Bill

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Bill has posted 2,777 annotations/comments since 9 March 2013.

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Second Reading

About Tuesday 4 December 1660

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"the Parliament voted that the bodies of Oliver, Ireton, Bradshaw, &c.,1 should be taken up out of their graves in the Abbey..."

The names of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw are not found in the Registers of Westminster Abbey. Colonel Chester, in his edition of the "Registers" (p. 521), prints the royal warrant for a further exhumation of Commonwealth personages, dated September 9th, 1661. This warrant contains twenty-one names, and these bodies were re-interred on the green on the north side of the Abbey, between the north transept and the west end.
---Wheatley (1896).

About Five Bells

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There were taverns with this sign in the Strand and Fleet Street. They are registered in the list of taverns in London and Westminster in 1698 (Harl. MS. 4716).
---Wheatley (1896).

About Hickes's Hall

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The Middlesex Sessions House in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, named after Sir Baptist Hicks, one of the justices, and afterwards Viscount Campden, at whose cost it was built in 1612. The Sessions House was removed to the present building on Clerkenwell Green in 1782.
---Wheatley (1896).

About Sir John Denham

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John Denham, son of Sir John Denham, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland, born at Dublin in 1615, appointed at the Restoration Surveyor-General of the Works, and created a Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of Charles II.; better known as the author of "Cooper's Hill." He was one of the original Fellows of the Royal Society. His troubles with his second wife are related further on in the Diary. He died March, 1668-9, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
---Wheatley (1894).

About Sunday 9 December 1660

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"Order of Knights of the Seal to give an encouragement for persons of honour to undertake the service of the sea"

Surely a misprint and should be "Order of Knights of the Sea"

About Friday 14 December 1660

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"at night step a little with him to the Coffee House"

Probably the Coffee House in Exchange Alley which had for its sign, Moral, or the Turk's Head. It is frequently referred to in subsequent pages.
---Wheatley (1894)

About Wednesday 12 December 1660

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"my father did offer me six pieces of gold"

By the proclamation of January 27th, 1660-61, a double ducat was valued at 18s. and a golden rider at £1 2s. 6d.
---Wheatley, 1894

About Friday 21 December 1660

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"the Duke of York’s marrying the Chancellor’s daughter, which is now publicly owned."

Finally acknowledged after 3 1/2 months.

About Alderman Sir Denis Gauden (Navy Victualler)

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Dennis Gauden, Victualler to the Navy, subsequently knighted, while sheriff of London: the large house at Clapham, in which Pcpys died, was built by him, and intended as a palace for the Bishops of Winchester; his brother, Dr. John Gauden, at that time having expected to be translated from Exeter to that See, but he was promoted to Worcester. Sir Dennis was ultimately ruined, and his villa purchased by William Hewer.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Sir Peter Buck

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Peter Buck, secretary to Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, the Lord High Admiral, and afterwards knighted. Our Diarist aspired to a similar distinction. Buck is described in Pepys's Book of Signs Manual, as "Clerk of the Acts of the Navy in 1608."
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Tuesday 11 December 1660

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Doesn't it take a floating drydock to raise a sunken ship? Surely that hasn't been invented yet.

About Saturday 20 October 1660

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Is Sam a "gentleman?"

[a bit of a spoiler]: On December 10, 1660 we will see that "esquire" is a higher rank than "gentleman", at least for tax purposes. Sam was prepared to pay at the "esquire" rate but was pleased to only be charged at the "gentleman" rate.

About Poll Tax Act 1660

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For your Poll-Bill, I do thank you as much as if the Money were to come into my own Coffers; and wish with all my Heart, that it may amount to as great a Sum as you reckon upon. If the Work be well and orderly done, to which it is designed, I am sure I shall be the richer by it in the end; and upon my word, if I had wherewithal, I would myself help you, so much I desire the Business done. I pray very earnestly, as fast as Money comes in, discharge that great Burthen of the Navy, and disband the Army as fast as you can; and till you can disband the rest, make a Provision for their Support.
---Charles II. Speech to both Houses of Parliament, 29th of August, 1660.

About Sir Charles Berkeley (1st Earl of Falmouth, 1st Viscount Fitzharding)

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His chief friend was Charles Berkeley, made Earl of Falmouth, who, without any visible merit, unless it was the managing the King's amours, was the most absolute of all the King's favourites: and, which was peculiar to himself, he was as much in the Duke of York's favour as in the King's. Berkeley, was generous in his expence: and it was thought, if he had outlived the lewdness of that time, and come to a more sedate course of life, he would have put the King on great and noble designs. This I should have thought more likely, if I had not had it from the Duke, who had so wrong a taste, that there was reason to suspect his judgment, both of men and things. Bennet and Berkeley had the management of the mistress.
---Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time. G. Burnet, 1753.

About Monday 10 December 1660

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"it is expected that the Duke will marry the Lord Chancellor’s daughter at last"

Sam also speculated about this possibility on October 7 (when we heard My Lord saying that marrying a woman one had made pregnant was like sh*tting in your hat and then putting it on your head!). But in fact we read there that the two were actually married on September 3. The word must not have gotten out yet three months later.

About Monday 10 December 1660

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"I went and walked all alone twenty turns in Cornhill, from Gracious Street corner to the Stockes and back again"

"Near the Conduit, on Cornhill, was a strong prison, made of timber, called a cage, with a pair of stockes set upon it, and this was for night-walkers."— Maitland's Hist. of London, vol. ii., p. 903.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.