"Up very betimes, and walked to my cozen Anthony Joyce’s, and thence with him to his brother Will, in Tuttle Street, where I find him pretty cheery ..."
From yesterday, "... and so he [WILL JOYCE] was peaceably conducted to the Swan with two Necks, in Tuttle Street, to a handsome dining-room; and there was most civilly used, ... I left them providing for his stay there tonight and getting a petition against tomorrow ..."
So Will spent the night at the Swan With Two Necks Inn.
"Thence, after the House was up, and I inquired what the order of the House was, I to W. Joyce, with his brother, and told them all. ... I would not stay dinner, thinking to go home ... but thinking that they would take it kindly my being there, to be bayled for him if there was need, I returned, but finding them gone out to look after it, only Will and his wife and sister left ..."
So Will Joyce may spend a second night at the Inn, unless bail can be obtained. I suspect Pepys was relieved to find the bail party had been organized without his help.
This is not a book to read if you are feeling fragile. Emily Cockayne leads us through early modern London, Manchester, Bath and Nottingham and shows us a Hogarthian prints in real life.
Slops pour down in a continual river of liquid filth, hammers bang out an irregular tattoo into the night, and you have to peer hard to recognise your family across a small room.
Your clothes are coated with a film of grease, and your bed is spotted with crushed bugs.
Everyone smells, especially you, but you're too tired to do anything about it. What's the point of cleaning up when, within a couple of hours you'll be as soiled as a drunken slut?
Cockayne has found 100 little stories that show people bustling about their business trying not to step in something nasty. Mostly they don't succeed.
The walls of domestic dwellings in the 17th century were routinely bulked out by shit shipped from "the necessary house" and were likely to dissolve into a nasty goo when the rains came. One authority noted that few homes outlasted the ground lease of 50 years, as during a violent storm "... the house should fall in, which is no rare occurrence in London".
"Kennels" (drainage ditches) were often clogged with everything from brassica stalks to dead babies, so it was good to carry a stick in case there were any rampaging pigs about.
Inside was not much better. In 1756 Harrop's Manchester Mercury advertised a book claiming to help you eradicate all household vermin, including "adders, badgers, birds, catterpillers [sic], earwigs, fish, flies, foxes, frogs, gnats, Mice, otters, Pismires [ants], Pole-cats, Rabbits, Rats, Snakes, Scorpions, snails, spiders, Toads, Wasps, Weasels, ... Moles, Worms ... Buggs [sic], Lice, & Fleas &c".
Even if you eliminated those pests, there was the issue of light. Neighbors could put up a building that blocked out your sunshine, leaving you stumbling around in permanent gloom. From 1696 the window tax gave incentive to brick up unessential windows. Your resource was a tallow candle, made from inedible sheep bits, which produced its own acrid microclimate.
Each chapter has a single-word title: "Ugly", "Noisy", "Dirty" etc. In practice they combine, so that it's impossible not to experience the book as a multi-dimensional attack on the senses. What she calls "ugly" (exiled courtiers shitting in corners of plague-free Oxford) is also surely "dirty", What is "mouldy" (the decaying body of a suffocated child hidden in rags) is also "gloomy". And what is "noisy" (a Nottingham woman fined for bringing a noisy baby to church) is, from the infant's point of view, "itchy" also. ... Still, none of this need spoil the great pleasure that comes from reading about a world so familiar and yet so quaintly out of reach.
"My Lord Hinchingbroke, I am told, hath had a mischance to kill his boy by his birding-piece going off as he was a-fowling. The gun was charged with small shot, and hit the boy in the face and about the temples, and he lived four days."
Creed was dispatched to Paris to make sure things were handled appropriately.
Edward Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke (3 January 1648 – 29 November 1688) is the eldest son of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich and "My Lady" Jemima Crew Montagu. He was styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke from 1660 until his accession in 1672. He was educated mainly in Paris, where he lived with his cousin, Walter Montagu. He is said "not to have been much of a scholar".
✹ Pedro on 24 Jan 2007 • Link • Flag Sir George Downing to Secretary of State Henry Bennet, from The Hague:
"You have infinite advantages upon the account of the form of the government of this country which is such a shattered and divided thing; and though the rest of the provinces give Holland their votes, yet nothing is more evident and certain that Holland must expect to bear the burden. Even Zeeland can do very little, for that is very poor, and for the other provinces they neither can nor will.
"If Holland desires peace that is more than enough to secure it, and the approval of Amsterdam alone will suffice." -- (The Dutch Seaborne Empire by C.R.Boxer)
As I recall the five different Dutch "provinces" each had a navy, and local politics reigned. It took a lot of local wrangling to get them all to sail with one objective under one commander. Peace is cheap and easy to achieve; war is expensive and difficult. Maybe this is one reason the English were so confident of success.
Friday 18 December 1663 "... and down to Woolwich, calling at Ham Creeke, ... and so to the Ropeyarde and Docke, discoursing several things, and so back again and did the like at Deptford, and I find that it is absolutely necessary for me to do thus once a weeke at least all the yeare round, which will do me great good, ..."
I have to disagree with everyone about Pepys' not preparing for war. He knows what Holmes is up to. Twice the Governor of the East India Company has gone out of his way to explain the role of trade making war with the Dutch necessary. Coventry has been tutoring and protecting him for a year on how to manage and manipulate men, even if he is the only commoner on the Board, and 30 years their junior. Pepys is painfully aware that the Dunkirk money has been spent and money was still owed from Cromwell's time, so he is fighting for quality contracts for rope and timber and masts. Just today he has started to learn about ship building so he can speak with more authority and ask better questions. He can't spend any money or build any ships until Charles II or James Duke of York tell him to do so. But he is getting ready.
I think this awareness of war has caused a big change in Pepys' character in the last year. He knows he is the likely scapegoat if things go wrong ("... that young fool, Pepys; thought he knew everything. Always running off at the mouth and ordering things, which wasn't his job. I clearly remember Batten and Mennes repeatedly telling him ..."). He plays his part to the best of his ability, and salts away the money, chalking up favors and befriending people he thinks can help the cause. If he is successful, the rewards will be his also. If he fails, it won't be for want of trying.
Maybe the runny eye and aches and pains are stress? I'm surprised he sleeps well at night.
Monday 15 February 1663/64 -- This afternoon Sir Thomas Chamberlin came to the office to me, and showed me several letters from the East Indys, showing the height that the Dutch are come to there, showing scorn to all the English, even in our only Factory there of Surat, beating several men, and hanging the English Standard St. George under the Dutch flagg in scorn; saying, that whatever their masters do or say at home, they will do what they list, and will be masters of all the world there; and have so proclaimed themselves Soveraigne of all the South Seas; which certainly our King cannot endure, if the Parliament will give him money. But I doubt and yet do hope they will not yet, till we are more ready for it.
Saturday 2 April 1664 -- Thence to the ‘Change, but having at this discourse long afterwards with Sir Thomas Chamberlin, who tells me what I heard from others, that the complaints of most Companies were yesterday presented to the Committee of Parliament against the Dutch, excepting that of the East India, which he tells me was because they would not be said to be the first and only cause of a warr with Holland, and that it is very probable, as well as most necessary, that we fall out with that people.
What a shame Pepys only records meeting this man twice. I'm sure he had lots of interesting things to say.
The Stuarts and Mr. Pepys didn't understand the economics of free trade. These Navigation Acts, amongst other things, reduced tobacco prices from twopence to a halfpenny a pound. This was matched by a similar price reduction for West Indian sugar, where 20 years of free trade had given all the mainland colonists high-priced markets for their minor products, including meats, lumber, and barrel staves.
At the Restoration, the repudiated debts of the Cromwell era, and these drastic commercial controls created a deep depression in England and her colonies which lasted for 28 years.
George Louis Beer, The Old Colonial System, 1660-1754, vol. II, ch. VIII, gives an inadequate account of this depression because the author was unaware of the real causes. For more information, see https://www.historians.org/about-…
A Mss. now in the Pepysian library: The Fragments of Ancient English Shipwrightry is a collection of miscellaneous notes and incomplete plans of ships started by an English shipwright named Matthew Baker (1530-1613) in the 1570s, and continued with notes from one of his apprentices, John Wells, and annotations on mathematics. http://nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/…... For a detailed discussion of the manuscript and the significance of its contents see:- MATHEW BAKER AND THE ART OF THE SHIPWRIGHT http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/staff/saj…
"... Creed has been questioned before the Council about a letter that has been met with, wherein he is mentioned by some fanatiques as a serviceable friend to them, but he says he acquitted himself well in it, but, however, something sticks against him, he says, with my Lord, at which I am not very sorry, for I believe he is a false fellow."
Does anyone know which Council would be looking for nonconformists at this time?
According to a biography of Margaret Hughes (who much later became Prince Rupert's final mistress):
"Margaret 'Peg' Hughes appeared in Sir Thomas Killigrew’s ‘Othello’ as Desdemona in December 1660 at a converted tennis court called the Vere Street Theatre. The audience were asked: ‘And how do you like her?’ The applause that followed guaranteed the place of actresses on the English stage.
Not much is known about Margaret 'Peg' Hughes’ early life, and she was already 30 before she performed Desdemona, but apparently she took the London theater scene by storm. With her long dark hair, sleepily sensual eyes and lovely face, Margaret ‘Peg’ Hughes counted among her lovers a brief liaison with Charles II, Charles Sedley, the famous fop and, reputedly, other members of the court circle."
You'd think Pepys would mention a little detail like that -- but it explains why the woman was so taken with Desdemona's death. OR Desdemona was played by a man until December, when Killigrew successfully tried out Margaret for the part.
In addition to Terry's excellent summation, recently:
"Friday 4 March 1663/64 I never had so much discourse with the Duke before, and till now did ever fear to meet him. He found me and Mr. Prin together talking of the Chest money, which we are to blame not to look after."
So I took it that James, Duke of York, motivated Pepys to call the meeting and revisit priorities. Since James has him in his sights, Pepys feels the necessity to follow through -- given the time.
Under Louis XIII, Vincent de Paul (not yet a saint, obviously) found these conditions when he arrived in Paris:
"M. de Gondi was General of the King’s Galleys, or, as we should now say, Admiral of the Fleet. It was no easy post in days when the Mediterranean was infested with Turkish pirates, to whom the royal ships had to give frequent chase; but the General had distinguished himself more than once by his skill and courage at this difficult task.
... the King’s galleys were rowed by the convicts and prisoners of France, for it would have been impossible to find volunteers for the work. Chained to their oars night and day, kept in order by cruel cuts of the lash on their bare shoulders, these men lived and died on the rowers’ bench without spiritual help or assistance of any kind. The conditions of service were such that many prisoners took their own lives rather than face the torments of such an existence.
As Vincent went about his works of charity in Paris it occurred to him to visit the dungeons where the men who had been condemned to the galleys were confined. What he saw filled him with horror. Huddled together in damp and filthy prisons, crawling with vermin, covered with sores and ulcers, brawling, blaspheming and fighting, the galley slaves made a picture suggestive only of Hell."
Monday 28 March 1664: "Mr. Coventry not being come to his chamber, I walked through the house ... for an hour in St. James’ fields’ talking of the same subject, and then parted, ..."
EITHER Clearer would have been: 'I walked ... for an hour through the house in St. James' fields,' meaning, as L&M notes, St. James Palace.
OR St. James' Fields consisted of an open space west of the Haymarket, and north of Pall Mall, now occupied by St. James' Square and the adjacent streets. The square was planned about this time by the Earl of St. Albans. -- Wheatley, 1904.
A reminder that Lady Day was the end of the final quarter of their fiscal year (like our April tax deadlines):
"I have purchased this year a close cost 28li. for my son Thomas, my receipts more than expenses by 8li. received. 168li.18s.4d. laid out. 160li.13s.2d. my stock as good as last spring. my debts were than due to me 20li. more than now. so that I have saved clearly about 8li. and my building which was at least 40li. now I have about 15li. in money and my tenants owe me. 70li. blessed been god"
I wonder what the purchase of a "close" for his son means.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… Sunday 27 March 1664 "but it being church time, walked to St. James’s, to try if I could see the belle Butler, but could not; only saw her sister, who indeed is pretty, with a fine Roman nose." -- But sadly no name.
Comments
Second Reading
About Katherine Joyce (Pepys' cousin)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Here was Kate come, and is a comely fat woman. -- April 5, 1664
About Tuesday 5 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Up very betimes, and walked to my cozen Anthony Joyce’s, and thence with him to his brother Will, in Tuttle Street, where I find him pretty cheery ..."
From yesterday, "... and so he [WILL JOYCE] was peaceably conducted to the Swan with two Necks, in Tuttle Street, to a handsome dining-room; and there was most civilly used, ... I left them providing for his stay there tonight and getting a petition against tomorrow ..."
So Will spent the night at the Swan With Two Necks Inn.
"Thence, after the House was up, and I inquired what the order of the House was, I to W. Joyce, with his brother, and told them all. ... I would not stay dinner, thinking to go home ... but thinking that they would take it kindly my being there, to be bayled for him if there was need, I returned, but finding them gone out to look after it, only Will and his wife and sister left ..."
So Will Joyce may spend a second night at the Inn, unless bail can be obtained. I suspect Pepys was relieved to find the bail party had been organized without his help.
About Tuesday 5 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England, 1600-1770
Some notes from the review: https://www.theguardian.com/books…
This is not a book to read if you are feeling fragile. Emily Cockayne leads us through early modern London, Manchester, Bath and Nottingham and shows us a Hogarthian prints in real life.
Slops pour down in a continual river of liquid filth, hammers bang out an irregular tattoo into the night, and you have to peer hard to recognise your family across a small room.
Your clothes are coated with a film of grease, and your bed is spotted with crushed bugs.
Everyone smells, especially you, but you're too tired to do anything about it. What's the point of cleaning up when, within a couple of hours you'll be as soiled as a drunken slut?
Cockayne has found 100 little stories that show people bustling about their business trying not to step in something nasty. Mostly they don't succeed.
The walls of domestic dwellings in the 17th century were routinely bulked out by shit shipped from "the necessary house" and were likely to dissolve into a nasty goo when the rains came. One authority noted that few homes outlasted the ground lease of 50 years, as during a violent storm "... the house should fall in, which is no rare occurrence in London".
"Kennels" (drainage ditches) were often clogged with everything from brassica stalks to dead babies, so it was good to carry a stick in case there were any rampaging pigs about.
Inside was not much better. In 1756 Harrop's Manchester Mercury advertised a book claiming to help you eradicate all household vermin, including "adders, badgers, birds, catterpillers [sic], earwigs, fish, flies, foxes, frogs, gnats, Mice, otters, Pismires [ants], Pole-cats, Rabbits, Rats, Snakes, Scorpions, snails, spiders, Toads, Wasps, Weasels, ... Moles, Worms ... Buggs [sic], Lice, & Fleas &c".
Even if you eliminated those pests, there was the issue of light. Neighbors could put up a building that blocked out your sunshine, leaving you stumbling around in permanent gloom. From 1696 the window tax gave incentive to brick up unessential windows. Your resource was a tallow candle, made from inedible sheep bits, which produced its own acrid microclimate.
Each chapter has a single-word title: "Ugly", "Noisy", "Dirty" etc. In practice they combine, so that it's impossible not to experience the book as a multi-dimensional attack on the senses. What she calls "ugly" (exiled courtiers shitting in corners of plague-free Oxford) is also surely "dirty",
What is "mouldy" (the decaying body of a suffocated child hidden in rags) is also "gloomy".
And what is "noisy" (a Nottingham woman fined for bringing a noisy baby to church) is, from the infant's point of view, "itchy" also.
...
Still, none of this need spoil the great pleasure that comes from reading about a world so familiar and yet so quaintly out of reach.
About Monday 4 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
'W. Trice was ordered ..." I believe Terry means William Joyce.
About Monday 4 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
Well, now we know at least one warship was under construction. Pepys doesn't tell us everything.
About Sunday 3 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Edward in Paris is to his father, Lord Sandwich, as John Pepys in Cambridge is to his older brother Samuel."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
"My Lord Hinchingbroke, I am told, hath had a mischance to kill his boy by his birding-piece going off as he was a-fowling. The gun was charged with small shot, and hit the boy in the face and about the temples, and he lived four days."
Creed was dispatched to Paris to make sure things were handled appropriately.
Edward Montagu, Viscount Hinchingbrooke (3 January 1648 – 29 November 1688) is the eldest son of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich and "My Lady" Jemima Crew Montagu. He was styled Viscount Hinchingbrooke from 1660 until his accession in 1672. He was educated mainly in Paris, where he lived with his cousin, Walter Montagu. He is said "not to have been much of a scholar".
About Saturday 2 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... Admiral DeRuyter's staff will turn out to be a bit better prepped ..."
Uh, no ... http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
✹ Pedro on 24 Jan 2007 • Link • Flag
Sir George Downing to Secretary of State Henry Bennet, from The Hague:
"You have infinite advantages upon the account of the form of the government of this country which is such a shattered and divided thing; and though the rest of the provinces give Holland their votes, yet nothing is more evident and certain that Holland must expect to bear the burden. Even Zeeland can do very little, for that is very poor, and for the other provinces they neither can nor will.
"If Holland desires peace that is more than enough to secure it, and the approval of Amsterdam alone will suffice." -- (The Dutch Seaborne Empire by C.R.Boxer)
As I recall the five different Dutch "provinces" each had a navy, and local politics reigned. It took a lot of local wrangling to get them all to sail with one objective under one commander. Peace is cheap and easy to achieve; war is expensive and difficult. Maybe this is one reason the English were so confident of success.
About Saturday 2 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
Friday 18 December 1663
"... and down to Woolwich, calling at Ham Creeke, ... and so to the Ropeyarde and Docke, discoursing several things, and so back again and did the like at Deptford, and I find that it is absolutely necessary for me to do thus once a weeke at least all the yeare round, which will do me great good, ..."
Chalk up another inspection.
About Saturday 2 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
I have to disagree with everyone about Pepys' not preparing for war. He knows what Holmes is up to. Twice the Governor of the East India Company has gone out of his way to explain the role of trade making war with the Dutch necessary. Coventry has been tutoring and protecting him for a year on how to manage and manipulate men, even if he is the only commoner on the Board, and 30 years their junior. Pepys is painfully aware that the Dunkirk money has been spent and money was still owed from Cromwell's time, so he is fighting for quality contracts for rope and timber and masts. Just today he has started to learn about ship building so he can speak with more authority and ask better questions. He can't spend any money or build any ships until Charles II or James Duke of York tell him to do so. But he is getting ready.
I think this awareness of war has caused a big change in Pepys' character in the last year. He knows he is the likely scapegoat if things go wrong ("... that young fool, Pepys; thought he knew everything. Always running off at the mouth and ordering things, which wasn't his job. I clearly remember Batten and Mennes repeatedly telling him ..."). He plays his part to the best of his ability, and salts away the money, chalking up favors and befriending people he thinks can help the cause. If he is successful, the rewards will be his also. If he fails, it won't be for want of trying.
Maybe the runny eye and aches and pains are stress? I'm surprised he sleeps well at night.
About Sir Thomas Chamberlayne (2nd Baronet)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Monday 15 February 1663/64 -- This afternoon Sir Thomas Chamberlin came to the office to me, and showed me several letters from the East Indys, showing the height that the Dutch are come to there, showing scorn to all the English, even in our only Factory there of Surat, beating several men, and hanging the English Standard St. George under the Dutch flagg in scorn; saying, that whatever their masters do or say at home, they will do what they list, and will be masters of all the world there; and have so proclaimed themselves Soveraigne of all the South Seas; which certainly our King cannot endure, if the Parliament will give him money. But I doubt and yet do hope they will not yet, till we are more ready for it.
Saturday 2 April 1664 -- Thence to the ‘Change, but having at this discourse long afterwards with Sir Thomas Chamberlin, who tells me what I heard from others, that the complaints of most Companies were yesterday presented to the Committee of Parliament against the Dutch, excepting that of the East India, which he tells me was because they would not be said to be the first and only cause of a warr with Holland, and that it is very probable, as well as most necessary, that we fall out with that people.
What a shame Pepys only records meeting this man twice. I'm sure he had lots of interesting things to say.
About Thursday 19 November 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Stuarts and Mr. Pepys didn't understand the economics of free trade. These Navigation Acts, amongst other things, reduced tobacco prices from twopence to a halfpenny a pound. This was matched by a similar price reduction for West Indian sugar, where 20 years of free trade had given all the mainland colonists high-priced markets for their minor products, including meats, lumber, and barrel staves.
At the Restoration, the repudiated debts of the Cromwell era, and these drastic commercial controls created a deep depression in England and her colonies which lasted for 28 years.
George Louis Beer, The Old Colonial System, 1660-1754, vol. II, ch. VIII, gives an inadequate account of this depression because the author was unaware of the real causes. For more information, see https://www.historians.org/about-…
About John Wells
San Diego Sarah • Link
Yes, Michael Robinson on 1 Apr 2007 said:
A Mss. now in the Pepysian library: The Fragments of Ancient English Shipwrightry is a collection of miscellaneous notes and incomplete plans of ships started by an English shipwright named Matthew Baker (1530-1613) in the 1570s, and continued with notes from one of his apprentices, John Wells, and annotations on mathematics. http://nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/…... For a detailed discussion of the manuscript and the significance of its contents see:-
MATHEW BAKER AND THE ART OF THE SHIPWRIGHT http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/staff/saj…
Should have read what was already writ. Sorry!
About John Wells
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sadly this link is dead. An example of why it is best to give a brief synopsis of the most important highlights as well as the link.
Anyone know of a way to learn about John Wells?
About Friday 1 April 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... Creed has been questioned before the Council about a letter that has been met with, wherein he is mentioned by some fanatiques as a serviceable friend to them, but he says he acquitted himself well in it, but, however, something sticks against him, he says, with my Lord, at which I am not very sorry, for I believe he is a false fellow."
Does anyone know which Council would be looking for nonconformists at this time?
About Thursday 11 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
According to a biography of Margaret Hughes (who much later became Prince Rupert's final mistress):
"Margaret 'Peg' Hughes appeared in Sir Thomas Killigrew’s ‘Othello’ as Desdemona in December 1660 at a converted tennis court called the Vere Street Theatre. The audience were asked: ‘And how do you like her?’ The applause that followed guaranteed the place of actresses on the English stage.
Not much is known about Margaret 'Peg' Hughes’ early life, and she was already 30 before she performed Desdemona, but apparently she took the London theater scene by storm. With her long dark hair, sleepily sensual eyes and lovely face, Margaret ‘Peg’ Hughes counted among her lovers a brief liaison with Charles II, Charles Sedley, the famous fop and, reputedly, other members of the court circle."
http://hoydensandfirebrands.blogs…
You'd think Pepys would mention a little detail like that -- but it explains why the woman was so taken with Desdemona's death.
OR Desdemona was played by a man until December, when Killigrew successfully tried out Margaret for the part.
About Wednesday 30 March 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
In addition to Terry's excellent summation, recently:
"Friday 4 March 1663/64 I never had so much discourse with the Duke before, and till now did ever fear to meet him. He found me and Mr. Prin together talking of the Chest money, which we are to blame not to look after."
So I took it that James, Duke of York, motivated Pepys to call the meeting and revisit priorities. Since James has him in his sights, Pepys feels the necessity to follow through -- given the time.
About Friday 26 June 1663
San Diego Sarah • Link
Under Louis XIII, Vincent de Paul (not yet a saint, obviously) found these conditions when he arrived in Paris:
"M. de Gondi was General of the King’s Galleys, or, as we should now say, Admiral of the Fleet. It was no easy post in days when the Mediterranean was infested with Turkish pirates, to whom the royal ships had to give frequent chase; but the General had distinguished himself more than once by his skill and courage at this difficult task.
... the King’s galleys were rowed by the convicts and prisoners of France, for it would have been impossible to find volunteers for the work. Chained to their oars night and day, kept in order by cruel cuts of the lash on their bare shoulders, these men lived and died on the rowers’ bench without spiritual help or assistance of any kind. The conditions of service were such that many prisoners took their own lives rather than face the torments of such an existence.
As Vincent went about his works of charity in Paris it occurred to him to visit the dungeons where the men who had been condemned to the galleys were confined. What he saw filled him with horror. Huddled together in damp and filthy prisons, crawling with vermin, covered with sores and ulcers, brawling, blaspheming and fighting, the galley slaves made a picture suggestive only of Hell."
for more info on St. Vincent: http://saints.sqpn.com/life-of-sa…
About St James's Square ("The Piazza")
San Diego Sarah • Link
Monday 28 March 1664:
"Mr. Coventry not being come to his chamber, I walked through the house ... for an hour in St. James’ fields’ talking of the same subject, and then parted, ..."
EITHER Clearer would have been: 'I walked ... for an hour through the house in St. James' fields,' meaning, as L&M notes, St. James Palace.
OR St. James' Fields consisted of an open space west of the Haymarket, and north of Pall Mall, now occupied by St. James' Square and the adjacent streets. The square was planned about this time by the Earl of St. Albans. -- Wheatley, 1904.
About Sunday 27 March 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
A reminder that Lady Day was the end of the final quarter of their fiscal year (like our April tax deadlines):
"I have purchased this year a close cost 28li. for my son Thomas, my receipts more than expenses by 8li. received. 168li.18s.4d. laid out. 160li.13s.2d. my stock as good as last spring. my debts were than due to me 20li. more than now. so that I have saved clearly about 8li. and my building which was at least 40li. now I have about 15li. in money and my tenants owe me. 70li. blessed been god"
I wonder what the purchase of a "close" for his son means.
About Miss Butler
San Diego Sarah • Link
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Sunday 27 March 1664
"but it being church time, walked to St. James’s, to try if I could see the belle Butler, but could not; only saw her sister, who indeed is pretty, with a fine Roman nose." -- But sadly no name.