was to establish an intimacy with William Scott [son of Thomas Scott, the regicide who was executed 17 October, 1660]. This William ... was quite ready to become a spy in the English service and to report on the doings of the English exiles who were not only holding treasonable correspondence with traitors at home and plotting against Charles II, but even joining with the Dutch foe to injure their native land. Scott was extremely anxious for his own pardon and, in addition, eager to earn any money he could.
"Aphra then, taking with her some 40 pounds in cash, all she had, set sail with Sir Anthony Desmarces either at the latter end of July or early in August, 1666, ..."
[Sir Anthony Desmarces was an ally of Aphra Behn, and had something to do with the lotteries and the Fishmongers Guild in 1663]
...
So around now, the beautiful, traveled, widow Behn is about to take Antwerp by storm.
About Tuesday 31 July 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"This passage eludes me. Could someone kindly elucidate?"
I think you need to ask Pepys. There are too many him's for my brain to untangle. It seems to report an irritating conversation ... but that Pepys now has enough money to give up 50l. and not overly care is the meat of it to me.
About Tuesday 31 July 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
“I was a little sorry in my heart before lest it might give occasion of too much glory to the Duke of Albemarle.” AND
“Thence to Westminster Hall and walked an hour with Creed talking of the late fight, and observing the ridiculous management thereof and success of the Duke of Albemarle.” AND
“we having a victory over the Dutch just such as I could have wished, and as the kingdom was fit to bear, enough to give us the name of conquerors, and leave us masters of the sea, but without any such great matters done as should give the Duke of Albemarle any honour at all, or give him cause to rise to his former insolence.”
This answers my confusion about which Duke was being referred to on Thursday 12 July, 1666, when Pepys, after listened to Coventry's dejected appraisal of where things stood, concluded: "In fine, I do observe, he [COVENTRY] hath no esteem nor kindness for the Duke’s matters, but, contrarily, do slight him and them; and I pray God the Kingdom do not pay too dear by this jarring; though this blockheaded Duke I did never expect better from."
Albemarle is the blockheaded Duke, not James, Duke of York.
About Tuesday 31 July 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Now they know the fight ended up with the Dutch hemmed into Flushing / Vlissingen harbor, until the wind changed and the Dutch were able to limp home.
I wonder if Monck and Rupert discussed rescuing the English POWs there who had urgently needed supplies earlier this month?
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Wednesday 11 July 1666
Up, and by water to Sir G. Downing’s, there to discourse with him about the relief of the prisoners in Holland; which I did, and we do resolve of the manner of sending them some.
L&M note: Those in the gaol at Flushing/Vlissingen were in need of food and medical attention.
About Old Swan (Thames St)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Michael Mitchell marries Betty Howlett in 1666, and they become the owners of the Old Swan tavern which is (conveniently) close to the steps to the Thames frequently used by Pepys to find a boatman.
About Betty Mitchell (a, b. Howlett)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Michael Mitchell marries Betty Howlett in 1666, and they become the owners of the Old Swan tavern which is (conveniently) close to the steps to the Thames frequently used by Pepys to find a boatman.