I'm surprised they selected Deptford for a social outing. The local news was not so affable:
"In the aftermath of the [JANUARY VENNER] rising, the government rounded up all kinds of religious dissenters, including Quakers, Baptists and Congregationalists. Their meetings were banned, and thousands were jailed: 'Some 400 Baptists and 500 Quakers were arrested in London alone... .
"Despite this repression, dissent continued - including in Southwark and Deptford. In 1661 it was reported to magistrates 'that dissidents were meeting daily at the Southwark home of George Tutchins. Having failed in Venner's attempt, he allegedly said, they would rise again on the next moonlit night, and this time would have the use of 55 barrels of powder stored in Deptford'.
"An intelligence report in March 1661 'noted that a Deptford radical was expending funds to win supporters in the army, while another report of about the same date indicated that ministers in the west who were managing a design were corresponding with the Congregationalist Ralph Venning, lecturer at St. Olave's, Southwark'.
"There were clashes between radicals and conservatives at the time of parliamentary elections in [THE SPRING OF] 1661 (albeit elections in which many did not have the vote): 'in Southwark, where there was a long-standing radical community, the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers, under the leadership of Col. George Thompson and Capt. Samuel Lynn, were unable to prevent the election of 4 conservatives. Once their defeat was apparent, the radicals drew swords and fought with the supporters of Sir Thomas Bludworth'."
Pepys will have dealings with Sir Thomas Bludworth MP later, so you can find his bio. in our Encyclopedia. To prevent a spoiler, here's his current situation: "He was a member of the committee of the East India Company (E.I.C.) from 1651 to 1661, and one of the Court Assistants for the Levant Company from 1652 to 1665. In 1658, he was elected an alderman of the City of London for Dowgate ward. In 1660, he was elected Member of Parliament for Southwark in the Convention Parliament. He was knighted on 16 May 1660 [AS A REWARD FOR CONTRIBUTING A LOT OF MONEY TO THE CITY TO GIVE TO CHARLES TO FUND THE RESTORATION]. He was a member of the Honourable Artillery Company in 1659, Colonel of the Orange Regiment of London Trained Bands in 1659-60 and a colonel of their Yellow Regiment from 1660 to 1682. In 1661, he was re-elected MP for Southwark for the Cavalier Parliament." https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
By the mid-19th Century, bedsharing began to fall out of fashion – even for married couples. It all began with an influential American physician. William Whitty Hall, who had strong opinions on many subjects, became a passionate advocate of the idea that communal sleep was not only unwise – but "unnatural and degenerative". ...
As the historian Hilary Hinds explains in the book A Cultural History of Twin Beds, this marked the beginning of the rise of individualist sleeping. Families began to abandon the ancient practice of communal sleep – and for nearly a century, many married couples slept apart, in twin beds. This was only reversed in the 1950s, when people began to view separate beds as a sign of a failing marriage.
Social sleeping never returned with its previous popularity in other contexts. So, are we missing out? Should modern politicians swap the photo-opportunity handshake for a symbolic night's sleep, like Richard the Lionheart and Philip II? Would tourists benefit from sharing a bed with total strangers?
"I think people tend to sleep much better when they're sleeping alone for all kinds of reasons … Once you get past the kind of psychological comfort that sharing beds can bring you, most people benefit from having a sleeping environment that they can fashion for their own bespoke needs," says Handley.
These hours spent chatting in the blackness of night helped to strengthen social bonds and provided a private space to exchange secrets.
SEE A PHOTO OF The Great Bed of Ware – reputedly big enough for 4 couples to share – was a popular tourist attraction for centuries, and even referenced by Shakespeare.
In an era where bedsharing was utterly routine and often unavoidable, it was helpful for people to follow proper etiquette to ensure that everyone had a comfortable night's sleep – and avoid fights from breaking out in the night. Bedfellows were expected to avoid talking excessively, respect one another's personal space, and avoid fidgeting.
Things clearly didn't always go to plan. A French phrase book from the Early Modern era provided English travelers with a few choice words with which to lambast their sleeping companion. The volume Ekirch discovered suggested translations for: "you do nothing but kick about", "you pull all the bedclothes", and "you are an ill bedfellow".
"There are lots of quite fun anecdotes I came across where people ranked the quality of their co-sleepers by their ability to tell a good story, or not to snore," says Handley. She cites one example of a disgruntled schoolmaster who compared his bedfellow – a rector – to a pig, after he went to bed drunk and made a "hideous noise".
But there were also conventions to avoid more serious consequences. In most circumstances: it was unusual for unmarried men and women to share a bed with someone outside their own family. When it did happen, there were attempts to minimize the risks.
There were also cases where male and female domestic workers were required to sleep together due to a bed shortage. "It was a common belief and source of humor – at least for those whose servants were not involved – that this sometimes resulted in pregnancies," says Ekirch.
When sharing with strangers, there was the ever-present risk of sexual violence or murder. And there were other, less appealing sides to communal sleep. For all the romance of confidential chats in the dark, and the mutual affection bedfellows developed after years of sharing physical warmth, many shared beds were hotbeds of pests and disease. With so many people crammed onto the same mattress – many of which provided ideal hiding places for insects – they often became infested with fleas, lice or bedbugs.
Sometimes, sleepers were overcome with the disgusting, overwhelming smells from unwashed bedfellows, ancient bedding and used chamber pots. In one incident Ekirch uncovered, 2 women accused each other of causing a foul stink, until they realized there was a toilet at the head of their beds.
Records of communal sleep are abundant in the Early Modern times – roughly from 1500 to 1800. "For most people, with the exclusion of aristocrats and well-to-do merchants, as well as some members of the landed gentry, it would have been unusual not to have had a bedmate," says Roger Ekirch, professor of history at Virginia Tech, and the author of At Day's Close: A History of Nighttime.
Apart from anything else, most households had too few beds for private sleeping, says Sasha Handley, professor of Early Modern history at the University of Manchester and the author of the book Sleep in Early Modern England. "Even for the middle and upper classes when they're traveling, which is a lot of the time, they're obviously forced to spend time in lodging houses and inns and taverns, where sharing a bed is a pretty common practice," says Handley.
Around 1590, a small Hertfordshire town became famous for the Great Bed of Ware, acquired for the White Hart Inn. This formidable piece of oak furniture – measuring 2.7m high (9ft), 3.3m wide (11ft) and 3.4m (11ft) deep – features elaborate carvings of lions and satyrs draped in almost theatrical hangings of red and yellow. It would have been available for travelers to share. According to legend, 26 butchers and their wives – a total of 52 people – slept there together in 1689 for a bet.
Sharing a bed did not have the same sexual connotations that it does today. In Medieval times, the Three Wise Men were often depicted sleeping together – sometimes nude, or even spooning – and experts contend that any suggestion they were engaging in carnal acts would have been absurd.
Sociable sleeping was so desirable, it even transcended the usual barriers of social class. There are numerous historical accounts of people bunking down each night with their inferiors or superiors – such masters and their apprentices, domestic helpers and their employers, or royalty and their subjects.
One of the most detailed records of communal sleep can be found within the diaries of Samuel Pepys , which provide a portal to life in the 17th Century. ... the diary records how often he slept in the same bed with friends, colleagues, and perfect strangers. And they reveal the many nuances of successful – and unsuccessful – bedsharing.
[I've removed all the Pepys examples as they are spoilers.]
Tucked up under several layers of blankets, Ekirch explains that well-suited bedfellows might exchange stories well into the early morning – perhaps even waking to analyze their dreams between their first and second sleeps. (Learn more about the Medieval practice of biphasic sleep at https://www.bbc.com/future/articl….)
"Communal sleeping" aka "Social Sleeping" -- there are many articles and books on the subject these days, apparently:
In 1187, a prince slipped into his grand wooden bed, accompanied by a new companion. With a thick mane of auburn hair and strapping frame, Richard the Lionheart was the ultimate macho warrior, renowned for his formidable leadership on the battlefield and knightly conduct. Now he had formed an unexpected friendship with a former enemy – Philip II, who ruled over France from 1180 to 1223.
Initially, the 2 monarchs forged a purely pragmatic alliance. After spending time together, eating at the same table - even out of the same dish - they had become close friends. To cement the relationship between them and their countries, they agreed to a peace treaty – and slept alongside each other in the same bed.
Despite the modern connotation of 2 men sharing a bed, at the time this was entirely unremarkable – appearing almost as a casual aside in a contemporary chronicle on the history of England. Long before the expectation of night-time privacy or more recent ideas about manliness, many historians view the 2 royals' nightly partnership as a sign of trust and brotherhood.
This is the forgotten ancient practice of communal sleep.
For thousands of years it was normal to flop down in bed at night with friends, colleagues, relatives – including the entire extended family – or travelling peddlers.
When on the road, people often found themselves lying next to total strangers. If they were unlucky, this outsider might come with an overwhelming stench, deafening snoring – or a preference for sleeping naked.
Sometimes, "social sleeping" was a pragmatic solution to a shortage of beds, which were highly valuable pieces of furniture. But even the nobility actively sought out bedfellows for the unparallelled intimacy of night-time chats in the darkness, as well as warmth and a feeling of security.
In 2011, archaeologists uncovered an well-preserved layer of prehistoric sediment at Sibudu Cave, South Africa. It contained the fossilized remains of leaves from the forest tree Cryptocarya woodie, which formed the "top sheet" of a foliage mattress constructed in the Stone Age, some 77,000 years ago. Project leader Lyn Wadley speculated the mattress may have been large enough for a whole family group.
Direct evidence for ancient communal sleep is hard to come by, but it's thought this practice is truly ancient. From the historical perspective, the modern preference for sleeping alone is deeply weird.
After a brief lapse in antiquity, during which even married members of the upper classes slept alone, the practice made it through the Medieval age more or less intact.
I appreciate your defense, Alter Kacker, but I think Eric is complaining at my mention of a fire and a war to come. It never occurred to me that these could be considered spoilers to our story as they are such well-known historical facts. Explaining things will get easier as we are further into the Diary, and more examples will be in Pepys' known past to pull from.
This must have been a hard letter to write, diplomatically. Dear My Lord: All's Well That Ends Well ... on my return from handing out guns at Deptford against the Venner Uprising (which was already over), I learned your wife had lost her mind at the sight of the returning King and his guards and fled with Lady Jem and 8 members of your household, including the musician Wm. Child (whose horse went lame within the hour and returned to Whitehall), to Chatham. Fortunately our friends Cuttance and Blake secured their lodgings, and I was able to catch up with them by dark. We assured her the danger is over, and we are all now back in London, no harm done. John Goods had the money to settle the inn bills, and when we toured the Sovereign, Charles and Newcastle to My Lady's delight, I distributed 7l. appropriately. I'll give my invoice for horse and guide rentals and the gratuities to Mr. Shepley. We were sorry to hear about William Hetley, and hope you don't catch the pox. Your devout friend and cousin, Samuel P.S. Laud is too old to be a page. He rides well, and is bothering Mary.
The General Letter Office was located in Clock Lane, Dowgate until 1666.
This is Saturday night -- the regular mail was dispatched and received from all over the country on alternate days, Monday through Saturday, but not on Sunday. Maybe Sandwich or the Navy had a private messenger organized for tomorrow?
The continental postal service known as Thurn and Taxis -- which was really an intelligence service -- is explained at https://www.historyhit.com/thurn-…
"Mr. Hetley is dead of the smallpox going to Portsmouth with my Lord."
Oh dear -- Sandwich and his immediate staff have been exposed to someone with smallpox. Princess Henrietta Anne/Minette had some form of a pox which forced them back to port, Let's hope My Lord doesn't catch anything. Epidemics used to run rampant through the crews of sailing ships.
I was wrong again: Yesterday Pepys chose to ride post haste to London in the rain, rather than ride more slowly in a coach with Lady Sandwich and Laud and the ladies. He must have satisfied her that the alarm and danger from the Fifth Monarchists was truly over.
So Lady Sandwich and her party of 8 stayed in Dartford, protected by Captains Blake and Cuttance; Elizabeth is caring for both Elizabeth Turner and supervising Pall, who is probably back caring for John Pepys Snr., since Margaret Pepys is still in Brampton. Young Wayneman is probably running around doing errands for all of them. Will Hewer is probably back at Seething Lane with Pepys, Jane, the monkey and the dog. This would make a fine French farce.
I like your logic, Alison ONeill -- he hustled as was safely reasonably.
One point, though: "Also, tollgates may have necessitated stops."
"The first turnpike road, whereby travellers paid tolls to be used for road upkeep, was authorised in 1663 for a section of the Great North Road in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire. The term turnpike refers to the military practice of placing a pikestaff across a road to block and control passage. Upon payment of the toll, the pike would be "turned" to one side to allow travellers through. Most English gates were not built to this standard; of the first three gates, two were found to be easily avoided. The early turnpikes were administered directly by the justices of the peace in quarter sessions.
"The first trusts were established by Parliament through an Act of Parliament in 1706, placing a section of the London-Coventry-Chester road in the hands of a group of trustees.
"The trustees could erect gates as they saw fit, demand statute labour or a cash equivalent, and appoint surveyors and collectors, in return they repaired the road and put up mileposts. Initially trusts were established for limited periods – often 21 years. The expectation was that the trust would borrow the money to repair the road and repay that debt over time with the road then reverting to the parishes. In reality, the initial debt was rarely paid off and the trusts were renewed as needed.
"Shortly after the creation of Great Britain in 1707, turnpike acts began to be passed by Parliament to encourage the construction of toll roads in Scotland in the same way they had been used successfully in England and Wales. The first turnpike act for a road scheme in Scotland was passed in 1713 for the construction of a road in Midlothian.
"Although in the south of England common carriers' carts became frequent, they were not seen for a long time north of York or west of Exeter. Long trains of packhorses still carried goods through Settle until the Keighley and Kendal Turnpike was started in 1753. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tol…
So Pepys and his guide were dealing with rain, cold, wind, trains of packhorses, mud, and yet more slippery mud.
William Crosby, if you enjoyed O'Brian, try J.D. Davies. As an Historian, he loves to write navel novels, mostly about the Stuarts, filling in the "gaps". His book about the Great Fire ("Death's Bright Angel"), for instance, has a Authors Notes on what he discovered researching the book which is almost as long as the novel. If you read them now, you'll enjoy the Second Anglo-Dutch war part of the Diary more. https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/jd-…
In the early 17th century this attitude began to change. Observing the new species of monkey brought from the East, philosopher René Descartes was struck more by their difference than by any similarity. Monkeys were, he stressed, fundamentally irrational beings. They could hence be treated with disdain – even contempt. Nicolas Malebranche went further. Building on Descartes’ denial of simian reason, he argued that monkeys, could neither suffer pain nor experience emotion. As such, they did not merit moral consideration. They could thus be mistreated, brutalised or even vivisected at will.
Now they were regarded as divorced from humankind, it seemed logical to exploit the perceived differences for the purpose of mockery. By placing them in human situations, it was possible to mock the irrationality or stupidity of those whom they were meant to represent. Indeed, the more ‘human’ they were made to look, the more ridiculous – and pointed – the satire.
Having emerged in the Low Countries, monkeys spread to France and England. Although monkeys’ mischievousness might sometimes inspire affection, there was still an unbridgeable gap separating them from men. Their perceived irrationality took center stage. Christophe Huet used them to ridicule French landowners; Edwin Landseer to mock English naturalists; Honoré Daumier to poke fun at King Louis-Philippe; and Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays – among others – to laugh at painters.
Not until the publication of Charles Darwin’s revolutionary work, "On the Origin of Species" (1859), did monkeys (and apes) begin to emerge from the shadow first cast by the 16th century Dutch artists.
In 1562, an etching by Pieter van der Heyden turned the Dutch art world upside down. Modelled after a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, it depicted a well-known folk story. In the middle, a peddler lies sleeping beneath a tree. As he is slumbering, he is fallen upon by a troop of monkeys. Small but with a distinctly human appearance, they get up to mischief. After rifling through the peddler’s basket, some amuse themselves with his wares. One tries on a pair of children’s trousers; a second looks at its reflection in a mirror; a third makes off with a set of knives. Another is playing a flute, while its friends dance; two more are having a hobby horse race. Meanwhile, members of the band torment the peddler. One is urinating in his hat; another is searching for nits in his hair; one is stealing from the purse hanging about his neck; yet another is holding its nose while it exposes the poor man’s bottom.
This wasn’t the first time monkeys appeared in European art. Since the earliest times they had appeared, often as part of moralising allegories, to add decorative spice to humdrum scenes, or simply for amusement. They are found in the wall paintings of Egyptian tombs; in Minoan frescoes on Crete; and in Roman friezes. They peek out from the margins of illuminated manuscripts and can be found on the façades of Gothic cathedrals such as Rouen. Following Columbus’ discovery of the New World in 1492, they had even enjoyed a ‘Renaissance’.
Following several successful voyages to India, the first Dutch expedition to Indonesia set sail in 1595; and in 1602, the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC, or Dutch East India Company) was founded in Antwerp. Although the VOC made its shareholders wealthy, the most important effect was to enlarge the Dutch people’s experience of simians. Whereas in the past they had known only a relatively small number of species from North and West Africa, they were now introduced to a dizzying range of new varieties.
Smaller, more gregarious monkeys, such as macaques and langurs, provoked curiosity – not least because of their intelligence and mimicry.
Brought back to Europe by naturalists, sailors and smugglers, they became a familiar as pets, or in menageries. The less fortunate were forced to perform in the street.
While this excited the artistic imagination of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter van der Heyden to including more monkeys in their scenes, it also provoked a dramatic shift in philosophical attitudes towards primates more generally.
Before the 16th century, European ideas of the animal kingdom were shaped by the Bible. While God had created man in His image and likeness, He had created animals as a lesser, more imperfect form of life. Monkeys were sometimes regarded as a special case. They were obviously not human, but they shared enough characteristics with man to be thought of as a form of humanity, albeit debased.
L&M: "The Royal Sovereign; the largest and best-known warship of the fleet (some said the most useless); one of the first of the 3-deckers; built from ship-money in 1637, burnt by accident in 1696."
"Does anyone know, aproximately, how many vessels the Navy had at this point."
Probably not, Richard. They were constantly building ships, but didn't always have the money to fix them, so they were mothballed and left to rot -- in later times these hulks were used as prisons. Did they count or not? Plus storms, dry rot, etc. meant ships were constantly sinking -- and if it went down in the Far East, how did London know was it sunk? Taken by pirates and renamed? Gone rogue, and trading on its own behalf in Amsterdam? It might be legitimately absent for years before it was listed as missing in London.
Recently I recall the Navy Board had a meeting to make up a list of ships, their condition, and where they thought they were located for Parliament. Parliament promptly decommissioned some of them.
Another "problem" your question misses is that the Navy used other people's ships when it went to war. Every freighter carried cannon to fight pirates anyways. Warships like the Charles were rare, and not used for much, so if England wasn't at war, it was sitting idle in a creek off the Medway, deteriorating.
There are scholarly books, like J.D. Davies' "Kings of the Sea: Charles II and James II" about the building of the modern Royal Navy, in which Pepys played a part. J.D. probably has some helpful stats: https://jddavies.com/book/kings-o…
As a rather large city, London required several places of execution, prior to convicts and felons being deported first to America and then to Australia.
In summary, the Tower of London was generally reserved for traitors, Execution Dock at Wapping for pirates, Smithfield for heretics and witches, whilst the Tyburn Gallows was used to stretch the necks of general felons and all round bad-boys. As such, it would have been the most overworked place of execution in London.
In operation from 1196, the already infamous Tyburn Tree received some serious modernising in 1571. A triangular-shaped gallows was erected which reached approximately 6 metres in height. The 3-sided design reflected the need to hang more than a single person at a time. In fact, each beam could accommodate eight people at once; in total twenty-four could swing together in one go.
As many as 12 hanging days would occur each year, each one being declared a public holiday for the labouring classes. Released from Newgate Prison, the condemned were taken to Tyburn on a cart and had to ride with the hangman and the prison chaplin. Peace-officers would lead the procession while immediately behind the cart marched a troop of soldiers and constables.
The procession passed through Holborn, St. Giles and Tyburn Road (Oxford Street). Stops made at inns on the way allowed prisoners the chance to indulge in a drop or two of the hard stuff. It was not uncommon for prisoners to arrive at the scaffold drunk and disorderly.
One of the most famous hangings was that of Oliver Cromwell, although he had died a few years earlier and been laid to rest at Westminster Abbey, following the Restoration in 1660, his body was exhumed and gibbeted at Tyburn.
Comments
Third Reading
About Friday 22 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
I'm surprised they selected Deptford for a social outing. The local news was not so affable:
"In the aftermath of the [JANUARY VENNER] rising, the government rounded up all kinds of religious dissenters, including Quakers, Baptists and Congregationalists. Their meetings were banned, and thousands were jailed: 'Some 400 Baptists and 500 Quakers were arrested in London alone... .
"Despite this repression, dissent continued - including in Southwark and Deptford. In 1661 it was reported to magistrates 'that dissidents were meeting daily at the Southwark home of George Tutchins. Having failed in Venner's attempt, he allegedly said, they would rise again on the next moonlit night, and this time would have the use of 55 barrels of powder stored in Deptford'.
"An intelligence report in March 1661 'noted that a Deptford radical was expending funds to win supporters in the army, while another report of about the same date indicated that ministers in the west who were managing a design were corresponding with the Congregationalist Ralph Venning, lecturer at St. Olave's, Southwark'.
"There were clashes between radicals and conservatives at the time of parliamentary elections in [THE SPRING OF] 1661 (albeit elections in which many did not have the vote): 'in Southwark, where there was a long-standing radical community, the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers, under the leadership of Col. George Thompson and Capt. Samuel Lynn, were unable to prevent the election of 4 conservatives. Once their defeat was apparent, the radicals drew swords and fought with the supporters of Sir Thomas Bludworth'."
This unrest in Deptford continued into 1662.
https://transpont.blogspot.com/20…
Pepys will have dealings with Sir Thomas Bludworth MP later, so you can find his bio. in our Encyclopedia. To prevent a spoiler, here's his current situation: "He was a member of the committee of the East India Company (E.I.C.) from 1651 to 1661, and one of the Court Assistants for the Levant Company from 1652 to 1665. In 1658, he was elected an alderman of the City of London for Dowgate ward. In 1660, he was elected Member of Parliament for Southwark in the Convention Parliament. He was knighted on 16 May 1660 [AS A REWARD FOR CONTRIBUTING A LOT OF MONEY TO THE CITY TO GIVE TO CHARLES TO FUND THE RESTORATION]. He was a member of the Honourable Artillery Company in 1659, Colonel of the Orange Regiment of London Trained Bands in 1659-60 and a colonel of their Yellow Regiment from 1660 to 1682. In 1661, he was re-elected MP for Southwark for the Cavalier Parliament."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Sunday 20 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONCLUSION
By the mid-19th Century, bedsharing began to fall out of fashion – even for married couples.
It all began with an influential American physician. William Whitty Hall, who had strong opinions on many subjects, became a passionate advocate of the idea that communal sleep was not only unwise – but "unnatural and degenerative". ...
As the historian Hilary Hinds explains in the book A Cultural History of Twin Beds, this marked the beginning of the rise of individualist sleeping.
Families began to abandon the ancient practice of communal sleep – and for nearly a century, many married couples slept apart, in twin beds.
This was only reversed in the 1950s, when people began to view separate beds as a sign of a failing marriage.
Social sleeping never returned with its previous popularity in other contexts.
So, are we missing out?
Should modern politicians swap the photo-opportunity handshake for a symbolic night's sleep, like Richard the Lionheart and Philip II?
Would tourists benefit from sharing a bed with total strangers?
"I think people tend to sleep much better when they're sleeping alone for all kinds of reasons … Once you get past the kind of psychological comfort that sharing beds can bring you, most people benefit from having a sleeping environment that they can fashion for their own bespoke needs," says Handley.
Excerpted from https://www.bbc.com/future/articl…
About Sunday 20 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
These hours spent chatting in the blackness of night helped to strengthen social bonds and provided a private space to exchange secrets.
SEE A PHOTO OF The Great Bed of Ware – reputedly big enough for 4 couples to share – was a popular tourist attraction for centuries, and even referenced by Shakespeare.
In an era where bedsharing was utterly routine and often unavoidable, it was helpful for people to follow proper etiquette to ensure that everyone had a comfortable night's sleep – and avoid fights from breaking out in the night. Bedfellows were expected to avoid talking excessively, respect one another's personal space, and avoid fidgeting.
Things clearly didn't always go to plan. A French phrase book from the Early Modern era provided English travelers with a few choice words with which to lambast their sleeping companion. The volume Ekirch discovered suggested translations for: "you do nothing but kick about", "you pull all the bedclothes", and "you are an ill bedfellow".
"There are lots of quite fun anecdotes I came across where people ranked the quality of their co-sleepers by their ability to tell a good story, or not to snore," says Handley. She cites one example of a disgruntled schoolmaster who compared his bedfellow – a rector – to a pig, after he went to bed drunk and made a "hideous noise".
But there were also conventions to avoid more serious consequences. In most circumstances: it was unusual for unmarried men and women to share a bed with someone outside their own family. When it did happen, there were attempts to minimize the risks.
There were also cases where male and female domestic workers were required to sleep together due to a bed shortage. "It was a common belief and source of humor – at least for those whose servants were not involved – that this sometimes resulted in pregnancies," says Ekirch.
When sharing with strangers, there was the ever-present risk of sexual violence or murder. And there were other, less appealing sides to communal sleep. For all the romance of confidential chats in the dark, and the mutual affection bedfellows developed after years of sharing physical warmth, many shared beds were hotbeds of pests and disease.
With so many people crammed onto the same mattress – many of which provided ideal hiding places for insects – they often became infested with fleas, lice or bedbugs.
Sometimes, sleepers were overcome with the disgusting, overwhelming smells from unwashed bedfellows, ancient bedding and used chamber pots. In one incident Ekirch uncovered, 2 women accused each other of causing a foul stink, until they realized there was a toilet at the head of their beds.
About Sunday 20 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Records of communal sleep are abundant in the Early Modern times – roughly from 1500 to 1800. "For most people, with the exclusion of aristocrats and well-to-do merchants, as well as some members of the landed gentry, it would have been unusual not to have had a bedmate," says Roger Ekirch, professor of history at Virginia Tech, and the author of At Day's Close: A History of Nighttime.
Apart from anything else, most households had too few beds for private sleeping, says Sasha Handley, professor of Early Modern history at the University of Manchester and the author of the book Sleep in Early Modern England.
"Even for the middle and upper classes when they're traveling, which is a lot of the time, they're obviously forced to spend time in lodging houses and inns and taverns, where sharing a bed is a pretty common practice," says Handley.
Around 1590, a small Hertfordshire town became famous for the Great Bed of Ware, acquired for the White Hart Inn. This formidable piece of oak furniture – measuring 2.7m high (9ft), 3.3m wide (11ft) and 3.4m (11ft) deep – features elaborate carvings of lions and satyrs draped in almost theatrical hangings of red and yellow. It would have been available for travelers to share. According to legend, 26 butchers and their wives – a total of 52 people – slept there together in 1689 for a bet.
Sharing a bed did not have the same sexual connotations that it does today. In Medieval times, the Three Wise Men were often depicted sleeping together – sometimes nude, or even spooning – and experts contend that any suggestion they were engaging in carnal acts would have been absurd.
Sociable sleeping was so desirable, it even transcended the usual barriers of social class. There are numerous historical accounts of people bunking down each night with their inferiors or superiors – such masters and their apprentices, domestic helpers and their employers, or royalty and their subjects.
One of the most detailed records of communal sleep can be found within the diaries of Samuel Pepys , which provide a portal to life in the 17th Century. ... the diary records how often he slept in the same bed with friends, colleagues, and perfect strangers. And they reveal the many nuances of successful – and unsuccessful – bedsharing.
[I've removed all the Pepys examples as they are spoilers.]
Tucked up under several layers of blankets, Ekirch explains that well-suited bedfellows might exchange stories well into the early morning – perhaps even waking to analyze their dreams between their first and second sleeps. (Learn more about the Medieval practice of biphasic sleep at https://www.bbc.com/future/articl….)
About Sunday 20 May 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Communal sleeping" aka "Social Sleeping" -- there are many articles and books on the subject these days, apparently:
In 1187, a prince slipped into his grand wooden bed, accompanied by a new companion. With a thick mane of auburn hair and strapping frame, Richard the Lionheart was the ultimate macho warrior, renowned for his formidable leadership on the battlefield and knightly conduct. Now he had formed an unexpected friendship with a former enemy – Philip II, who ruled over France from 1180 to 1223.
Initially, the 2 monarchs forged a purely pragmatic alliance.
After spending time together, eating at the same table - even out of the same dish - they had become close friends. To cement the relationship between them and their countries, they agreed to a peace treaty – and slept alongside each other in the same bed.
Despite the modern connotation of 2 men sharing a bed, at the time this was entirely unremarkable – appearing almost as a casual aside in a contemporary chronicle on the history of England. Long before the expectation of night-time privacy or more recent ideas about manliness, many historians view the 2 royals' nightly partnership as a sign of trust and brotherhood.
This is the forgotten ancient practice of communal sleep.
For thousands of years it was normal to flop down in bed at night with friends, colleagues, relatives – including the entire extended family – or travelling peddlers.
When on the road, people often found themselves lying next to total strangers. If they were unlucky, this outsider might come with an overwhelming stench, deafening snoring – or a preference for sleeping naked.
Sometimes, "social sleeping" was a pragmatic solution to a shortage of beds, which were highly valuable pieces of furniture. But even the nobility actively sought out bedfellows for the unparallelled intimacy of night-time chats in the darkness, as well as warmth and a feeling of security.
In 2011, archaeologists uncovered an well-preserved layer of prehistoric sediment at Sibudu Cave, South Africa. It contained the fossilized remains of leaves from the forest tree Cryptocarya woodie, which formed the "top sheet" of a foliage mattress constructed in the Stone Age, some 77,000 years ago. Project leader Lyn Wadley speculated the mattress may have been large enough for a whole family group.
Direct evidence for ancient communal sleep is hard to come by, but it's thought this practice is truly ancient. From the historical perspective, the modern preference for sleeping alone is deeply weird.
After a brief lapse in antiquity, during which even married members of the upper classes slept alone, the practice made it through the Medieval age more or less intact.
About Saturday 19 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
I appreciate your defense, Alter Kacker, but I think Eric is complaining at my mention of a fire and a war to come. It never occurred to me that these could be considered spoilers to our story as they are such well-known historical facts.
Explaining things will get easier as we are further into the Diary, and more examples will be in Pepys' known past to pull from.
About Saturday 19 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... wrote by post to Portsmouth to my Lord ..."
This must have been a hard letter to write, diplomatically.
Dear My Lord:
All's Well That Ends Well ... on my return from handing out guns at Deptford against the Venner Uprising (which was already over), I learned your wife had lost her mind at the sight of the returning King and his guards and fled with Lady Jem and 8 members of your household, including the musician Wm. Child (whose horse went lame within the hour and returned to Whitehall), to Chatham.
Fortunately our friends Cuttance and Blake secured their lodgings, and I was able to catch up with them by dark.
We assured her the danger is over, and we are all now back in London, no harm done. John Goods had the money to settle the inn bills, and when we toured the Sovereign, Charles and Newcastle to My Lady's delight, I distributed 7l. appropriately.
I'll give my invoice for horse and guide rentals and the gratuities to Mr. Shepley.
We were sorry to hear about William Hetley, and hope you don't catch the pox.
Your devout friend and cousin, Samuel
P.S. Laud is too old to be a page. He rides well, and is bothering Mary.
About Saturday 19 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
The General Letter Office was located in Clock Lane, Dowgate until 1666.
This is Saturday night -- the regular mail was dispatched and received from all over the country on alternate days, Monday through Saturday, but not on Sunday.
Maybe Sandwich or the Navy had a private messenger organized for tomorrow?
For the postal situation in 1660-1661 see
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Friday 18 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
The continental postal service known as Thurn and Taxis -- which was really an intelligence service -- is explained at
https://www.historyhit.com/thurn-…
About Saturday 19 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... I went to the Leg in King Street and had a rabbit for myself and my Will, ..."
“So, Will, what happened while I was away? Did the Frenchman kiss Elizabeth again?”
About Saturday 19 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Mr. Hetley is dead of the smallpox going to Portsmouth with my Lord."
Oh dear -- Sandwich and his immediate staff have been exposed to someone with smallpox. Princess Henrietta Anne/Minette had some form of a pox which forced them back to port, Let's hope My Lord doesn't catch anything. Epidemics used to run rampant through the crews of sailing ships.
About Saturday 19 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
I was wrong again:
Yesterday Pepys chose to ride post haste to London in the rain, rather than ride more slowly in a coach with Lady Sandwich and Laud and the ladies.
He must have satisfied her that the alarm and danger from the Fifth Monarchists was truly over.
About Friday 18 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
So Lady Sandwich and her party of 8 stayed in Dartford, protected by Captains Blake and Cuttance;
Elizabeth is caring for both Elizabeth Turner and supervising Pall, who is probably back caring for John Pepys Snr., since Margaret Pepys is still in Brampton. Young Wayneman is probably running around doing errands for all of them.
Will Hewer is probably back at Seething Lane with Pepys, Jane, the monkey and the dog.
This would make a fine French farce.
About Wednesday 16 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
I like your logic, Alison ONeill -- he hustled as was safely reasonably.
One point, though: "Also, tollgates may have necessitated stops."
"The first turnpike road, whereby travellers paid tolls to be used for road upkeep, was authorised in 1663 for a section of the Great North Road in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire.
The term turnpike refers to the military practice of placing a pikestaff across a road to block and control passage. Upon payment of the toll, the pike would be "turned" to one side to allow travellers through. Most English gates were not built to this standard; of the first three gates, two were found to be easily avoided.
The early turnpikes were administered directly by the justices of the peace in quarter sessions.
"The first trusts were established by Parliament through an Act of Parliament in 1706, placing a section of the London-Coventry-Chester road in the hands of a group of trustees.
"The trustees could erect gates as they saw fit, demand statute labour or a cash equivalent, and appoint surveyors and collectors, in return they repaired the road and put up mileposts.
Initially trusts were established for limited periods – often 21 years. The expectation was that the trust would borrow the money to repair the road and repay that debt over time with the road then reverting to the parishes. In reality, the initial debt was rarely paid off and the trusts were renewed as needed.
"Shortly after the creation of Great Britain in 1707, turnpike acts began to be passed by Parliament to encourage the construction of toll roads in Scotland in the same way they had been used successfully in England and Wales.
The first turnpike act for a road scheme in Scotland was passed in 1713 for the construction of a road in Midlothian.
"Although in the south of England common carriers' carts became frequent, they were not seen for a long time north of York or west of Exeter.
Long trains of packhorses still carried goods through Settle until the Keighley and Kendal Turnpike was started in 1753.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tol…
So Pepys and his guide were dealing with rain, cold, wind, trains of packhorses, mud, and yet more slippery mud.
About Thursday 17 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
William Crosby, if you enjoyed O'Brian, try J.D. Davies.
As an Historian, he loves to write navel novels, mostly about the Stuarts, filling in the "gaps".
His book about the Great Fire ("Death's Bright Angel"), for instance, has a Authors Notes on what he discovered researching the book which is almost as long as the novel.
If you read them now, you'll enjoy the Second Anglo-Dutch war part of the Diary more.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/jd-…
About Friday 18 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
CONCLUSION:
In the early 17th century this attitude began to change. Observing the new species of monkey brought from the East, philosopher René Descartes was struck more by their difference than by any similarity. Monkeys were, he stressed, fundamentally irrational beings. They could hence be treated with disdain – even contempt.
Nicolas Malebranche went further. Building on Descartes’ denial of simian reason, he argued that monkeys, could neither suffer pain nor experience emotion. As such, they did not merit moral consideration. They could thus be mistreated, brutalised or even vivisected at will.
Now they were regarded as divorced from humankind, it seemed logical to exploit the perceived differences for the purpose of mockery. By placing them in human situations, it was possible to mock the irrationality or stupidity of those whom they were meant to represent. Indeed, the more ‘human’ they were made to look, the more ridiculous – and pointed – the satire.
Having emerged in the Low Countries, monkeys spread to France and England.
Although monkeys’ mischievousness might sometimes inspire affection, there was still an unbridgeable gap separating them from men. Their perceived irrationality took center stage.
Christophe Huet used them to ridicule French landowners;
Edwin Landseer to mock English naturalists;
Honoré Daumier to poke fun at King Louis-Philippe;
and Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays – among others – to laugh at painters.
Not until the publication of Charles Darwin’s revolutionary work, "On the Origin of Species" (1859), did monkeys (and apes) begin to emerge from the shadow first cast by the 16th century Dutch artists.
Excerpted from
https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
About Friday 18 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
A brief history of monkeys as fashionable pets:
In 1562, an etching by Pieter van der Heyden turned the Dutch art world upside down. Modelled after a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, it depicted a well-known folk story. In the middle, a peddler lies sleeping beneath a tree. As he is slumbering, he is fallen upon by a troop of monkeys. Small but with a distinctly human appearance, they get up to mischief. After rifling through the peddler’s basket, some amuse themselves with his wares. One tries on a pair of children’s trousers; a second looks at its reflection in a mirror; a third makes off with a set of knives. Another is playing a flute, while its friends dance; two more are having a hobby horse race. Meanwhile, members of the band torment the peddler. One is urinating in his hat; another is searching for nits in his hair; one is stealing from the purse hanging about his neck; yet another is holding its nose while it exposes the poor man’s bottom.
This wasn’t the first time monkeys appeared in European art. Since the earliest times they had appeared, often as part of moralising allegories, to add decorative spice to humdrum scenes, or simply for amusement.
They are found in the wall paintings of Egyptian tombs;
in Minoan frescoes on Crete; and in Roman friezes.
They peek out from the margins of illuminated manuscripts and can be found on the façades of Gothic cathedrals such as Rouen.
Following Columbus’ discovery of the New World in 1492, they had even enjoyed a ‘Renaissance’.
Following several successful voyages to India, the first Dutch expedition to Indonesia set sail in 1595; and in 1602, the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC, or Dutch East India Company) was founded in Antwerp. Although the VOC made its shareholders wealthy, the most important effect was to enlarge the Dutch people’s experience of simians.
Whereas in the past they had known only a relatively small number of species from North and West Africa, they were now introduced to a dizzying range of new varieties.
Smaller, more gregarious monkeys, such as macaques and langurs, provoked curiosity – not least because of their intelligence and mimicry.
Brought back to Europe by naturalists, sailors and smugglers, they became a familiar as pets, or in menageries. The less fortunate were forced to perform in the street.
While this excited the artistic imagination of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter van der Heyden to including more monkeys in their scenes, it also provoked a dramatic shift in philosophical attitudes towards primates more generally.
Before the 16th century, European ideas of the animal kingdom were shaped by the Bible. While God had created man in His image and likeness, He had created animals as a lesser, more imperfect form of life.
Monkeys were sometimes regarded as a special case.
They were obviously not human, but they shared enough characteristics with man to be thought of as a form of humanity, albeit debased.
About Royal Sovereign
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M: "The Royal Sovereign; the largest and best-known warship of the fleet (some said the most useless); one of the first of the 3-deckers; built from ship-money in 1637, burnt by accident in 1696."
About Thursday 17 January 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Does anyone know, aproximately, how many vessels the Navy had at this point."
Probably not, Richard. They were constantly building ships, but didn't always have the money to fix them, so they were mothballed and left to rot -- in later times these hulks were used as prisons. Did they count or not? Plus storms, dry rot, etc. meant ships were constantly sinking -- and if it went down in the Far East, how did London know was it sunk? Taken by pirates and renamed? Gone rogue, and trading on its own behalf in Amsterdam? It might be legitimately absent for years before it was listed as missing in London.
Recently I recall the Navy Board had a meeting to make up a list of ships, their condition, and where they thought they were located for Parliament. Parliament promptly decommissioned some of them.
Another "problem" your question misses is that the Navy used other people's ships when it went to war. Every freighter carried cannon to fight pirates anyways. Warships like the Charles were rare, and not used for much, so if England wasn't at war, it was sitting idle in a creek off the Medway, deteriorating.
There are scholarly books, like J.D. Davies' "Kings of the Sea: Charles II and James II" about the building of the modern Royal Navy, in which Pepys played a part. J.D. probably has some helpful stats:
https://jddavies.com/book/kings-o…
Historic UK has a nice graph showing fluctuations in the size of the Royal Navy since 1650
https://www.historic-uk.com/Blog/…
Wiki has a list of ships by rating, with when they were built and what happened to them, when known
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…
The Royal Navy has an informative, but it's not helpful on this subject, website
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news…
Please share if you come up with a better answer.
About Executions
San Diego Sarah • Link
Historic UK has an excellent summary about execution sites around London:
https://www.historic-uk.com/Histo…
The intro:
As a rather large city, London required several places of execution, prior to convicts and felons being deported first to America and then to Australia.
In summary, the Tower of London was generally reserved for traitors, Execution Dock at Wapping for pirates, Smithfield for heretics and witches, whilst the Tyburn Gallows was used to stretch the necks of general felons and all round bad-boys. As such, it would have been the most overworked place of execution in London.
In operation from 1196, the already infamous Tyburn Tree received some serious modernising in 1571. A triangular-shaped gallows was erected which reached approximately 6 metres in height. The 3-sided design reflected the need to hang more than a single person at a time. In fact, each beam could accommodate eight people at once; in total twenty-four could swing together in one go.
As many as 12 hanging days would occur each year, each one being declared a public holiday for the labouring classes. Released from Newgate Prison, the condemned were taken to Tyburn on a cart and had to ride with the hangman and the prison chaplin. Peace-officers would lead the procession while immediately behind the cart marched a troop of soldiers and constables.
The procession passed through Holborn, St. Giles and Tyburn Road (Oxford Street). Stops made at inns on the way allowed prisoners the chance to indulge in a drop or two of the hard stuff. It was not uncommon for prisoners to arrive at the scaffold drunk and disorderly.
One of the most famous hangings was that of Oliver Cromwell, although he had died a few years earlier and been laid to rest at Westminster Abbey, following the Restoration in 1660, his body was exhumed and gibbeted at Tyburn.