L&M say "... the Duchess of York was in labor ..."
Wasn't Anne officially still known as Anne Hyde at this point? Yes, she and James had been married privately twice by now, but the relationship was not publically acknowledged, and Queen Mother Henrietta Maria is on her way, partly motivated to visit in order to stop what she saw as a bad match.
Charles II investigated the circumstances of the marriage. Proof of the Breda wedding was obtained. Eventually, Charles relented, and James and Anne had a second official but private midnight wedding ceremony on September 3, 1660 at her father’s home at Worcester House in the Strand. The marriage was made according to the rites of the Church of England.
Charles II made a point of visiting Anne during her confinement, and other courtiers followed his example. [THIS MUST HAVE BEEN WHEN SANDWICH TOLD PEPYS WHAT WAS HAPPENING. - SDS]
On October 22, Anne gave birth to a son. She was interrogated repeatedly during her labor and she was adamant James was the father of her child and that she was married to him. James was wavering again and was nowhere to be found during the delivery.
Queen Mother Henrietta Maria had always hated Edward Hyde and was angry Charles had appointed him lord chancellor and chief minister. She traveled from France to try to stop James’ marriage. Because James had repudiated the marriage before, he was under pressure from his friends to repudiate the marriage and say it never took place. But Charles was firm. He decided the marriage was legal. He would not allow the marriage to be annulled by decree as he didn’t want Parliament to interfere with the succession.
Finally the Queen Mother was convinced to accept the situation with grace. In December, James and Anne appeared publicly as husband and wife and on January 1, 1661, Henrietta Maria dined with her extended family and gave everyone her blessing.
Anne now officially took up her duties as Duchess of York.
* Edward Hyde was elevated as the Earl of Clarendon in 1661.
When Oliver Cromwell declared the Republic in England and King Charles lost his head, Edward Hyde * went into exile with Charles II’s court.
Anne, her mother and siblings went to live in Antwerp and later moved to Breda where Mary, Princess of Orange offered them a home. The Princess made Anne as a maid-of-honor in 1655.
Anne became popular in The Hague and at the princess’ country home at Teylingen. In 1656, the Princess of Orange went to visit her mother, Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria in Paris. It was during this visit that Anne first met James, Duke of York.
In 1659, the Stuart brothers lived in Brussels and made regular visits to Princess Mary of Orange. We don’t know anything about Anne and James' early relationship. James said from the first time he saw her, he resolved to marry her. He later said he fell in love with her due to her witty conversation.
Anne was handsome and voluptuous, witty, clever, intelligent and loved wearing jewels. She had a commanding presence and stately demeanor which attracted admirers. She was friendly, generous and fun. She charmed James until he proposed, but James may not have had entirely honorable intentions.
In either August or November 1659 they exchanged vows before the appropriate witnesses and consummated the marriage, all without Charles II’s permission at Breda.
This was a marriage in the eyes of the church but for royalty to marry a commoner was a great mismatch. If James had waited a few months, he could have married any princess in Europe.
Anne became pregnant, and was left behind in Flanders at the Restoration.
News of the marriage leaked, and the wrath of his mother and sister was unleashed on James for marrying below his rank. James dithered on whether he was married to Anne or not.
Chancellor Hyde ordered his daughter to England and James was forced to confess to his brother. Charles and the Chancellor discussed the matter, who feared people would accuse him of wanting his grandchild to become king.
Chancellor Hyde swore to Charles II he preferred Anne to be James’ whore not his wife, and asked the king to lock Anne up in the Tower, or even have her executed. He said “that as soon as he came home, he would turn her out of his house as a strumpet to shift for herself, and would never see her again”.
There was no resolution to the matter. Hyde went home and told his wife to keep Anne a prisoner (but James was allowed to visit her at night).
L&M: Mr. Adams, Mr. Sheply's friend, of Axe Yard. Possibly Henry Adams whose son, Edward (? named after Sheply?) was baptised at St. Margaret's on 27 March, 1661. (Also see Greenlead.)
"To the Parish church in the morning, where a good sermon by Mr. Mills."
Finally someone has come up with some inspiration and leadership. Well done, Rev. Milles. I wonder what could possibly have inspired you from this last week's events?
"My boy" until recently has meant Will Hewer, who knew London well, and would have been 18 years old now.
Wayneman Birch is a country boy who replaced the young thief they sent home last month -- who was Elizabeth's boy. Wayneman was 10-12 years old now.
Pepys' concern that his boy (a novice, in Pepys' words) was lost does indicate this was Wayneman. We will see if Will Hewer has been "promoted" or if Pepys was just giving Wayneman a training outing, and Hewer has time off. The Pepys are becoming friends with Hewer's family, and with their recent bereavement, he might have wanted to visit his mother etc.
That Wayneman wandered off indicates Pepys needed to be more considerate, and the boy needed this training. Parking a lad alone outside Westminster Abbey for an hour or two was a test. He was probably off playing football somewhere. Wayneman liked football. That he found his way home was a good sign. If Pepys had needed to use him as a runner between him and Elizabeth, Wayneman was capable of that. (Remember, there are no road signs, and no house numbers. Giving directions was done by churches and business signs: "Turn left at St. Paul's and turn right at the Three Bells.")
L&M is of no use here. There are several Prices listed in the Companion, but no mention of them living in Old Palace Yard -- but it sounds more like a business which should have turned up in the tax or chimney records of the time.
'Isn’t this the same fellow that SP described with the following words: “He seemed to be in a melancholy humor, which, … was for that he had lately lost a great deal of money at cards.”'
The difference in mood, in my limited experience, depends on whether one wins or loses at the tables the night before. This sounds like Sandwich came home with a profit last night.
Lady Jem wants her daughter to have stability. Sandwich wants her to have nobility (which will improve his reputation, social standing and power). Sadly stability and nobility rarely go together, as the noble's ancient pile/castle endlessly needs a new roof, etc. etc. etc.
Pepys probably feels this is sad: he likes Mrs. Jem, and would want her happiness, which is not a consideration in this conversation.
That is one of the hugh benefits of being a self-made Gentleman or an Esquire -- he could have his Elizabeth.
Complaints against the fogs ever recur in the ambassador's dispatches: "What I wish," wrote the Duc d'Aumont to the Marquis de Torcy (19 Jan., 1713), "is that the fog, the air, and the smoke did not irritate my lungs." Courtin speaks in the same strain: "an ambassador here must be broad-shouldered. M. de Cominges has an everlasting cold that will follow him to the grave or to France, and I who am by nature of delicate health, have grown hoarse for the last 4 or 5 days and feel a burning in my stomach, with great pains in the side." A bad winter was enough to make Louis XIV's envoys loathe a country they did not care to understand.
Never was a king worse informed by his ambassadors than Louis XIV. None dreamed of forsaking the Court to study the middle classes and the people. Of the institutions of England they knew what contemporary lawyers and archæologists had to teach. The love of freedom, the insular pride, they did not even suspect. Ignorant as they were, they tried by giving advice to the king, who mocked them, and money to his ministers, to subvert parliamentary government established at the price of 6 years of civil war and 6 years of dictatorship. "The French nobility do not travel"; when the gentlemen of France left Versailles they carried away with them their spirit of caste and narrow-mindedness. Forgetting nothing, they did not readily learn anything new.
FROM: The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century, by Charles Bastide Published by London, John Lane; New York, John Lane Company, 1914
In short, if Pepys or Charles II wanted to make something happen with the French, it was up to them to make the effort to communicate. The French did not consider English worthy of their time. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3…
After the Restoration may be noted Claude Mauger, Guy Miège, Paul Festeau, "maître de langues à Londres," d'Abadie,] Pierre Bérault, "chapelain de la marine britannique." "If," wrote Bérault in his 'Nosegay or Miscellany of Several Divine Truths' (1685), "any gentleman or gentlewoman hath a mind to learn French or Latin, the author will wait upon them; he lives in Compton Street, in Soo-Hoo Fields, four doors of the Myter." These men spread the taste of French manners and French books. One of the more obscure among them, Denis, a schoolmaster at Chester, taught Brereton, the future translator of Racine.
The most unpardonable ignorance was that of most of the travellers. ... Dartford becomes Datford with Coulon (1654); Payen calls the English coins crhon, toupens, farden (1666); even sagacious Misson prefers the phonetic form coacres (quakers) and coacresses (quakeresses) (1698). Sorbière travelled about England, meeting some eminent men of the time, without knowing a word of English. They have for excuse their extraordinary blindness. Thus Coulon does not hesitate to deliver his opinions on the English language, which he calls "a mixture of German and French, though it is thought that it was formerly the German language in its integrity."
As for Le Pays, he candidly owns that he would have found London quite to his taste if the inhabitants had all spoken French (1672).
And in another excerpt:
Frenchmen of rank seldom leave London. "The quarter of the Common Garden is ordinarily that of the travelling Frenchmen, more busy at Court than at the Exchange. ... Most of our young Frenchmen who go to London know only that region, and have ventured only as far as the Exchange by land or the Tower by water."
How does the Frenchman of rank spend his time in London? Moreau de Brazey has answered the question in the most satisfactory manner: "We rise at 9, those who assist at the levees of great men have plenty to do till 11; about 12, the people of fashion assemble in the chocolate and coffee houses; if the weather is fine, we take a walk in Saint James's Park till 2, when we go and dine. The French have set up two or three pretty good inns for the accommodation of foreigners in Suffolk Street, where we are tolerably well entertained. At the inn, we sit talking over our glasses till 6 o'clock, when it is time to go to the Comedy or the Opera, unless one is invited to some great lord's house. After the play one generally goes to the coffee-house, plays at piquet, and enjoys the best conversation in the world till midnight." ...
Though the guide-book has expatiated on the attractions of London life, the Frenchman soon gets weary. Neither the country nor the people please him. The English, he thinks, are haughty, fantastic, unfriendly. Moreover, they are melancholy because their climate engenders spleen.
On the other hand, the French saw no reason to learn English: In the 18th century they had never heard of Shakespeare.
"In the [17th] century there came to London, Boisrobert, Voiture, Saint-Amant. Saint-Evremond lived in England many years without learning more than a few words, such as those he quotes in his works: mince pye, plum-porridge, brawn, and Christmas. He is credited with a free translation of Buckingham's "Portrait of Charles II," Johnson was probably right in saying that "though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, he never condescended to understand the language of the nation that maintained him." But Jean Bulteel, the son of a refugee living in Dover, adapted a comedy of Corneille to the English stage (1665).
Scholars were more curious of reading the works of their English confrères. The English had the reputation of being born philosophers. "Among them," wrote Muralt the traveller, "there are men who think with more strength and have profound thoughts in greater number than the wits of other nations." The works of Hobbes had caused a great stir on the Continent. His frequent and prolonged stays in France, his disputes with Descartes, his relations with Mersenne and Sorbière, contributed to his fame. The names of Locke and Newton were known. As early as 1668, Samuel Puffendorf inquired of his friend Secretary Williamson whether there existed an English-French or English-Latin dictionary. Bayle wished to read the works of those new thinkers. "My misfortune is great," he wrote, "not to understand English, for there are many books in that tongue that would be useful to me." Barbeyrac learned English in order to read Locke. Leibniz was proud enough to inform Bishop Burnet that he knew enough English "to receive his orders in that tongue"; yet Aberdeen University remained l'université d'Abredon.
The teachers of French in England were men of letters, the number and variety of books they wrote showing how vigorously they wielded the pen. ...
"I wondered if there was any evidence as to Sam's linguistic prowess in French?"
French and Latin were the universal languages in the 17th century. Where Pepys learned his, he doesn't tell us. However, his father-in-law was French,and his wife had briefly spent time in France, so she probably learned the language at home in Devonshire as a child.
All the returning Royalists were conversant in French to various degrees (Hyde always used an interpreter as he said he didn't speak it -- but that might have been a ruse so French courtiers and ambassadors would speak candidly in front of him).
However, Tom Pepys also spoke French when he was in extremis. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… Therefore, it's reasonable to think Sam learn French in his childhood, and not from his wife and in-laws exclusively.
Sandwich wasn't a returning Royalist, and he spoke acceptable French: "To my Lord’s and dined with him; he all dinner time talking French to me, and telling me the story how the Duke of York hath got my Lord Chancellor’s daughter with child, and that she, do lay it to him, and that for certain he did promise her marriage, and had signed it with his blood, but that he by stealth had got the paper out of her cabinet. And that the King would have him to marry her, but that he will not." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
That's all spoken French -- apparently Pepys could read and write it reasonably fluently also:
"The Pepys papers yield proof of the general use then made of the French tongue. An Italian named Cesare Morelli writing to Pepys from Brussels in 1686 discards his mother-tongue; probably knows no English, so naturally uses French." https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3…
"Thence by water to Redriffe, reading a new French book my Lord Bruncker did give me to-day, “L’Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules,” being a pretty libel against the amours of the Court of France." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
After the Great Fire, the Post Office building in London moved to Lombard Street:
"Today, in London, one may read every morning letters from France. It was not so three centuries ago. The mails for France, the "ordinary," as it was then called, left London twice a week, on Monday and Thursday.[28] An answer would be forthcoming a fortnight later, if no mishap had taken place, that is to say, if the carrier had not been drowned on the way,[29] or if the Secretary of State had not caused the bags to be opened in his office. "Here," wrote Cominges to Louis XIV, "they know how to open letters with more dexterity than anywhere in the world; they think it the right thing to do and that no one can be a great statesman without prying into private correspondence."[30] The Record Office preserves the melancholy letters that never reached those to whom they were addressed.
"The present house-to-house delivery of letters was unknown. They had to be called for at the Post Office in Lombard Street. Contemporary guides never fail to give a lengthy description of the building, and the grand court where the City merchants used to walk up and down while the officers sorted the foreign mails."
[28] Chamberlayne, op. cit. ii. p. 254.
[29] Jusserand, French Ambass. p. 206.
[30] Jusserand, idem. p. 193.
Excerpt from The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century, by Charles Bastide Published by London, John Lane; New York, John Lane Company, 1914 ISBN-10 : 1341103447 ISBN-13 : 978-1341103445 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3…
Selections from the Trial and Execution of Col. Daniel Axtell in October 1660. An Exact and Impartial Accompt Of the Indictment, Arraignment, Tryal, and Judgment (according to Law) of Twenty Nine Regicides, The Murtherers of His Late Sacred Majesty Of Most Glorious Memory...; London: Andrew Crook & Edward Powel, 1660. 329 pages. at: http://www.axtellfamily.org/axfam…
"This day by her high discourse I found Mrs. Blackburne to be a very high dame and a costly one." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… This means Mrs. Blackburne/Blackbourne was well-bred -- possibly a bit of a snob, as we might say -- and expected to continue to live in the manner to which she was accustomed from childhood, I wish we knew her name!
One of them is from his cousin in Jamaica, reporting on the prosecution and execution of a murderer. So it is reasonable to think the Blackborne family had sugar plantation investments, and therefore some independent income besides what Robert earned holding the influential positions he held during the interregnum, which earned him more profitable employment in the British East India Company later.
It takes money to make money, and I think the Blackbournes were "well-heeled" as my mother used to say. Some Puritans/Presbyterians were very wealthy. They were in the nobility. They lived in big houses and had servants. Being a Puritan basically meant you thought that God ruled the King, and not the other way around. It didn't mean you were necessarily poor.
"I imagine Pepys and other Londoners are going to watch the executions in the same way that I and other Londoners went to watch David Blaine, i.e. for the free spectacle."
Just to make this Diary entry crystal clear, Pepys had seen one execution -- and I'm not convinced he stayed for the whole thing -- and today he went to Newgate Prison to see another part of the ritual: the prisoners being tied to trundles and dragged to Tyburn (in this case) behind horses.
The spectacle was designed to allow as many people as possible to see their humiliation, as a way of discouraging such behavior in the future.
We know humiliation alone didn't work as, by the 18th century as Vincent reported above, the list of capital offenses was ridiculously long, and crime was still rife. The alternative -- widespread paid employment, a safety net for the unemployed and child welfare, etc. -- was more than the tax base could support and would take 3 more centuries to implement. (Fellow regicide Solicitor-Gen. John Cooke called it correctly. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl… )
HACKER, FRANCIS (d. 1660), regicide, was third son of Francis Hacker of East Bridgeford and Colston Basset, Nottinghamshire, by Margaret, daughter of Walter Whalley of Cotgrave.
From the outbreak of the first civil war, Hacker vehemently supported the parliamentary cause, although the rest of his family seem to have been royalists.
FOR HACKER'S CIVIL WAR SERVICE, SEE THE LINKED BIOGRAPHY
Col. Francis Hacker was again confirmed in the command of his regiment, and seems to have been still in the army when the Restoration took place (Commons' Journals, vii. 824).
On 5 July, 1660, Col. Hacker was arrested and sent to the Tower, and his regiment given to Lord Hawley (Mercurius Publicus, 28 June-5 July 1660, ib. 5-12 July).
The House of Commons did not at first except him from the Act of Indemnity, but during the debates in the Lords the fact came out that the warrant for the king's execution was in Hacker's possession. The Lords desired to use it as evidence against the regicides, and ordered him to produce it.
Mrs. Hacker was sent to fetch it, and, in the hope of saving her husband, delivered up the strongest testimony against himself and his associates (Journals of the House of Lords, xi. 100, 104, 113; HUTCHINSON, Memoirs, ii. 253).
The next day (1 Aug. 1660) the Lords added Col. Hacker's name to the list of those excepted.
On 13 Aug. 1660 the House of Commons accepted this amendment (Journals of the House of Lords, xi. 114; Commons' Journals, viii. 118).
Hacker's trial took place on 15 Oct. 1660. He made no serious attempt to defend himself: 'I have no more to say for myself but that I was a soldier, and under command, and what I did was by the commission you have read' (Trials of the Regicides, p. 224).
He was sentenced to death, and was hanged on 19 Oct. 1660. His body was given to his friends for burial, and is said to have been interred in the church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, London, the advowson of which was at one time vested in the Hacker family (Cal State Papers, Dom. 1660-1, p. 316; BRISCOE, Old Nottinghamshire, p. 134).
This concession was probably due to the signal loyalty of other members of his family. One brother, Thomas Hacker, was killed fighting for the king's cause (BRISCOE, p. 134). Another, Rowland Hacker, was an active commander for the king in Nottinghamshire, and lost his hand in his service (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660-1, p. 339; HUTCHINSON, i. 262, 312).
Hacker married (5 July, 1632) Isabella Brunts of East Bridgeford, Nottinghamshire, by whom he had one son, Francis, an officer in his father's regiment, and a daughter, Anne.
His estate passed to the Duke of York, but was bought back by his brother, Rowland Hacker, and was still in the possession of the Hacker family at the time of publication.
Information about Axtell's role in King Charles' trial and execution, and of his trial with Hacker on October 15, 1660 can be found at https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Comments
Third Reading
About Monday 22 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M say "... the Duchess of York was in labor ..."
Wasn't Anne officially still known as Anne Hyde at this point? Yes, she and James had been married privately twice by now, but the relationship was not publically acknowledged, and Queen Mother Henrietta Maria is on her way, partly motivated to visit in order to stop what she saw as a bad match.
For the background on James and Anne's relationship -- with SPOILERS -- see
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Anne Hyde (Duchess of York)
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Charles II investigated the circumstances of the marriage. Proof of the Breda wedding was obtained. Eventually, Charles relented, and James and Anne had a second official but private midnight wedding ceremony on September 3, 1660 at her father’s home at Worcester House in the Strand. The marriage was made according to the rites of the Church of England.
Charles II made a point of visiting Anne during her confinement, and other courtiers followed his example. [THIS MUST HAVE BEEN WHEN SANDWICH TOLD PEPYS WHAT WAS HAPPENING. - SDS]
On October 22, Anne gave birth to a son. She was interrogated repeatedly during her labor and she was adamant James was the father of her child and that she was married to him. James was wavering again and was nowhere to be found during the delivery.
Queen Mother Henrietta Maria had always hated Edward Hyde and was angry Charles had appointed him lord chancellor and chief minister. She traveled from France to try to stop James’ marriage.
Because James had repudiated the marriage before, he was under pressure from his friends to repudiate the marriage and say it never took place.
But Charles was firm. He decided the marriage was legal. He would not allow the marriage to be annulled by decree as he didn’t want Parliament to interfere with the succession.
Finally the Queen Mother was convinced to accept the situation with grace. In December, James and Anne appeared publicly as husband and wife and on January 1, 1661, Henrietta Maria dined with her extended family and gave everyone her blessing.
Anne now officially took up her duties as Duchess of York.
* Edward Hyde was elevated as the Earl of Clarendon in 1661.
For more, see
https://thefreelancehistorywriter…
About Anne Hyde (Duchess of York)
San Diego Sarah • Link
The story of James and Anne's marriage:
When Oliver Cromwell declared the Republic in England and King Charles lost his head, Edward Hyde * went into exile with Charles II’s court.
Anne, her mother and siblings went to live in Antwerp and later moved to Breda where Mary, Princess of Orange offered them a home. The Princess made Anne as a maid-of-honor in 1655.
Anne became popular in The Hague and at the princess’ country home at Teylingen. In 1656, the Princess of Orange went to visit her mother, Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria in Paris. It was during this visit that Anne first met James, Duke of York.
In 1659, the Stuart brothers lived in Brussels and made regular visits to Princess Mary of Orange. We don’t know anything about Anne and James' early relationship. James said from the first time he saw her, he resolved to marry her. He later said he fell in love with her due to her witty conversation.
Anne was handsome and voluptuous, witty, clever, intelligent and loved wearing jewels. She had a commanding presence and stately demeanor which attracted admirers. She was friendly, generous and fun. She charmed James until he proposed, but James may not have had entirely honorable intentions.
In either August or November 1659 they exchanged vows before the appropriate witnesses and consummated the marriage, all without Charles II’s permission at Breda.
This was a marriage in the eyes of the church but for royalty to marry a commoner was a great mismatch. If James had waited a few months, he could have married any princess in Europe.
Anne became pregnant, and was left behind in Flanders at the Restoration.
News of the marriage leaked, and the wrath of his mother and sister was unleashed on James for marrying below his rank. James dithered on whether he was married to Anne or not.
Chancellor Hyde ordered his daughter to England and James was forced to confess to his brother. Charles and the Chancellor discussed the matter, who feared people would accuse him of wanting his grandchild to become king.
Chancellor Hyde swore to Charles II he preferred Anne to be James’ whore not his wife, and asked the king to lock Anne up in the Tower, or even have her executed.
He said “that as soon as he came home, he would turn her out of his house as a strumpet to shift for herself, and would never see her again”.
There was no resolution to the matter. Hyde went home and told his wife to keep Anne a prisoner (but James was allowed to visit her at night).
About Henry Adams
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sorry -- that should read GREENLEAF.
About Henry Adams
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M: Mr. Adams, Mr. Sheply's friend, of Axe Yard. Possibly Henry Adams whose son, Edward (? named after Sheply?) was baptised at St. Margaret's on 27 March, 1661. (Also see Greenlead.)
About Sunday 21 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"To the Parish church in the morning, where a good sermon by Mr. Mills."
Finally someone has come up with some inspiration and leadership. Well done, Rev. Milles.
I wonder what could possibly have inspired you from this last week's events?
About Sunday 21 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"My boy" until recently has meant Will Hewer, who knew London well, and would have been 18 years old now.
Wayneman Birch is a country boy who replaced the young thief they sent home last month -- who was Elizabeth's boy. Wayneman was 10-12 years old now.
Pepys' concern that his boy (a novice, in Pepys' words) was lost does indicate this was Wayneman. We will see if Will Hewer has been "promoted" or if Pepys was just giving Wayneman a training outing, and Hewer has time off.
The Pepys are becoming friends with Hewer's family, and with their recent bereavement, he might have wanted to visit his mother etc.
That Wayneman wandered off indicates Pepys needed to be more considerate, and the boy needed this training.
Parking a lad alone outside Westminster Abbey for an hour or two was a test. He was probably off playing football somewhere. Wayneman liked football.
That he found his way home was a good sign. If Pepys had needed to use him as a runner between him and Elizabeth, Wayneman was capable of that. (Remember, there are no road signs, and no house numbers. Giving directions was done by churches and business signs: "Turn left at St. Paul's and turn right at the Three Bells.")
About Price's (Old Palace Yard)
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M is of no use here. There are several Prices listed in the Companion, but no mention of them living in Old Palace Yard -- but it sounds more like a business which should have turned up in the tax or chimney records of the time.
About Saturday 20 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
'Isn’t this the same fellow that SP described with the following words: “He seemed to be in a melancholy humor, which, … was for that he had lately lost a great deal of money at cards.”'
The difference in mood, in my limited experience, depends on whether one wins or loses at the tables the night before. This sounds like Sandwich came home with a profit last night.
Lady Jem wants her daughter to have stability. Sandwich wants her to have nobility (which will improve his reputation, social standing and power).
Sadly stability and nobility rarely go together, as the noble's ancient pile/castle endlessly needs a new roof, etc. etc. etc.
Pepys probably feels this is sad: he likes Mrs. Jem, and would want her happiness, which is not a consideration in this conversation.
That is one of the hugh benefits of being a self-made Gentleman or an Esquire -- he could have his Elizabeth.
About Friday 24 August 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 4
Complaints against the fogs ever recur in the ambassador's dispatches: "What I wish," wrote the Duc d'Aumont to the Marquis de Torcy (19 Jan., 1713), "is that the fog, the air, and the smoke did not irritate my lungs."
Courtin speaks in the same strain: "an ambassador here must be broad-shouldered. M. de Cominges has an everlasting cold that will follow him to the grave or to France, and I who am by nature of delicate health, have grown hoarse for the last 4 or 5 days and feel a burning in my stomach, with great pains in the side."
A bad winter was enough to make Louis XIV's envoys loathe a country they did not care to understand.
Never was a king worse informed by his ambassadors than Louis XIV. None dreamed of forsaking the Court to study the middle classes and the people. Of the institutions of England they knew what contemporary lawyers and archæologists had to teach. The love of freedom, the insular pride, they did not even suspect. Ignorant as they were, they tried by giving advice to the king, who mocked them, and money to his ministers, to subvert parliamentary government established at the price of 6 years of civil war and 6 years of dictatorship.
"The French nobility do not travel"; when the gentlemen of France left Versailles they carried away with them their spirit of caste and narrow-mindedness.
Forgetting nothing, they did not readily learn anything new.
FROM:
The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century,
by Charles Bastide
Published by London, John Lane; New York, John Lane Company, 1914
In short, if Pepys or Charles II wanted to make something happen with the French, it was up to them to make the effort to communicate. The French did not consider English worthy of their time.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3…
About Friday 24 August 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
After the Restoration may be noted Claude Mauger, Guy Miège, Paul Festeau, "maître de langues à Londres," d'Abadie,] Pierre Bérault, "chapelain de la marine britannique."
"If," wrote Bérault in his 'Nosegay or Miscellany of Several Divine Truths' (1685), "any gentleman or gentlewoman hath a mind to learn French or Latin, the author will wait upon them; he lives in Compton Street, in Soo-Hoo Fields, four doors of the Myter."
These men spread the taste of French manners and French books.
One of the more obscure among them, Denis, a schoolmaster at Chester, taught Brereton, the future translator of Racine.
The most unpardonable ignorance was that of most of the travellers. ... Dartford becomes Datford with Coulon (1654);
Payen calls the English coins crhon, toupens, farden (1666);
even sagacious Misson prefers the phonetic form coacres (quakers) and coacresses (quakeresses) (1698).
Sorbière travelled about England, meeting some eminent men of the time, without knowing a word of English. They have for excuse their extraordinary blindness.
Thus Coulon does not hesitate to deliver his opinions on the English language, which he calls "a mixture of German and French, though it is thought that it was formerly the German language in its integrity."
As for Le Pays, he candidly owns that he would have found London quite to his taste if the inhabitants had all spoken French (1672).
And in another excerpt:
Frenchmen of rank seldom leave London. "The quarter of the Common Garden is ordinarily that of the travelling Frenchmen, more busy at Court than at the Exchange. ... Most of our young Frenchmen who go to London know only that region, and have ventured only as far as the Exchange by land or the Tower by water."
How does the Frenchman of rank spend his time in London?
Moreau de Brazey has answered the question in the most satisfactory manner: "We rise at 9, those who assist at the levees of great men have plenty to do till 11; about 12, the people of fashion assemble in the chocolate and coffee houses; if the weather is fine, we take a walk in Saint James's Park till 2, when we go and dine. The French have set up two or three pretty good inns for the accommodation of foreigners in Suffolk Street, where we are tolerably well entertained. At the inn, we sit talking over our glasses till 6 o'clock, when it is time to go to the Comedy or the Opera, unless one is invited to some great lord's house. After the play one generally goes to the coffee-house, plays at piquet, and enjoys the best conversation in the world till midnight." ...
Though the guide-book has expatiated on the attractions of London life, the Frenchman soon gets weary. Neither the country nor the people please him. The English, he thinks, are haughty, fantastic, unfriendly. Moreover, they are melancholy because their climate engenders spleen.
About Friday 24 August 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
On the other hand, the French saw no reason to learn English: In the 18th century they had never heard of Shakespeare.
"In the [17th] century there came to London, Boisrobert, Voiture, Saint-Amant.
Saint-Evremond lived in England many years without learning more than a few words, such as those he quotes in his works: mince pye, plum-porridge, brawn, and Christmas.
He is credited with a free translation of Buckingham's "Portrait of Charles II," Johnson was probably right in saying that "though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, he never condescended to understand the language of the nation that maintained him."
But Jean Bulteel, the son of a refugee living in Dover, adapted a comedy of Corneille to the English stage (1665).
Scholars were more curious of reading the works of their English confrères. The English had the reputation of being born philosophers. "Among them," wrote Muralt the traveller, "there are men who think with more strength and have profound thoughts in greater number than the wits of other nations."
The works of Hobbes had caused a great stir on the Continent. His frequent and prolonged stays in France, his disputes with Descartes, his relations with Mersenne and Sorbière, contributed to his fame.
The names of Locke and Newton were known.
As early as 1668, Samuel Puffendorf inquired of his friend Secretary Williamson whether there existed an English-French or English-Latin dictionary.
Bayle wished to read the works of those new thinkers. "My misfortune is great," he wrote, "not to understand English, for there are many books in that tongue that would be useful to me."
Barbeyrac learned English in order to read Locke.
Leibniz was proud enough to inform Bishop Burnet that he knew enough English "to receive his orders in that tongue"; yet Aberdeen University remained l'université d'Abredon.
The teachers of French in England were men of letters, the number and variety of books they wrote showing how vigorously they wielded the pen. ...
About Friday 24 August 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I wondered if there was any evidence as to Sam's linguistic prowess in French?"
French and Latin were the universal languages in the 17th century.
Where Pepys learned his, he doesn't tell us.
However, his father-in-law was French,and his wife had briefly spent time in France, so she probably learned the language at home in Devonshire as a child.
All the returning Royalists were conversant in French to various degrees (Hyde always used an interpreter as he said he didn't speak it -- but that might have been a ruse so French courtiers and ambassadors would speak candidly in front of him).
However, Tom Pepys also spoke French when he was in extremis.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Therefore, it's reasonable to think Sam learn French in his childhood, and not from his wife and in-laws exclusively.
Sandwich wasn't a returning Royalist, and he spoke acceptable French: "To my Lord’s and dined with him; he all dinner time talking French to me, and telling me the story how the Duke of York hath got my Lord Chancellor’s daughter with child, and that she, do lay it to him, and that for certain he did promise her marriage, and had signed it with his blood, but that he by stealth had got the paper out of her cabinet. And that the King would have him to marry her, but that he will not."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
That's all spoken French -- apparently Pepys could read and write it reasonably fluently also:
"The Pepys papers yield proof of the general use then made of the French tongue. An Italian named Cesare Morelli writing to Pepys from Brussels in 1686 discards his mother-tongue; probably knows no English, so naturally uses French."
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3…
"... wrote a letter to the French ambassador, in French, about the release of a ship we had taken."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
"Thence by water to Redriffe, reading a new French book my Lord Bruncker did give me to-day, “L’Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules,” being a pretty libel against the amours of the Court of France."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
About Post Office
San Diego Sarah • Link
After the Great Fire, the Post Office building in London moved to Lombard Street:
"Today, in London, one may read every morning letters from France. It was not so three centuries ago. The mails for France, the "ordinary," as it was then called, left London twice a week, on Monday and Thursday.[28]
An answer would be forthcoming a fortnight later, if no mishap had taken place, that is to say, if the carrier had not been drowned on the way,[29]
or if the Secretary of State had not caused the bags to be opened in his office.
"Here," wrote Cominges to Louis XIV, "they know how to open letters with more dexterity than anywhere in the world; they think it the right thing to do and that no one can be a great statesman without prying into private correspondence."[30]
The Record Office preserves the melancholy letters that never reached those to whom they were addressed.
"The present house-to-house delivery of letters was unknown. They had to be called for at the Post Office in Lombard Street. Contemporary guides never fail to give a lengthy description of the building, and the grand court where the City merchants used to walk up and down while the officers sorted the foreign mails."
[28] Chamberlayne, op. cit. ii. p. 254.
[29] Jusserand, French Ambass. p. 206.
[30] Jusserand, idem. p. 193.
Excerpt from
The Anglo-French Entente in the Seventeenth Century,
by Charles Bastide
Published by London, John Lane; New York, John Lane Company, 1914
ISBN-10 : 1341103447
ISBN-13 : 978-1341103445
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3…
About Col. Daniel Axtel
San Diego Sarah • Link
Selections from the Trial and Execution of Col. Daniel Axtell in October 1660.
An Exact and Impartial Accompt Of the Indictment, Arraignment, Tryal, and Judgment (according to Law) of Twenty Nine Regicides, The Murtherers of His Late Sacred Majesty Of Most Glorious Memory...; London: Andrew Crook & Edward Powel, 1660. 329 pages.
at:
http://www.axtellfamily.org/axfam…
About Mrs Blackborne
San Diego Sarah • Link
"This day by her high discourse I found Mrs. Blackburne to be a very high dame and a costly one."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
This means Mrs. Blackburne/Blackbourne was well-bred -- possibly a bit of a snob, as we might say -- and expected to continue to live in the manner to which she was accustomed from childhood,
I wish we knew her name!
About Robert Blackborne
San Diego Sarah • Link
There are several official letters from the West Indies written to Robert Blackborne in 1656 at
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
One of them is from his cousin in Jamaica, reporting on the prosecution and execution of a murderer. So it is reasonable to think the Blackborne family had sugar plantation investments, and therefore some independent income besides what Robert earned holding the influential positions he held during the interregnum, which earned him more profitable employment in the British East India Company later.
It takes money to make money, and I think the Blackbournes were "well-heeled" as my mother used to say.
Some Puritans/Presbyterians were very wealthy. They were in the nobility. They lived in big houses and had servants. Being a Puritan basically meant you thought that God ruled the King, and not the other way around. It didn't mean you were necessarily poor.
About Thursday 18 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I imagine Pepys and other Londoners are going to watch the executions in the same way that I and other Londoners went to watch David Blaine, i.e. for the free spectacle."
Just to make this Diary entry crystal clear, Pepys had seen one execution -- and I'm not convinced he stayed for the whole thing -- and today he went to Newgate Prison to see another part of the ritual: the prisoners being tied to trundles and dragged to Tyburn (in this case) behind horses.
The spectacle was designed to allow as many people as possible to see their humiliation, as a way of discouraging such behavior in the future.
We know humiliation alone didn't work as, by the 18th century as Vincent reported above, the list of capital offenses was ridiculously long, and crime was still rife. The alternative -- widespread paid employment, a safety net for the unemployed and child welfare, etc. -- was more than the tax base could support and would take 3 more centuries to implement. (Fellow regicide Solicitor-Gen. John Cooke called it correctly. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl… )
About Col. Francis Hacker
San Diego Sarah • Link
A biography that appeared in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Di…
HACKER, FRANCIS (d. 1660), regicide, was third son of Francis Hacker of East Bridgeford and Colston Basset, Nottinghamshire, by Margaret, daughter of Walter Whalley of Cotgrave.
From the outbreak of the first civil war, Hacker vehemently supported the parliamentary cause, although the rest of his family seem to have been royalists.
FOR HACKER'S CIVIL WAR SERVICE, SEE THE LINKED BIOGRAPHY
Col. Francis Hacker was again confirmed in the command of his regiment, and seems to have been still in the army when the Restoration took place (Commons' Journals, vii. 824).
On 5 July, 1660, Col. Hacker was arrested and sent to the Tower, and his regiment given to Lord Hawley (Mercurius Publicus, 28 June-5 July 1660, ib. 5-12 July).
The House of Commons did not at first except him from the Act of Indemnity, but during the debates in the Lords the fact came out that the warrant for the king's execution was in Hacker's possession. The Lords desired to use it as evidence against the regicides, and ordered him to produce it.
Mrs. Hacker was sent to fetch it, and, in the hope of saving her husband, delivered up the strongest testimony against himself and his associates (Journals of the House of Lords, xi. 100, 104, 113; HUTCHINSON, Memoirs, ii. 253).
The next day (1 Aug. 1660) the Lords added Col. Hacker's name to the list of those excepted.
On 13 Aug. 1660 the House of Commons accepted this amendment (Journals of the House of Lords, xi. 114; Commons' Journals, viii. 118).
Hacker's trial took place on 15 Oct. 1660. He made no serious attempt to defend himself: 'I have no more to say for myself but that I was a soldier, and under command, and what I did was by the commission you have read' (Trials of the Regicides, p. 224).
He was sentenced to death, and was hanged on 19 Oct. 1660.
His body was given to his friends for burial, and is said to have been interred in the church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, London, the advowson of which was at one time vested in the Hacker family (Cal State Papers, Dom. 1660-1, p. 316; BRISCOE, Old Nottinghamshire, p. 134).
This concession was probably due to the signal loyalty of other members of his family. One brother, Thomas Hacker, was killed fighting for the king's cause (BRISCOE, p. 134).
Another, Rowland Hacker, was an active commander for the king in Nottinghamshire, and lost his hand in his service (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660-1, p. 339; HUTCHINSON, i. 262, 312).
Hacker married (5 July, 1632) Isabella Brunts of East Bridgeford, Nottinghamshire, by whom he had one son, Francis, an officer in his father's regiment, and a daughter, Anne.
His estate passed to the Duke of York, but was bought back by his brother, Rowland Hacker, and was still in the possession of the Hacker family at the time of publication.
About Col. Daniel Axtel
San Diego Sarah • Link
Information about Axtell's role in King Charles' trial and execution, and of his trial with Hacker on October 15, 1660 can be found at
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…