Bill

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

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Second Reading

About Tuesday 25 September 1660

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Ourania : The High and Mighty Lady the Princess Royal of Aurange congratulated on Her Most Happy Arrival September the 25th M.DC.LX.

Sure Darling Fortune humour'd thy sweet mind
In thy most safe Recesse, 'twas hugely kind
To take thy from our black tempestuous Times,
And place thee in Serener quiet Climes.
Bright Guardian Angel, since you fled from hence
W' have lost our Vertue and our Innocence;
W' have lost our peace, w' have lost your father too,
And all's imputed to our want of You.
etc.

About Wednesday 15 August 1660

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GOSSIP, a God Father or Mother in Baptism.
A GOSSIPING, a merry Meeting of Gossips at a Woman's Lying-in.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Tuesday 14 August 1660

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Every kilderkin of butter shall contain one hundred and twelve pounds, and every firkin fifty six pounds neat, or above; every pound containing sixteen ounces, besides the tare of the cask, of good and merchantable butter.
---A New and Complete Law-dictionary. T. Cunningham, 1764.

About Dr William Bates

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BATES (William), an eminent Nonconformist Divine was born in November 1625; admitted in Emanuel-college in Cambridge, and from thence removed to King's-college in 1644; took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1647; and admitted Doctor of Divinity by the King's letters, dated November 9, 1660. Soon after the Restoration, he was appointed Chaplain to King Charles II, and became Minister of St Dunstan's in the West; but was deprived of that benefice for Nonconformity. He was one of the Commissioners at the Conference in the Savoy, in 1660, for reviewing the publick Liturgy, and was concerned in drawing up the Exceptions against the Common Prayer.
---Biographia Britannica. 1747.

About Peg Hughes

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Rupert, Count Palatine, Duke of Bavaria, and Cumberland, Earl of Holderness, and Knight of the Garter, Third Son of Frederick King of Bohemia, and Elizabeth of England, &c. born at Prague, 1619 ... After the happy Restoration, he return'd again into England, and was install'd Knight Of the Garter, and sworn of the Privy-Council ... unmarried; but had Issue ... Ruperta, a Daughter, by Mrs. Margaret Hughes, married to Emanuel Scroope How, Lieutenant General of her Majesty's Armies, and Envoy Extraordinary to the Serene House of Brunswick Lunenburgh, Brother to Scroope Lord Viscount How, of the Kingdom of Ireland.
---The peerage of England: or, An historical and genealogical account. A. Collins, 1709.

About Mary Betterton ('Ianthe')

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Mrs. Betterton was so great a Mistress of Nature, that even Mrs. Barry, who acted the Lady Macbeth after her, could not in that part, with all her superior Strength and Melody of Voice, throw out those quick and careless Strokes of Terror, from the Disorder of a guilty Mind, which the other gave us with a Facility in her Manner, that render'd them at once tremendous and delightful. Time could not impair her Judgment, tho' he had brought her Person to decay; for she was to the last, the Admiration of all true Judges of Nature, and Lovers of Shakespeare, in whose Plays she chiefly excell'd, and without a Rival. When she quitted the Theatre, several good Actresses were the better for her Instruction. She was a Woman of an unblemish'd and sober Life; and had the Honour to teach Queen Anne, when Princess, the part of Semandra in Mithridates, which she acted at Court in King Charles's Time. After the Death of Mr. Betterton, her Husband, that Princess, when Queen, ordered her a pension for Life, but she liv'd not to receive more than the first half Year of it.
---The History of the Stage. C. Cibber, 1742

About Nell Gwyn

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Mrs. Ellen Guyn's Character.

Mrs. Guyn, tho' Mistress to a Monarch, was the Daughter ot a Fruiterer in Covent Garden.

This shews that Sultans, Emperors and Kings, When Blood boils high will stoop to meanest Things.

Nelly, for by that Name she was universally known, came into the Theatre in the way of her Business, to sell Fruit,

The Orange-basket her fair Arms did suit,
Laden with Pippins and Hesperian Fruit,
This first step rais'd, to th' wond'ring Pit she sold
The lovely Fruit smiling with streaks of Gold.
Fate now for her did its whole force engage,
And from the Pit she's mounted to the Stage,
There in full Lustre did her Glories shine,
And long eclips'd, spread forth her Light divine;
There Hart's and Rowley's Soul she did ensnare,
And made a King the Rival to a Play'r.

This is Lord Rochester's account.
---The History of the Stage. C. Cibber, 1742

About Elizabeth Barry

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Mrs. Barry had so bad an Ear, tho' a good Voice, that they thought it would be impossible to make her fit for the meanest part: And so difficult did they find it to teach her, that she was three Times rejected. Sir William Davenant, by the Interest of some of his Friends, was again persuaded to try her, but with so little Success, that several Persons of Wit and Quality being at the Play, and observing how ill she performed, positively gave their Opinion she never would be capable of any tolerable part. But the Earl of Rochester, to shew them he had a superior Judgment, entered into a Wager, that in six Months he would make her the finest Actress on the Stage.
The Earl was opposed by them all, and tho' they knew him to be a Person of good Knowledge in theatrical Affairs, yet they thought, on this Subject, he had started beyond the Bounds of his Judgment; and so many poignant Things were said to him on this Occasion, that they piqued him into a Resolution of taking such pains with Mrs. Barry, as to convince them he was not mistaken.
From the Moment he had this Dispute, he became intimately acquainted with her, but to the World he kept it private, especially from those he had argued with about her. He soon, by talking with her, found her Mistress of exquisite Charms; and it was thought that he never lov'd any Person so sincerely he did Mrs. Barry.
---The History of the Stage. C. Cibber, 1742

"The Libertine," a 2004 film starring Johnny Depp as the Earl of Rochester depicts the Earl undertaking this wager and helping Elizabeth Barry become a fine actress. (John Malkovich plays King Charles II and a quite good film it is!) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt03759…

About Thomas Betterton

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Mr. Betterton being Apprentice to Mr. Rhodes a Bookseller, (who in the Year 1659, obtained from the Powers then in being, a Licence to act Plays in the Cockpit, Drury-lane,) was brought by him upon the Stage in the Year 1660, together with his Fellow-prentice Mr. Kynaston.
Mr. Betterton, tho' but twenty Years of Age at his first Appearance on the Stage; acquired very great Applause by his performances in The Loyal Subject, The Wild Goose Chace, The Spanish Curate, and several other Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. But while this excellent Actor was rising under his Master Rhodes, Sir William Davenant took him, and all who acted under Mr. Rhodes, into his Company, in the Year 1662. In this Company, which was call'd the Duke's, Mr. Betterton was applauded for his performances in the first and second Parts of the Siege of Rhodes, that being the Play with which Sir William Davenant opened his House, having new Scenes and Decorations, being the first used in England.
Betterton was an Actor, as Shakespeare was an Author, both without Competitors, form'd for the mutual Assistance and Illustration of each others Genius! How. Shakespeare wrote, all who have a Taste for Nature may read, and know; but with what higher Rapture would he still be read; could they conceive how Betterton play'd him!
...
Mr. Betterton had so just a Sense of what was true or false Applause, that I have heard him say, he never thought any Kind of it equal to an attentive Silence; that there were many ways of deceiving an Audience into a loud one; but to keep them husht and quiet, was an Applause which only Truth and Merit could arrive at: Of which Art, there never was a Master equal to himself.
---The History of the Stage. C. Cibber, 1742

About Edward Kynaston

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Tho', as I have before observed, Women were not admitted to the Stage till the Restoration, yet it could not be so suddenly supplied with them, but that there was still a Necessity to put the handsomest young Men into Petticoats; which Kynaston was then said to have worn with Success particularly in the Part of Evadne, in the Maid's Tragedy, Arthiope in the Unfortunate Lovers, the Princess in the Mad Lover, Ismenia in the Maid in the Mill, Aglaura, &c. being Parts so greatly moving Compassion, that it has been disputed among the Judicious, whether any Woman could have more sensibly touched the Passions.
...
Kynaston at that time was so beautiful a Youth, that the Ladies of Quality prided themselves in taking him with them in their Coaches to Hyde-park, in his theatrical Habit, after the Play; which in those days they might have sufficient time to do, because Plays then, were us'd to begin at four a-Clock, the Hour that People of the same Rank are now going to Dinner, This Truth I had confirmed from his own Mouth, in his advanced Age. Indeed to the last of him, his Handsomeness was little abated; even at past sixty, his Teeth were all sound, white and even, as one would wish to see in a beautiful young Woman of twenty. He had something of a formal Gravity in his Mien, which was attributed to the stately Step he had been so early confined to, in a female decency. But that, in Characters of Superiority had its proper Graces; it misbecame him not in the part of Leon, in Fletcher's Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife, which he executed with a determined Manliness, and honest Authority, well worth the best Actor's Imitation. He had a piercing Eye, and in Characters of heroic Life, a quick imperious Vivacity in his Tone of Voice, that painted the Tyrant truly terrible.
---The History of the Stage. C. Cibber, 1742

About Monday 20 August 1660

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"hard money"

I found a Silver Crown coin of Charles II (1662) on the web at an auction. It weights 30g., about one ounce. A Crown is 5 shillings, hence 120g. to a (monetary) pound. 100l. is then 12000g. which is, of course, 12 kilograms (about 25 pounds). Seems a bit heavy to be carrying around London.

"The silver crown was one of a number of European silver coins which first appeared in the 16th century, all of which were of a similar diameter (about 38 millimetres) and weight (approximately one ounce), so were more or less interchangeable in international trade." ---Wikipedia