The monarch traditionally gave out the lands and offices to the most appreciated of their subjects at Michaelmas.
(I'm going to pay attention to when Barbara Villiers Palmer et al are given their "rewards" by our grateful monarch.)
In Christian folklore, it was St. Michael the Archangel who defeated Satan in the great battle of rebellion against Heaven. Coincidentally, Michaelmas is about the time when blackberries turn bitter, so another English tradition is that this is when the defeated Satan fell to earth, landing in brambles where he spit on them. No berry-picker would forget that blackberries turn bitter around September 29.
Pepys mentions eating goose 14 times in the Diary -- never at Michaelmas or Christmas. Perhaps the tradition was already dead, or geese were expensive in towns so frugal folk like him chose to eat something else?
Michaelmas was the beginning of the English year in all respects except the turning over of the calendar year (New Years Day traditionally fell on March 25 with spring planting).
The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (a.k.a. “Michaelmas”), on September 29, marked the beginning to the English legal and business year. It gave its name to the first term of the year: “Michaelmas Term”. The agricultural, educational and religious years follow the “terms” as well
Traditionally the farmer’s year begins at Michaelmas, so this was when he paid the annual rent -- makes sense, he's just sold the harvest, so he has money. At some point, it became customary to present the landlord with a Michaelmas goose. Sometimes the story goes that the landlord had the goose plucked and roasted on a gridiron by his household for all to enjoy on the Feast of St. Michael.
The soldier poet George Gascoigne says in the “Flowers” section of his 1573 Poesies: “And when the tenauntes come to paie their quarters rent, They bringe some fowle at Midsommer, a dish of Fish in Lent, At Christmasse a capon, at Mighelmasse a goose: And somewhat else at Newyeres tide, for feare their lease flie loose.”
That means the goose was an exaction rather than a shared dish at the feast. I suppose that all depends on the landlord and the tenant. • EXACTION = a sum of money demanded for a payment or service.
Gascoigne also says tenant rents were quarterly, each quarter having its related exaction for the landlord’s table. This probably applied to the poorest tenants.
In the Fragmenta Antiquitatis, the earliest known reference in 1470 to the Michaelmas Goose as being part of an annual rent:
“John de la Hay took of William Barnaby, Lord of Lastres, in the county of Hereford, one parcel of land of the demesne lands, rendering therefore 20-pence a-year, and one goose, fit for the lord's dinner, on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, [attendance at] court, and other services thereupon due, &c.”
Hay is a freeman tenant who pays an annual rent and various feodary services for his land -- plus a goose.
Another Michaelmas tradition was the installations of municipal officers either selected in recent elections, or appointed by the Crown.
The City of London held a by Royal Charter giving them the privilege of electing their sheriffs rather than having them appointed by the monarch. They celebrated this high honor by installing them on Michaelmas Day.
Most cities elected their aldermen and mayors on the days before the feast and paraded them through the streets to be welcomed by the old officeholders and installed in office on about Michaelmas day.
Michaelmas represented a fresh new start for English city governments.
Women inheriting was their very last resort, Elizabeth.
The succession at this time was Charles - James - Rupert - then William who is currently under age (by this point surely one of them would have had a son, but if not then the line defaulted -- as was the case, as we know -- to the young women Mary - Anne).
The Princess Royal and Henrietta Anne/Minette were long dead before they were forced to take Anne for lack of any other male Protestant Stuart.
Rupert came from a big family, but he and the late Maurice were the only ones who showed any sustained interest in England. But this is where the Protestant Hanovarians came from when Britain ran out of Protestant Stuarts. There was, of course, a legitimate Catholic Stuart son who was passed over, at great cost.
The late Queen Elizabeth II had the Succession to the Crown Act (2013) passed to amend the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement to end the system of male primogeniture, under which a younger son can displace an elder daughter in the line of succession.
The succession to the throne is regulated not only through descent but also by parliamentary statute. The order of succession is the sequence of members of the royal family in the order they stand in line to the throne. The first in line to the throne, the heir, will become king or queen when the reigning monarch dies, followed by second in line and so on, so Prince William is now the heir to the throne and his son, Prince George, second in line. The original constitution that governed the accession of monarchs was determined by the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701), and meant that firstborn women, who were direct descendants of the monarch, could be passed over in favor of their younger male sibling.
Thanks, Queen Elizabeth II. That was 2013, not 1660.
Introduction of Tobacco to England by Ben Johnson The most common date given for the arrival of tobacco in England is 27th July 1586, when it is said Sir Walter Raleigh brought it to England from Virginia.
Indeed, one legend tells of how Sir Walter’s servant, seeing him smoking a pipe for the first time, threw water over him, fearing him to be on fire.
However it is much more likely that tobacco had been around in England long before this date. Tobacco had been smoked by Spanish and Portuguese sailors for many years and it is likely that the habit of pipe smoking had been adopted by British sailors before 1586. Sir John Hawkins and his crew could have brought it to these shores as early as 1565. https://www.historic-uk.com/Histo…
Chewing tobacco was probably the earliest form of tobacco used in the Americas. In its simplest form, it requires no special preparation, although some Native Americans did mix lime with the tobacco to increase its effect. Tobacco chewing was especially prevalent in the vicinity of the Andes Mountains where coca leaf was also chewed.
When Europeans arrived in America, they learned the use of tobacco from Native Americans and took the habit back to Europe. As the tobacco habit spread throughout the world, few people practiced tobacco chewing, but one major exception was, for example, sailors who could not safely smoke onboard ship. It is difficult to ascertain exactly how much tobacco was consumed by chewing because prior to the 1800s most tobacco was manufactured in the same form, regardless of how it was consumed. https://www.encyclopedia.com/hist…
"we went to Deptford to pay off the ship Success ..."
"L&M Footnote: The "Old Success" in harbour since November 1658 and now paid off at a cost of £3228. … Col. John Birch and Sir Richard Browne were two of the parliamentary commissioners appointed to disband the forces."
That's a lot of money for an old ship that has been docked in the harbor for 2 years. Surely "the forces" hadn't been kept on board doing nothing for 2 years?
Perhaps the sailors had refused to leave until they were paid? -- yes, that must have been the situation. A sit in! Occupy Success! There's nothing new under the sun.
John, I hope it means floor. It's be a tad cold sleeping outside in London in late September. Pepys really doesn't give us enough information to answer your question with certainty.
Maybe "ground" means ground floor -- 1st floor if you're an American. Later we will learn that the Seething Lane house came with a basement, so it would have been on a wooden floor on the ground floor, as well as in the bedroom on the 1st/2nd floor.
My take on Pepys' sentence was that Elizabeth had to move and/or cover up all the furniture in their bedroom to protect it from the plasterers, so she and Pepys had to improvise a bed on the floor that night -- who knows where. But I bet it was by a fireplace.
"... the interest of this kingdom to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland ... "
"... the States of Holland under the prime movers Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt ..."
It appears the English habit of refering to the Netherlands as "Holland" (which is just one of the 7 States) has been with us for at least 350 years. And to confuse things further in the 17th century, the Netherlands was divided into the Spanish Netherlands (Catholic) and the Dutch Republic/United Providences (Protestant).
The DR/UP was the entrepreneurial capital of the world. I think the SN was more rural, and the Spanish did not exactly encourage entrepreneurial people in far-off territories. A helpful map is at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…
In the 17th century they were still working off the belief that 'if you do well, I must do badly', so it was considered to be in the national interest to topple the top country in whatever field they were discussing. Envy, in other words, justified everything.
Come to think of it, the idea that cooperation creates a bigger pie, so everyone does well, is still a hard sell. Harvard Law School teaches a course about it. President Kennedy offered a more folksy expression of the same principle: A rising tide raises all boats. 'Win, win, win' was a novel selling slogan in the 1990's.
The 7 Deadly Sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride) seem to win every time if we are not careful -- or is that just a short-term point-of-view, with 'Virtue Is Its Own Reward' being the long-term truth?
Sir Richard Ford was definately a short-term point-of-view fellow, so long as someone else was doing the work and the fighting for him.
At the States General at The Hague, on 25 September, 1660, the States of Holland under the prime movers Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, brother-in-law Pieter de Graeff, his younger brother Andries de Graeff and Gillis Valckenier, resolved to take charge of William III, Prince of Orange's education to ensure he would acquire the skills to serve in a future — although undetermined — state function.
"So home thinking to have found Will at home, but he not being come home but gone somewhere else ..."
The house is in such a pickle that Pepys finds it necessary to take his reading to the office for some peace and quiet. When he gets home he finds Will has also "escaped" the mayhem, leaving Elizabeth and Jane with the workmen, or cleaning up by themselves. He's supposed to be helping out at home as well as escorting Pepys. But this is a first offense, and he saw what happened to the other Will recently. Hopefully words of warning will do the trick.
It's said that Walter Raleigh brought back smoking tobacco from South America. The first time his servants in Devonshire saw him doing this, they emptied a bucket of water over his head.
It never fails to amaze me that many annotators seems to enjoy ascribing the worst behavior and motives to Pepys -- without checking their facts first. He's far from a perfect person, but he expends enormous amounts of energy doing his best to make the most of every day. May we all succeed as well!
L&M Companion: Walter Walker, Died 1674. Knighted 1661, Civil Lawyer, LL.D. (Cantab.) 1640. In the 1650's an advocate in Doctors' Commons and Judge of the Admiralty Court and Prerogative Court. Appointed Advocate General to James, Duke of York, 1670. Known for his "indecorous warmth of his language".
It must have been glorious to see a river full of them.
HOWEVER, I don't think that would make it under old London Bridge.
About a quarter of the way through the Wiki article they have a HISTORY heading: "The precursor to the square spritsail barge was the London lighter or dumb-barge. They flitted up and down the river delivering cargo, using the incoming tide to send them up river, and the ebbing tide for the return journey. They were manoeuvered by a pair of bargemen using long sweeps (oars). "These barges had a flat box like bow (swim-headed) and a near flat stern, or a square sloping stern (budgett stern). There is a print in the Guildhall Library dating from 1764, showing a 1697 built, round bowed barge with a spritsail rig – but with no mizzen. [BUT IT ISN'T REPRODUCED HERE.]
"The spritsail and the leeboards are both of Dutch origin and can be traced back to 1416 and can be seen on the London River by 1600."
Of course the Dutch did it first. Maybe they had two fleets of these barges, on either side of the bridge?
September 1660 also saw the appearance of several titles which contained detailed denials of Henry Jessey's assertions.
This criticism did not go unanswered. The government in October issued a royal proclamation banning the publication of all unlicensed 'almanacs and prognostications', but despite government efforts to suppress or discredit these stories, the campaign continued into 1661 and 1662, with the appearance of the Annus Mirabilis tracts.
Henry Jessey was also an active millenarian, with a scholarly knowledge of Jewish tradition and the Hebrew language. He was a member of the Comenius Circle, along with John Wilkins D.D., John Dury, Samuel Hartlib, Robert Boyle, J. Eliot, W. Bedell and Seth Ward D.D., all of whom were interested in developing a universal language based on Hebrew, and influenced Cromwell to allow Jews to return to England. https://www.academia.edu/28273273…
Like many millenarians of that time, the Fifth Monarchists saw themselves as Saints, the preordained elect and chosen ones. They saw it as their calling to prepare the way for King Christ and the New Jerusalem. The following list comprised their requirements: legal reform, purging the clergy, abolishing tithes, imposing puritanical morality and reducing taxes.
Just because Pepys doesn't report reading these pamphlets, we need to know that not everyone was joyful about the Restoration. Some people were terrified that God was going to punish England with awe-ful retrobutions.
From Gloucestershire April 19, 1660. Part of a second Letter. Part of a third Letter from Gloucestershire 18 of the second Month, 1660. Another Letter from Gloucestershire, from the house of a godly strict Presbyterian, it was written. Part of another Letter from that County, the 28th. of the second Month. April 1660. A true Declaration of the uncivil speeches and carriages of Mr. I. D. Son of Mr. I. D. of B. in the County of Gloucester, against Edward Fletcher, Minister of the〈◊〉place, in the〈◊〉of my〈◊〉and one Mr. R. E. of the same Parish; 〈◊〉 was as followeth. Part of a Letter from the North, to another Friend. From Redding Prison, July 16. 1660. Where divers peaceable people were put, having Oaths put upon them, which they were not satisfied to take: Of the LORD’S Instructing, and comforting them, and their Relations. A letter writ at Newport in WALES, 12 July, 1660, of Rude Proceeds there. OXFORD PROCEEDS, 1660. The Great Alterations lately made by King’s Commissioners there, in Discharging the Vice-chancellor, and many Heads of Colleges, Beadles, Fellows, &c. are related in several thence, here . Part of another Letter from another College in Oxford, relatos , in several Fellows, and in the way of God's Worship; That freedom that had been used and allowed of late years, not pleasing these now. A Letter touching a Cooper’s acts, and end at Waltham near Theobalds. Of Healths drinking, and Heaven’s doom thereon; Part of a Letter from Mr. Ab. Ramsbotham.
HEALTHS-SICKNESS: OR, A Compendious and Discourse, proving the drinking and pledging of Healths to be sinful, and utterly unlawful unto Christians; By Arguments, Scriptures, Fathers, Modern Divines, Christian Authors, Historians, Councils, Imperial Laws and Constitutions; and by the voice and verdict of prophane and heathen Writers; Wherein all those Ordinary Objections, Excuses, and Pretenses, which are made to justify, extenuate or excuse the drinking of HEALTHS, are likewise cleared and answered. To the Most High and Mighty Prince Charles, By the Grace of God King of Great Britain, &c. After his Epistle to the Reader, of the causes of that odious sin of Drunkenness, beginning his Book, he urgeth many solid Arguments against Drinking of Healths, which are worthy to be Reprinted. The brief sum whereof followeth. First Argument against these healths. Part of the KING'S first PROCLAMATION, May 30. 1660. Also the next PROCLAMATION, June 1. The Relation of the Death of above 20 or 30.
Vincent's suggestion the falling plaster was caused by an earthquake is possible.
In Sept. 1660 a Baptist minister, Henry Jessey (1603-1663) printed a pamphlet addressed to Charles II, warning him of the bad omens which had recently occurred -- including an earthquake in France. All those sinful toasts and plays were causing God's wrath.
SUMMARY:
THE LORDS LOUD CALL TO ENGLAND: To all, or any of such as love Jesus Christ in Sincerity. A RELATION OF THE Lords wonderful works of late by an Earthquake, Lightning and by Toads; and by smiting of divers with sudden death, upon Health-drinking, Stage-play, &c. Of the Lord’s hand at Oxford, by sudden death of several persons, Actors in Play against Puritans; and others. Of the sudden dreadful Death of the Clerk’s Daughter at in Gloucestershire, the third, just a week before Whitsunday, 1660. Of the great number of 〈◊〉 in Gloucestershire, 〈◊〉 Midsummer day, 1660. Of the Earthquake in France, on Munday, June 1660. Part of a Letter to a Merchant in London, dated at Bourdeaux in France, at his house there, June 14/4 1660. Translated from French into English, for H. J. Others write, that at Toulouse, and some other places in France, was the same Earthquake. Of the strange Whirlwind on June 2. 1660. in Leicestershire, 〈◊〉 be effects thereof. A RELATION Of the Imprisonings, Plunderings, and Barbarous Inhumanity and Cruelty, that hath lately been practiced towards several Ministers of the Gospel, and other peaceable people, in WALES, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, and other places: Especially since the Late Remnant of the Long Parliament, by their Outing of many, prepared a COFFIN for themselves and others. With the USES to be made thereof by the Sufferers, and by others. Part of a Letter from Mr. Tho. Guyn, with Mr. Jenkin Jones, the 29th. of the fourth Month, June 1660. The Gross Abuses to many Good 〈◊〉 People in Lincolnshire, here follow, 〈◊〉 they were 〈◊〉 in their NARRATIVE or Complaint thereof to the KING near the end of July 1660. Testified under many of their 〈◊〉. Part of a NARRATIVE and Complaint, that by the help of an Honorable Parliament man was presented to the King. the 26th. of the fifth Month, July 1660. With the Kings Answer thereunto. The substance of the King’s Answer to the Messengers that were sent with this Narration and Petition (upon the presenting it before him, and giving him the Contents of it, with the delivering the Confession of their Faith, into his own hand) was this. From Gloucestershire, writ April 3. 1660. Part of the First letter.
In 1670 Ford ... was among those ordered to attend a conference on the shipping bill. At the same time he was engaged, on commission, to manage negotiations with Hamburg regarding compensation for 6 English ships destroyed in the Elbe by the Dutch during the war.
... On laying down office, Ford petitioned Charles II ‘for such largesse as may enable him to end the life spent in his service without contempt in the City’. [HE WAS LORD MAYOR OF LONDON 1670-71 - SDS] His claim to have kept London ‘tranquil’ is substantiated by a report on the corporation in 1672, which stated while in office he had "suspended the execution of the laws against nonconformists, by which he gained the applause of all that party, though they had used all the villainous arts imaginable to keep him out of the government. He is a man of excellent parts, and may do his Majesty excellent service in the City."
His financial troubles cannot have been too severe, for he leased a country house in Kent, and when his London house burned in the Navy Office fire in Jan. 1673, he moved his business to premises on Tower Hill.
... He was on the committee for rebuilding the Navy Office, and his was the first name among those appointed in 1674 for a bill to pave the City of London's streets and completing the rebuilding of churches and public works. ...
During the summer the Merchant Adventurers voted to replace him as governor by Sir Edward Dering, who described his predecessor as ‘a man of ill reputation’.
... In 1677 he was among the Members ordered to ... consider another petition from the creditors of the Merchant Adventurers, and to abolish the penalty of burning for heresy. Lord Shaftesbury (Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper), who had been his friend over the tin farm, marked him ‘worthy’, but in "A Seasonable Argument" he was described as ‘the joint contriver of the two Dutch wars, for which he had £10,000, and yet is scarce able to live’, ...
His last committee in June 1678 was once again on the affairs of the Merchant Adventurers.
He died at 65 on 31 Aug. 1678, and was buried at Bexley,. His memorial speaks of his "great talents and even greater integrity (for he knew everything except deceit). [He was] most skilled in several languages and almost every art ... an exile with his prince (as was seemly) and a leader in his return. How many offices he enjoyed cannot be determined, but they were far fewer than he deserved. ... Heaven remained the only reward which he could earn."
His intestacy, and the obscurity into which his family lapsed, suggest his career, devoted to one of the declining sectors of English trade, had brought him less profit than was merited by his ability.
He was married to a woman named Grace and they had 2 sons and 3 daughters.
Charles II ‘had an inclination to serve Sir Richard’, but it was some time before he received any substantial reward for his services, other than his knighthood and some naval contracts. And Pepys caught him in an attempt to pass off ‘old stuff that had been tarred, covered over with new hemp, which is such a cheat as hath not been heard of’, at any rate by the zealous novice in the Navy Office; but his ‘Holland duck’ was excellent.
Ford’s syndicate apparently outbid the customs farmers for the additional duties, and were awarded £8,000 compensation when their tender was rejected.
In 1663 he was appointed to the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the effects of the suspension of the Merchant Adventurers’ patent.
The King gave him £1,500 to cover his expenses as sheriff of London, without which he could not have undertaken the office.
In the spring session of 1664, he was marked as a court dependant, and named to the committees for the conventicles bill and for the bill to relieve the creditors of the Merchant Adventurers, which came to nothing; but when it was revived in the autumn he acted as teller against it on the second reading. Later in the same session he took the chair in committees to consider a petition from naval suppliers and to regulate vintners’ measures.
He formed a syndicate which received a grant of the crown’s right of ‘coinage’ on all tin mined in England and Wales; although his proposal to issue tin farthings was disallowed, the Treasury would not accept his contention that he had been a loser by the contract.
As the leading merchant in the Africa company he was chiefly responsible for the second Anglo-Dutch war. At Oxford he was teller against the second reading of the bill to prohibit the import of Irish cattle ...
Apart from serving on the committee for the bill to establish a public accounts commission, Ford took no part in the measures against Clarendon. He probably introduced the bill for reducing the parishes of Southampton from 5 to 2 in March 1668, since his name stands first in the list of the committee. He was also appointed to the committee for the conventicles bill, and acted as teller for the bill to reduce rates of interest.
Sir Thomas Osborne originally included him among the dependants of the Duke of York in 1669, but transferred him, with Sir William Coventry, to the list of those Members who might be ‘engaged’ for the Court.
Richard Ford did not claim kinship with either of the established Devonshire families named Ford[e], nor does his father appear to have belonged to the Exeter patriciate by birth or marriage. His education presumably prepared him for a career in the Church, but he preferred to go into trade. He impressed Pepys as ‘a very able man of his brains and tongue, and a scholar’, although, like so many merchants, he could not keep a secret.
He settled in Rotterdam in 1642, and helped to supply the royalist armies through the western ports. The Earl of Warwick described him as a great ‘malignant’ who sought to embroil Parliament with the United Provinces, and a vote was passed at Westminster to outlaw him. The Royalist Peter Mews later called him ‘a knave in grain ... for when he should have supplied my lord of Ormonde with arms and ammunition, he carried corn to the rebels’.
He was allowed to compound on a vague particular in 1649 for £129, although the Council of State suspected him of ‘some design of special mischief for Charles Stuart, being a principal man in all their councils’. But he was sufficiently reconciled to the regime to return to England in 1652, to act as supplier to the Protectorate navy and to serve on the committee of trade.
As an influential member of the common council and ‘a very loyal, prudent gentleman’, he took a leading part in promoting the Restoration in the City, and on 9 Feb. 1660 the Rump ordered his arrest.
At the general election he was involved in a double return at Exeter, which was decided against him.
As one of the delegation from the City he was knighted at The Hague, but he was again unsuccessful at Exeter in 1661, presumably because his association with the great London monopoly companies was distasteful to the provincial trading community. In London, on the other hand, he enjoyed considerable popularity, but was unable to overcome the prejudice against ‘episcopal men’. At Southampton the Duke of York’s letter proved efficacious and he was elected.
Sir Richard Ford MP was an active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, being appointed to 195 committees, mostly on trade matters, and acting as teller in 7 divisions, but despite Pepys’ commendation he seldom spoke in the House. In the opening session he was appointed to the committees for the security, corporations and uniformity bills.
He was the principal representative of the East India Company in their negotiations with the Dutch, and a strong advocate of the war. Early in 1662 he was twice ordered to attend Charles II with resolutions of the House concerning the packing of wool and the dearth of corn. He was teller against a proposal to suspend until Christmas the Merchant Adventurers’ monopoly of cloth exports to the Dutch Republic and Germany {?), and helped to manage a conference on the customs.
Comments
Third Reading
About Michaelmas
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
The monarch traditionally gave out the lands and offices to the most appreciated of their subjects at Michaelmas.
(I'm going to pay attention to when Barbara Villiers Palmer et al are given their "rewards" by our grateful monarch.)
In Christian folklore, it was St. Michael the Archangel who defeated Satan in the great battle of rebellion against Heaven.
Coincidentally, Michaelmas is about the time when blackberries turn bitter, so another English tradition is that this is when the defeated Satan fell to earth, landing in brambles where he spit on them. No berry-picker would forget that blackberries turn bitter around September 29.
Pepys mentions eating goose 14 times in the Diary -- never at Michaelmas or Christmas. Perhaps the tradition was already dead, or geese were expensive in towns so frugal folk like him chose to eat something else?
https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogsp…
About Michaelmas
San Diego Sarah • Link
Michaelmas was the beginning of the English year in all respects except the turning over of the calendar year (New Years Day traditionally fell on March 25 with spring planting).
The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (a.k.a. “Michaelmas”), on September 29, marked the beginning to the English legal and business year. It gave its name to the first term of the year: “Michaelmas Term”.
The agricultural, educational and religious years follow the “terms” as well
Traditionally the farmer’s year begins at Michaelmas, so this was when he paid the annual rent -- makes sense, he's just sold the harvest, so he has money.
At some point, it became customary to present the landlord with a Michaelmas goose. Sometimes the story goes that the landlord had the goose plucked and roasted on a gridiron by his household for all to enjoy on the Feast of St. Michael.
The soldier poet George Gascoigne says in the “Flowers” section of his 1573 Poesies:
“And when the tenauntes come to paie their quarters rent,
They bringe some fowle at Midsommer, a dish of Fish in Lent,
At Christmasse a capon, at Mighelmasse a goose:
And somewhat else at Newyeres tide, for feare their lease flie loose.”
That means the goose was an exaction rather than a shared dish at the feast. I suppose that all depends on the landlord and the tenant.
• EXACTION = a sum of money demanded for a payment or service.
Gascoigne also says tenant rents were quarterly, each quarter having its related exaction for the landlord’s table. This probably applied to the poorest tenants.
In the Fragmenta Antiquitatis, the earliest known reference in 1470 to the Michaelmas Goose as being part of an annual rent:
“John de la Hay took of William Barnaby, Lord of Lastres, in the county of Hereford, one parcel of land of the demesne lands, rendering therefore 20-pence a-year, and one goose, fit for the lord's dinner, on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, [attendance at] court, and other services thereupon due, &c.”
Hay is a freeman tenant who pays an annual rent and various feodary services for his land -- plus a goose.
Another Michaelmas tradition was the installations of municipal officers either selected in recent elections, or appointed by the Crown.
The City of London held a by Royal Charter giving them the privilege of electing their sheriffs rather than having them appointed by the monarch.
They celebrated this high honor by installing them on Michaelmas Day.
Most cities elected their aldermen and mayors on the days before the feast and paraded them through the streets to be welcomed by the old officeholders and installed in office on about Michaelmas day.
Michaelmas represented a fresh new start for English city governments.
About Saturday 29 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Women inheriting was their very last resort, Elizabeth.
The succession at this time was Charles - James - Rupert - then William who is currently under age (by this point surely one of them would have had a son, but if not then the line defaulted -- as was the case, as we know -- to the young women Mary - Anne).
The Princess Royal and Henrietta Anne/Minette were long dead before they were forced to take Anne for lack of any other male Protestant Stuart.
Rupert came from a big family, but he and the late Maurice were the only ones who showed any sustained interest in England. But this is where the Protestant Hanovarians came from when Britain ran out of Protestant Stuarts. There was, of course, a legitimate Catholic Stuart son who was passed over, at great cost.
The late Queen Elizabeth II had the Succession to the Crown Act (2013) passed to amend the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement to end the system of male primogeniture, under which a younger son can displace an elder daughter in the line of succession.
The succession to the throne is regulated not only through descent but also by parliamentary statute. The order of succession is the sequence of members of the royal family in the order they stand in line to the throne. The first in line to the throne, the heir, will become king or queen when the reigning monarch dies, followed by second in line and so on, so Prince William is now the heir to the throne and his son, Prince George, second in line.
The original constitution that governed the accession of monarchs was determined by the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701), and meant that firstborn women, who were direct descendants of the monarch, could be passed over in favor of their younger male sibling.
Thanks, Queen Elizabeth II. That was 2013, not 1660.
About Wednesday 26 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Introduction of Tobacco to England
by Ben Johnson
The most common date given for the arrival of tobacco in England is 27th July 1586, when it is said Sir Walter Raleigh brought it to England from Virginia.
Indeed, one legend tells of how Sir Walter’s servant, seeing him smoking a pipe for the first time, threw water over him, fearing him to be on fire.
However it is much more likely that tobacco had been around in England long before this date. Tobacco had been smoked by Spanish and Portuguese sailors for many years and it is likely that the habit of pipe smoking had been adopted by British sailors before 1586. Sir John Hawkins and his crew could have brought it to these shores as early as 1565.
https://www.historic-uk.com/Histo…
Chewing tobacco was probably the earliest form of tobacco used in the Americas. In its simplest form, it requires no special preparation, although some Native Americans did mix lime with the tobacco to increase its effect. Tobacco chewing was especially prevalent in the vicinity of the Andes Mountains where coca leaf was also chewed.
When Europeans arrived in America, they learned the use of tobacco from Native Americans and took the habit back to Europe. As the tobacco habit spread throughout the world, few people practiced tobacco chewing, but one major exception was, for example, sailors who could not safely smoke onboard ship. It is difficult to ascertain exactly how much tobacco was consumed by chewing because prior to the 1800s most tobacco was manufactured in the same form, regardless of how it was consumed.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/hist…
They did both, David G.
About Tuesday 25 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"we went to Deptford to pay off the ship Success ..."
"L&M Footnote: The "Old Success" in harbour since November 1658 and now paid off at a cost of £3228. … Col. John Birch and Sir Richard Browne were two of the parliamentary commissioners appointed to disband the forces."
That's a lot of money for an old ship that has been docked in the harbor for 2 years. Surely "the forces" hadn't been kept on board doing nothing for 2 years?
Perhaps the sailors had refused to leave until they were paid? -- yes, that must have been the situation. A sit in! Occupy Success!
There's nothing new under the sun.
About Tuesday 25 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
'Does "ground" mean a floor or outside?'
John, I hope it means floor. It's be a tad cold sleeping outside in London in late September.
Pepys really doesn't give us enough information to answer your question with certainty.
Maybe "ground" means ground floor -- 1st floor if you're an American.
Later we will learn that the Seething Lane house came with a basement, so it would have been on a wooden floor on the ground floor, as well as in the bedroom on the 1st/2nd floor.
My take on Pepys' sentence was that Elizabeth had to move and/or cover up all the furniture in their bedroom to protect it from the plasterers, so she and Pepys had to improvise a bed on the floor that night -- who knows where. But I bet it was by a fireplace.
About Tuesday 25 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... the interest of this kingdom to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland ... "
"... the States of Holland under the prime movers Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt ..."
It appears the English habit of refering to the Netherlands as "Holland" (which is just one of the 7 States) has been with us for at least 350 years.
And to confuse things further in the 17th century, the Netherlands was divided into the Spanish Netherlands (Catholic) and the Dutch Republic/United Providences (Protestant).
The DR/UP was the entrepreneurial capital of the world. I think the SN was more rural, and the Spanish did not exactly encourage entrepreneurial people in far-off territories.
A helpful map is at
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…
In the 17th century they were still working off the belief that 'if you do well, I must do badly', so it was considered to be in the national interest to topple the top country in whatever field they were discussing.
Envy, in other words, justified everything.
Come to think of it, the idea that cooperation creates a bigger pie, so everyone does well, is still a hard sell. Harvard Law School teaches a course about it. President Kennedy offered a more folksy expression of the same principle: A rising tide raises all boats. 'Win, win, win' was a novel selling slogan in the 1990's.
The 7 Deadly Sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride) seem to win every time if we are not careful -- or is that just a short-term point-of-view, with 'Virtue Is Its Own Reward' being the long-term truth?
Sir Richard Ford was definately a short-term point-of-view fellow, so long as someone else was doing the work and the fighting for him.
About Tuesday 25 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
At the States General at The Hague, on 25 September, 1660, the States of Holland under the prime movers Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, brother-in-law Pieter de Graeff, his younger brother Andries de Graeff and Gillis Valckenier, resolved to take charge of William III, Prince of Orange's education to ensure he would acquire the skills to serve in a future — although undetermined — state function.
I wonder what uncle Charles II thinks about that.
https://www.britannica.com/biogra…
(Yes, William was the III even before he became King of England. William "the Silent" was his grandfather -- his father was William II.)
About Wednesday 26 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"So home thinking to have found Will at home, but he not being come home but gone somewhere else ..."
The house is in such a pickle that Pepys finds it necessary to take his reading to the office for some peace and quiet.
When he gets home he finds Will has also "escaped" the mayhem, leaving Elizabeth and Jane with the workmen, or cleaning up by themselves. He's supposed to be helping out at home as well as escorting Pepys.
But this is a first offense, and he saw what happened to the other Will recently. Hopefully words of warning will do the trick.
About Wednesday 26 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
It's said that Walter Raleigh brought back smoking tobacco from South America. The first time his servants in Devonshire saw him doing this, they emptied a bucket of water over his head.
About Thursday 27 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thank you, Bryan.
It never fails to amaze me that many annotators seems to enjoy ascribing the worst behavior and motives to Pepys -- without checking their facts first.
He's far from a perfect person, but he expends enormous amounts of energy doing his best to make the most of every day. May we all succeed as well!
About Walter Walker
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion: Walter Walker, Died 1674. Knighted 1661,
Civil Lawyer, LL.D. (Cantab.) 1640.
In the 1650's an advocate in Doctors' Commons and Judge of the Admiralty Court and Prerogative Court.
Appointed Advocate General to James, Duke of York, 1670.
Known for his "indecorous warmth of his language".
About Sunday 5 July 1668
San Diego Sarah • Link
I've just found out that John Milton blamed his eventual blindness on vapors rising up from his stomach and clouding his eyes.
https://publicdomainreview.org/es…
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
A picture of the Thames barges, traditionally with red sails, I think Peter Johnson refers to is at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tha…)
It must have been glorious to see a river full of them.
HOWEVER, I don't think that would make it under old London Bridge.
About a quarter of the way through the Wiki article they have a HISTORY heading:
"The precursor to the square spritsail barge was the London lighter or dumb-barge. They flitted up and down the river delivering cargo, using the incoming tide to send them up river, and the ebbing tide for the return journey. They were manoeuvered by a pair of bargemen using long sweeps (oars).
"These barges had a flat box like bow (swim-headed) and a near flat stern, or a square sloping stern (budgett stern). There is a print in the Guildhall Library dating from 1764, showing a 1697 built, round bowed barge with a spritsail rig – but with no mizzen. [BUT IT ISN'T REPRODUCED HERE.]
"The spritsail and the leeboards are both of Dutch origin and can be traced back to 1416 and can be seen on the London River by 1600."
Of course the Dutch did it first. Maybe they had two fleets of these barges, on either side of the bridge?
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
September 1660 also saw the appearance of several titles which contained detailed denials of Henry Jessey's assertions.
This criticism did not go unanswered. The government in October issued a royal proclamation banning the publication of all unlicensed 'almanacs and prognostications', but despite government efforts to suppress or discredit these stories, the campaign continued into 1661 and 1662, with the appearance of the Annus Mirabilis tracts.
Henry Jessey was also an active millenarian, with a scholarly knowledge of Jewish tradition and the Hebrew language. He was a member of the Comenius Circle, along with John Wilkins D.D., John Dury, Samuel Hartlib, Robert Boyle, J. Eliot, W. Bedell and Seth Ward D.D., all of whom were interested in developing a universal language based on Hebrew, and influenced Cromwell to allow Jews to return to England.
https://www.academia.edu/28273273…
Like many millenarians of that time, the Fifth Monarchists saw themselves as Saints, the preordained elect and chosen ones. They saw it as their calling to prepare the way for King Christ and the New Jerusalem.
The following list comprised their requirements:
legal reform,
purging the clergy,
abolishing tithes,
imposing puritanical morality and
reducing taxes.
Sound familiar?
Some of the Fifth Monarchists, like Major-Gen. Harrison, even offered to serve without pay if it lowered taxes, and even then, the courts were clogged with meaningless lawsuits.
https://englishhistoryauthors.blo…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Just because Pepys doesn't report reading these pamphlets, we need to know that not everyone was joyful about the Restoration. Some people were terrified that God was going to punish England with awe-ful retrobutions.
SPOILER: They were not disappointed.
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
From Gloucestershire April 19, 1660. Part of a second Letter.
Part of a third Letter from Gloucestershire 18 of the second Month, 1660.
Another Letter from Gloucestershire, from the house of a godly strict Presbyterian, it was written.
Part of another Letter from that County, the 28th. of the second Month. April 1660.
A true Declaration of the uncivil speeches and carriages of Mr. I. D. Son of Mr. I. D. of B. in the County of Gloucester, against Edward Fletcher, Minister of the〈◊〉place, in the〈◊〉of my〈◊〉and one Mr. R. E. of the same Parish; 〈◊〉 was as followeth.
Part of a Letter from the North, to another Friend.
From Redding Prison, July 16. 1660. Where divers peaceable people were put, having Oaths put upon them, which they were not satisfied to take: Of the LORD’S Instructing, and comforting them, and their Relations.
A letter writ at Newport in WALES, 12 July, 1660, of Rude Proceeds there.
OXFORD PROCEEDS, 1660. The Great Alterations lately made by King’s Commissioners there, in Discharging the Vice-chancellor, and many Heads of Colleges, Beadles, Fellows, &c. are related in several thence, here .
Part of another Letter from another College in Oxford, relatos , in several Fellows, and in the way of God's Worship; That freedom that had been used and allowed of late years, not pleasing these now.
A Letter touching a Cooper’s acts, and end at Waltham near Theobalds.
Of Healths drinking, and Heaven’s doom thereon;
Part of a Letter from Mr. Ab. Ramsbotham.
HEALTHS-SICKNESS: OR, A Compendious and Discourse, proving the drinking and pledging of Healths to be sinful, and utterly unlawful unto Christians; By Arguments, Scriptures, Fathers, Modern Divines, Christian Authors, Historians, Councils, Imperial Laws and Constitutions; and by the voice and verdict of prophane and heathen Writers; Wherein all those Ordinary Objections, Excuses, and Pretenses, which are made to justify, extenuate or excuse the drinking of HEALTHS, are likewise cleared and answered.
To the Most High and Mighty Prince Charles, By the Grace of God King of Great Britain, &c.
After his Epistle to the Reader, of the causes of that odious sin of Drunkenness, beginning his Book, he urgeth many solid Arguments against Drinking of Healths, which are worthy to be Reprinted. The brief sum whereof followeth.
First Argument against these healths.
Part of the KING'S first PROCLAMATION, May 30. 1660.
Also the next PROCLAMATION, June 1.
The Relation of the Death of above 20 or 30.
The entire text with original spelling at
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…
@@@
About Sunday 23 September 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Vincent's suggestion the falling plaster was caused by an earthquake is possible.
In Sept. 1660 a Baptist minister, Henry Jessey (1603-1663) printed a pamphlet addressed to Charles II, warning him of the bad omens which had recently occurred -- including an earthquake in France. All those sinful toasts and plays were causing God's wrath.
SUMMARY:
THE LORDS LOUD CALL TO ENGLAND:
To all, or any of such as love Jesus Christ in Sincerity.
A RELATION OF THE Lords wonderful works of late by an Earthquake, Lightning and by Toads; and by smiting of divers with sudden death, upon Health-drinking, Stage-play, &c.
Of the Lord’s hand at Oxford, by sudden death of several persons, Actors in Play against Puritans; and others.
Of the sudden dreadful Death of the Clerk’s Daughter at in Gloucestershire, the third, just a week before Whitsunday, 1660.
Of the great number of 〈◊〉 in Gloucestershire, 〈◊〉 Midsummer day, 1660.
Of the Earthquake in France, on Munday, June 1660. Part of a Letter to a Merchant in London, dated at Bourdeaux in France, at his house there, June 14/4 1660. Translated from French into English, for H. J.
Others write, that at Toulouse, and some other places in France, was the same Earthquake.
Of the strange Whirlwind on June 2. 1660. in Leicestershire, 〈◊〉 be effects thereof.
A RELATION Of the Imprisonings, Plunderings, and Barbarous Inhumanity and Cruelty, that hath lately been practiced towards several Ministers of the Gospel, and other peaceable people, in WALES, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, and other places: Especially since the Late Remnant of the Long Parliament, by their Outing of many, prepared a COFFIN for themselves and others.
With the USES to be made thereof by the Sufferers, and by others.
Part of a Letter from Mr. Tho. Guyn, with Mr. Jenkin Jones, the 29th. of the fourth Month, June 1660.
The Gross Abuses to many Good 〈◊〉 People in Lincolnshire, here follow, 〈◊〉 they were 〈◊〉 in their NARRATIVE or Complaint thereof to the KING near the end of July 1660. Testified under many of their 〈◊〉. Part of a NARRATIVE and Complaint, that by the help of an Honorable Parliament man was presented to the King. the 26th. of the fifth Month, July 1660. With the Kings Answer thereunto.
The substance of the King’s Answer to the Messengers that were sent with this Narration and Petition (upon the presenting it before him, and giving him the Contents of it, with the delivering the Confession of their Faith, into his own hand) was this.
From Gloucestershire, writ April 3. 1660. Part of the First letter.
About Sir Richard Ford
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
In 1670 Ford ... was among those ordered to attend a conference on the shipping bill.
At the same time he was engaged, on commission, to manage negotiations with Hamburg regarding compensation for 6 English ships destroyed in the Elbe by the Dutch during the war.
... On laying down office, Ford petitioned Charles II ‘for such largesse as may enable him to end the life spent in his service without contempt in the City’. [HE WAS LORD MAYOR OF LONDON 1670-71 - SDS]
His claim to have kept London ‘tranquil’ is substantiated by a report on the corporation in 1672, which stated while in office he had
"suspended the execution of the laws against nonconformists, by which he gained the applause of all that party, though they had used all the villainous arts imaginable to keep him out of the government. He is a man of excellent parts, and may do his Majesty excellent service in the City."
His financial troubles cannot have been too severe, for he leased a country house in Kent, and when his London house burned in the Navy Office fire in Jan. 1673, he moved his business to premises on Tower Hill.
... He was on the committee for rebuilding the Navy Office, and his was the first name among those appointed in 1674 for a bill to pave the City of London's streets and completing the rebuilding of churches and public works. ...
During the summer the Merchant Adventurers voted to replace him as governor by Sir Edward Dering, who described his predecessor as ‘a man of ill reputation’.
... In 1677 he was among the Members ordered to ... consider another petition from the creditors of the Merchant Adventurers, and to abolish the penalty of burning for heresy.
Lord Shaftesbury (Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper), who had been his friend over the tin farm, marked him ‘worthy’, but in "A Seasonable Argument" he was described as ‘the joint contriver of the two Dutch wars, for which he had £10,000, and yet is scarce able to live’, ...
His last committee in June 1678 was once again on the affairs of the Merchant Adventurers.
He died at 65 on 31 Aug. 1678, and was buried at Bexley,. His memorial speaks of his
"great talents and even greater integrity (for he knew everything except deceit). [He was] most skilled in several languages and almost every art ... an exile with his prince (as was seemly) and a leader in his return. How many offices he enjoyed cannot be determined, but they were far fewer than he deserved. ... Heaven remained the only reward which he could earn."
His intestacy, and the obscurity into which his family lapsed, suggest his career, devoted to one of the declining sectors of English trade, had brought him less profit than was merited by his ability.
He was married to a woman named Grace and they had 2 sons and 3 daughters.
See the whole thing at
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Sir Richard Ford
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Charles II ‘had an inclination to serve Sir Richard’, but it was some time before he received any substantial reward for his services, other than his knighthood and some naval contracts. And Pepys caught him in an attempt to pass off ‘old stuff that had been tarred, covered over with new hemp, which is such a cheat as hath not been heard of’, at any rate by the zealous novice in the Navy Office; but his ‘Holland duck’ was excellent.
Ford’s syndicate apparently outbid the customs farmers for the additional duties, and were awarded £8,000 compensation when their tender was rejected.
In 1663 he was appointed to the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the effects of the suspension of the Merchant Adventurers’ patent.
The King gave him £1,500 to cover his expenses as sheriff of London, without which he could not have undertaken the office.
In the spring session of 1664, he was marked as a court dependant, and named to the committees for the conventicles bill and for the bill to relieve the creditors of the Merchant Adventurers, which came to nothing; but when it was revived in the autumn he acted as teller against it on the second reading.
Later in the same session he took the chair in committees to consider a petition from naval suppliers and to regulate vintners’ measures.
He formed a syndicate which received a grant of the crown’s right of ‘coinage’ on all tin mined in England and Wales; although his proposal to issue tin farthings was disallowed, the Treasury would not accept his contention that he had been a loser by the contract.
As the leading merchant in the Africa company he was chiefly responsible for the second Anglo-Dutch war.
At Oxford he was teller against the second reading of the bill to prohibit the import of Irish cattle ...
Apart from serving on the committee for the bill to establish a public accounts commission, Ford took no part in the measures against Clarendon.
He probably introduced the bill for reducing the parishes of Southampton from 5 to 2 in March 1668, since his name stands first in the list of the committee.
He was also appointed to the committee for the conventicles bill, and acted as teller for the bill to reduce rates of interest.
Sir Thomas Osborne originally included him among the dependants of the Duke of York in 1669, but transferred him, with Sir William Coventry, to the list of those Members who might be ‘engaged’ for the Court.
About Sir Richard Ford
San Diego Sarah • Link
Highlights from his Parliamentary bio:
Richard Ford did not claim kinship with either of the established Devonshire families named Ford[e], nor does his father appear to have belonged to the Exeter patriciate by birth or marriage.
His education presumably prepared him for a career in the Church, but he preferred to go into trade.
He impressed Pepys as ‘a very able man of his brains and tongue, and a scholar’, although, like so many merchants, he could not keep a secret.
He settled in Rotterdam in 1642, and helped to supply the royalist armies through the western ports.
The Earl of Warwick described him as a great ‘malignant’ who sought to embroil Parliament with the United Provinces, and a vote was passed at Westminster to outlaw him.
The Royalist Peter Mews later called him ‘a knave in grain ... for when he should have supplied my lord of Ormonde with arms and ammunition, he carried corn to the rebels’.
He was allowed to compound on a vague particular in 1649 for £129, although the Council of State suspected him of ‘some design of special mischief for Charles Stuart, being a principal man in all their councils’.
But he was sufficiently reconciled to the regime to return to England in 1652, to act as supplier to the Protectorate navy and to serve on the committee of trade.
As an influential member of the common council and ‘a very loyal, prudent gentleman’, he took a leading part in promoting the Restoration in the City, and on 9 Feb. 1660 the Rump ordered his arrest.
At the general election he was involved in a double return at Exeter, which was decided against him.
As one of the delegation from the City he was knighted at The Hague, but he was again unsuccessful at Exeter in 1661, presumably because his association with the great London monopoly companies was distasteful to the provincial trading community.
In London, on the other hand, he enjoyed considerable popularity, but was unable to overcome the prejudice against ‘episcopal men’.
At Southampton the Duke of York’s letter proved efficacious and he was elected.
Sir Richard Ford MP was an active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, being appointed to 195 committees, mostly on trade matters, and acting as teller in 7 divisions, but despite Pepys’ commendation he seldom spoke in the House.
In the opening session he was appointed to the committees for the security, corporations and uniformity bills.
He was the principal representative of the East India Company in their negotiations with the Dutch, and a strong advocate of the war.
Early in 1662 he was twice ordered to attend Charles II with resolutions of the House concerning the packing of wool and the dearth of corn.
He was teller against a proposal to suspend until Christmas the Merchant Adventurers’ monopoly of cloth exports to the Dutch Republic and Germany {?), and helped to manage a conference on the customs.