"Was the City the center of the county's financial activities even then?" Yes it was.
In 1663 the City (i.e. the merchants through the great Guilds, and shareholders in the new organizations like the Royal Africa Company and the plantations) let Charles II know that the Dutch were hampering their profits. Downing told Charles that he didn't think the Dutch would fight. This power play seemed like a slam-dunk. But Charles made "the City" petition him formally, with a promise to pay for the war.
There are lots of entries about these negotiations around April 1663.
As usual, mission creep and the reality of war, belatedly discovering that the Dutch are excellent seamen, and that allies are not always reliable, has made "the City" change their collective minds about paying for everything, leaving Charles exactly where he did not want to be -- broke and losing.
That's why Downing rewrote the way the Exchequer works, making payment on loans more reliable and not based on personal relationships, so more small investors would want to support Government expenditures.
This is a tiny step away from feudal economics, and towards the eventual establishment of taxes and the system we have today. "The City" may not know it, but they just lost some power.
"... and a very fine gentleman Mr. Williamson is."
Pepys may or may not know that Secretary of State Joseph Williamson is responsible for intelligencing ... if anyone knows where the French fleet is, and what Louis XIV intends for his cousin Charles in this unwelcome conflict, it's that very fine gentleman, Mr. Williamson.
The involvement of Sir George Downing, MP in the Additional Aid Act:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1665 was Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley. But as the former Chancellor, according to his House of Commons biography, Downing retained the title of Teller of the Exchequer from 1660 until his death.
In that capacity, when he finally came back from The Hague (where he was Dutch envoy extraordinary, obtaining intelligence with ‘the keys taken out of De Witt’s pocket when he was a-bed’) in 1665 Downing set himself to improving government credit, much to the disgust of Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who believed that he was chiefly concerned to increase the income from his tellership.
Resuming his seat for the Oxford session, Sir George Downing MP was supported by Secretary of State Sir Henry Bennet and Charles II in taking over from Heneage Finch the management of supply, in which his principal achievement was the Additional Aid Bill.
Aiming to revolutionize public borrowing by appealing to the small investor, Sir George Downing MP revived the principle of appropriating the revenue to specified purposes; but his great innovation (resisted by Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon as an entrenchment on the prerogative) provided for the repayment of loans ‘in course’ instead of by treasury whim or favor.
Returning to London, which was still infected by the plague, Sir George Downing MP used every publicity device available, including advertisements in Sir Joseph Williamson's Gazette and personal application to his acquaintances, to make the loan a success. Exhausted by Sir George Downing MP’s volubility and pertinacity, one reluctant investor confessed: ‘the beginning, end, and every part of it is to be imputed to him.’
In the next Parliamentary session Sir George Downing MP again took the chair of a committee on trade, which on 8 Oct. 1666 recommended a total prohibition of French imports.
So Downing's not "running" the Exchequer, but he is reforming it (and doubtlessly lining his own pocket at the same time). https://www.historyofparliamenton…...
"A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution" by Toby Green reveals the success Africans had in the first 400 years of their encounter with Europeans.
An early effect of European trade on West African politics was that organized states like Songhai broke up, while smaller ones were strengthened by the economic exchanges.
Initially, Europeans wanted gold, but with the start of New World plantations, demand for slaves rose, and it was the small less organized kingdoms that became Europe’s source.
Some African states resisted for generations. Today's Ghana, Benin, and Congo refused to sell slaves (but sometimes purchased them), and defeated efforts to gain control of their resources.
Kongo was an advanced state with elected kings when the Portuguese arrival in the 1480s. They embraced Christianity and kept ambassadors at the Vatican from the 1530s - 1620s, but slavery broke its relationship with Portugal.
Faced with Kongo’s resistance, in 1575 Portugal founded Luanda, from which it waged a destabilization campaign. Kongo eventually asked Holland to be their ally (as they were not yet engaged in slaving and were an enemy of the united kingdom of Spain and Portugal).
In 1623 Kongo’s King Pedro II wrote to Holland requesting “four or five warships as well as five or six hundred soldiers” and promised to pay for “the ships and the salaries of the soldiers in gold, silver, and ivory.”
Holland wanted to end this resource, which supplied more than half the slaves sent to Brazil and the Indies, hoping Brazil (Portugal’s leading source of wealth) would become nonviable.
Africa thus played a major role in the struggle for control over the South Atlantic during the 30 Years’ War, with Dutch warships helping Kongo defeat the Portuguese in 1624 and 1641.
In 1648, Portugal shipped blacks from Brazil across the Atlantic to restore its hold on Angola. This is African history as world history.
Portugal defeated Kongo in 1665, and then exploited a vulnerability it shared with the Ashanti Empire and Benin: control over its money supply.
In Kongo, a locally-made cloth was the traditional means of exchange, along with the nzimbu seashell. The Dutch flooded the region with textiles and shells, both local and imported.
These economic catastrophes combined with the fall in the value of exported gold, following New World discoveries of gold and silver. In return, Africans had received European goods, all of which decline in value over time, and was bled of its people, who were used to enrich Europe.
I'm constantly surprised by how secular Pepys is. Sermons are mostly boring; he goes to church to see and be seen, and for the music. Elizabeth rarely attends with him. Pepys' moments of introspection are few and far between.
He also rarely mentions reading the Gazette or other newsletters, and if I were just reading the Diary I would think he gets all his news from Court, letters or the Exchange.
We know about the rabbit's foot in his pocket which is keeping him healthy, and his observations of that pesky comet, but his fears are mute beyond rewriting his will which indicates he's worried. He's a hard-working junior politician, plays "the game" (when he figures it out), and often keeps his opinions to himself hoping someone else will verbalize them. A perfect President-in-the-making for the Royal Society, who seeks for the facts.
I dunno John ... Pepys says "with some kind of violence" but does not specify who performed it. Since Pepys was shortish, I always imagine Creed as bigger and more athletic. Pepys was the aggrieved party. Creed was on the defensive for his deceitfulness and lack of cooperation. I can't see the Clerk of the Acts getting into fisticuffs in the street with a colleague, but I can hear a loud accusatory betrayed voice being told to calm down and shut up, accompanied by some shoving. Who shoved who into the coach isn't specified. SPOILER: Creed comes to lunch tomorrow, and they are "friends" again. Pepys puts up with a lot to keep Creed's sword hand available.
While Language Hat gives us a great over-view, along the way there were efforts to find a way to live together:
“Guyland” was underwritten by Spain, after 1665 an ally to England in the Second Anglo-Dutch war (as France took Dutch side) and as such got marching orders from Philip. See page 175,"Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660-1685" by Alan Marshall http://books.google.com/books?id=…
L&M note a treaty of peace and alliance concluded 2 April, 1666, between Charles II and the Berber leader, Ghaïlan: Enid M. G. Routh, Tangier, England's lost Atlantic outpost, 1661-1684, 1912. p. 90. https://archive.org/stream/tangie…
"Whether or not Downing is still running the Exchequer ..."
No, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley, who is clearly running things.
HOWEVER, according to Downing's House of Commons biography, he retained the title of Teller of the Exchequer from 1660 until he died.
And in that capacity, when he finally came back from The Hague (where he was Dutch envoy extraordinary, obtaining intelligence with ‘the keys taken out of De Witt’s pocket when he was a-bed’) in 1665 he set himself to improve government credit, much to the disgust of Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who believed that he was chiefly concerned to increase the income from his tellership.
Resuming his seat for the Oxford session, Sir George Downing MP was supported by Secretary of State Sir Henry Bennet and Charles II in taking over from Heneage Finch the management of supply, in which his principal achievement was the Additional Aid Bill.
Aiming to revolutionize public borrowing by appealing to the small investor, Sir George Downing MP revived the principle of appropriating the revenue to specified purposes; but his great innovation (resisted by Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon as an entrenchment on the prerogative) provided for the repayment of loans ‘in course’ instead of by treasury whim or favor.
Returning to London, which was still infected by the plague, Sir George Downing MP used every publicity device available, including advertisements in Sir Joseph Williamson's Gazette and personal application to his acquaintances, to make the loan a success.
Exhausted by Sir George Downing MP’s volubility and pertinacity, one reluctant investor confessed: ‘the beginning, end, and every part of it is to be imputed to him.’
In the next Parliamentary session Sir George Downing MP again took the chair of a committee on trade, which on 8 Oct. 1666 recommended a total prohibition of French imports.
So Downing's not "running" the Exchequer, but he is reforming it (and doubtlessly lining his own pocket at the same time). https://www.historyofparliamenton…
And, once again, I would suggest to Pepys that he be more generous to the clerks so they want to change his tallys. He sees how it moves Ashley, knows it motivates him, but he won't do it for others.
"Thence Sir W. Pen and I to Islington and there drank at the Katherine Wheele, ..."
"... our grand Tour in the evening, and made it ten at night before we got home, only drink at the doore at Islington at the Katherine Wheel, and so home ..."
So this Katherine Wheel was what we would call a pub, nice enough to be frequented by upper class travelers.
"There's probably considerable fear, even among the landed gentry, right now."
Besides all the logical, totally 21st century reasons for fear cited above, there was also considerable free-floating fear of the end-times in 1666. The date alone, never mind a madman in North Africa claiming to be the Messiah, would have most people on their knees, praying for redemption.
Christians thought the book of Revelations indicated the arrival of the Messiah in 1666.
"During the first half of the 17th century, millenarian ideas of the approach of the Messianic time were popular. They included ideas of the redemption of the Jews and their return to the land of Israel, with independent sovereignty. The apocalyptic year was identified by Christian authors as 1666 and millenarianism was widespread in England. This belief was so prevalent that Manasseh ben Israel, in his letter to Oliver Cromwell and the Rump Parliament 1654, appealed to it as a reason to readmit Jews into England." Which both Cromwell and Charles II agreed to.
'In Smyrna, which Sabbatai Zevi reached in the autumn of 1665, the greatest homage was paid to him. After some hesitation, he publicly declared himself to be the expected Messiah during the (Jewish New Year in 1665); his declaration was made in the synagogue, with the blowing of horns, and shouts of "Long live our King, our Messiah!"'
"The Jewish community of Avignon, France prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom in the spring of 1666."
Queen Christina became so fascinated by Sabbatai Zevi's claims that she almost became a disciple. In Hamburg she danced in the streets with her Jewish friends in anticipation of the apocalyptic moment.
In 1666, at the movement’s height, pamphlets publicizing the unfolding of the redemptive scenario were published, and believers undertook penitential fasts and extreme acts of self-affliction. Some Jews sold their property, with the intention of journeying to the Land of Israel. The commotion was followed closely in Christian circles, especially among Christian millenarians, who were instrumental in the publication of letters, and pamphlets and broadsheets in Italian, German, Dutch and English.
Sir Walter Raleigh’s body was buried after his execution but his embalmed head was kept by his wife Elizabeth Throgmorton. She kept it in a red leather bag, by her side, for the last 29 years of her life. Their son, Carew, took care of it until his death in 1666.
Carew Raleigh was buried in his father’s grave with the head, but in 1680 Carew was exhumed and re-buried, with his father’s head, in West Horsley, Surrey.
Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, died in 1658, was embalmed and buried in Westminster Abbey after a lavish funeral. After the Restoration his body was disinterred and taken to Tyburn where it was gibbeted until sundown.
The Public Executioner cut down the body and cut off the head which was then impaled on a 25 foot pole on the roof of Westminster Hall. It remained there for over 24 years until 1685 when it was dislodged during a gale. A soldier found the head and hid it in his chimney.
On his deathbed, he bequeathed the relic to his daughter. In 1710 the head appeared in a ‘Freak Show’, described as ‘The Monster’s Head’! For many years the head passed through numerous hands, the value increasing with each transaction until a Dr. Wilkinson bought it.
The head was offered by the Wilkinson family to Sydney Sussex College in 1960, as this was where Oliver Cromwell had studied. It was given a dignified burial in a secret place in the college grounds.
"... I with others to White Hall, there to attend again a Committee of Tangier, but there was none, which vexed me to the heart, and makes me mighty doubtfull that when we have one, it will be prejudiced against poor Yeabsly and to my great disadvantage thereby, my Lord Peterborough making it his business, I perceive (whether in spite to me, whom he cannot but smell to be a friend to it, or to my Lord Ashly, I know not), to obstruct it, and seems to take delight in disappointing of us; but I shall be revenged of him."
Another failed attempt to get a quorum to pass Yeabsly's business. It would be interesting to know why Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of Peterborough, who had been Governor at Tangier and should know why they need supplies, was against the deal. Pepys seems to take it personally --???
Geoff Minns on 4 Sept., 2011 reported that he had very kindly gone to the Bancroft Library and checked the St. Mary's burial records for 13 June, 1666, and for a week either side of that date.
There is no record of a burial of Sir Christopher Myngs in that period.
He suggested that Myngs' funeral could have been at St. Katherine's by the Tower, but he hadn't checked their records. This would be an easy walking distance of Seething Lane.
There's a lot of information about St. Mary's, Whitechapel, in the annotations on the date linked here.
Terry's link is right. (Carstares sounds like my parents carrying on about mini-skirts.)
The Scottish Covenanter John Carstares wrote in his 1665 preface to the reader he published on James Durham's "Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments": “To over-costly, curious, vain and conceity dressing and decking of the body, and setting of the hair now after one mode, now after another. ... and horrid bushes of vanity, as Mr. [Robert] Bolton calls them, and partly by their variously and strangely metamorphosing modes and colours of periwigs) --
"James Durham goes on (quoting Robert Bolton again at one point), pp. 334-337: “and therefore we say that in men and women both, there is condemned by the Lord: ... 2. Strangeness in the ever-changing fashions, and extravagant modes of apparel; while as the Lord by nature has continued the shape of men's bodies to be the same. ... There is a lightness in clothing as to colour, mounting as they call it, etc, and in dressing of the body, which may be seen in these dressings of the hair, powderings, laces, ribbons, points, etc, which are so much in use with gallants of the time; this, especially in women, is insisted on and condemned (Isa. 3:16-17, etc.) Some things indeed there mentioned are not simply unlawful, especially to persons of higher quality, ...
“There is in clothes a base effeminatenesse amongst men (which someway emasculates or un-mans them) who delight in those things which women dote upon, as dressing of hair, powderings, washing, (when exceeded in) rings, jewels, etc, which are spoken of, and reproved in the daughters of Zion (Isa. 3), and so must be much more unsuitable to men. Also interchanging of apparel is condemned; men putting on women's, and women men's clothes, which is unsuitable to that distinction of sexes which the Lord hath made, and is condemned in the word, as a confusion, an absurd, unnatural thing, and an inlet to much wickedness. Whereof the Dutch annotators, as several fathers did long before them, on 1 Cor. 11:14, make men’s nourishing and wearing of long hair to be some degree, it being given to women, not only for an ornament and covering, but also in part for distinction of the female sex from the male.
“... it will not be impertinent to subjoin a strange story, which learned, pious, and grave Mr. Bolton, in his Four Last Things, p. 40, repeats from his author the famous Herculus Saxonia, professor of physic in Padua:
“’The Plica (saith he) is a most loathsome and horrible disease in the hair, ... And at the first spreading of this dreadful disease in Poland, all that did cut off their horrible and snaky hair, lost their eyes, ... And methinks (says Mr. Bolton) our monstrous fashionists, both male and female, the one for nourishing their horrid bushes of vanity, ...’”
I'm not sure who John Carstares is quoting, Bolton or Durham. There's a nod to Pepys from his first church outing with a wig when no one acted like anything was different.
Terry's annotations above on cross-dressing are a treat. BUT the Virginia 1665 link does not now lead to the supporting quote, and Minister James Durham died on Friday, 25 June 1658, aged 36 so I don't know what the 1665 date refers to. If I figure it out, I'll let you know. (One can never find too many quotes on periwigs.)
"... and then to White Hall in hopes of a meeting of Tangier about Yeabsly’s business, but it could not be obtained, Sir G. Carteret nor Sir W. Coventry being able to be there ..."
This means they could not find a voting quorum for the Tangier meeting.
Comments
Second Reading
About Monday 18 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Wikipedia identifies John Belasyse's daughter as Mary, who later married Robert Constable, 3rd Viscount of Dunbar.
About Monday 18 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Was the City the center of the county's financial activities even then?" Yes it was.
In 1663 the City (i.e. the merchants through the great Guilds, and shareholders in the new organizations like the Royal Africa Company and the plantations) let Charles II know that the Dutch were hampering their profits. Downing told Charles that he didn't think the Dutch would fight. This power play seemed like a slam-dunk. But Charles made "the City" petition him formally, with a promise to pay for the war.
There are lots of entries about these negotiations around April 1663.
As usual, mission creep and the reality of war, belatedly discovering that the Dutch are excellent seamen, and that allies are not always reliable, has made "the City" change their collective minds about paying for everything, leaving Charles exactly where he did not want to be -- broke and losing.
That's why Downing rewrote the way the Exchequer works, making payment on loans more reliable and not based on personal relationships, so more small investors would want to support Government expenditures.
This is a tiny step away from feudal economics, and towards the eventual establishment of taxes and the system we have today. "The City" may not know it, but they just lost some power.
About Saturday 16 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... and a very fine gentleman Mr. Williamson is."
Pepys may or may not know that Secretary of State Joseph Williamson is responsible for intelligencing ... if anyone knows where the French fleet is, and what Louis XIV intends for his cousin Charles in this unwelcome conflict, it's that very fine gentleman, Mr. Williamson.
About Additional Aid Act (1665)
San Diego Sarah • Link
The involvement of Sir George Downing, MP in the Additional Aid Act:
The Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1665 was Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley. But as the former Chancellor, according to his House of Commons biography, Downing retained the title of Teller of the Exchequer from 1660 until his death.
In that capacity, when he finally came back from The Hague (where he was Dutch envoy extraordinary, obtaining intelligence with ‘the keys taken out of De Witt’s pocket when he was a-bed’) in 1665 Downing set himself to improving government credit, much to the disgust of Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who believed that he was chiefly concerned to increase the income from his tellership.
Resuming his seat for the Oxford session, Sir George Downing MP was supported by Secretary of State Sir Henry Bennet and Charles II in taking over from Heneage Finch the management of supply, in which his principal achievement was the Additional Aid Bill.
Aiming to revolutionize public borrowing by appealing to the small investor, Sir George Downing MP revived the principle of appropriating the revenue to specified purposes; but his great innovation (resisted by Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon as an entrenchment on the prerogative) provided for the repayment of loans ‘in course’ instead of by treasury whim or favor.
Returning to London, which was still infected by the plague, Sir George Downing MP used every publicity device available, including advertisements in Sir Joseph Williamson's Gazette and personal application to his acquaintances, to make the loan a success. Exhausted by Sir George Downing MP’s volubility and pertinacity, one reluctant investor confessed: ‘the beginning, end, and every part of it is to be imputed to him.’
In the next Parliamentary session Sir George Downing MP again took the chair of a committee on trade, which on 8 Oct. 1666 recommended a total prohibition of French imports.
So Downing's not "running" the Exchequer, but he is reforming it (and doubtlessly lining his own pocket at the same time).
https://www.historyofparliamenton…...
About English Royal Africa Company ("Guinea Company")
San Diego Sarah • Link
"A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution" by Toby Green reveals the success Africans had in the first 400 years of their encounter with Europeans.
An early effect of European trade on West African politics was that organized states like Songhai broke up, while smaller ones were strengthened by the economic exchanges.
Initially, Europeans wanted gold, but with the start of New World plantations, demand for slaves rose, and it was the small less organized kingdoms that became Europe’s source.
Some African states resisted for generations. Today's Ghana, Benin, and Congo refused to sell slaves (but sometimes purchased them), and defeated efforts to gain control of their resources.
Kongo was an advanced state with elected kings when the Portuguese arrival in the 1480s. They embraced Christianity and kept ambassadors at the Vatican from the 1530s - 1620s, but slavery broke its relationship with Portugal.
Faced with Kongo’s resistance, in 1575 Portugal founded Luanda, from which it waged a destabilization campaign. Kongo eventually asked Holland to be their ally (as they were not yet engaged in slaving and were an enemy of the united kingdom of Spain and Portugal).
In 1623 Kongo’s King Pedro II wrote to Holland requesting “four or five warships as well as five or six hundred soldiers” and promised to pay for “the ships and the salaries of the soldiers in gold, silver, and ivory.”
Holland wanted to end this resource, which supplied more than half the slaves sent to Brazil and the Indies, hoping Brazil (Portugal’s leading source of wealth) would become nonviable.
Africa thus played a major role in the struggle for control over the South Atlantic during the 30 Years’ War, with Dutch warships helping Kongo defeat the Portuguese in 1624 and 1641.
In 1648, Portugal shipped blacks from Brazil across the Atlantic to restore its hold on Angola. This is African history as world history.
Portugal defeated Kongo in 1665, and then exploited a vulnerability it shared with the Ashanti Empire and Benin: control over its money supply.
In Kongo, a locally-made cloth was the traditional means of exchange, along with the nzimbu seashell. The Dutch flooded the region with textiles and shells, both local and imported.
These economic catastrophes combined with the fall in the value of exported gold, following New World discoveries of gold and silver. In return, Africans had received European goods, all of which decline in value over time, and was bled of its people, who were used to enrich Europe.
For the whole review, and others books on the subject: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/…
About Saturday 9 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Brian -- I think you nailed it! Thank you.
About Thursday 14 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Hi Harvey L.
I'm constantly surprised by how secular Pepys is. Sermons are mostly boring; he goes to church to see and be seen, and for the music. Elizabeth rarely attends with him. Pepys' moments of introspection are few and far between.
He also rarely mentions reading the Gazette or other newsletters, and if I were just reading the Diary I would think he gets all his news from Court, letters or the Exchange.
We know about the rabbit's foot in his pocket which is keeping him healthy, and his observations of that pesky comet, but his fears are mute beyond rewriting his will which indicates he's worried. He's a hard-working junior politician, plays "the game" (when he figures it out), and often keeps his opinions to himself hoping someone else will verbalize them. A perfect President-in-the-making for the Royal Society, who seeks for the facts.
About Thursday 14 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
I dunno John ... Pepys says "with some kind of violence" but does not specify who performed it. Since Pepys was shortish, I always imagine Creed as bigger and more athletic. Pepys was the aggrieved party. Creed was on the defensive for his deceitfulness and lack of cooperation. I can't see the Clerk of the Acts getting into fisticuffs in the street with a colleague, but I can hear a loud accusatory betrayed voice being told to calm down and shut up, accompanied by some shoving. Who shoved who into the coach isn't specified. SPOILER: Creed comes to lunch tomorrow, and they are "friends" again. Pepys puts up with a lot to keep Creed's sword hand available.
About Elizabeth Burrows
San Diego Sarah • Link
"So the Elizabeths knew each other, and Mr. Burrows knew Pepys, and they all sat around for an hour or two discussing ... the weather?"
It was, of course, Mr. Martin ... Lt. Burrows died in 1665. Sorry!
About Abd Allah al-Ghailan ("Guiland", "Gayland")
San Diego Sarah • Link
While Language Hat gives us a great over-view, along the way there were efforts to find a way to live together:
“Guyland” was underwritten by Spain, after 1665 an ally to England in the Second Anglo-Dutch war (as France took Dutch side) and as such got marching orders from Philip.
See page 175,"Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660-1685" by Alan Marshall http://books.google.com/books?id=…
L&M note a treaty of peace and alliance concluded 2 April, 1666, between Charles II and the Berber leader, Ghaïlan:
Enid M. G. Routh, Tangier, England's lost Atlantic outpost, 1661-1684, 1912. p. 90. https://archive.org/stream/tangie…
About Friday 15 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Whether or not Downing is still running the Exchequer ..."
No, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley, who is clearly running things.
HOWEVER, according to Downing's House of Commons biography, he retained the title of Teller of the Exchequer from 1660 until he died.
And in that capacity, when he finally came back from The Hague (where he was Dutch envoy extraordinary, obtaining intelligence with ‘the keys taken out of De Witt’s pocket when he was a-bed’) in 1665 he set himself to improve government credit, much to the disgust of Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who believed that he was chiefly concerned to increase the income from his tellership.
Resuming his seat for the Oxford session, Sir George Downing MP was supported by Secretary of State Sir Henry Bennet and Charles II in taking over from Heneage Finch the management of supply, in which his principal achievement was the Additional Aid Bill.
Aiming to revolutionize public borrowing by appealing to the small investor, Sir George Downing MP revived the principle of appropriating the revenue to specified purposes; but his great innovation (resisted by Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon as an entrenchment on the prerogative) provided for the repayment of loans ‘in course’ instead of by treasury whim or favor.
Returning to London, which was still infected by the plague, Sir George Downing MP used every publicity device available, including advertisements in Sir Joseph Williamson's Gazette and personal application to his acquaintances, to make the loan a success.
Exhausted by Sir George Downing MP’s volubility and pertinacity, one reluctant investor confessed: ‘the beginning, end, and every part of it is to be imputed to him.’
In the next Parliamentary session Sir George Downing MP again took the chair of a committee on trade, which on 8 Oct. 1666 recommended a total prohibition of French imports.
So Downing's not "running" the Exchequer, but he is reforming it (and doubtlessly lining his own pocket at the same time).
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
And, once again, I would suggest to Pepys that he be more generous to the clerks so they want to change his tallys. He sees how it moves Ashley, knows it motivates him, but he won't do it for others.
About Katherine Wheel (Islington)
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Thence Sir W. Pen and I to Islington and there drank at the Katherine Wheele, ..."
"... our grand Tour in the evening, and made it ten at night before we got home, only drink at the doore at Islington at the Katherine Wheel, and so home ..."
So this Katherine Wheel was what we would call a pub, nice enough to be frequented by upper class travelers.
About Thursday 14 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"There's probably considerable fear, even among the landed gentry, right now."
Besides all the logical, totally 21st century reasons for fear cited above, there was also considerable free-floating fear of the end-times in 1666. The date alone, never mind a madman in North Africa claiming to be the Messiah, would have most people on their knees, praying for redemption.
Christians thought the book of Revelations indicated the arrival of the Messiah in 1666.
"During the first half of the 17th century, millenarian ideas of the approach of the Messianic time were popular. They included ideas of the redemption of the Jews and their return to the land of Israel, with independent sovereignty. The apocalyptic year was identified by Christian authors as 1666 and millenarianism was widespread in England. This belief was so prevalent that Manasseh ben Israel, in his letter to Oliver Cromwell and the Rump Parliament 1654, appealed to it as a reason to readmit Jews into England." Which both Cromwell and Charles II agreed to.
'In Smyrna, which Sabbatai Zevi reached in the autumn of 1665, the greatest homage was paid to him. After some hesitation, he publicly declared himself to be the expected Messiah during the (Jewish New Year in 1665); his declaration was made in the synagogue, with the blowing of horns, and shouts of "Long live our King, our Messiah!"'
"The Jewish community of Avignon, France prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom in the spring of 1666."
Queen Christina became so fascinated by Sabbatai Zevi's claims that she almost became a disciple. In Hamburg she danced in the streets with her Jewish friends in anticipation of the apocalyptic moment.
In 1666, at the movement’s height, pamphlets publicizing the unfolding of the redemptive scenario were published, and believers undertook penitential fasts and extreme acts of self-affliction. Some Jews sold their property, with the intention of journeying to the Land of Israel. The commotion was followed closely in Christian circles, especially among Christian millenarians, who were instrumental in the publication of letters, and pamphlets and broadsheets in Italian, German, Dutch and English.
They were more superstitious than we are today.
For more, see http://www.learnkabbalah.com/sabb…
About Walter Raleigh
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sir Walter Raleigh’s body was buried after his execution but his embalmed head was kept by his wife Elizabeth Throgmorton. She kept it in a red leather bag, by her side, for the last 29 years of her life. Their son, Carew, took care of it until his death in 1666.
Carew Raleigh was buried in his father’s grave with the head, but in 1680 Carew was exhumed and re-buried, with his father’s head, in West Horsley, Surrey.
https://www.historic-uk.com/Histo…
About Westminster Hall
San Diego Sarah • Link
I wonder if Pepys ever looked up:
Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, died in 1658, was embalmed and buried in Westminster Abbey after a lavish funeral. After the Restoration his body was disinterred and taken to Tyburn where it was gibbeted until sundown.
The Public Executioner cut down the body and cut off the head which was then impaled on a 25 foot pole on the roof of Westminster Hall. It remained there for over 24 years until 1685 when it was dislodged during a gale. A soldier found the head and hid it in his chimney.
On his deathbed, he bequeathed the relic to his daughter. In 1710 the head appeared in a ‘Freak Show’, described as ‘The Monster’s Head’! For many years the head passed through numerous hands, the value increasing with each transaction until a Dr. Wilkinson bought it.
The head was offered by the Wilkinson family to Sydney Sussex College in 1960, as this was where Oliver Cromwell had studied. It was given a dignified burial in a secret place in the college grounds.
https://www.historic-uk.com/Histo…
About Wednesday 13 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... I with others to White Hall, there to attend again a Committee of Tangier, but there was none, which vexed me to the heart, and makes me mighty doubtfull that when we have one, it will be prejudiced against poor Yeabsly and to my great disadvantage thereby, my Lord Peterborough making it his business, I perceive (whether in spite to me, whom he cannot but smell to be a friend to it, or to my Lord Ashly, I know not), to obstruct it, and seems to take delight in disappointing of us; but I shall be revenged of him."
Another failed attempt to get a quorum to pass Yeabsly's business. It would be interesting to know why Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of Peterborough, who had been Governor at Tangier and should know why they need supplies, was against the deal. Pepys seems to take it personally --???
About St Mary (Whitechapel)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Geoff Minns on 4 Sept., 2011 reported that he had very kindly gone to the Bancroft Library and checked the St. Mary's burial records for 13 June, 1666, and for a week either side of that date.
There is no record of a burial of Sir Christopher Myngs in that period.
He suggested that Myngs' funeral could have been at St. Katherine's by the Tower, but he hadn't checked their records. This would be an easy walking distance of Seething Lane.
There's a lot of information about St. Mary's, Whitechapel, in the annotations on the date linked here.
About Tuesday 12 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Terry's link is right. (Carstares sounds like my parents carrying on about mini-skirts.)
The Scottish Covenanter John Carstares wrote in his 1665 preface to the reader he published on James Durham's "Practical Exposition of the Ten Commandments":
“To over-costly, curious, vain and conceity dressing and decking of the body, and setting of the hair now after one mode, now after another. ... and horrid bushes of vanity, as Mr. [Robert] Bolton calls them, and partly by their variously and strangely metamorphosing modes and colours of periwigs) --
"James Durham goes on (quoting Robert Bolton again at one point), pp. 334-337: “and therefore we say that in men and women both, there is condemned by the Lord:
...
2. Strangeness in the ever-changing fashions, and extravagant modes of apparel; while as the Lord by nature has continued the shape of men's bodies to be the same. ... There is a lightness in clothing as to colour, mounting as they call it, etc, and in dressing of the body, which may be seen in these dressings of the hair, powderings, laces, ribbons, points, etc, which are so much in use with gallants of the time; this, especially in women, is insisted on and condemned (Isa. 3:16-17, etc.) Some things indeed there mentioned are not simply unlawful, especially to persons of higher quality, ...
“There is in clothes a base effeminatenesse amongst men (which someway emasculates or un-mans them) who delight in those things which women dote upon, as dressing of hair, powderings, washing, (when exceeded in) rings, jewels, etc, which are spoken of, and reproved in the daughters of Zion (Isa. 3), and so must be much more unsuitable to men. Also interchanging of apparel is condemned; men putting on women's, and women men's clothes, which is unsuitable to that distinction of sexes which the Lord hath made, and is condemned in the word, as a confusion, an absurd, unnatural thing, and an inlet to much wickedness. Whereof the Dutch annotators, as several fathers did long before them, on 1 Cor. 11:14, make men’s nourishing and wearing of long hair to be some degree, it being given to women, not only for an ornament and covering, but also in part for distinction of the female sex from the male.
“... it will not be impertinent to subjoin a strange story, which learned, pious, and grave Mr. Bolton, in his Four Last Things, p. 40, repeats from his author the famous Herculus Saxonia, professor of physic in Padua:
“’The Plica (saith he) is a most loathsome and horrible disease in the hair, ... And at the first spreading of this dreadful disease in Poland, all that did cut off their horrible and snaky hair, lost their eyes, ... And methinks (says Mr. Bolton) our monstrous fashionists, both male and female, the one for nourishing their horrid bushes of vanity, ...’”
I'm not sure who John Carstares is quoting, Bolton or Durham. There's a nod to Pepys from his first church outing with a wig when no one acted like anything was different.
About Tuesday 12 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Terry's annotations above on cross-dressing are a treat. BUT the Virginia 1665 link does not now lead to the supporting quote, and Minister James Durham died on Friday, 25 June 1658, aged 36 so I don't know what the 1665 date refers to. If I figure it out, I'll let you know. (One can never find too many quotes on periwigs.)
About Tuesday 12 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... and then to White Hall in hopes of a meeting of Tangier about Yeabsly’s business, but it could not be obtained, Sir G. Carteret nor Sir W. Coventry being able to be there ..."
This means they could not find a voting quorum for the Tangier meeting.