" ... Lord Sandwich’s, whom I find missing his ague fit to-day, and is pretty well, playing at dice ... with Ned Pickering and his page Laud." Is anyone else surprised that Sandwich is gambling with a page? Young Laud wouldn't have enough money for a stake, would he? If this was a low stakes practice game to amuse his Lordship after his illness, I don't think Pepys would be upset like this. If my page had enough money to gamble with a Earl, I would suspect he was earning money on the side selling information.
GRAFT: a Pepys historian posted this today: I edited 1/3 to fit this format:
"Samuel Pepys Posted by J D Davies
It is a truth universally acknowledged that those who get outraged by things on Twitter are in need of a life.
Occasionally one sees something on Twitter which is so crass any pretense at possessing a life must be laid aside. So it was with the normally uncontentious Twitter feed of the National Maritime Museum, referring to Samuel Pepys. I quote: ‘How did a a tailor’s son turn a corrupt & inefficient Navy into a powerful fighting force?‘
The person who runs the NMM Twitter feed quotes from the museum’s website, linked to the current exhibition on Pepys and his times, reviewed generally positively in this blog. I’m not shooting the messenger. But whoever came up with the original message needs to go to the exhibition shop and look at the book called Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare 1649-89. It contains the author's 30 years of research, and the writings of others who independently came to the same conclusion, that ‘He didn’t, and it wasn’t corrupt and inefficient to begin with’.
It would take too long to prove those points here. I’ve written books to prove it (a paperback edition of Pepys’s Navy will be out this summer) and am working on a third, Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Navy, due out from Seaforth Publishing in 2017, which will produce more evidence. Besides, criticizing Samuel Pepys is like shooting Bambi’s mother: people brought up on Sir Arthur Bryant, or the various books and websites that essentially maintain the same tired line, can't be converted by one blog post or three books, and umpteen articles, but one has to try…
My point is: The idea Pepys ‘saved the navy’ is based on books published between 40 and 120 years ago, drawing on a narrow range of sources, shaped by schools of historical interpretation long fallen by the wayside.
To describe Pepys' navy as ‘corrupt and inefficient’ is wrong, an attempting to measure an earlier age by modern standards. These days I argue organisations, media outlets, etc., with wide reach – like the BBC, newspapers, national museums, and schools – have a responsibility to present historical stories that either reflect the best possible consensus of modern scholarship, or, at least, don’t recycle dated and discredited myths and theories. Wikipedia has a policy of not allowing articles to be based on original, primary research – and one can see why failsafes must be in place to prevent abuse, the alternative, and the current policy, as Wikipedia makes clear, is articles can only refer to published works, the implication being even if they are known to be wrong, and to other unimpeachably reliable sources such as ‘mainstream newspapers’.
That’s right, ‘mainstream newspapers’. Like the Daily Mail and The Sun.
Sorry, my shirt seems to be starting to stretch a bit…"
GRAFT: a Pepys historian posted this today: I edited 1/3 to fit this format:
"Samuel Pepys Posted by J D Davies
It is a truth universally acknowledged that those who get outraged by things on Twitter are in need of a life.
Occasionally one sees something on Twitter which is so crass any pretence at possessing a life must be laid aside. So it was with the normally uncontentious Twitter feed of the National Maritime Museum, referring to Samuel Pepys. I quote: ‘How did a a tailor’s son turn a corrupt & inefficient Navy into a powerful fighting force?‘
The person who runs the NMM Twitter feed quotes from the museum’s website, linked to the current exhibition on Pepys and his times, reviewed generally positively in this blog. I’m not shooting the messenger. But whoever came up with the original message needs to go to the exhibition shop and look at the book called Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare 1649-89. It contains the author's 30 years of research, and the writings of others who independently came to the same conclusion, that ‘He didn’t, and it wasn’t corrupt and inefficient to begin with’.
It would take too long to prove those points here. I’ve written books to prove it (a paperback edition of Pepys’s Navy will be out this summer) and am working on a third, Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Navy, due out from Seaforth Publishing in 2017, which will produce more evidence. Besides, criticising Samuel Pepys is like shooting Bambi’s mother: people brought up on Sir Arthur Bryant, or the various books and websites that essentially maintain the same tired line, can't be converted by one blog post or three books, and umpteen articles, but one has to try…
My point is: The idea Pepys ‘saved the navy’ is based on books published between 40 and 120 years ago, drawing on a narrow range of sources, shaped by schools of historical interpretation long fallen by the wayside.
To describe Pepys' navy as ‘corrupt and inefficient’ is wrong, an attempting to measure an earlier age by modern standards. These days I argue organisations, media outlets, etc., with wide reach – like the BBC, newspapers, national museums, and schools – have a responsibility to present historical stories that either reflect the best possible consensus of modern scholarship, or, at least, don’t recycle dated and discredited myths and theories. Wikipedia has a policy of not allowing articles to be based on original, primary research – and one can see why failsafes must be in place to prevent abuse, the alternative, and the current policy, as Wikipedia makes clear, is articles can only refer to published works, the implication being even if they are known to be wrong, and to other unimpeachably reliable sources such as ‘mainstream newspapers’.
That’s right, ‘mainstream newspapers’. Like the Daily Mail and The Sun.
Sorry, my shirt seems to be starting to stretch a bit…"
" ... Sandwich held high naval and diplomatic appointments for the rest of his life; but both his physique and his morals deteriorated rapidly at the Restoration Court. In religion, his servant and kinsman Samuel Pepys, 'found him to be a perfect sceptic, and [he] said that all things would not be well while there was so much preaching, and that it would be better if nothing but homilies were to be read in churches.' "He favoured uniformity, just as he had always favoured monarchy, because they were conducive to an ordered society. He was well rewarded for his part in the Restoration; to support the dignity of his earldom he was granted lands and fee-farm rents worth £4,000 p.a. But he was extravagant; his embassies were expensive, and the wardrobe proved unprofitable. He estimated his annual income at £8,000, but by 1664 he was £10,000 in debt." With these stresses in place by now, perhaps Sandwich was helping Charles II with some extra-curricular fundraising only hinted at in reports of the back-stairs chats before Christmas. It's expensive remodeling your mansion.
"Their neighbor was famed diarist Samuel Pepys, who was friendly at first but later secretly hostile to Admiral Sir William Penn, perhaps embittered in part by his failed seductions of both Margaret Jasper Van der Schure Penn and their daughter, Peggy/Pegg."[7] 7 Fantel, p.16
“all the afternoon writing orders myself to have ready against tomorrow, that I might not appear negligent to Mr. Coventry.” -- paranoia about Mr. Coventry again. Last week Sam was hiding in Westminster hoping not to bump into him. What is this about?
While I appreciate the points Aqua Scripto made on 12 Jan 2006 regarding how few lasses were in Elizabeth's position, "Bess is only asking for a companion." I would have thought there were a lot of educated but impoverished young women around ... widows and daughters of fallen Cavaliers, survivors of two Civil Wars and 10 years of persecution by the Puritans. Charles II tried to reinstate families to their original properties, but so much had been destroyed and there are many stories of Royalists dying years later in poverty. They needed MeetUp.com, The Lady and The Women's Institute. Or were there Want Ads back then?
Sam referred to this somewhat in his Dec. 31 year-end summary, saying in effect it would likely put some distance between the Pepys' and Penns' ("we make ourselves a little strange"),
Sam has a strange way of doing this: He's been visiting the old sick Admiral Penn almost every day for weeks. I wonder what they talked about.
Charles II's LABORATORY In a book I read on Sir Robert Moray and the founding of the Royal Society, it says ... "Moray was chosen to preside at many of the early gatherings of the Royal Society (his combination of genuine scientific enthusiasm and connection to Charles II, who set up his own laboratory near Moray's rooms, proving irresistibly attractive), ..." and in a book on St. James' Palace it said Charles II's bedroom had an open door policy (when he was dying, about 80 people were in the room). His only privacy was in a small closet next door, where he kept his collection of samples. So Charles embraced learning, and would have welcomed a flush toilet had they been available.
Coach use: The weather is awful ... James didn't go hunting last Monday. Plus on January 4 Pepys reports http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… After dinner I and she walked, though it was dirty, to White Hall (in the way calling at the Wardrobe to see how Mr. Moore do, who is pretty well, but not cured yet), being much afeard of being seen by anybody, and was, I think, of Mr. Coventry, which so troubled me that I made her go before, and I ever after loitered behind. So if Pepys is riding around in a carriage more than usual recently, the weather might account for it. Elizabeth probably put her foot down about taking long hikes in the dirt, and being made to walk apart from the paranoid Sam. Plus I guess a new pair of shoes to replace the water-logged leather ones would cost more than a coach ride. We shall see what Pepys does when the weather improves.
"Why so shy?" of being "willing to be seen at this end of the town"? Seems to me he was acting paranoid about being seen by Coventry yesterday, and noted that people were recognizing him so he didn't need to visit so often any more. So I agree: he was worried Coventry and others would know he wasn't working at the office, and he and Elizabeth "hid out" with friends.
I found this annotation which might explain why the Duke of York was so attentive this evening: ✹ Bill on 13 Sep 2015 • Link “my Lady Chesterfield is gone into the country for it” Peter Cunningham thinks that this banishment was only temporary, for, according to the Grammont Memoirs, Elizabeth Butler Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield was in town when the Russian ambassador was in London, December, 1662, and January, 1663.
Am I right in thinking these pirates went on to be the Barbary Pirates in the 19th Century ... and possibly ISIS today? Looks like the same area and tribes to me ... ?
I recall Pepys promised Elizabeth that he would not go to Court or see the new Queen until she could go with him. He did not keep his word. Now she's bored and restless, and Ms. Gosnell made her aware of being kept at home as Pepys social climbs. So now Pepys has found a few excuses to stay at the Montagu's Whitehall housing when he can, but not to flaunt her before people who might introduce her to Court "properly". Note he did not take her to see the New Year's ball. Tomorrow I bet we find out he has an early meeting at Whitehall, and since the weather is awful, staying at Montagu's means he won't be late, By having Elizabeth with him he can save money at home, and make her think she is at Court. Win win win. Will she figure it out?
Why does Pepys refer to James Crofts as the Duke of Monmouth in December 1662? I have paraphrased from the encyclopedia entry:
James Crofts was created Duke of Monmouth on 14 February 1663, at the age of 14, shortly after having been brought to England, with the subsidiary titles of Earl of Doncaster and Baron Scott of Tynedale, all three in the Peerage of England, and on 28 March 1663 he was appointed a Knight of the Garter. On 20 April 1663, Sir James Crofts, Duke of Monmouth was married to the heiress Anne Scott, 4th Countess of Buccleuch, at which time he took the last name of Scott.
Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, many of which had their own vineyards, ended large-scale English wine production. But isolated enthusiasts kept some vine-growing alive. Samuel Pepys records drinking wines from several vineyards around London.
The English invented the process which turns still wine into sparkling wine. The first mention of Sparkling Champagne was in 1676 by Sir George Etherege in The Man of the Mode: "...To the Mall and the Park where we love till 'tis dark, Then sparkling Champaign puts an end to their reign; It quickly recovers poor languishing lovers..."
This was 20 years before the French claim to have made their first sparkling Champagne, in a 1718 document referring to this type of wine around 1695. The essential difference between a still wine and either Champagne or Sparkling wine is the bubbles arise from a second fermentation taking place in the bottle. The carbon dioxide cannot escape and dissolves in the wine, to be released when the wine is drunk. The bottle is under high pressure and 16th century bottles and wooden bungs could not contain it. This did not matter to the French who kept their wine in casks, but the English liked their wine in bottles, and second fermentation caused the bottle to fail. Still wines from Champagne were prone to this because the wine was made in a cool climate and the initial fermentation often stopped prematurely, only to re-start in warm buildings just before consumption. However the sparkling effect improved an otherwise mediocre regional wine. The problem facing English wine coopers was how to control the process.
An accidental improvement in bottle technology gave the English the lead. In 1615 Admiral Sir Robert Mansell persuaded James I to ban the use of wood-fired furnaces, forcing the use of coal. The higher temperatures from coal-fired furnaces produced a stronger glass which, coupled with the re-discovery of cork stoppers, gave the English a wine bottle capable of withstanding gas pressures produced by making the wine sparkling. Mansell retired, built a glassworks, obtained a Royal Patent for the use of coal, and hence a monopoly on making the new glass. English wine coopers now had what they needed for the sparkling method, and in a 1662 paper to the Royal Society by Christopher Merritt entitled ‘The Ordering of Wines’ refers to making sparkling wine by English wine coopers as an established practice. This was 30 years before the French made their first Sparkling Champagne, and 70 years before the first Champagne House was established. The French attribute the process to Dom Perignon, but the only records of his work show he spent his life trying to stop the wine fermenting in the bottle. The historical record shows the French perfected the process, and made Champagne famous. The British invented it. http://www.moorlynch.com/History%…
West Country farmer Christopher Merrett used techniques from the cider industry to control the second fermentation which makes wine fizzy and - crucially - invented the stronger glass needed to prevent the bottle exploding. He gave a paper to the Royal Society in 1662 describing how adding 'vast quantities of sugar and molasses' to French wine made it taste 'brisk and sparkling'. That was more than 30 years before Dom Perignon's work at the Abbey of Hautvillers at Epernay marked the 'official' beginning of a multi-million-pound industry which the French have jealously protected ever since. Christopher Merrett also carried out experiments which led to his masterwork, The Art of Glass, explaining how stronger bottles could be blown by adding iron, manganese or carbon to the molten mixture. Tough glass was essential to prevent the pressure created by the fermenting wine causing the bottles to explode. Early French accounts of champagne production describe the revolutionary bottles as being made of 'verre anglais', or English glass.
1662 Somerset farmer presents to the Royal Society a way to make alcoholic sparkling cider -- which leads to Champagne ...
Pardon Messieurs, but champagne was a BRITISH invention, claims new research By James Tozer UPDATED: 21:01 EST, 26 September 2008 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/a… It is the most quintessentially French drink, and the pride of a whole nation. But there could be consternation across the Channel after a claim that champagne was invented by an Englishman. Born in 1614, self-taught West Country scientist Christopher Merrett came from an area better known for producing cider. However, records show Christopher Merrett devised two techniques that were fundamental to making champagne decades before Benedictine monk Dom Perignon, who is usually associated with the invention of the ultimate luxury drink. Christopher Merrett used techniques from the cider industry to control the second fermentation which makes wine fizzy and - crucially - invented the stronger glass needed to prevent the bottle exploding. Christopher Merrett, also spelled Merret, gave a paper to the Royal Society in 1662 describing how adding 'vast quantities of sugar and molasses' to French wine made it taste 'brisk and sparkling'. That was more than 30 years before Dom Perignon's work at the Abbey of Hautvillers at Epernay marked the 'official' beginning of a multi-million-pound industry which the French have jealously protected ever since. Christopher Merrett also carried out experiments which led to his masterwork, The Art of Glass, explaining how stronger bottles could be blown by adding iron, manganese or carbon to the molten mixture. Tough glass was essential to prevent the pressure created by the fermenting wine causing the bottles to explode. Early French accounts of champagne production describe the revolutionary bottles as being made of 'verre anglais', or English glass. Christopher Merrett's crucial contribution to the history of both champagne and cider is recounted by author James Crowden in his new book, Ciderland. Crowden said yesterday: 'The French will no doubt guard their rights to the methode champenoise to the last cork and rigorously prevent anyone using the champagne name outside their tightly-controlled region. But they cannot claim, however ingenious they are, to have invented the method for the simple reason they did not have the new stronger English bottles. It is the invention and manufacture of these bottles that is the key to the whole enigma as much as the addition of the extra sugar.'
Just a reminder, Pepys saw the Russian ambassador and followers arrive on November 23. At that time language hat identified them as: ✹ language hat on 28 Nov 2005 • Link • Flag The Russian ambassadors The main ambassador was Prince Pyotr Semyonovich Prozorovsky ... with his sons: http://www.elibron.com/english/ot…... The other ambassador was much younger, Ivan Afanasyevich Zhelyabuzhsky. Discussions did not actually get under way until the following January; there's a description of the mission, for those who read Russian, here: http://www.kreml.ru/ru/main/scien…... I haven't found anything in English.
Comments
Second Reading
About Wednesday 28 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
" ... Lord Sandwich’s, whom I find missing his ague fit to-day, and is pretty well, playing at dice ... with Ned Pickering and his page Laud." Is anyone else surprised that Sandwich is gambling with a page? Young Laud wouldn't have enough money for a stake, would he? If this was a low stakes practice game to amuse his Lordship after his illness, I don't think Pepys would be upset like this. If my page had enough money to gamble with a Earl, I would suspect he was earning money on the side selling information.
About Financial transactions
San Diego Sarah • Link
GRAFT: a Pepys historian posted this today: I edited 1/3 to fit this format:
"Samuel Pepys
Posted by J D Davies
It is a truth universally acknowledged that those who get outraged by things on Twitter are in need of a life.
Occasionally one sees something on Twitter which is so crass any pretense at possessing a life must be laid aside. So it was with the normally uncontentious Twitter feed of the National Maritime Museum, referring to Samuel Pepys. I quote: ‘How did a a tailor’s son turn a corrupt & inefficient Navy into a powerful fighting force?‘
The person who runs the NMM Twitter feed quotes from the museum’s website, linked to the current exhibition on Pepys and his times, reviewed generally positively in this blog. I’m not shooting the messenger. But whoever came up with the original message needs to go to the exhibition shop and look at the book called Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare 1649-89. It contains the author's 30 years of research, and the writings of others who independently came to the same conclusion, that ‘He didn’t, and it wasn’t corrupt and inefficient to begin with’.
It would take too long to prove those points here. I’ve written books to prove it (a paperback edition of Pepys’s Navy will be out this summer) and am working on a third, Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Navy, due out from Seaforth Publishing in 2017, which will produce more evidence. Besides, criticizing Samuel Pepys is like shooting Bambi’s mother: people brought up on Sir Arthur Bryant, or the various books and websites that essentially maintain the same tired line, can't be converted by one blog post or three books, and umpteen articles, but one has to try…
My point is: The idea Pepys ‘saved the navy’ is based on books published between 40 and 120 years ago, drawing on a narrow range of sources, shaped by schools of historical interpretation long fallen by the wayside.
To describe Pepys' navy as ‘corrupt and inefficient’ is wrong, an attempting to measure an earlier age by modern standards. These days I argue organisations, media outlets, etc., with wide reach – like the BBC, newspapers, national museums, and schools – have a responsibility to present historical stories that either reflect the best possible consensus of modern scholarship, or, at least, don’t recycle dated and discredited myths and theories. Wikipedia has a policy of not allowing articles to be based on original, primary research – and one can see why failsafes must be in place to prevent abuse, the alternative, and the current policy, as Wikipedia makes clear, is articles can only refer to published works, the implication being even if they are known to be wrong, and to other unimpeachably reliable sources such as ‘mainstream newspapers’.
That’s right, ‘mainstream newspapers’. Like the Daily Mail and The Sun.
Sorry, my shirt seems to be starting to stretch a bit…"
http://jddavies.com/2016/01/25/sa…...
About Saturday 24 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
GRAFT: a Pepys historian posted this today: I edited 1/3 to fit this format:
"Samuel Pepys
Posted by J D Davies
It is a truth universally acknowledged that those who get outraged by things on Twitter are in need of a life.
Occasionally one sees something on Twitter which is so crass any pretence at possessing a life must be laid aside. So it was with the normally uncontentious Twitter feed of the National Maritime Museum, referring to Samuel Pepys. I quote: ‘How did a a tailor’s son turn a corrupt & inefficient Navy into a powerful fighting force?‘
The person who runs the NMM Twitter feed quotes from the museum’s website, linked to the current exhibition on Pepys and his times, reviewed generally positively in this blog. I’m not shooting the messenger. But whoever came up with the original message needs to go to the exhibition shop and look at the book called Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare 1649-89. It contains the author's 30 years of research, and the writings of others who independently came to the same conclusion, that ‘He didn’t, and it wasn’t corrupt and inefficient to begin with’.
It would take too long to prove those points here. I’ve written books to prove it (a paperback edition of Pepys’s Navy will be out this summer) and am working on a third, Kings of the Sea: Charles II, James II and the Navy, due out from Seaforth Publishing in 2017, which will produce more evidence. Besides, criticising Samuel Pepys is like shooting Bambi’s mother: people brought up on Sir Arthur Bryant, or the various books and websites that essentially maintain the same tired line, can't be converted by one blog post or three books, and umpteen articles, but one has to try…
My point is: The idea Pepys ‘saved the navy’ is based on books published between 40 and 120 years ago, drawing on a narrow range of sources, shaped by schools of historical interpretation long fallen by the wayside.
To describe Pepys' navy as ‘corrupt and inefficient’ is wrong, an attempting to measure an earlier age by modern standards. These days I argue organisations, media outlets, etc., with wide reach – like the BBC, newspapers, national museums, and schools – have a responsibility to present historical stories that either reflect the best possible consensus of modern scholarship, or, at least, don’t recycle dated and discredited myths and theories. Wikipedia has a policy of not allowing articles to be based on original, primary research – and one can see why failsafes must be in place to prevent abuse, the alternative, and the current policy, as Wikipedia makes clear, is articles can only refer to published works, the implication being even if they are known to be wrong, and to other unimpeachably reliable sources such as ‘mainstream newspapers’.
That’s right, ‘mainstream newspapers’. Like the Daily Mail and The Sun.
Sorry, my shirt seems to be starting to stretch a bit…"
http://jddavies.com/2016/01/25/sa…
About Saturday 17 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
Finally a clue as to why Sam was so anxious NOT to be seen by Coventry over Christmas. He has been worried about this showdown for a month.
About Monday 12 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sam hasn't told us everything he knows about Sandwich's relationship with Charles II.
According to http://www.historyofparliamentonl… :
" ... Sandwich held high naval and diplomatic appointments for the rest of his life; but both his physique and his morals deteriorated rapidly at the Restoration Court. In religion, his servant and kinsman Samuel Pepys, 'found him to be a perfect sceptic, and [he] said that all things would not be well while there was so much preaching, and that it would be better if nothing but homilies were to be read in churches.'
"He favoured uniformity, just as he had always favoured monarchy, because they were conducive to an ordered society. He was well rewarded for his part in the Restoration; to support the dignity of his earldom he was granted lands and fee-farm rents worth £4,000 p.a. But he was extravagant; his embassies were expensive, and the wardrobe proved unprofitable. He estimated his annual income at £8,000, but by 1664 he was £10,000 in debt."
With these stresses in place by now, perhaps Sandwich was helping Charles II with some extra-curricular fundraising only hinted at in reports of the back-stairs chats before Christmas. It's expensive remodeling your mansion.
About Lady Margaret Penn
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Their neighbor was famed diarist Samuel Pepys, who was friendly at first but later secretly hostile to Admiral Sir William Penn, perhaps embittered in part by his failed seductions of both Margaret Jasper Van der Schure Penn and their daughter, Peggy/Pegg."[7] 7 Fantel, p.16
http://www.answers.com/topic/will…
About Sunday 11 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
“all the afternoon writing orders myself to have ready against tomorrow, that I might not appear negligent to Mr. Coventry.” -- paranoia about Mr. Coventry again. Last week Sam was hiding in Westminster hoping not to bump into him. What is this about?
About Sunday 11 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
While I appreciate the points Aqua Scripto made on 12 Jan 2006 regarding how few lasses were in Elizabeth's position, "Bess is only asking for a companion." I would have thought there were a lot of educated but impoverished young women around ... widows and daughters of fallen Cavaliers, survivors of two Civil Wars and 10 years of persecution by the Puritans. Charles II tried to reinstate families to their original properties, but so much had been destroyed and there are many stories of Royalists dying years later in poverty. They needed MeetUp.com, The Lady and The Women's Institute. Or were there Want Ads back then?
About Wednesday 7 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sam referred to this somewhat in his Dec. 31 year-end summary, saying in effect it would likely put some distance between the Pepys' and Penns' ("we make ourselves a little strange"),
Sam has a strange way of doing this: He's been visiting the old sick Admiral Penn almost every day for weeks. I wonder what they talked about.
About Monday 5 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
Charles II's LABORATORY
In a book I read on Sir Robert Moray and the founding of the Royal Society, it says ... "Moray was chosen to preside at many of the early gatherings of the Royal Society (his combination of genuine scientific enthusiasm and connection to Charles II, who set up his own laboratory near Moray's rooms, proving irresistibly attractive), ..." and in a book on St. James' Palace it said Charles II's bedroom had an open door policy (when he was dying, about 80 people were in the room). His only privacy was in a small closet next door, where he kept his collection of samples. So Charles embraced learning, and would have welcomed a flush toilet had they been available.
About Tuesday 6 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
Coach use: The weather is awful ... James didn't go hunting last Monday. Plus on January 4 Pepys reports
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
After dinner I and she walked, though it was dirty, to White Hall (in the way calling at the Wardrobe to see how Mr. Moore do, who is pretty well, but not cured yet), being much afeard of being seen by anybody, and was, I think, of Mr. Coventry, which so troubled me that I made her go before, and I ever after loitered behind.
So if Pepys is riding around in a carriage more than usual recently, the weather might account for it. Elizabeth probably put her foot down about taking long hikes in the dirt, and being made to walk apart from the paranoid Sam. Plus I guess a new pair of shoes to replace the water-logged leather ones would cost more than a coach ride.
We shall see what Pepys does when the weather improves.
About Tuesday 6 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Why so shy?" of being "willing to be seen at this end of the town"? Seems to me he was acting paranoid about being seen by Coventry yesterday, and noted that people were recognizing him so he didn't need to visit so often any more. So I agree: he was worried Coventry and others would know he wasn't working at the office, and he and Elizabeth "hid out" with friends.
About Monday 5 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
I found this annotation which might explain why the Duke of York was so attentive this evening:
✹ Bill on 13 Sep 2015 • Link
“my Lady Chesterfield is gone into the country for it” Peter Cunningham thinks that this banishment was only temporary, for, according to the Grammont Memoirs, Elizabeth Butler Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield was in town when the Russian ambassador was in London, December, 1662, and January, 1663.
About Mediterranean (The Straits)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Am I right in thinking these pirates went on to be the Barbary Pirates in the 19th Century ... and possibly ISIS today? Looks like the same area and tribes to me ... ?
About Sunday 4 January 1662/63
San Diego Sarah • Link
I recall Pepys promised Elizabeth that he would not go to Court or see the new Queen until she could go with him. He did not keep his word. Now she's bored and restless, and Ms. Gosnell made her aware of being kept at home as Pepys social climbs. So now Pepys has found a few excuses to stay at the Montagu's Whitehall housing when he can, but not to flaunt her before people who might introduce her to Court "properly". Note he did not take her to see the New Year's ball. Tomorrow I bet we find out he has an early meeting at Whitehall, and since the weather is awful, staying at Montagu's means he won't be late, By having Elizabeth with him he can save money at home, and make her think she is at Court. Win win win. Will she figure it out?
About James Scott ("Mr Crofts", 1st Duke of Monmouth)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Why does Pepys refer to James Crofts as the Duke of Monmouth in December 1662? I have paraphrased from the encyclopedia entry:
James Crofts was created Duke of Monmouth on 14 February 1663, at the age of 14, shortly after having been brought to England, with the subsidiary titles of Earl of Doncaster and Baron Scott of Tynedale, all three in the Peerage of England, and on 28 March 1663 he was appointed a Knight of the Garter. On 20 April 1663, Sir James Crofts, Duke of Monmouth was married to the heiress Anne Scott, 4th Countess of Buccleuch, at which time he took the last name of Scott.
About Wine
San Diego Sarah • Link
Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, many of which had their own vineyards, ended large-scale English wine production. But isolated enthusiasts kept some vine-growing alive. Samuel Pepys records drinking wines from several vineyards around London.
The English invented the process which turns still wine into sparkling wine. The first mention of Sparkling Champagne was in 1676 by Sir George Etherege in The Man of the Mode:
"...To the Mall and the Park where we love till 'tis dark,
Then sparkling Champaign puts an end to their reign;
It quickly recovers poor languishing lovers..."
This was 20 years before the French claim to have made their first sparkling Champagne, in a 1718 document referring to this type of wine around 1695.
The essential difference between a still wine and either Champagne or Sparkling wine is the bubbles arise from a second fermentation taking place in the bottle. The carbon dioxide cannot escape and dissolves in the wine, to be released when the wine is drunk. The bottle is under high pressure and 16th century bottles and wooden bungs could not contain it. This did not matter to the French who kept their wine in casks, but the English liked their wine in bottles, and second fermentation caused the bottle to fail.
Still wines from Champagne were prone to this because the wine was made in a cool climate and the initial fermentation often stopped prematurely, only to re-start in warm buildings just before consumption. However the sparkling effect improved an otherwise mediocre regional wine. The problem facing English wine coopers was how to control the process.
An accidental improvement in bottle technology gave the English the lead. In 1615 Admiral Sir Robert Mansell persuaded James I to ban the use of wood-fired furnaces, forcing the use of coal. The higher temperatures from coal-fired furnaces produced a stronger glass which, coupled with the re-discovery of cork stoppers, gave the English a wine bottle capable of withstanding gas pressures produced by making the wine sparkling.
Mansell retired, built a glassworks, obtained a Royal Patent for the use of coal, and hence a monopoly on making the new glass.
English wine coopers now had what they needed for the sparkling method, and in a 1662 paper to the Royal Society by Christopher Merritt entitled ‘The Ordering of Wines’ refers to making sparkling wine by English wine coopers as an established practice.
This was 30 years before the French made their first Sparkling Champagne, and 70 years before the first Champagne House was established. The French attribute the process to Dom Perignon, but the only records of his work show he spent his life trying to stop the wine fermenting in the bottle.
The historical record shows the French perfected the process, and made Champagne famous. The British invented it.
http://www.moorlynch.com/History%…
About Wednesday 31 December 1662
San Diego Sarah • Link
West Country farmer Christopher Merrett used techniques from the cider industry to control the second fermentation which makes wine fizzy and - crucially - invented the stronger glass needed to prevent the bottle exploding. He gave a paper to the Royal Society in 1662 describing how adding 'vast quantities of sugar and molasses' to French wine made it taste 'brisk and sparkling'. That was more than 30 years before Dom Perignon's work at the Abbey of Hautvillers at Epernay marked the 'official' beginning of a multi-million-pound industry which the French have jealously protected ever since.
Christopher Merrett also carried out experiments which led to his masterwork, The Art of Glass, explaining how stronger bottles could be blown by adding iron, manganese or carbon to the molten mixture. Tough glass was essential to prevent the pressure created by the fermenting wine causing the bottles to explode. Early French accounts of champagne production describe the revolutionary bottles as being made of 'verre anglais', or English glass.
About Cider
San Diego Sarah • Link
1662 Somerset farmer presents to the Royal Society a way to make alcoholic sparkling cider -- which leads to Champagne ...
Pardon Messieurs, but champagne was a BRITISH invention, claims new research
By James Tozer
UPDATED: 21:01 EST, 26 September 2008
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/a…
It is the most quintessentially French drink, and the pride of a whole nation. But there could be consternation across the Channel after a claim that champagne was invented by an Englishman.
Born in 1614, self-taught West Country scientist Christopher Merrett came from an area better known for producing cider.
However, records show Christopher Merrett devised two techniques that were fundamental to making champagne decades before Benedictine monk Dom Perignon, who is usually associated with the invention of the ultimate luxury drink.
Christopher Merrett used techniques from the cider industry to control the second fermentation which makes wine fizzy and - crucially - invented the stronger glass needed to prevent the bottle exploding.
Christopher Merrett, also spelled Merret, gave a paper to the Royal Society in 1662 describing how adding 'vast quantities of sugar and molasses' to French wine made it taste 'brisk and sparkling'. That was more than 30 years before Dom Perignon's work at the Abbey of Hautvillers at Epernay marked the 'official' beginning of a multi-million-pound industry which the French have jealously protected ever since.
Christopher Merrett also carried out experiments which led to his masterwork, The Art of Glass, explaining how stronger bottles could be blown by adding iron, manganese or carbon to the molten mixture.
Tough glass was essential to prevent the pressure created by the fermenting wine causing the bottles to explode. Early French accounts of champagne production describe the revolutionary bottles as being made of 'verre anglais', or English glass.
Christopher Merrett's crucial contribution to the history of both champagne and cider is recounted by author James Crowden in his new book, Ciderland.
Crowden said yesterday: 'The French will no doubt guard their rights to the methode champenoise to the last cork and rigorously prevent anyone using the champagne name outside their tightly-controlled region. But they cannot claim, however ingenious they are, to have invented the method for the simple reason they did not have the new stronger English bottles.
It is the invention and manufacture of these bottles that is the key to the whole enigma as much as the addition of the extra sugar.'
About Monday 29 December 1662
San Diego Sarah • Link
Just a reminder, Pepys saw the Russian ambassador and followers arrive on November 23. At that time language hat identified them as:
✹ language hat on 28 Nov 2005 • Link • Flag
The Russian ambassadors The main ambassador was Prince Pyotr Semyonovich Prozorovsky ... with his sons: http://www.elibron.com/english/ot…...
The other ambassador was much younger, Ivan Afanasyevich Zhelyabuzhsky. Discussions did not actually get under way until the following January; there's a description of the mission, for those who read Russian, here: http://www.kreml.ru/ru/main/scien…... I haven't found anything in English.