Bankside is a loosely-defined area along the south bank of the Thames in the borough of Southwark. Bankside is also the name of a street in the district, which lies between Blackfriars Bridge (west) and London Bridge (east) and more or less defines the southern extent of the area.
Near the southern approach to the current London Bridge stands Southwark Cathedral, built in the 13th-century, but largely rebuilt in the 19th century. The cathedral contains the tombs of many famous people, including the poet John Gower, playwright John Fletcher, and memorials to the engraver Wenzel Hollar, William Shakespeare, and the American actor Sam Wanamaker (driving force behind building the new Globe Theatre finished in 1997).
The original Globe Theatre (1599) and other theatres and bear gardens (venues for bearbaiting) also stood in Bankside, located strategically just outside the city’s jurisdiction. The district became the residence of actors and the site of brothels. Cromwell closed them down.
In the 18th century it was known for its manufacturing industries, gardens, and public houses, and in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was an area of wharves and warehouses.
In the awful days of 1665, as the plague swept across London, it was Lord Mayor Sir John Lawrence who, when Charles II with his Court, the gentry and the wealthy classes left the city, assured the terrified citizens that he, his sheriffs and aldermen would stay to provide order and justice.
Quickly Lawrence and his councilors issued Plague Orders – regulations copied from the modus operandi of Italian authorities who were familiar with the plague.
Lawrence appointed watchmen to attend to affected households; employed women 'searchers' to seek out the bodies; and appointed physicians to help prevent infection.
They also punished the inevitable looters and plunderers of the sick and dying, while dealing with the increasingly-desperate populace with consideration.
In particular, Lawrences succeeded in keeping the bread ovens baking and food supplies plentiful, which earned him considerable praise.
As The City Remembrancer later recalled: “Everything was managed with so much care and such excellent order observed in the whole city, and suburbs, that London may be a pattern and example to all cities of the world for the good government and excellent order that was everywhere kept even in the most violent infection and when the people were in the utmost consternation and distress.”
Sept. 5. increased 6978. plague - 8252. died, they ordered continual fires in London for 3 days and nights at every door. Lord cease thy hand, god good in his word to us, the weather wet and stormy.
http://linux02.lib.cam.ac.uk/earl… I guess Monck and Craven thought the night fires might purify the bad air? Hard to keep a fire going in the rain, especially if you are already entombed in your house. I recall Pepys remarking on the link lights showing where the corpses were in the street sometime last week, but can't find the reference. Or maybe this happened on nights when he was away?
"Interesting that Pepys refers to Woolwich as "home" in this entry."
Home is where you hang your hat, or in this case, red silk suit and periwigg. Since all the staff had now moved to Woolwich, Pepys must follow the cook and laundry maid -- and the locked trunk -- like it or not.
He was more dependent on others than we are today. They lived cooperatively -- shared food, beds, housing and horses, considering the staff as family. Even dressing himself correctly for a day at the office (which could easily lead to a visit with the Duke of York at St. James's Palace) was probably impossible.
Reading all this through again I realize Sandwich did catch them today. Ignore last line of above post ... excellent sailing / navigation on the part of all.
“… it was agreed to continue along the south side of Dogger Bank.”
Since we don't page a Dogger Bank page, and I've posted the long version of this before, just a reminder:
Few parts of the North Sea are more than 300 feet (90 metres) in depth. The floor dips to the north and is irregular.
In the south, depths measure less than 120 feet (35 metres); many shallow, shifting banks, presumably of glacial origin, have been reworked by tidal currents. These present serious navigational hazards."
The Dutch took the southern route because it would be hard for the English fleet to catch the slower East Indiamen since they can't tack/sail towards them because of the shifting banks.
Sandwich must have been frustrated knowing they were so near, and yet so far.
SEPTEMBER 29 is Michaelmas, a day for settling one's debts. Strange no one owed Pepys anything, and Pepys owed nothing to anyone else.
"And when the tenauntes come To paie their quarter's rent, They bring some fowle at Midsummer A dish of fish in Lent At Christmas, a capon, At Michaelmas, a goose, And somewhat else at New Yere's tide For feare the lease flie loose." -- George Gascoine, English poet, 1577
“Michaelmas” is the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of the sea and boats, horses and horsemen. “Michaelmas Day” is the final day of the Harvest Season, and it was also the first day of the winter night curfew and the church bells would ring once for each night of the year until that point.
There are four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day [25 March], Midsummer [24 June], Michaelmas [29 September] and Christmas [25 December]). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes.
They were the four dates on which servants were hired, rents due or leases begun. It was said that harvest had to be completed by Michaelmas, almost like the marking of the end of the productive season and the beginning of the new cycle of farming. It was the time at which new servants were hired or land was exchanged, and debts were paid. This is how it came to be for Michaelmas to be the time for electing magistrates and also the beginning of legal and university terms.
Michaelmas Superstitions – The devil stomps or spits on bramble bushes so don’t pick Blackberries after Michaelmas.
– In Northern England and Ireland if you eat goose this day you will have good luck for the rest of the year.
– In Ireland if you found the ring hidden in the Michaelmas pie you would soon marry.
Meanwhile, over at Whitehall Palace, the Lord Steward, James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, dismisses 300 courtiers without compensation ... including nobles who had paid for their places at Court. Economies of scale, I suppose.
The Anglican parish church of Greenwich, Kent is built on the site where St. Alfege was killed by the Danes in 1012 AD. St. Alfege was Archbishop of Canterbury, and taken hostage by the Danes after they burnt down his cathedral during a raid on Canterbury. They brought him to Greenwich, hoping to ransom him for 3,000 gold marks. St. Alfege refused to be ransomed, knowing the loss of so much money could mean starvation for many of his people, and as a result he was martyred. I haven’t found any Pepys mentions, but lots of famous people went there. The church you see today (lovely pictures on the website below; note how close it is to the docks) are of the rebuilt church by Nicholas Hawksworth in the early 18th century. https://www.st-alfege.org/Groups/…
"I marvel that Pepys can write so many letters and have them delivered. Evidently the Post Office delivers through fire, famine, pestilence, and plague."
I agree that in normal times there would be reliable, regular, public postal service between the towns of Greenwich and London. It was picked up at local spots throughout the town, went to a central sorting place where it was given to the appropriate waggonman, carried to another central sorting place in the destination town, resorted and sent on to community locations where people could walk to pick it up. Just how "normal" these days were for the postal system, who knows.
My guess is the Navy Board Offices, Ropeyard, and Shipbuilding Yards generated enough internal mail to support a private service -- it probably extended to the Duke of York's offices at St. James's, where Coventry usually worked. (Corporations do this today for things that can't go by email.)
Yesterday Tom moved to Woolwich with the rest of the Pepys' household, so he had Tom to run personal errands (as delivering an invitation for music and dinner must be). Plus I assume Hill and Andrews no longer lived in London, so Tom would need to know where to find them.
We know the Navy Board complex at Seething Lane employed two runners. Probably the dockyard management had some boys standing by for errands. If all else failed, boys on the street needing a few bob would be delighted to run errands.
Unless Pepys spells it out, we can only guess. Since his Diary is all about him, these "housekeeping" details are just guesses, some more educated than others.
There are a couple of material errors in the L&M entry above. Since I am not a fan of Wikipedia, I have used Howard's biography from the House of Commons website.
Sir Philip Howard MP, Captain of the King's Lifeguard (1631-1686) -- kt. 1660 -- Brother of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle ( https://www.historyofparliamenton… ): Captain of the King's Lifeguard 1660-1678; M.P. for Malton 1659-1660, 1660 Carlisle 1661-1681.
'He discourses as well as ever I heard man' ( http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… ). Pepys probably knew him because Howard and his partner, Francis Watson, were involved in a Bill to protect their invention for sheathing hulls with lead which lasted from 1668 - 1671. Since none of Howard’s speeches in Parliament is recorded, Pepys may not have been objective.
As a Westminster justice, Sir Philip Howard MP took the deposition of his disreputable nephew, Capt. Charles Atkins, on the Popish Plot. Atkins was also Pepys’ manservant.
Howard was appointed Governor of Jamaica, but never left England because of ill health, from which he died.
Perhaps uninvolved people didn't care if looting had happened; there was no police force to report it to if someone did care. No reports = no statistics = nothing for accountant Pepys to report.
Monck, Craven and the troops were there to prevent insurrections against the King and the ruling classes, not looting.
The night watchmen were often old, and at the best of times did little to prevent robberies. The aggrieved party or bail bondsmen were responsible for catching the perpertrator(s).
Plus I like the annotation from the other day when someone suggested there was an apprentice with a large cudgel sleeping under every shop counter.
Law and Order were tiny concepts then, and in times of urban stress they usually disappear even now. I find it difficult to call the theft of food from closed stores by hungry people after a flood as the crime of looting. Washing machines and TVs yes, food, clean water, tools, ladders, even dry clothing and bedding, not so much. I'm in favor of after-the-fact restitution (not sure how that would work). I think of the plague in the same classification of urban stress as a flood.
Looting as part of a riot would come under Craven and Monck. They would be concerned about capturing and executing the fanatiques and trouble-makers, not preventing damage to the average person's property. A rich person's property -- probably a different story, but they probably had some servants/guards on site.
Along this line of thought, I bet the Navy Office complex left some guards and maintenance people there. If there was no housing for Pepys at Greenwich, there would be none for these folk (taken from a 1663 annotation):
"The rest of the staff served everyone: two messengers, a doorkeeper, a porter and couple of watchmen; and there were boatmen ready to take all the board official up or down river at all times." As I recall, the doorkeeper's wife lived in the Seething Lane complex as well.
"... and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them."
Anyone know why Quakers didn't want the bell rung when they died? Wikipedia says they were dumped into the plague pits along with other poor, uncounted people. This must be symbolic of something. Google search hasn't been helpful.
"Thursday 24 August 1665 "... At noon down to Sir J. Minnes and Lord Bruncker to Greenwich to sign some of the Treasurer’s books, and there dined very well; and thence to look upon our rooms again at the King’s house, which are not yet ready for us."
I read this to say that the Navy Offices were to be in the King's House at Greenwich Palace. Pepys is never this specific on the location again.
Why were people -- including Tomlinson -- surprised by Pepys leaving?
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… "Saturday 19 August 1665 "Slept till 8 o’clock, and then up and met with letters from the King and Lord Arlington, for the removal of our office to Greenwich."
One reason Louis XIV may have left Paris was the stench ... and I suspect London smelled much the same. I can't think of any reason London would be any more sanitary than Paris.
During the years of Pepys Diary, Louis XIV and Finance Minister Colbert were doing their best to control the smelly "mud" -- as described here by the author of a book about the Poison Affair (which also coincided with the Diary): https://undark.org/article/wilo-p…...
"... says he, there died nine this week, though I have returned but six: which is a very ill practice, and makes me think it is so in other places; and therefore the plague much greater than people take it to be."
America had the same problem last year, and did far worse than the Stuart statisticians:
"Officials in Puerto Rico now say 2,975 people died following Hurricane Maria - a devastating storm that struck the US island territory in September 2017. The revised death toll is nearly 50 times the previous estimate of 64."
Comments
Second Reading
About Bankside
San Diego Sarah • Link
Bankside is a loosely-defined area along the south bank of the Thames in the borough of Southwark. Bankside is also the name of a street in the district, which lies between Blackfriars Bridge (west) and London Bridge (east) and more or less defines the southern extent of the area.
Near the southern approach to the current London Bridge stands Southwark Cathedral, built in the 13th-century, but largely rebuilt in the 19th century. The cathedral contains the tombs of many famous people, including the poet John Gower, playwright John Fletcher, and memorials to the engraver Wenzel Hollar, William Shakespeare, and the American actor Sam Wanamaker (driving force behind building the new Globe Theatre finished in 1997).
The original Globe Theatre (1599) and other theatres and bear gardens (venues for bearbaiting) also stood in Bankside, located strategically just outside the city’s jurisdiction. The district became the residence of actors and the site of brothels. Cromwell closed them down.
In the 18th century it was known for its manufacturing industries, gardens, and public houses, and in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was an area of wharves and warehouses.
More info and pictures: https://www.britannica.com/place/…
About Sir John Lawrence (Lord Mayor 1664-5)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sir John Lawrence, Lord Mayor of London 1664–65
In the awful days of 1665, as the plague swept across London, it was Lord Mayor Sir John Lawrence who, when Charles II with his Court, the gentry and the wealthy classes left the city, assured the terrified citizens that he, his sheriffs and aldermen would stay to provide order and justice.
Quickly Lawrence and his councilors issued Plague Orders – regulations copied from the modus operandi of Italian authorities who were familiar with the plague.
Lawrence appointed watchmen to attend to affected households; employed women 'searchers' to seek out the bodies; and appointed physicians to help prevent infection.
They also punished the inevitable looters and plunderers of the sick and dying, while dealing with the increasingly-desperate populace with consideration.
In particular, Lawrences succeeded in keeping the bread ovens baking and food supplies plentiful, which earned him considerable praise.
As The City Remembrancer later recalled: “Everything was managed with so much care and such excellent order observed in the whole city, and suburbs, that London may be a pattern and example to all cities of the world for the good government and excellent order that was everywhere kept even in the most violent infection and when the people were in the utmost consternation and distress.”
For more information https://www.historyextra.com/peri…
About Ald. Sir Theophilus Biddulph
San Diego Sarah • Link
I saw the Biddulph name today, along with this glorious photograph of their family home, Rodmarton Manor in Gloucestershire:
https://www.facebook.com/sharer.p…
It says it is a fine example of the Arts and Crafts tradition, but it looks like its roots survive. And how many Biddulph families can there be???
About Tuesday 5 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
Rev. Josselin:
Sept. 5. increased 6978. plague - 8252. died, they ordered continual fires in London for 3 days and nights at every door. Lord cease thy hand, god good in his word to us, the weather wet and stormy.
http://linux02.lib.cam.ac.uk/earl…
I guess Monck and Craven thought the night fires might purify the bad air? Hard to keep a fire going in the rain, especially if you are already entombed in your house. I recall Pepys remarking on the link lights showing where the corpses were in the street sometime last week, but can't find the reference. Or maybe this happened on nights when he was away?
About Hereford, Herefordshire
San Diego Sarah • Link
For a look at how wealthy the butcher of Hereford was in Pepys' day, take a look at his house:
http://englishbuildings.blogspot.…
About Monday 4 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Interesting that Pepys refers to Woolwich as "home" in this entry."
Home is where you hang your hat, or in this case, red silk suit and periwigg. Since all the staff had now moved to Woolwich, Pepys must follow the cook and laundry maid -- and the locked trunk -- like it or not.
He was more dependent on others than we are today. They lived cooperatively -- shared food, beds, housing and horses, considering the staff as family. Even dressing himself correctly for a day at the office (which could easily lead to a visit with the Duke of York at St. James's Palace) was probably impossible.
About Sunday 3 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
Reading all this through again I realize Sandwich did catch them today. Ignore last line of above post ... excellent sailing / navigation on the part of all.
About Sunday 3 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
“… it was agreed to continue along the south side of Dogger Bank.”
Since we don't page a Dogger Bank page, and I've posted the long version of this before, just a reminder:
Few parts of the North Sea are more than 300 feet (90 metres) in depth. The floor dips to the north and is irregular.
In the south, depths measure less than 120 feet (35 metres); many shallow, shifting banks, presumably of glacial origin, have been reworked by tidal currents. These present serious navigational hazards."
The Dutch took the southern route because it would be hard for the English fleet to catch the slower East Indiamen since they can't tack/sail towards them because of the shifting banks.
Sandwich must have been frustrated knowing they were so near, and yet so far.
About Sunday 3 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thank you Mary K! My proofreading at midnight frequently gets me into trouble.
About Tuesday 29 September 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
SEPTEMBER 29 is Michaelmas, a day for settling one's debts. Strange no one owed Pepys anything, and Pepys owed nothing to anyone else.
"And when the tenauntes come
To paie their quarter's rent,
They bring some fowle at Midsummer
A dish of fish in Lent
At Christmas, a capon,
At Michaelmas, a goose,
And somewhat else at New Yere's tide
For feare the lease flie loose."
-- George Gascoine, English poet, 1577
“Michaelmas” is the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, the patron saint of the sea and boats, horses and horsemen. “Michaelmas Day” is the final day of the Harvest Season, and it was also the first day of the winter night curfew and the church bells would ring once for each night of the year until that point.
There are four “quarter days” in a year (Lady Day [25 March], Midsummer [24 June], Michaelmas [29 September] and Christmas [25 December]). They are spaced three months apart, on religious festivals, usually close to the solstices or equinoxes.
They were the four dates on which servants were hired, rents due or leases begun. It was said that harvest had to be completed by Michaelmas, almost like the marking of the end of the productive season and the beginning of the new cycle of farming. It was the time at which new servants were hired or land was exchanged, and debts were paid. This is how it came to be for Michaelmas to be the time for electing magistrates and also the beginning of legal and university terms.
Michaelmas Superstitions
– The devil stomps or spits on bramble bushes so don’t pick Blackberries after Michaelmas.
– In Northern England and Ireland if you eat goose this day you will have good luck for the rest of the year.
– In Ireland if you found the ring hidden in the Michaelmas pie you would soon marry.
https://englishhistoryauthors.blo…
Meanwhile, over at Whitehall Palace, the Lord Steward, James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, dismisses 300 courtiers without compensation ... including nobles who had paid for their places at Court. Economies of scale, I suppose.
About Sunday 3 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Anglican parish church of Greenwich, Kent is built on the site where St. Alfege was killed by the Danes in 1012 AD. St. Alfege was Archbishop of Canterbury, and taken hostage by the Danes after they burnt down his cathedral during a raid on Canterbury. They brought him to Greenwich, hoping to ransom him for 3,000 gold marks. St. Alfege refused to be ransomed, knowing the loss of so much money could mean starvation for many of his people, and as a result he was martyred. I haven’t found any Pepys mentions, but lots of famous people went there. The church you see today (lovely pictures on the website below; note how close it is to the docks) are of the rebuilt church by Nicholas Hawksworth in the early 18th century. https://www.st-alfege.org/Groups/…
About Saturday 2 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I marvel that Pepys can write so many letters and have them delivered. Evidently the Post Office delivers through fire, famine, pestilence, and plague."
I agree that in normal times there would be reliable, regular, public postal service between the towns of Greenwich and London. It was picked up at local spots throughout the town, went to a central sorting place where it was given to the appropriate waggonman, carried to another central sorting place in the destination town, resorted and sent on to community locations where people could walk to pick it up. Just how "normal" these days were for the postal system, who knows.
My guess is the Navy Board Offices, Ropeyard, and Shipbuilding Yards generated enough internal mail to support a private service -- it probably extended to the Duke of York's offices at St. James's, where Coventry usually worked. (Corporations do this today for things that can't go by email.)
Yesterday Tom moved to Woolwich with the rest of the Pepys' household, so he had Tom to run personal errands (as delivering an invitation for music and dinner must be). Plus I assume Hill and Andrews no longer lived in London, so Tom would need to know where to find them.
We know the Navy Board complex at Seething Lane employed two runners. Probably the dockyard management had some boys standing by for errands. If all else failed, boys on the street needing a few bob would be delighted to run errands.
Unless Pepys spells it out, we can only guess. Since his Diary is all about him, these "housekeeping" details are just guesses, some more educated than others.
For more general info. try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lond…
About Sir Philip Howard (Captain of the King's Lifeguard, MP Carlisle)
San Diego Sarah • Link
There are a couple of material errors in the L&M entry above. Since I am not a fan of Wikipedia, I have used Howard's biography from the House of Commons website.
Sir Philip Howard MP, Captain of the King's Lifeguard (1631-1686) -- kt. 1660 -- Brother of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle
( https://www.historyofparliamenton… ): Captain of the King's Lifeguard 1660-1678; M.P. for Malton 1659-1660, 1660 Carlisle 1661-1681.
'He discourses as well as ever I heard man'
( http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… ). Pepys probably knew him because Howard and his partner, Francis Watson, were involved in a Bill to protect their invention for sheathing hulls with lead which lasted from 1668 - 1671. Since none of Howard’s speeches in Parliament is recorded, Pepys may not have been objective.
As a Westminster justice, Sir Philip Howard MP took the deposition of his disreputable nephew, Capt. Charles Atkins, on the Popish Plot. Atkins was also Pepys’ manservant.
Howard was appointed Governor of Jamaica, but never left England because of ill health, from which he died.
About Wednesday 30 August 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
Perhaps uninvolved people didn't care if looting had happened; there was no police force to report it to if someone did care. No reports = no statistics = nothing for accountant Pepys to report.
Monck, Craven and the troops were there to prevent insurrections against the King and the ruling classes, not looting.
The night watchmen were often old, and at the best of times did little to prevent robberies. The aggrieved party or bail bondsmen were responsible for catching the perpertrator(s).
Plus I like the annotation from the other day when someone suggested there was an apprentice with a large cudgel sleeping under every shop counter.
Law and Order were tiny concepts then, and in times of urban stress they usually disappear even now. I find it difficult to call the theft of food from closed stores by hungry people after a flood as the crime of looting. Washing machines and TVs yes, food, clean water, tools, ladders, even dry clothing and bedding, not so much. I'm in favor of after-the-fact restitution (not sure how that would work). I think of the plague in the same classification of urban stress as a flood.
Looting as part of a riot would come under Craven and Monck. They would be concerned about capturing and executing the fanatiques and trouble-makers, not preventing damage to the average person's property. A rich person's property -- probably a different story, but they probably had some servants/guards on site.
Along this line of thought, I bet the Navy Office complex left some guards and maintenance people there. If there was no housing for Pepys at Greenwich, there would be none for these folk (taken from a 1663 annotation):
"The rest of the staff served everyone: two messengers, a doorkeeper, a porter and couple of watchmen; and there were boatmen ready to take all the board official up or down river at all times." As I recall, the doorkeeper's wife lived in the Seething Lane complex as well.
About Thursday 31 August 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thanks, Cazbot. Very helpful -- there's so much to learn!
About Thursday 31 August 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them."
Anyone know why Quakers didn't want the bell rung when they died? Wikipedia says they were dumped into the plague pits along with other poor, uncounted people. This must be symbolic of something. Google search hasn't been helpful.
About Navy Office (Greenwich Palace)
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Thursday 24 August 1665
"... At noon down to Sir J. Minnes and Lord Bruncker to Greenwich to sign some of the Treasurer’s books, and there dined very well; and thence to look upon our rooms again at the King’s house, which are not yet ready for us."
I read this to say that the Navy Offices were to be in the King's House at Greenwich Palace. Pepys is never this specific on the location again.
About Thursday 31 August 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
Why were people -- including Tomlinson -- surprised by Pepys leaving?
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
"Saturday 19 August 1665
"Slept till 8 o’clock, and then up and met with letters from the King and Lord Arlington, for the removal of our office to Greenwich."
He got his orders.
About Paris, France
San Diego Sarah • Link
One reason Louis XIV may have left Paris was the stench ... and I suspect London smelled much the same. I can't think of any reason London would be any more sanitary than Paris.
During the years of Pepys Diary, Louis XIV and Finance Minister Colbert were doing their best to control the smelly "mud" -- as described here by the author of a book about the Poison Affair (which also coincided with the Diary):
https://undark.org/article/wilo-p…...
About Wednesday 30 August 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... says he, there died nine this week, though I have returned but six: which is a very ill practice, and makes me think it is so in other places; and therefore the plague much greater than people take it to be."
America had the same problem last year, and did far worse than the Stuart statisticians:
"Officials in Puerto Rico now say 2,975 people died following Hurricane Maria - a devastating storm that struck the US island territory in September 2017. The revised death toll is nearly 50 times the previous estimate of 64."