From: "Sex, Lice and Chamber Pots in Pepys' London" By Liza Picard Last updated 2011-02-17
"Sanitation: "Diary extract"
20 October, 1660: 'This morning one came to me to advise with me where to make me a window into my cellar in lieu of one that Sir W Batten had stopped up; and going down my cellar to look, I put my foot into a great heap of turds, by which I find that Mr Turner's house of office is full and comes into my cellar, which doth trouble me; but I will have it helped.'
"Background information:
"London had had sewers for centuries but they only carried surface water. Excrement went into the cesspit under the house or in the garden, and was - in theory - regularly emptied. There was a system for rubbish collection, but somehow there were always dead dogs and cats, and food refuse, and an overwhelming amount of animal faeces in the streets.
"Water had to be bought from watercarriers unless you were so poor that you collected your own from the river or one of the few public wells, or so rich that you subscribed to a private water company such as the New River. Their mains were made of elm trunks, and the domestic supply pipes were lead. The supply ran only a few hours at a time, so you had to store your water in lead tanks. No wonder it tasted foul, but it sufficed for boiling meat, and for very limited personal ablutions (Samuel Pepys was sure he caught a cold by washing his feet).
"Household washing used lye made from ashes and urine."
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So Lisa Picard thinks Mr. Turner's cesspit had overflowed? Could be, but I always thought the chamber pots and flues from the House of Office empted into barrels in the basement which were then carried out of the house by the nightsoil men and exchanged for "fresh" ones. In this case, no one had called trhe nightsoil man in time.
How could they dig the waste out in a cellar cesspit? Moving enclosed barrels would be challenge enough. Cesspits would be much easier to deal with in a garden.
"4 May 1662 '...Mr Holliard came to me and let me blood, about 16 ounces, I being exceedingly full of blood, and very good. I begun to be sick; but lying upon my back, I was presently well again and did give him 5s for his pains; and so we parted.'
"Background information:
"Blood-letting had been recommended for centuries. According to the ancient Greeks, there were four 'humours' - blood, choler, and two sorts of bile - which needed to be balanced against each other. Blood-letting dealt with the first. The others might call for enemas, laxatives, and pills made of rare items such as the saliva of a fasting man and the moss that grows on an unburied skull, as well as commonplace snails and woodlice.
"Fashionable physicians could advise, apothecaries could dispense, surgeons could deal with minor ailments, the local wise woman might help, but they all cost money. Magic might work better, Samuel Pepys attributed his good health to wearing a hare's foot around his neck.
"For the poor, there were hospitals. St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield and St. Thomas's south of the river provided basic care, mostly limited to rest and food. The state of medical knowledge was still primitive. There was no antisepsis, no anaesthetic except drink and opium, and little knowledge of human physiology.
"The only surgical intervention was to remove bladder stones, a painful and common complaint. Samuel Pepys was operated on in 1658, and celebrated his survival every year."
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I have also seen reports of 17th century surgeons cutting off breast cancers. Of course, by the time it's large enough to be cut like that, we know that the cancer has spread, so they were not successful in curing the poor women so "treated". https://sites.ualberta.ca/~illnes…
Liza Picard might have meant the only operation which had a limited SUCCESS rate was for bladder stones removal.
This entry was used as an example in "Sex, Lice and Chamber Pots in Pepys' London By Liza Picard Last updated 2011-02-17 https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/bri…
"Diary extract:
"18 August, 1667 '... but being weary, turned into St. Dunstan's church, where I hear an able sermon of the minister of the place. And stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me, and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again ...'
"Background information
"Samuel Pepys, who enjoyed many sexual encounters, was not typical of his time. Surprisingly, the Puritan ethos enforced before the return of the "Merry Monarch", Charles II, lingered on. The rate of illegitimate births remained low. This was not achieved by contraception, which didn't exist as we know it. A man hoping for safe sex might tie on to his penis a sheath made of animal gut, or linen, but neither would be reliable as a contraceptive.
"Prostitution was rife. Syphilis had ravaged Europe since the 1500s. The treatment for it was horrific, and unlikely to succeed: mercury, which might well kill the patient before his disease did."
So Liza Picard thinks it likely this young woman -- I think the second one who is not in the excerpt is more likely -- was/were prostitutes!
L&M: Sir Roger Cuttance (d. 1669) was a naval officer well thought of by both Sandwich and Coventry. Under the Commonwealth he took part in the First Anglo-Dutch War and in Blake's Tunis expedition of 1655. During 1660 and 1665 he was Sandwich's flag captain in the Royal Charles, the Royal James, and the Prince, and had to share with his superior officer the blame for the prize goods scandal. (Pepys puts the greater part of the scandal on him.) After that he held no further commands. He was knighted in 1655, and was a member of the Fisheries and the Tangier Committees. His son, Henrt, held three commissions between 1660 and 1665, and had died by 1688.
Jeannine credits some of her research to Wheatley, Henry B.: Samuel Pepys And The World He Lived In, 1880 which is available on-line. Chapter 3, page 46, is called "Pepys After The Diary" https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/e…
According to Pepys’ account Tangier was a sink of corruption, and England was well rid of the encumbrance. He describes the inhabitants as given up to all kinds of vice, “swearing, cursing and drinking,” the women being as bad as the men; and he says that a certain captain belonging to the Ordnance told him that “he was quite ashamed of what he had heard in their houses; worse a thousand times than in the worst place in London he was ever in.” Dr. Balaam, a former Recorder, had so poor an opinion of the people of the place, that he left his estate to a servant, with the caution that if he married a woman of Tangier, or one that ever had been there, he should lose it all.
Yet Tangier was positively outdone in iniquity by Bombay, which Sir John Wyborne calls “a cursed place.” These were the 2 acquisitions so highly rated when Charles II married the Infanta of Portugal.
Despite all disadvantages, one of the greatest being that ships of any size are forced to lie out far from shore, Tangier is still a place of some importance as the port of North Morocco. The description of the town given by Sir Joseph Hooker answers in most particulars to that written by Teonge 200 years before. It stands on the western side of a shallow bay, on rocky ground that rises steeply from the shore, and the cubical blocks of whitewashed masonry, with scarcely an opening to represent a window, which rise one above the other on the steep slope of a recess in the hills, give the place a singular appearance from the sea. On the summit of the hill is a massive gaunt castle of forbidding aspect, and the zigzag walls which encompass the city on all sides are pierced by 3 gates which are closed at nightfall.
Pepys was now for the first time in the town with the government of which he had been so long connected, and he was astonished at its uselessness. Day by day he finds out new disadvantages; and he says that the King was kept in ignorance of them, in order that successive governors might reap the benefits of their position. He complains that even Mr. Sheres was silent for his own profit, as he might have made known the evils of the place 10 years before.
In a letter to Mr. Houblon, he gives his opinion that “at no time there needed any more than the walking once round it by daylight to convince any man (no better-sighted than I) of the impossibility of our ever making it, under our circumstances of government, either tenable by, or useful to, the crown of England.” He adds: “Therefore it seems to me a matter much more unaccountable how the King was led to the reception, and, afterwards, to so long and chargeable a maintaining, than, at this day, to the deserting and extinguishing it.”
On the other side Mr. Charles Russell wrote to Pepys from Cadiz, deprecating the destruction of Tangier, and pointing out the advantages of possessing it. Sheres also showed Pepys a paper containing the ordinary objections made against the mole, “improved the most he could, to justify the King’s destroying it,” and added that he could answer them all.
When the work of destruction was begun, it was found that the masonry had been so well constructed that it formed a protection as strong as solid rock. The mining was undertaken piecemeal, and it took 6 months to blow up the whole structure. The rubbish of the mole and the walls was thrown into the harbour, so as to choke it up completely. Still the ruined mole stands, and on one side the accumulated sand has formed a dangerous reef.
On 5 March, 1683–84, Lord Dartmouth and Pepys sailed out of Tangier Bay, and abandoned the place to the Moors. Shortly afterwards the Emperor of Morocco (Muly Ismael) wrote to Capt. Cloudesley Shovel: “God be praised! you have quitted Tangier, and left it to us to whom it did belong. From henceforward we shall manure it, for it is the best part of our dominions. As for the captives, you may do with them as you please, heaving them into the sea, or destroying them otherways.” To which Shovel replied: “If they are to be disowned because they are poor, the Lord help them! Your Majesty tells us we may throw them overboard if we please. All this we very well know; but we are Christians, and they bear the form of men, which is reason enough for us not to do it. As to Tangier, our master kept it 21 years, and in spite of all your forces, he could, if he had pleased, have continued it to the world’s end; for he levelled your walls, filled up your harbour, and demolished your houses, in the face of your Alcade and his army; and when he had done, he left your barren country without the loss of a man, for your own people to starve in.”
A most unworthy action was at this time perpetrated by the Government. Not having the support of Parliament, they were unable to defend the place with an adequate force; and they chose the one man in England whose brilliant career rivals those of the grand worthies of Queen Elizabeth’s reign to fight a losing game.
The Earl of Ossory, son of the Duke of Ormonde, was appointed Governor and General of the Forces; but, before he could embark, he fell ill from brooding over the treatment he had received, and soon after died. Lord Sunderland said in council that “Tangier must necessarily be lost; but that it was fit Lord Ossory should be sent, that they might give some account of it to the world.”
The Earl left his wife at their daughter’s house, and came up to London. Here he made a confidant of John Evelyn, who records in his Diary his opinion of the transaction. It was not only “an hazardous adventure, but, in most men’s opinion, an impossibility, seeing there was not to be above 300 or 400 horse, and 4,000 foot for the garrison and all, both to defend the town, form a camp, repulse the enemy, and fortify what ground they should get in. This touch’d my Lord deeply that he should be so little consider’d as to put him on a business in which he should probably not only lose his reputation, but be charged with all the miscarriages and ill success.” It was on this man that Ormonde pronounced the beautiful eulogy, “I would not exchange my dead son for any living son in Christendom!”
In Aug. 1683, Lord Dartmouth was constituted Captain-General of his Majesty’s Forces in Africa, and Governor of Tangier, being sent with a fleet of about 20 sail to demolish and blow up the works, destroy the harbour, and bring home the garrison; but his instructions were secret. Pepys received Charles II’s command to accompany Lord Dartmouth, but without being informed of the object of the expedition. In a letter to Evelyn, Pepys tells him, “What our work is I am not solicitous to learn nor forward to make griefs at, it being handled by our masters as a secret.” When they get to sea, Lord Dartmouth tells Pepys the object of the voyage, which the latter says he never suspected, having written the contrary to Mr. Houblon. On Sept. 17, 1683 they landed at Tangier, having been about a month on their voyage. All the doings on board ship, and the business transacted on shore, are related with all Pepys’ vivid power of description in his “Tangier Journal.” The writer has become more sedate, and only once “the old man” appears, when he remarks on the pleasure he had in “again seeing fine Mrs. Kirke,” the wife of the Governor. We are told that “the tyranny and vice of Kirke is stupendous,” and the “Journal” is full of the various instances of his enormities. Macaulay, with that power of characterization which he so eminently possessed, has compressed them all into his picture of the leader of Kirke’s lambs.”
The deputy-governors were no better than their superiors. Of Col. Fitzgerald, Pepys writes, on Oct. 20, 1664, he is “a man of no honour nor presence, nor little honesty, and endeavours to raise the Irish and suppress the English interest there, and offend every body.”
Certainly, when he sees him on Aug. 7, 1668, he is pleased with him and his discourse. Pepys’ opinion of Col. Norwood we have already seen; but none of the governors rose to the height of villany exhibited by Col. Kirke, whose name is condemned to everlasting infamy in the pages of Macaulay.
The further history of Tangier, previous to its final destruction, can be put into a few words. In Jan. 1668–69, Lord Sandwich proposed that a paymaster should be appointed at Tangier, and suggested Sir Charles Harbord for the post; but the Duke of York said that nothing could be done without Pepys’ consent, in case the arrangement should injure him in his office of treasurer. Pepys was much pleased at this instance of the kindness of the Duke, and of the whole committee towards him.
Henry Sheres, who accompanied Lord Sandwich to Spain, and afterwards became a great friend of Pepys, was paid £100, on Jan. 18, 1668–69, for drawing a plate of the Tangier fortifications. In the same year (1669), the great engraver, Hollar, was sent to Tangier by Charles II to take views of the town and fortifications. Some of these he afterwards engraved, and the original drawings are in the British Museum.
In 1673 a new commission was appointed, and Pepys and Povy were among the commissioners. Two years afterwards the vessel in which Henry Teonge was chaplain anchored in Tangier Bay; and in the “Diary” which he left behind him he gives a description of the town as it appeared to him. The mole was not then finished, and he found the old high walls much decayed in places. He mentions “a pitiful palizado, not so good as an old park pale (for you may anywhere almost thrust it down with your foot);” but in this palisade were 12 forts, well supplied with good guns.
In 1680, Tangier was besieged by the Emperor of Morocco, and Charles II applied to Parliament for money, so that the place might be properly defended. The House of Commons expressed their dislike of the management of the garrison, which they suspected to be a nursery for a Popish army. Sir William Jones said: “Tangier may be of great importance to trade, but I am afraid hath not been so managed as to be any security to the Protestant religion;” and William Harbord, M.P. for Thetford, added: “When we are assured we shall have a good Protestant governor and garrison in Tangier, I shall heartily give my vote for money for it.”
At one of the earliest meetings of the committee, the project of forming a mole or breakwater was entertained. A contract for the work to be done at 13s. the cubical yard was accepted, although none of the committee knew whether they gave too much or too little (Feb. 16, 1662–63); and he signed the contract with very ill will on that score (Mar. 30, 1663). When the accounts were looked into on Apr. 3, 1663, it was found that the charge for one year’s work would be as much as £13,000. In 1665, the committee agreed to pay 4s. a yard more, and the whole amount spent upon the mole was found to be £36,000 (Mar. 30, 1665). The wind and sea exerted a destructive influence over this structure, although it was strongly built, and Col. Norwood reported in 1668 that a breach had been made in the mole which would cost a considerable sum to repair. As Norwood was an enemy of a friend of his, Pepys at once jumps to the conclusion that he must be a bad man (Feb. 22, 1668–69). The 2nd Earl of Carnarvon said that wood was an excrescence of the earth, provided by God for the payment of debts, and Sir W. Coventry, in a conversation with Pepys, applied this saying to Tangier and its governors.
It is not always safe to take for granted all that Pepys says against the persons he writes about, but there must have been some truth in the indictment he drew up against all those who undertook the government of Tangier. When Lord Peterborough received the place from the Portuguese, a book was given to him which contained a secret account of all the conduit-heads and heads of watercourses in and about the town. This book was always given from one governor to another, but was not to be looked at by anyone else. When Lord Peterborough left, he took the book away with him, and on being asked for it always answered that he had mislaid it and could not recover it. Col. Kirke told Pepys in 1683 that the supply of water was greatly reduced by the want of this information.
In 1666 Pepys had applied the adjective “ignoble” to Lord Peterborough’s name, on account of his lordship’s conduct in regard to money matters.
On Dec. 15, 1662, Andrew Lord Rutherford and Earl of Teviot, Governor of Dunkirk until its surrender to the French, was appointed Governor of Tangier in succession to Lord Peterborough, who was recalled.
Rutherford was a brave but rash man, and made a practice of going out of the town into the country without taking proper precautions. In May, 1664, he was surveying his lines after an attack by the Moors, when he and 19 officers were killed by a party of the enemy in ambush. Pepys called him a cunning man, and said that had he lived he would have undone the place; but in 1683, Dr. Lawrence told Pepys that his death was a great misfortune, for he took every opportunity of making the place great, but without neglecting himself.
John Lord Bellassis was the next governor, and he was said to be corrupt in his command.
Lawson had been in it, and said that it was a place of that importance, that if it were in the hands of Hollanders they would quickly make a mole, which could easily be done. Then ships would ride securely in all weathers, and we could keep the place against the world, and give the law to the trade of the Mediterranean.
The Portuguese were delighted at the prospect of a marriage between the Infanta and Charles, and after a few hitches the treaty was concluded, but some murmurs were heard against the delivery of Tangier into the hands of heretics. Dom Fernando de Menezes, the Governor, entreated the Queen Regent to spare him the grief of handing over the city to the enemies of the Catholic faith. He was given to understand that, if he obeyed instructions, a marquisate would be conferred upon him, but if he continued to resist he would be dismissed. Upon this, Dom Fernando threw up his command.
Lord Sandwich was instructed to take possession of Tangier, and then convey the Infanta and her portion to England. Although the Queen Regent sent a governor whom she had chosen as one devoted to her interest, and sure to obey her commands, yet Clarendon affirms that he went to his government with a contrary resolution. This resolution was frustrated by the action of the Moors. A few days before Lord Sandwich arrived, the Governor marched out of the town with all the horse and half the foot of the garrison, and fell into an ambush. The whole party were cut off, and the Governor and many of his chief men were killed. The town was so weak that, when Lord Sandwich arrived at this conjuncture, he was hailed as a deliverer from the Moors. He conveyed the remainder of the garrison into Portugal, and Henry, 2nd Earl of Peterborough, with the English garrison, entered the town on 30 Jan. 1662, as the first Governor from England.
Now began a system of mismanagement worthy of the disorganized condition of public affairs. A commission was appointed for the purpose of carrying on the government of Tangier in London, and constant meetings were held. None of the commissioners knew anything of the place, and they were quite at the mercy of the governors and deputy-governors who were sent out. Pepys was placed upon the commission by the influence of Lord Sandwich, and John Creed was appointed secretary. Thomas Povy, the treasurer, got his accounts into so great a muddle, that he thought it wise to surrender his office to Pepys, on condition of receiving half the profits, which he did on Mar. 20, 1664–65. This treasurership and the contract for victualling the garrison of Tangier were sources of considerable profit to the Diarist.
“And with asphaltick slime broad as the gate Deep to the roots of hell the gather’d beach They fasten’d: and the mole immense wrought on Over the foaming deep high-arch’d: a bridge Of length prodigious.” -- "Paradise Lost", x. 298–302.
Pepys was so intimately connected with the government of Tangier during the 22 years it remained in the possession of the English, that it seems necessary, in a memoir of him, to give some account of the history of the place during that period.
Tangier is a seaport, on a small bay or inlet of the Straits of Gibraltar, which affords the only good harbour for shipping on the sea-board of Morocco, an extent of coast of about 900 miles. The town was early coveted by the Portuguese, and in 1437 their army attacked it, but were defeated beneath the walls. On this occasion Dom Fernando, the King’s brother, was left behind as a hostage. A treaty of peace was concluded, but the stipulations not being executed, the Moors threw Dom Fernando into prison, where he died. The prince’s body was treated with insult, and hung up by the heels over the city walls. A few years later this unworthy conduct was revenged, for in 1463, the Portuguese being successful in battle, Alonzo V. took the town from the Moors.
For 2 centuries the Portuguese kept possession, but about the period of our Restoration they found the place somewhat of an encumbrance, and were anxious to obtain a desirable alliance against their enemies the Spaniards, by transferring it to another power. In Nov. 1660, Thomas Maynard, British Consul at Lisbon, writing to Sir Edward Nicholas, says, that the King of Portugal would part with Tangier to England on reasonable terms.
Shortly afterwards the Portuguese ambassador in London proposed the Infanta Katharine, daughter of that Duke of Braganza who became King of Portugal as Joam IV, as a wife for Charles II, offering at the same time a portion of 500,000/s. sterling (“almost double what any King [of England] had ever received in money by any arriage”), and in addition a grant of a free trade in Brazil and the East Indies, and the possession of Tangier and the Island of Bombay. The ambassador observed that these 2 places “might reasonably be valued above the portion in money.” It was supposed that the possession of Tangier would be of infinite benefit to England and a security to her trade, and the Earl of Sandwich and Sir John Lawson were consulted respecting the proposed acquisition. Lord Sandwich said that if the town were walled and fortified with brass, it would yet repay the cost, but he only knew it from the sea.
"To my Lord’s, where I found my wife, and she and I did dine with my Lady (my Lord dining with my Lord Chamberlain), who did treat my wife with a good deal of respect."
Oh good -- Lady J did include Elizabeth. Hurt feelings would have ensued othrwise.
"Here I also observed, how the Duke of York and Mrs. Palmer did talk to one another very wantonly through the hangings that parts the King’s closet and the closet where the ladies sit."
Didn't anyone notice that Mrs. Barbara Villiers Palmer was 5 months pregnant? They were a gossipy lot, and Pepys hadn't heard or didn't suspect anything?
'Many things more did I see concerning the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, which are hard to be uttered, and would be hard to be received. But, in short, this holy city is within the Light, and all that are within the Light, are within the city; the gates whereof stand open all the day (for there is no night there), that all may come in.'
SPOILER: In 1671 Fox goes to the Caribbean and America for 2 years. Sadly, he didn't find his New Jerusalem there either. https://ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autob…
'Though by reason of my weakness I could not travel amongst Friends as I had been used to do, yet in the motion of life I sent the following lines as an encouraging testimony to them:
“My dear Friends:
“The Seed is above all. In it walk; in which ye all have life.
“Be not amazed at the weather; for always the just suffered by the unjust, but the just had the dominion.
“All along ye may see, by faith the mountains were subdued; and the rage of the wicked, with his fiery darts, was quenched. Though the waves and storms be high, yet your faith will keep you, so as to swim above them; for they are but for a time, and the Truth is without time. Therefore keep on the mountain of holiness, ye who are led to it by the Light.
“Do not think that anything will outlast the Truth. For the Truth standeth sure; and is over that which is out of the Truth. For the good will overcome the evil; the light, darkness; the life, death; virtue, vice; and righteousness, unrighteousness. The false prophet cannot overcome the true; but the true prophet, Christ, will overcome all the false.
“So be faithful, and live in that which doth not think the time long. G. F.”
'After some time it pleased the Lord to allay the heat of this violent persecution; and I felt in spirit an overcoming of the spirits of those men-eaters that had stirred it up and carried it on to that height of cruelty. I was outwardly very weak; and I plainly felt, and those Friends that were with me, and that came to visit me, took notice, that as the persecution ceased I came from under the travails and sufferings that had lain with such weight upon me; so that towards the spring I began to recover, and to walk up and down, beyond the expectation of many, who did not think I could ever have gone abroad again.
'Whilst I was under this spiritual suffering the state of the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven was opened to me; which some carnal-minded people had looked upon to be like an outward city dropped out of the elements. I saw the beauty and glory of it, the length, the breadth, and the height thereof, all in complete proportion. I saw that all who are within the Light of Christ, and in His faith, of which He is the author; and in the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, which Christ and the holy prophets and apostles were in; and within the grace, and truth, and power of God, which are the walls of the city; I saw that such are within the city, are members of it, and have right to eat of the Tree of Life, which yields her fruit every month, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
George Fox and friends also spent time in Enfield in 1667:
'When I came to Gerrard [Roberts]’s, he was very weak, ... After I had stayed about three weeks there, it was with me to go to Enfield. ...
'When I had taken my leave of Gerrard, and was come to Enfield, I went first to visit Amor Stoddart, ... and within a few days after, Amor died.
'I went to the widow Dry’s, at Enfield, where I lay all that winter, warring in spirit with the evil spirits of the world, that warred against Truth and Friends. For there were great persecutions at this time; some meeting-houses were pulled down, and many were broken up by soldiers. Sometimes a troop of horse, or a company of foot came; and some broke their swords, carbines, muskets, and pikes, with beating Friends; and many they wounded, so that their blood lay in the streets.
'Amongst others that were active in this cruel persecution at London, my old adversary, Col. Kirby, was one. With a company of foot, he went to break up several meetings; and he would often inquire for me at the meetings he broke up. One time as he went over the water to Horsleydown, there happening some scuffle between some of his soldiers and some of the watermen, he bade his men fire at them. They did so, and killed some.
'I was under great sufferings at this time, beyond what I have words to declare. For I was brought into the deep, and saw all the religions of the world, and people that lived in them. And I saw the priests that held them up; who were as a company of men-eaters, eating up the people like bread, and gnawing the flesh from off their bones. But as for true religion, and worship, and ministers of God, alack! I saw there was none amongst those of the world that pretended to it.
'Though it was a cruel, bloody, persecuting time, yet the Lord’s power went over all, His everlasting Seed prevailed; and Friends were made to stand firm and faithful in the Lord’s power. Some sober people of other professions would say, “If Friends did not stand, the nation would run into debauchery.”
George Fox was out of London at the time of the Great Fire ...
'The very next day after my release, the fire broke out in London, and the report of it came quickly down into the country. Then I saw the Lord God was true and just in His Word, which he had shown me before in Lancaster jail, when I saw the angel of the Lord with a glittering sword drawn southward, as before expressed.
'The people of London were forewarned of this fire; yet few laid to heart, or believed it; but rather grew more wicked, and higher in pride. For a Friend was moved to come out of Huntingdonshire a little before the fire, to scatter his money, and turn his horse loose on the streets, to untie the knees of his trousers, let his stockings fall down, and to unbutton his doublet, and tell the people that so should they run up and down, scattering their money and their goods, half undressed, like mad people, as he was sign to them;185 and so they did, when the city was burning.
'Thus hath the Lord exercised His prophets and servants by His power, shown them signs of His judgments, and sent them to forewarn the people; but, instead of repenting, they have beaten and cruelly entreated some, and some they have imprisoned, both in the former power’s days186 and since.
'But the Lord is just, and happy are they that obey His word.'
"The Quakers … have buried in their piece of ground [Bunhill Row] a thousand … "
George Fox has this to say about the plague times:
'At London many Friends were crowded into Newgate, and other prisons, where the sickness was, and many died in prison. Many also were banished, and several sent on ship-board by the King’s order.
'Some masters of ships would not carry them, but set them on shore again; yet some were sent to Barbadoes, Jamaica, and Nevis, and the Lord blessed them there. One master of a ship was very wicked and cruel to Friends that were put on board his ship; for he kept them down under decks, though the sickness was amongst them; so that many died of it. But the Lord visited him for his wickedness; for he lost most of his seamen by the plague, and lay several months crossed with contrary winds, though other ships went on and made their voyages.
'At last he came before Plymouth, where the Governor and magistrates would not suffer him nor any of his men to come ashore, though he wanted necessaries for his voyage; but Thomas Tower, Arthur Cotton, John Light, and other Friends, went to the ship’s side, and carried necessaries for the Friends that were prisoners on board.
'The master, being thus crossed and vexed, cursed them that put him upon this freight, and said he hoped he should not go far before he was taken. And the vessel was but a little while gone out of sight of Plymouth before she was taken by a Dutch man-of-war, and carried into Holland.
'When they came into Holland, the States sent the banished Friends back to England, with a letter of passport, and a certificate that they had not made an escape, but were sent back by them.
'In time the Lord’s power wrought over this storm, and many of our persecutors were confounded and put to shame.'
16 Car. II., cap. 4, “An Act to prevent and suppresse seditious Conventicles.”
It was enacted that anyone aged 16 or more present at an unlawful assembly or conventicle was to incur a fine or imprisonment. A conventicle was defined as an assembly of more than 5 persons besides the members of a family met together for holding worship not according to the rites of the Church of England.
This was a problem for Catholics and Quakers and everyone who had beliefs that were not Anglican.
For information about how this was implemented in the country, not London, see The Autobiography of George Fox. CHAPTER XV. In Prison for not Swearing. 1662-1665 https://ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autob…
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From: "Sex, Lice and Chamber Pots in Pepys' London"
By Liza Picard
Last updated 2011-02-17
"Sanitation:
"Diary extract"
20 October, 1660: 'This morning one came to me to advise with me where to make me a window into my cellar in lieu of one that Sir W Batten had stopped up; and going down my cellar to look, I put my foot into a great heap of turds, by which I find that Mr Turner's house of office is full and comes into my cellar, which doth trouble me; but I will have it helped.'
"Background information:
"London had had sewers for centuries but they only carried surface water. Excrement went into the cesspit under the house or in the garden, and was - in theory - regularly emptied. There was a system for rubbish collection, but somehow there were always dead dogs and cats, and food refuse, and an overwhelming amount of animal faeces in the streets.
"Water had to be bought from watercarriers unless you were so poor that you collected your own from the river or one of the few public wells, or so rich that you subscribed to a private water company such as the New River. Their mains were made of elm trunks, and the domestic supply pipes were lead. The supply ran only a few hours at a time, so you had to store your water in lead tanks. No wonder it tasted foul, but it sufficed for boiling meat, and for very limited personal ablutions (Samuel Pepys was sure he caught a cold by washing his feet).
"Household washing used lye made from ashes and urine."
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So Lisa Picard thinks Mr. Turner's cesspit had overflowed? Could be, but I always thought the chamber pots and flues from the House of Office empted into barrels in the basement which were then carried out of the house by the nightsoil men and exchanged for "fresh" ones.
In this case, no one had called trhe nightsoil man in time.
How could they dig the waste out in a cellar cesspit? Moving enclosed barrels would be challenge enough. Cesspits would be much easier to deal with in a garden.
About Thomas Hollier
San Diego Sarah • Link
From: "Sex, Lice and Chamber Pots in Pepys' London"
By Liza Picard
Last updated 2011-02-17
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/bri…
Medicine
Diary extract:
"4 May 1662 '...Mr Holliard came to me and let me blood, about 16 ounces, I being exceedingly full of blood, and very good. I begun to be sick; but lying upon my back, I was presently well again and did give him 5s for his pains; and so we parted.'
"Background information:
"Blood-letting had been recommended for centuries. According to the ancient Greeks, there were four 'humours' - blood, choler, and two sorts of bile - which needed to be balanced against each other. Blood-letting dealt with the first. The others might call for enemas, laxatives, and pills made of rare items such as the saliva of a fasting man and the moss that grows on an unburied skull, as well as commonplace snails and woodlice.
"Fashionable physicians could advise, apothecaries could dispense, surgeons could deal with minor ailments, the local wise woman might help, but they all cost money. Magic might work better, Samuel Pepys attributed his good health to wearing a hare's foot around his neck.
"For the poor, there were hospitals. St. Bartholomew's in Smithfield and St. Thomas's south of the river provided basic care, mostly limited to rest and food. The state of medical knowledge was still primitive. There was no antisepsis, no anaesthetic except drink and opium, and little knowledge of human physiology.
"The only surgical intervention was to remove bladder stones, a painful and common complaint. Samuel Pepys was operated on in 1658, and celebrated his survival every year."
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I have also seen reports of 17th century surgeons cutting off breast cancers. Of course, by the time it's large enough to be cut like that, we know that the cancer has spread, so they were not successful in curing the poor women so "treated".
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~illnes…
Liza Picard might have meant the only operation which had a limited SUCCESS rate was for bladder stones removal.
About Sunday 18 August 1667
San Diego Sarah • Link
This entry was used as an example in
"Sex, Lice and Chamber Pots in Pepys' London
By Liza Picard
Last updated 2011-02-17
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/bri…
"Diary extract:
"18 August, 1667 '... but being weary, turned into St. Dunstan's church, where I hear an able sermon of the minister of the place. And stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me, and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again ...'
"Background information
"Samuel Pepys, who enjoyed many sexual encounters, was not typical of his time. Surprisingly, the Puritan ethos enforced before the return of the "Merry Monarch", Charles II, lingered on. The rate of illegitimate births remained low. This was not achieved by contraception, which didn't exist as we know it. A man hoping for safe sex might tie on to his penis a sheath made of animal gut, or linen, but neither would be reliable as a contraceptive.
"Prostitution was rife. Syphilis had ravaged Europe since the 1500s. The treatment for it was horrific, and unlikely to succeed: mercury, which might well kill the patient before his disease did."
So Liza Picard thinks it likely this young woman -- I think the second one who is not in the excerpt is more likely -- was/were prostitutes!
About Capt. Roger Cuttance
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M: Sir Roger Cuttance (d. 1669) was a naval officer well thought of by both Sandwich and Coventry. Under the Commonwealth he took part in the First Anglo-Dutch War and in Blake's Tunis expedition of 1655. During 1660 and 1665 he was Sandwich's flag captain in the Royal Charles, the Royal James, and the Prince, and had to share with his superior officer the blame for the prize goods scandal. (Pepys puts the greater part of the scandal on him.) After that he held no further commands. He was knighted in 1655, and was a member of the Fisheries and the Tangier Committees.
His son, Henrt, held three commissions between 1660 and 1665, and had died by 1688.
About The Next Chapter of Samuel Pepys
San Diego Sarah • Link
Jeannine credits some of her research to
Wheatley, Henry B.: Samuel Pepys And The World He Lived In, 1880
which is available on-line.
Chapter 3, page 46, is called "Pepys After The Diary"
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/e…
About Tangier, Morocco
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 7
According to Pepys’ account Tangier was a sink of corruption, and England was well rid of the encumbrance.
He describes the inhabitants as given up to all kinds of vice, “swearing, cursing and drinking,” the women being as bad as the men; and he says that a certain captain belonging to the Ordnance told him that “he was quite ashamed of what he had heard in their houses; worse a thousand times than in the worst place in London he was ever in.”
Dr. Balaam, a former Recorder, had so poor an opinion of the people of the place, that he left his estate to a servant, with the caution that if he married a woman of Tangier, or one that ever had been there, he should lose it all.
Yet Tangier was positively outdone in iniquity by Bombay, which Sir John Wyborne calls “a cursed place.”
These were the 2 acquisitions so highly rated when Charles II married the Infanta of Portugal.
Despite all disadvantages, one of the greatest being that ships of any size are forced to lie out far from shore, Tangier is still a place of some importance as the port of North Morocco.
The description of the town given by Sir Joseph Hooker answers in most particulars to that written by Teonge 200 years before. It stands on the western side of a shallow bay, on rocky ground that rises steeply from the shore, and the cubical blocks of whitewashed masonry, with scarcely an opening to represent a window, which rise one above the other on the steep slope of a recess in the hills, give the place a singular appearance from the sea.
On the summit of the hill is a massive gaunt castle of forbidding aspect, and the zigzag walls which encompass the city on all sides are pierced by 3 gates which are closed at nightfall.
About Tangier, Morocco
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 6
Pepys was now for the first time in the town with the government of which he had been so long connected, and he was astonished at its uselessness.
Day by day he finds out new disadvantages; and he says that the King was kept in ignorance of them, in order that successive governors might reap the benefits of their position. He complains that even Mr. Sheres was silent for his own profit, as he might have made known the evils of the place 10 years before.
In a letter to Mr. Houblon, he gives his opinion that “at no time there needed any more than the walking once round it by daylight to convince any man (no better-sighted than I) of the impossibility of our ever making it, under our circumstances of government, either tenable by, or useful to, the crown of England.” He adds: “Therefore it seems to me a matter much more unaccountable how the King was led to the reception, and, afterwards, to so long and chargeable a maintaining, than, at this day, to the deserting and extinguishing it.”
On the other side Mr. Charles Russell wrote to Pepys from Cadiz, deprecating the destruction of Tangier, and pointing out the advantages of possessing it.
Sheres also showed Pepys a paper containing the ordinary objections made against the mole, “improved the most he could, to justify the King’s destroying it,” and added that he could answer them all.
When the work of destruction was begun, it was found that the masonry had been so well constructed that it formed a protection as strong as solid rock. The mining was undertaken piecemeal, and it took 6 months to blow up the whole structure.
The rubbish of the mole and the walls was thrown into the harbour, so as to choke it up completely. Still the ruined mole stands, and on one side the accumulated sand has formed a dangerous reef.
On 5 March, 1683–84, Lord Dartmouth and Pepys sailed out of Tangier Bay, and abandoned the place to the Moors.
Shortly afterwards the Emperor of Morocco (Muly Ismael) wrote to Capt. Cloudesley Shovel: “God be praised! you have quitted Tangier, and left it to us to whom it did belong. From henceforward we shall manure it, for it is the best part of our dominions. As for the captives, you may do with them as you please, heaving them into the sea, or destroying them otherways.”
To which Shovel replied: “If they are to be disowned because they are poor, the Lord help them! Your Majesty tells us we may throw them overboard if we please. All this we very well know; but we are Christians, and they bear the form of men, which is reason enough for us not to do it. As to Tangier, our master kept it 21 years, and in spite of all your forces, he could, if he had pleased, have continued it to the world’s end; for he levelled your walls, filled up your harbour, and demolished your houses, in the face of your Alcade and his army; and when he had done, he left your barren country without the loss of a man, for your own people to starve in.”
About Tangier, Morocco
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 5
A most unworthy action was at this time perpetrated by the Government.
Not having the support of Parliament, they were unable to defend the place with an adequate force; and they chose the one man in England whose brilliant career rivals those of the grand worthies of Queen Elizabeth’s reign to fight a losing game.
The Earl of Ossory, son of the Duke of Ormonde, was appointed Governor and General of the Forces; but, before he could embark, he fell ill from brooding over the treatment he had received, and soon after died.
Lord Sunderland said in council that “Tangier must necessarily be lost; but that it was fit Lord Ossory should be sent, that they might give some account of it to the world.”
The Earl left his wife at their daughter’s house, and came up to London. Here he made a confidant of John Evelyn, who records in his Diary his opinion of the transaction. It was not only “an hazardous adventure, but, in most men’s opinion, an impossibility, seeing there was not to be above 300 or 400 horse, and 4,000 foot for the garrison and all, both to defend the town, form a camp, repulse the enemy, and fortify what ground they should get in. This touch’d my Lord deeply that he should be so little consider’d as to put him on a business in which he should probably not only lose his reputation, but be charged with all the miscarriages and ill success.”
It was on this man that Ormonde pronounced the beautiful eulogy, “I would not exchange my dead son for any living son in Christendom!”
In Aug. 1683, Lord Dartmouth was constituted Captain-General of his Majesty’s Forces in Africa, and Governor of Tangier, being sent with a fleet of about 20 sail to demolish and blow up the works, destroy the harbour, and bring home the garrison; but his instructions were secret.
Pepys received Charles II’s command to accompany Lord Dartmouth, but without being informed of the object of the expedition.
In a letter to Evelyn, Pepys tells him, “What our work is I am not solicitous to learn nor forward to make griefs at, it being handled by our masters as a secret.”
When they get to sea, Lord Dartmouth tells Pepys the object of the voyage, which the latter says he never suspected, having written the contrary to Mr. Houblon.
On Sept. 17, 1683 they landed at Tangier, having been about a month on their voyage. All the doings on board ship, and the business transacted on shore, are related with all Pepys’ vivid power of description in his “Tangier Journal.” The writer has become more sedate, and only once “the old man” appears, when he remarks on the pleasure he had in “again seeing fine
Mrs. Kirke,” the wife of the Governor.
We are told that “the tyranny and vice of Kirke is stupendous,” and the “Journal” is full of the various instances of his enormities.
Macaulay, with that power of characterization which he so eminently possessed, has compressed them all into his picture of the leader of Kirke’s lambs.”
About Tangier, Morocco
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 4
The deputy-governors were no better than their superiors.
Of Col. Fitzgerald, Pepys writes, on Oct. 20, 1664, he is “a man of no honour nor presence, nor little honesty, and endeavours to raise the Irish and suppress the English interest there, and offend every body.”
Certainly, when he sees him on Aug. 7, 1668, he is pleased with him and his discourse.
Pepys’ opinion of Col. Norwood we have already seen; but none of the governors rose to the height of villany exhibited by Col. Kirke, whose name is condemned to everlasting infamy in the pages of Macaulay.
The further history of Tangier, previous to its final destruction, can be put into a few words.
In Jan. 1668–69, Lord Sandwich proposed that a paymaster should be appointed at Tangier, and suggested Sir Charles Harbord for the post; but the Duke of York said that nothing could be done without Pepys’ consent, in case the arrangement should injure him in his office of treasurer.
Pepys was much pleased at this instance of the kindness of the Duke, and of the whole committee towards him.
Henry Sheres, who accompanied Lord Sandwich to Spain, and afterwards
became a great friend of Pepys, was paid £100, on Jan. 18, 1668–69, for drawing a plate of the Tangier fortifications.
In the same year (1669), the great engraver, Hollar, was sent to Tangier by
Charles II to take views of the town and fortifications. Some of these he afterwards engraved, and the original drawings are in the British Museum.
In 1673 a new commission was appointed, and Pepys and Povy were among the commissioners.
Two years afterwards the vessel in which Henry Teonge was chaplain anchored in Tangier Bay; and in the “Diary” which he left behind him he gives a description of the town as it appeared to him. The mole was not then finished, and he found the old high walls much decayed in places. He mentions “a pitiful palizado, not so good as an old park pale (for you may anywhere almost thrust it down with your foot);” but in this palisade were 12 forts, well supplied with good guns.
In 1680, Tangier was besieged by the Emperor of Morocco, and Charles II applied to Parliament for money, so that the place might be properly defended.
The House of Commons expressed their dislike of the management of the garrison, which they suspected to be a nursery for a Popish army.
Sir William Jones said: “Tangier may be of great importance to trade, but I am afraid hath not been so managed as to be any security to the Protestant religion;” and William Harbord, M.P. for Thetford, added: “When we are assured we shall have a good Protestant governor and garrison in Tangier, I shall heartily give my vote for money for it.”
About Tangier, Morocco
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
At one of the earliest meetings of the committee, the project of forming a mole or breakwater was entertained.
A contract for the work to be done at 13s. the cubical yard was accepted, although none of the committee knew whether they gave too much or too little (Feb. 16, 1662–63); and he signed the contract with very ill will on that score (Mar. 30, 1663).
When the accounts were looked into on Apr. 3, 1663, it was found that the charge for one year’s work would be as much as £13,000.
In 1665, the committee agreed to pay 4s. a yard more, and the whole amount spent upon the mole was found to be £36,000 (Mar. 30, 1665).
The wind and sea exerted a destructive influence over this structure, although it was strongly built, and Col. Norwood reported in 1668 that a breach had been made in the mole which would cost a considerable sum to repair.
As Norwood was an enemy of a friend of his, Pepys at once jumps to the conclusion that he must be a bad man (Feb. 22, 1668–69).
The 2nd Earl of Carnarvon said that wood was an excrescence of the earth, provided by God for the payment of debts, and Sir W. Coventry, in a conversation with Pepys, applied this saying to Tangier and its governors.
It is not always safe to take for granted all that Pepys says against the persons he writes about, but there must have been some truth in the indictment he drew up against all those who undertook the government of Tangier.
When Lord Peterborough received the place from the Portuguese, a book was given to him which contained a secret account of all the conduit-heads and heads of watercourses in and about the town. This book was always given from one governor to another, but was not to be looked at by anyone else.
When Lord Peterborough left, he took the book away with him, and on being asked for it always answered that he had mislaid it and could not recover it.
Col. Kirke told Pepys in 1683 that the supply of water was greatly reduced by the want of this information.
In 1666 Pepys had applied the adjective “ignoble” to Lord Peterborough’s name, on account of his lordship’s conduct in regard to money matters.
On Dec. 15, 1662, Andrew Lord Rutherford and Earl of Teviot, Governor of Dunkirk until its surrender to the French, was appointed Governor of Tangier in succession to Lord Peterborough, who was recalled.
Rutherford was a brave but rash man, and made a practice of going out of the town into the country without taking proper precautions.
In May, 1664, he was surveying his lines after an attack by the Moors, when he and 19 officers were killed by a party of the enemy in ambush.
Pepys called him a cunning man, and said that had he lived he would have undone the place; but in 1683, Dr. Lawrence told Pepys that his death was a great misfortune, for he took every opportunity of making the place great, but without neglecting himself.
John Lord Bellassis was the next governor, and he was said to be corrupt in his command.
About Tangier, Morocco
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Lawson had been in it, and said that it was a place of that importance, that if it were in the hands of Hollanders they would quickly make a mole, which could easily be done. Then ships would ride securely in all weathers, and
we could keep the place against the world, and give the law to the
trade of the Mediterranean.
The Portuguese were delighted at the prospect of a marriage between the Infanta and Charles, and after a few hitches the treaty was concluded, but some murmurs were heard against the delivery of Tangier into the hands of heretics.
Dom Fernando de Menezes, the Governor, entreated the Queen Regent to spare him the grief of handing over the city to the enemies of the Catholic faith. He was given to understand that, if he obeyed instructions, a marquisate would be conferred upon him, but if he continued to resist he would be dismissed.
Upon this, Dom Fernando threw up his command.
Lord Sandwich was instructed to take possession of Tangier, and then convey the Infanta and her portion to England.
Although the Queen Regent sent a governor whom she had chosen as one devoted to her interest, and sure to obey her commands, yet Clarendon affirms that he went to his government with a contrary resolution.
This resolution was frustrated by the action of the Moors.
A few days before Lord Sandwich arrived, the Governor marched out of the town with all the horse and half the foot of the garrison, and fell into an ambush. The whole party were cut off, and the Governor and many of his chief men were killed.
The town was so weak that, when Lord Sandwich arrived at this conjuncture, he was hailed as a deliverer from the Moors. He conveyed the remainder of the garrison into Portugal, and Henry, 2nd Earl of Peterborough, with the English garrison, entered the town on 30 Jan. 1662, as the first Governor from England.
Now began a system of mismanagement worthy of the disorganized condition of public affairs. A commission was appointed for the purpose of carrying on the government of Tangier in London, and constant meetings were held.
None of the commissioners knew anything of the place, and they were quite at the mercy of the governors and deputy-governors who were sent out.
Pepys was placed upon the commission by the influence of Lord Sandwich, and John Creed was appointed secretary.
Thomas Povy, the treasurer, got his accounts into so great a muddle, that he thought it wise to surrender his office to Pepys, on condition of receiving half the profits, which he did on Mar. 20, 1664–65.
This treasurership and the contract for victualling the garrison of Tangier were sources of considerable profit to the Diarist.
About Tangier, Morocco
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In' by Henry Wheatley
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/e…
CHAPTER IV.
TANGIER.
“And with asphaltick slime broad as the gate
Deep to the roots of hell the gather’d beach
They fasten’d: and the mole immense wrought on
Over the foaming deep high-arch’d: a bridge
Of length prodigious.” -- "Paradise Lost", x. 298–302.
Pepys was so intimately connected with the government of Tangier during
the 22 years it remained in the possession of the English, that it seems necessary, in a memoir of him, to give some account of the history of the place during that period.
Tangier is a seaport, on a small bay or inlet of the Straits of Gibraltar, which affords the only good harbour for shipping on the sea-board of Morocco, an extent of coast of about 900 miles.
The town was early coveted by the Portuguese, and in 1437 their army attacked it, but were defeated beneath the walls. On this occasion Dom Fernando, the King’s brother, was left behind as a hostage. A treaty of peace was concluded, but the stipulations not being executed, the Moors threw Dom Fernando into prison, where he died.
The prince’s body was treated with insult, and hung up by the heels over the city walls.
A few years later this unworthy conduct was revenged, for in 1463, the Portuguese being successful in battle, Alonzo V. took the town from the Moors.
For 2 centuries the Portuguese kept possession, but about the period of our Restoration they found the place somewhat of an encumbrance, and were anxious to obtain a desirable alliance against their enemies the Spaniards, by transferring it to another power.
In Nov. 1660, Thomas Maynard, British Consul at Lisbon, writing to Sir Edward Nicholas, says, that the King of Portugal would part with Tangier to England on reasonable terms.
Shortly afterwards the Portuguese ambassador in London proposed the Infanta Katharine, daughter of that Duke of Braganza who became King of Portugal as Joam IV, as a wife for Charles II, offering at the same time a portion of 500,000/s. sterling (“almost double what any King [of England] had ever received in money by any arriage”), and in addition a grant of a free trade in Brazil and the East Indies, and the possession of Tangier and the Island of Bombay.
The ambassador observed that these 2 places “might reasonably be valued above the portion in money.”
It was supposed that the possession of Tangier would be of infinite benefit to England and a security to her trade, and the Earl of Sandwich and Sir John Lawson were consulted respecting the proposed acquisition.
Lord Sandwich said that if the town were walled and fortified with brass, it would yet repay the cost, but he only knew it from the sea.
About Sunday 14 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"To my Lord’s, where I found my wife, and she and I did dine with my Lady (my Lord dining with my Lord Chamberlain), who did treat my wife with a good deal of respect."
Oh good -- Lady J did include Elizabeth. Hurt feelings would have ensued othrwise.
About Sunday 14 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Here I also observed, how the Duke of York and Mrs. Palmer did talk to one another very wantonly through the hangings that parts the King’s closet and the closet where the ladies sit."
Didn't anyone notice that Mrs. Barbara Villiers Palmer was 5 months pregnant? They were a gossipy lot, and Pepys hadn't heard or didn't suspect anything?
About Monday 7 October 1667
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
'Many things more did I see concerning the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, which are hard to be uttered, and would be hard to be received. But, in short, this holy city is within the Light, and all that are within the Light, are within the city; the gates whereof stand open all the day (for there is no night there), that all may come in.'
From "The Autobiography of George Fox"
CHAPTER XVII.
At the Work of Organizing 1667-1670.
https://ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autob…
SPOILER: In 1671 Fox goes to the Caribbean and America for 2 years. Sadly, he didn't find his New Jerusalem there either.
https://ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autob…
About Monday 7 October 1667
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
'Though by reason of my weakness I could not travel amongst Friends as I had been used to do, yet in the motion of life I sent the following lines as an encouraging testimony to them:
“My dear Friends:
“The Seed is above all. In it walk; in which ye all have life.
“Be not amazed at the weather; for always the just suffered by the unjust, but the just had the dominion.
“All along ye may see, by faith the mountains were subdued; and the rage of the wicked, with his fiery darts, was quenched. Though the waves and storms be high, yet your faith will keep you, so as to swim above them; for they are but for a time, and the Truth is without time. Therefore keep on the mountain of holiness, ye who are led to it by the Light.
“Do not think that anything will outlast the Truth. For the Truth standeth sure; and is over that which is out of the Truth. For the good will overcome the evil; the light, darkness; the life, death; virtue, vice; and righteousness, unrighteousness. The false prophet cannot overcome the true; but the true prophet, Christ, will overcome all the false.
“So be faithful, and live in that which doth not think the time long.
G. F.”
'After some time it pleased the Lord to allay the heat of this violent persecution; and I felt in spirit an overcoming of the spirits of those men-eaters that had stirred it up and carried it on to that height of cruelty. I was outwardly very weak; and I plainly felt, and those Friends that were with me, and that came to visit me, took notice, that as the persecution ceased I came from under the travails and sufferings that had lain with such weight upon me; so that towards the spring I began to recover, and to walk up and down, beyond the expectation of many, who did not think I could ever have gone abroad again.
'Whilst I was under this spiritual suffering the state of the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven was opened to me; which some carnal-minded people had looked upon to be like an outward city dropped out of the elements. I saw the beauty and glory of it, the length, the breadth, and the height thereof, all in complete proportion. I saw that all who are within the Light of Christ, and in His faith, of which He is the author; and in the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, which Christ and the holy prophets and apostles were in; and within the grace, and truth, and power of God, which are the walls of the city; I saw that such are within the city, are members of it, and have right to eat of the Tree of Life, which yields her fruit every month, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
About Monday 7 October 1667
San Diego Sarah • Link
George Fox and friends also spent time in Enfield in 1667:
'When I came to Gerrard [Roberts]’s, he was very weak, ... After I had stayed about three weeks there, it was with me to go to Enfield. ...
'When I had taken my leave of Gerrard, and was come to Enfield, I went first to visit Amor Stoddart, ... and within a few days after, Amor died.
'I went to the widow Dry’s, at Enfield, where I lay all that winter, warring in spirit with the evil spirits of the world, that warred against Truth and Friends. For there were great persecutions at this time; some meeting-houses were pulled down, and many were broken up by soldiers. Sometimes a troop of horse, or a company of foot came; and some broke their swords, carbines, muskets, and pikes, with beating Friends; and many they wounded, so that their blood lay in the streets.
'Amongst others that were active in this cruel persecution at London, my old adversary, Col. Kirby, was one. With a company of foot, he went to break up several meetings; and he would often inquire for me at the meetings he broke up. One time as he went over the water to Horsleydown, there happening some scuffle between some of his soldiers and some of the watermen, he bade his men fire at them. They did so, and killed some.
'I was under great sufferings at this time, beyond what I have words to declare. For I was brought into the deep, and saw all the religions of the world, and people that lived in them. And I saw the priests that held them up; who were as a company of men-eaters, eating up the people like bread, and gnawing the flesh from off their bones. But as for true religion, and worship, and ministers of God, alack! I saw there was none amongst those of the world that pretended to it.
'Though it was a cruel, bloody, persecuting time, yet the Lord’s power went over all, His everlasting Seed prevailed; and Friends were made to stand firm and faithful in the Lord’s power. Some sober people of other professions would say, “If Friends did not stand, the nation would run into debauchery.”
About Saturday 8 September 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
George Fox was out of London at the time of the Great Fire ...
'The very next day after my release, the fire broke out in London, and the report of it came quickly down into the country. Then I saw the Lord God was true and just in His Word, which he had shown me before in Lancaster jail, when I saw the angel of the Lord with a glittering sword drawn southward, as before expressed.
'The people of London were forewarned of this fire; yet few laid to heart, or believed it; but rather grew more wicked, and higher in pride. For a Friend was moved to come out of Huntingdonshire a little before the fire, to scatter his money, and turn his horse loose on the streets, to untie the knees of his trousers, let his stockings fall down, and to unbutton his doublet, and tell the people that so should they run up and down, scattering their money and their goods, half undressed, like mad people, as he was sign to them;185 and so they did, when the city was burning.
'Thus hath the Lord exercised His prophets and servants by His power, shown them signs of His judgments, and sent them to forewarn the people; but, instead of repenting, they have beaten and cruelly entreated some, and some they have imprisoned, both in the former power’s days186 and since.
'But the Lord is just, and happy are they that obey His word.'
From 'The Autobiography of George Fox'
CHAPTER XVI.
A Year in Scarborough Castle. 1665-1666
https://ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autob…
About Thursday 14 September 1665
San Diego Sarah • Link
"The Quakers … have buried in their piece of ground [Bunhill Row] a thousand … "
George Fox has this to say about the plague times:
'At London many Friends were crowded into Newgate, and other prisons, where the sickness was, and many died in prison. Many also were banished, and several sent on ship-board by the King’s order.
'Some masters of ships would not carry them, but set them on shore again; yet some were sent to Barbadoes, Jamaica, and Nevis, and the Lord blessed them there. One master of a ship was very wicked and cruel to Friends that were put on board his ship; for he kept them down under decks, though the sickness was amongst them; so that many died of it. But the Lord visited him for his wickedness; for he lost most of his seamen by the plague, and lay several months crossed with contrary winds, though other ships went on and made their voyages.
'At last he came before Plymouth, where the Governor and magistrates would not suffer him nor any of his men to come ashore, though he wanted necessaries for his voyage; but Thomas Tower, Arthur Cotton, John Light, and other Friends, went to the ship’s side, and carried necessaries for the Friends that were prisoners on board.
'The master, being thus crossed and vexed, cursed them that put him upon this freight, and said he hoped he should not go far before he was taken. And the vessel was but a little while gone out of sight of Plymouth before she was taken by a Dutch man-of-war, and carried into Holland.
'When they came into Holland, the States sent the banished Friends back to England, with a letter of passport, and a certificate that they had not made an escape, but were sent back by them.
'In time the Lord’s power wrought over this storm, and many of our persecutors were confounded and put to shame.'
From 'The Autobiography of George Fox'
CHAPTER XVI.
A Year in Scarborough Castle. 1665-1666.
https://ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autob…
About Conventicle Act 1664
San Diego Sarah • Link
16 Car. II., cap. 4, “An Act to prevent and suppresse seditious Conventicles.”
It was enacted that anyone aged 16 or more present at an unlawful assembly or conventicle was to incur a fine or imprisonment. A conventicle was defined as an assembly of more than 5 persons besides the members of a family met together for holding worship not according to the rites of the Church of England.
This was a problem for Catholics and Quakers and everyone who had beliefs that were not Anglican.
For information about how this was implemented in the country, not London, see
The Autobiography of George Fox.
CHAPTER XV.
In Prison for not Swearing. 1662-1665
https://ccel.org/ccel/fox_g/autob…