Bill

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

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Second Reading

About Tuesday 10 July 1660

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St NEOTS or Needs, a town in Huntingdonshire; distant from London 41 computed, and 56 measur'd miles.
---A new complete English dictionary. J. Marchant, 1760

About Berkshire House

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Berkshire House, St. James's, the town-house of the Howards, Earls of Berkshire, built circ. 1630, and purchased and presented by Charles II. to Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, and Duchess of Cleveland. In 1664-1665 it was fitted up by the Surveyor of the Works for the reception of the French Ambassador. Lord Clarendon lived in it for a short time after the Great Fire; Lord Craven in 1667; the Earl of Castlemaine in 1668; and the Countess of Castlemaine (alone) in 1669.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Berkeley House, Piccadilly

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Berkeley House, PICCADILLY, stood where Devonshire House now stands, on the site of a farm called "Hay Hill Farm," a name still preserved in the surrounding streets. It was designed about the year 1665 by Hugh May (the brother of Bap. May) for John, Lord Berkeley of Stratton (d. 1678), the hero of Stratton fight, one of the minor battles of the Civil War under Charles I. The gardens were very extensive, including Berkeley Square and the grounds now attached to Lansdowne House, as well as those belonging to Devonshire House.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Arundel House

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[This] house was in 1603 granted to Charles, Earl of Nottingham, but four years later was transferred to Thomas Howard, the son of Philip, who was restored to the Earldom of Arundel by James I. In his time Arundel House became the repository of that noble collection of works of art, of which the very ruins are ornaments now to several principal cabinets. The collection contained, when entire, 37 statues, 128 busts, and 250 inscribed marbles.
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During the Protectorate Arundel House appears to have been used for the reception of strangers of distinction. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, died 1646; and at the Restoration, in 1660, his house and marbles were restored to his grandson, who, at the instigation of Evelyn, gave the library to the Royal Society, and the inscribed marbles, still known as the Arundelian Collection, to the University of Oxford.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About London Bridge

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London Bridge (old), a stone bridge over the Thames from London to Southwark, 926 feet long, 60 feet high, and 40 feet broad, built between 1176 and 1209, under the superintendence of Peter of Colechurch, chaplain of the former church of St. Mary Colechurch, in the Old Jewry. This bridge stood about 200 feet east of the present structure in the line of Fish Street Hill, just by the church of St. Magnus, and consisted of twenty arches, a drawbridge for larger vessels, and a chapel and crypt in the centre, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, and in which the said Peter of Colechurch was buried in 1205.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About The Savoy

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Savoy (The), in the Strand, a house or palace on the river side (of which the chapel alone remains), built in 1245 by Peter, Earl of Savoy and Richmond, uncle unto Eleanor, wife to King Henry III. The Earl bestowed it on the fraternity of Montjoy (Fratres de Monte Jovis, or Priory de Cornuto by Havering at the Bower, in Essex), of whom it was bought by Queen Eleanor for Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, second son of King Henry III. (d. 1295). In 1293 a license to castellate was obtained.1 Henry Plantagenet, fourth Earl and first Duke of Lancaster, "repaired, or rather new built it," at a cost of 50,000 marks, and here John, King of France, was confined after the battle of Poictiers (1356). The King, not long after his release, died on a visit to this country in his ancient prison of the Savoy. Blanche Plantagenet, daughter and co-heir of Henry, first Duke of Lancaster, married John Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of King Edward III. (" Old John of Gaunt"); and while the Savoy was in his possession it was burnt and entirely destroyed by Wat Tyler and his followers (1381).
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The Savoy lay long neglected after this, nor would it appear to have been rebuilt, or indeed employed for any particular purpose before 1505, when it was endowed by Henry VII. as a Hospital of St. John the Baptist, for the relief of 100 poor people.
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At the Restoration the meetings of the commissioners for the revision of the Liturgy took place in the Savoy (April 15-July 25, 1661); twelve bishops appearing for the Established Church, and Calamy, Baxter, Reynolds, and others for the Presbyterians. This was called "The Savoy Conference," and under that name is matter of English history.
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On Tuesday a person going into the Savoy to demand a debt due from a person who had taken sanctuary there, the inhabitants seized him, and after some consultation agreed, according to the usual custom, to dip him in tar and roll him in feathers, after which they carried him in a wheelbarrow into the Strand, and bound him fast to the Maypole, but several constables and others coming in, dispersed the rabble and rescued the person from their abuses.—The Postman for July 1696, No. 180.
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The last vestiges of the Savoy buildings were swept away in forming the approaches to Waterloo Bridge.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Red Bull Theatre

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Red Bull Theatre stood at the upper end of St. John Street, on what was until recently called "Red Bull Yard," and Woodbridge Street, St John's Street Road. Mr. Payne Collier conjectures that it was originally an inn-yard, converted into a regular theatre late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Prynne speaks of it in 1633 as a theatre that had been "lately reedified and enlarged." It was closed during the plague of 1636-1637.
The King's players, under Killigrew, performed within its walls till a stage in Drury Lane was ready to receive them. "The Red Bull stands empty for fencers, "writes Davenant in 1663; "there are no tenants in it but old spiders."
It was afterwards employed for trials of skill. Mr. Collier possessed a printed challenge and acceptance of a trial at eight several weapons, to be performed betwixt two scholars of Benjamin Dobson and William Wright, masters of the noble science of defence. The trial was to come off " at the Red Bull, at the upper end of St. John's Street, on Whitsun Monday, the 30th of May, 1664, beginning exactly at three of the clock in the afternoon, and the best man is to take all." The weapons were: "back-sword, single rapier, sword and dagger, rapier and dagger, sword and buckler, half pike, sword and gauntlet, single faulchion."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Friday 20 July 1660

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An alternative reading from an earlier edition of the Diary:

I sent my wife to my father's, and he is to buy 5l. worth of pictures.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Walter Walker

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One of the Judges of the Admiralty.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Edward Kynaston

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Edward Kynaston, engaged by Sir W. Davenant, in 1660, to perform the principal female characters: he afterwards assumed the male ones in the first parts of tragedy, and continued on the stage till the end of King William's reign. He died in 1712.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Samuel Hartlib (sen.)

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Samuel Hartlib, son of a Polish merchant, and author of several ingenious works on agriculture, for which he had a pension from Cromwell.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Saturday 4 August 1660

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"...after dinner to the Privy Seal Office, where I did business. So to a Committee of Parliament..."

Hmm. An early edition of the Diary has additional text. I wonder if "taking money" caused a problem?

...after dinner at the Privy Seal Office, signing things and taking money all day. I could not go to the Red Bull playhouse as I intended. So to a committee of Parliament...
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Monday 9 July 1660

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COLLATION, a handsome Treat or Entertainment.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Thursday 28 June 1660

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I'm sure Tom is impressed with Sam's success, as Sam means him to be, but Sam's success will involve spending some of that money he's been collecting and fancy new clothes will be high on the list. Keeping it in the family is a bonus.

About St Margaret's (Westminster)

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St. Margaret's is the church of the House of Commons; and here, in Charles I.'s time, all the Fast Day Sermons were preached before Pym, Cromwell, Harrison, Praise-God Barebone, and the rest of the then Parliament of England . Here the members subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant; and here Peters preached, inciting the Parliament to bring Charles I. to trial.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Wednesday 27 June 1660

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"but I could not get in"

Does this mean Sam is part of My Lord's entourage? An, as yet, unimportant part?

About Thursday 12 July 1660

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To ENGROSS
1. To thicken; to make thick. Spenser.
2. To encrease in bulk. Wotton.
3. To fatten; to plump up. Shakespeare.
4. To seize in the gross. Shakespeare.
5. To purchase the whole of any commodity for the sake of selling at a high price.
6. To copy in a large hand. Pope.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

About Friday 29 June 1660

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"told me in what high flaunting terms"

Wherefore high, flaunting, swelling Words of Vanity becomes not a Sinner's Mouth ...

They that use high and flaunting Language in Prayer, their Simplicity and godly Sincerity is to be questioned, as to their doing of that Duty sincerely.
---The Works. John Bunyan, 1737

About Friday 29 June 1660

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WENCH, 1 a familiar or contemptuous word for a maid, or girl. 2 a whore, or crack.
---Lingua Britannica Reformata. B. Martin, 1749.