The Swan, an eatery with some smaller, more private rooms, was close to Westminster Hall and Pepys’ office in the early days of the Diary.
There is another place named "The Swan in New Palace Yard", but as Pepys always identifies its location, I suspect there were two establishments with the same name in the area.
John, that's delightful. Thanks for adding ... as a suggestion only, this is timeless and as such it would be seen more if you had posted in the Encyclopedia section (Phil has "the bridge" above in blue. Click on that and up comes lots of generic information about London Bridge that can be seen every time there is a Diary reference to "the bridge"). However, this gem will be found every time someone uses the Search for London Bridge.
Looking forward to seeing more gems from you in 2019.
MEANWHILE, in Hanover, Charles II's cousin and Prince Rupert's kid sister has been in labor for 3 days.
Charles and Sophie Pfalz-Simmern, Princess of Palantine had been friends during his exile. By 1650, only Sophia and her sister Louise were living with their mother, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. Sophia received an invitation from her brother, Charles Lewis, who had been restored to the Rhine Palatinate, to come to Heidelberg. Sophia sailed up the Rhine with two of her ladies, but they couldn’t stay at the Heidelberg castle as it had been damaged in the war so they were lodged in a house in town. While there, Sophia caught smallpox. “That year (1650) I had an attack of smallpox which made a great breach in my beauty.”
In 1652, Ernst August, Duke of Hanover and Brunswick-Lüneburg, passed through Heidelberg. They had met once before when he was very young. “He was even handsomer than before,” Sophia wrote about him.
It wasn’t until 17 October 1658 that Sophia Pfalz-Simmern, Princess of Palantine and Ernst August, Duke of Hanover and Brunswick-Lüneburg finally married. It was three days after Sophia’s 28th birthday. She wore a wedding dress “a l’Allemagne” of silver brocade with her hair in loose curls and a “great tiara of diamonds, which belonged to the family.” Her train was carried by four maids of honor. Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, was not present for the wedding.
Sophia and Ernst August went to live in Hanover, and they were welcomed by her mother-in-law at the Leine Schloss.
Sophia soon became pregnant and went into labor on May 25, which lasted an agonizing three days and nights, and neither mother nor child were expected to survive.
Finally, on 28 May 1660, Princess Sophia Pfalz-Simmern, Duchess of Hanover gave birth to the future King George I of Great Britain.
One day later her cousin, Charles II, made his triumphal entry into London as King. Sophia spent the next six weeks in bed.
Putting a bit of toast -- called a sop -- into your small beer or wine was quite normal.
"Recipes for the toasts called for fine white bread, cut and toasted on a fire. Then, they were flavored with sugar, ginger, or green herbs such as borage and sorrel. These dishes was so essential to the British diet that the words “soup” and “supper” are both derived from sop. They snuck into slang, too: “Milksop” was an old-fashioned insult that implied weakness and flabbiness.
"But toasted bread in wine could pack a punch. The politician and philosopher Francis Bacon observed that 'sops in wine, quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine of itself.'”
Tent was wine, as above. But toast was toast (like we know it) floating in an alcoholic beverage:
"Recipes for the toasts called for fine white bread, cut and toasted on a fire. Then, they were flavored with sugar, ginger, or green herbs such as borage and sorrel.
"These dishes was so essential to the British diet that the words “soup” and “supper” are both derived from sop. They snuck into slang, too: “Milksop” was an old-fashioned insult that implied weakness and flabbiness.
"But toasted bread in wine could pack a punch. The politician and philosopher Francis Bacon observed that 'sops in wine, quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine of itself.'"
And from this we derive the verbal "toast" we use today.
The Wikipedia article mentions toast floating on top of the party beverage.
"Recipes for the toasts called for fine white bread, cut and toasted on a fire. Then, they were flavored with sugar, ginger, or green herbs such as borage and sorrel.
"These dishes was so essential to the British diet that the words “soup” and “supper” are both derived from sop. They snuck into slang, too: “Milksop” was an old-fashioned insult that implied weakness and flabbiness.
"But toasted bread in wine could pack a punch. The politician and philosopher Francis Bacon observed that “sops in wine, quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine of itself.”
And from this we derive the verbal "toast" we use today.
Pepys constantly visited “Will’s” in 1660 -- it may be the house of William Joyce, who kept a place of entertainment at Westminster at that time (see Jan. 29 1660).
The Countess of Winchilsea was the long-suffering Mary Seymour (died 1672).
Heneage Finch, 2nd/3rd Earl of Winchilsea was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire 1660-1669, according to the L&M index Pepys calls him "Lord Winchelsea."
Late in 1660 Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchilsea sailed on an important embassy to Sultan Mahomet Chan IV, and published an account of it the same year. Winchilsea remained as English ambassador at Constantinople eight years.
Mary Seymour was Winchilsea's second wife; daughter of William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset and Lady Frances Devereux. They married around 1650.
The first Countess of Winchilsea was his grandmother, made a Countess in her own right. Because she was a woman, there was debate if he should be titled as the 2nd or 3rd Earl. The confusion continues to this day.
Sorry, Bill, the Attorney General is a cousin. The Finches were a big family, and as I recall there were quite a few Heneages. Just like there are too many Thomas Pepys for us to remember which one is which.
Ah, I found it. This was Walshingham's house, which was taken over by the Navy Board in 1656:
Navy Office, Seething Lane Building From 1656 To 1788 Categories: Armed Forces, Politics & Administration
"This is the site of Walsingham's mansion, this was the Navy Office in which Samuel Pepys lived and worked. Survived the Great Fire partly due to Pepys' efforts. Destroyed by another fire in 1673 (where was Pepys?), rebuilt 1674-5 and demolished in 1788 when the office moved to Somerset House."
The Seething Lane property was a big house which the Navy took over and divided up into several townhouses and the offices for the Board. That's why they shared basements, and windows were not always situated where they should be had the houses been designed individually.
Pepys mentions walking across the garden to the office, so I imagine a hollow square block, and the night watchman being needed to show the barber the way out through a maze of buildings, add-ons and passageways.
Sandwich stood back from Pepys' career some time ago; Coventry took over and did some mentoring a couple of years back. Coventry made sure James knew who this ambitious young man was, and Pepys has been reaping the benefits ever since. But Sandwich is his beloved cousin, and family is family. Carteret -- he's a grand old man and part of the old guard, and Pepys needed him for office meetings until Brouncker came along (who knows nothing but wealds an unwarrentedly big stick).
Remembering Downing's recent efforts at manipulating his former clerk, I'm surprised Pepys isn't more wary about pressure from him down the road.
I agree, James, and find it interesting the tradition/custom of showing respect to the King's representatives was not stronger in the 17th century. Mennes had the wartime sailing knowledge to earn their respect, and since Pepys and Brouncker were asking them to implement systems, not telling them how to sail their ships, it shouldn't have been a big deal.
Perhaps Capt. Huge Seymour kept his hat on as a sign of his disrespect for the members of the Navy Board personally, as they had failed to pay his sailors or provision the fleet during the recent fighting?
"I wonder what Will Hewer is up to these days? Too important to be used for such clerical work nowadays?"
I would say he's more important for clerical work now ... Pepys has three departments to keep track of, and now he's current I expect him to hand off some of it to trustworthy people like Hewer. On the other hand, maybe he's making the weekly visits to the dockyards that Pepys was doing a year ago.
I wish Pepys told us more about his personal relationships, not only Hewer, but also how his boy is doing ... is Elizabeth still spoiling him, for instance? Not much time these days for meditating on personal relationships besides his conquests and singing partners. Maybe in 1666 ...?
The Italians taught the British accounting (which is why we have an L to denote the pound; it came to us from the sign for the Lira).
Benedetto Cotrugli's 1458 treatise "Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto" contains the earliest-known description of a double-entry bookkeeping system, but his manuscript was not published until 1573.
Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and collaborator of Leonardo da Vinci, codified the system in his mathematics textbook "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" published in Venice in 1494. Pacioli is often called the "father of accounting" because he was the first to publish a detailed description of the double-entry system, thus enabling others to study and use it.
Johan de Witt was a financial wizard and wrote treatise on things like mathematical curves and annuities with Descartes.
In the latter part of the 17th century "writing schools" opened in England which also taught bookkeeping, so the merchant class could get educated workers.
I bet they taught bookkeeping at the Merchant Taylors school. Maybe the grammar schools who were turning out gentlemen Latin scholars for Oxford and Cambridge did not -- but Warren and Cocke knew a debit from a credit. (You don't get to build those big country houses based on confusion.)
Yes, Bradford, they do know about double-entry bookkeeping. The Italians taught the British accounting (which is why we have an L to denote the pound; it came to us from the sign for the Lira!).
Benedetto Cotrugli's 1458 treatise "Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto" contains the earliest-known description of a double-entry bookkeeping system, but his manuscript was not published until 1573.
Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and collaborator of Leonardo da Vinci, codified the system in his mathematics textbook "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" published in Venice in 1494. Pacioli is often called the "father of accounting" because he was the first to publish a detailed description of the double-entry system, thus enabling others to study and use it.
Johan de Witt was a financial wizard and wrote treatise on things like mathematical curves and annuities with Descartes.
In the latter part of the 17th century "writing schools" opened in England which also taught bookkeeping, so the merchant class could get educated workers. I bet they taught bookkeeping at Merchant Taylors. Maybe the grammar schools who were turning out gentlemen Latin scholars for Oxford and Cambridge did not -- but Warren and Cocke knew a debit from a credit. (You don't get to build those big country houses based on confusion.)
Comments
Second Reading
About Tuesday 14 February 1659/60
San Diego Sarah • Link
"So home, and wrote a letter to my Lord by the post. "
Another day of intelligence gathering for Montagu.
About Swan (Westminster)
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Swan, an eatery with some smaller, more private rooms, was close to Westminster Hall and Pepys’ office in the early days of the Diary.
There is another place named "The Swan in New Palace Yard", but as Pepys always identifies its location, I suspect there were two establishments with the same name in the area.
About Wednesday 26 December 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
John, that's delightful. Thanks for adding ... as a suggestion only, this is timeless and as such it would be seen more if you had posted in the Encyclopedia section (Phil has "the bridge" above in blue. Click on that and up comes lots of generic information about London Bridge that can be seen every time there is a Diary reference to "the bridge"). However, this gem will be found every time someone uses the Search for London Bridge.
Looking forward to seeing more gems from you in 2019.
About Monday 28 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
MEANWHILE, in Hanover, Charles II's cousin and Prince Rupert's kid sister has been in labor for 3 days.
Charles and Sophie Pfalz-Simmern, Princess of Palantine had been friends during his exile. By 1650, only Sophia and her sister Louise were living with their mother, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. Sophia received an invitation from her brother, Charles Lewis, who had been restored to the Rhine Palatinate, to come to Heidelberg. Sophia sailed up the Rhine with two of her ladies, but they couldn’t stay at the Heidelberg castle as it had been damaged in the war so they were lodged in a house in town. While there, Sophia caught smallpox. “That year (1650) I had an attack of smallpox which made a great breach in my beauty.”
In 1652, Ernst August, Duke of Hanover and Brunswick-Lüneburg, passed through Heidelberg. They had met once before when he was very young. “He was even handsomer than before,” Sophia wrote about him.
It wasn’t until 17 October 1658 that Sophia Pfalz-Simmern, Princess of Palantine and Ernst August, Duke of Hanover and Brunswick-Lüneburg finally married. It was three days after Sophia’s 28th birthday. She wore a wedding dress “a l’Allemagne” of silver brocade with her hair in loose curls and a “great tiara of diamonds, which belonged to the family.” Her train was carried by four maids of honor. Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, was not present for the wedding.
Sophia and Ernst August went to live in Hanover, and they were welcomed by her mother-in-law at the Leine Schloss.
Sophia soon became pregnant and went into labor on May 25, which lasted an agonizing three days and nights, and neither mother nor child were expected to survive.
Finally, on 28 May 1660, Princess Sophia Pfalz-Simmern, Duchess of Hanover gave birth to the future King George I of Great Britain.
One day later her cousin, Charles II, made his triumphal entry into London as King. Sophia spent the next six weeks in bed.
For more of Princess Sophia's saga see:
https://www.historyofroyalwomen.c…
About Wednesday 27 December 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
You have a point, Gerald. And a Happy New Year to you too.
About Sunday 14 September 1662
San Diego Sarah • Link
Putting a bit of toast -- called a sop -- into your small beer or wine was quite normal.
"Recipes for the toasts called for fine white bread, cut and toasted on a fire. Then, they were flavored with sugar, ginger, or green herbs such as borage and sorrel. These dishes was so essential to the British diet that the words “soup” and “supper” are both derived from sop. They snuck into slang, too: “Milksop” was an old-fashioned insult that implied weakness and flabbiness.
"But toasted bread in wine could pack a punch. The politician and philosopher Francis Bacon observed that 'sops in wine, quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine of itself.'”
Good enough for Sir Francis, good enough for me!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/arti…
About Tuesday 26 July 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
Tent was wine, as above. But toast was toast (like we know it) floating in an alcoholic beverage:
"Recipes for the toasts called for fine white bread, cut and toasted on a fire. Then, they were flavored with sugar, ginger, or green herbs such as borage and sorrel.
"These dishes was so essential to the British diet that the words “soup” and “supper” are both derived from sop. They snuck into slang, too: “Milksop” was an old-fashioned insult that implied weakness and flabbiness.
"But toasted bread in wine could pack a punch. The politician and philosopher Francis Bacon observed that 'sops in wine, quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine of itself.'"
And from this we derive the verbal "toast" we use today.
For more information, see:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/arti…
About Wassail, Wassell
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Wikipedia article mentions toast floating on top of the party beverage.
"Recipes for the toasts called for fine white bread, cut and toasted on a fire. Then, they were flavored with sugar, ginger, or green herbs such as borage and sorrel.
"These dishes was so essential to the British diet that the words “soup” and “supper” are both derived from sop. They snuck into slang, too: “Milksop” was an old-fashioned insult that implied weakness and flabbiness.
"But toasted bread in wine could pack a punch. The politician and philosopher Francis Bacon observed that “sops in wine, quantity for quantity, inebriate more than wine of itself.”
And from this we derive the verbal "toast" we use today.
For more information, see:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/arti…
About Will's ale house (Old Palace Yard)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys constantly visited “Will’s” in 1660 -- it may be the house of William Joyce, who kept a place of entertainment at Westminster at that time (see Jan. 29 1660).
About Wednesday 21 November 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Countess of Winchilsea was the long-suffering Mary Seymour (died 1672).
Heneage Finch, 2nd/3rd Earl of Winchilsea was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire 1660-1669, according to the L&M index Pepys calls him "Lord Winchelsea."
Late in 1660 Heneage Finch, Earl of Winchilsea sailed on an important embassy to Sultan Mahomet Chan IV, and published an account of it the same year. Winchilsea remained as English ambassador at Constantinople eight years.
Mary Seymour was Winchilsea's second wife; daughter of William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset and Lady Frances Devereux. They married around 1650.
The first Countess of Winchilsea was his grandmother, made a Countess in her own right. Because she was a woman, there was debate if he should be titled as the 2nd or 3rd Earl. The confusion continues to this day.
About Heneage Finch (2nd Earl of Winchilsea)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sorry, Bill, the Attorney General is a cousin. The Finches were a big family, and as I recall there were quite a few Heneages. Just like there are too many Thomas Pepys for us to remember which one is which.
About Wednesday 21 November 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Ah, I found it. This was Walshingham's house, which was taken over by the Navy Board in 1656:
Navy Office, Seething Lane
Building From 1656 To 1788
Categories: Armed Forces, Politics & Administration
"This is the site of Walsingham's mansion, this was the Navy Office in which Samuel Pepys lived and worked. Survived the Great Fire partly due to Pepys' efforts. Destroyed by another fire in 1673 (where was Pepys?), rebuilt 1674-5 and demolished in 1788 when the office moved to Somerset House."
https://www.londonremembers.com/s…
About Wednesday 21 November 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Seething Lane property was a big house which the Navy took over and divided up into several townhouses and the offices for the Board. That's why they shared basements, and windows were not always situated where they should be had the houses been designed individually.
Pepys mentions walking across the garden to the office, so I imagine a hollow square block, and the night watchman being needed to show the barber the way out through a maze of buildings, add-ons and passageways.
About Sunday 7 January 1665/66
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... stand on my own legs"
Sandwich stood back from Pepys' career some time ago; Coventry took over and did some mentoring a couple of years back. Coventry made sure James knew who this ambitious young man was, and Pepys has been reaping the benefits ever since. But Sandwich is his beloved cousin, and family is family. Carteret -- he's a grand old man and part of the old guard, and Pepys needed him for office meetings until Brouncker came along (who knows nothing but wealds an unwarrentedly big stick).
Remembering Downing's recent efforts at manipulating his former clerk, I'm surprised Pepys isn't more wary about pressure from him down the road.
About Tuesday 26 December 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
I agree, James, and find it interesting the tradition/custom of showing respect to the King's representatives was not stronger in the 17th century. Mennes had the wartime sailing knowledge to earn their respect, and since Pepys and Brouncker were asking them to implement systems, not telling them how to sail their ships, it shouldn't have been a big deal.
Perhaps Capt. Huge Seymour kept his hat on as a sign of his disrespect for the members of the Navy Board personally, as they had failed to pay his sailors or provision the fleet during the recent fighting?
About Tuesday 2 January 1665/66
San Diego Sarah • Link
Just as well Monck cancelled the Christmas break ... Pepys is wearing out all the scribes cranking out that monster proposal.
About Monday 1 January 1665/66
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I wonder what Will Hewer is up to these days? Too important to be used for such clerical work nowadays?"
I would say he's more important for clerical work now ... Pepys has three departments to keep track of, and now he's current I expect him to hand off some of it to trustworthy people like Hewer. On the other hand, maybe he's making the weekly visits to the dockyards that Pepys was doing a year ago.
I wish Pepys told us more about his personal relationships, not only Hewer, but also how his boy is doing ... is Elizabeth still spoiling him, for instance? Not much time these days for meditating on personal relationships besides his conquests and singing partners. Maybe in 1666 ...?
About Financial transactions
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Italians taught the British accounting (which is why we have an L to denote the pound; it came to us from the sign for the Lira).
Benedetto Cotrugli's 1458 treatise "Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto" contains the earliest-known description of a double-entry bookkeeping system, but his manuscript was not published until 1573.
Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and collaborator of Leonardo da Vinci, codified the system in his mathematics textbook "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" published in Venice in 1494. Pacioli is often called the "father of accounting" because he was the first to publish a detailed description of the double-entry system, thus enabling others to study and use it.
Johan de Witt was a financial wizard and wrote treatise on things like mathematical curves and annuities with Descartes.
In the latter part of the 17th century "writing schools" opened in England which also taught bookkeeping, so the merchant class could get educated workers.
I bet they taught bookkeeping at the Merchant Taylors school. Maybe the grammar schools who were turning out gentlemen Latin scholars for Oxford and Cambridge did not -- but Warren and Cocke knew a debit from a credit. (You don't get to build those big country houses based on confusion.)
About Saturday 30 December 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
"He doesn't do double entry, does he?"
Yes, Bradford, they do know about double-entry bookkeeping. The Italians taught the British accounting (which is why we have an L to denote the pound; it came to us from the sign for the Lira!).
Benedetto Cotrugli's 1458 treatise "Della mercatura e del mercante perfetto" contains the earliest-known description of a double-entry bookkeeping system, but his manuscript was not published until 1573.
Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and collaborator of Leonardo da Vinci, codified the system in his mathematics textbook "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" published in Venice in 1494. Pacioli is often called the "father of accounting" because he was the first to publish a detailed description of the double-entry system, thus enabling others to study and use it.
Johan de Witt was a financial wizard and wrote treatise on things like mathematical curves and annuities with Descartes.
In the latter part of the 17th century "writing schools" opened in England which also taught bookkeeping, so the merchant class could get educated workers. I bet they taught bookkeeping at Merchant Taylors. Maybe the grammar schools who were turning out gentlemen Latin scholars for Oxford and Cambridge did not -- but Warren and Cocke knew a debit from a credit. (You don't get to build those big country houses based on confusion.)
About Saturday 23 December 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
It has been an "interesting" year for many of us! Nuff said. 2019 must be better.