Bill

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

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Second Reading

About Ald. William Barker

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William Barker, who married Martha, daughter of William Turner, and widow of Daniel Williams. His son William was created a baronet in 1676.
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Upnor Castle

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Upnor Castle, Kent, was erected by Queen Elizabeth to defend the passage of the Medway. In 1677 the Dutch were prevented from going up the river by this fort.
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Wednesday 9 July 1662

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"However, I used him civilly, though I love him as I do the rest of his coat."

COAT ... 3. Vesture as demonstrative of the office.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

About Tuesday 19 August 1662

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Hamilton gives the following account of the duel, which arose from rivalry between Howard and Jermyn about Lady Shrewsbury - "Jermyn prit pour second, Giles Rawlings, homme de bonne fortune et gros joueur. Howard se servit de Dillon. adroit et brave, fort honnete homme, et par malheur intime ami de Rawlings. Dans ce combat la fortune, ne fut point pour les favoris de l'amour. Le pauvre Rawlings y fut tué tout roide, et Jermyn, percé de trois coups d'epée, fut porté chez son oncle avec fort peu de signes de vie." Mem. de Grammont.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

Google translate:
Jermyn took for second, Giles Rawlings, a man of good fortune and big player. Howard served Dillon. clever and brave, strong honest man, and intimate friend of misfortune Rawlings. In this fight fortune, was not for the favorites of love. The poor Rawlings was killed there all stiff and Jermyn, pierced by three shots sword, was carried to his uncle with very few signs of life.

About Tuesday 19 August 1662

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"Mr. Coventry did tell us of the duell"

"Aug 18, 1662, Capt.Thomas Howard, the Earl of Carlisle's brother, and the Lord Dillon's son, a Colonel, met with Mr. Giles Rawlings, privy purse to the D. of York, and Mr. Jermyn, the Earl of St Albans's nephew ... There had been a slight quarrel betwixt them, and as they, Rawlings and Jermyn, came from tennis, these two drew at them, and then Col. Dillon killed this Mr. Rawlings dead upon the spot. Mr. Jermyn was left for dead. This Capt. Howard was unfortunate since the return of bis Majy, in killing a horse-courser man in St Giles. Mr. Rawlings was much lamented; he lived in a very handsome state, six horses in his coach, three footmen, &c. Oct. Capt Thomas Howard and Lord Dillon's son, both of them fled about the killing of Mr. Giles Rawlings; but after a quarter of a year they came into England, and were acquitted by law." Rugge's Diurnal. Captain Howard afterwards married the Duchess of Richmond.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Henry Jermyn (Master of the Horse to the Duke of York)

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JERMYN, HENRY, first Baron Dover (1636-1708), nephew of Henry Jermyn, first earl of St Albans; master of the horse to Duke of York, 1660; Intrigued with Lady Castlemaine aud Lady Shrewsbury; wounded in duel with Colonel Thomas Howard, 1662; being a Romanist was created Baron Dover by James II, 1685; a commissioner of the treasury, 1687; entrusted with the Prince of Wales at the revolution; followed James to France; commanded troop at the Boyne, 1690; reconciled to William III; buried at Bruges.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Monday 18 August 1662

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"he showed me the whole mystery of off square"

And don't forget that he surprised us all last month when he started learning for the first time about the "multiplication table." After looking at the Leybourn book, I'm wondering if perhaps this was really a table of logarithms? Logarithms are the mathematical basis of "slide rules" and make multiplication easier. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Friday 4 July 1662

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"(my first attempt being to learn the multiplication-table)"

A point that should not be overlooked is that multiplication is difficult! Not for us, perhaps, we have a good algorithm (and lots of paper). Multiplying 2 large numbers together was a problem, not just for Pepys, but for many others in his time. In August he will mention an alternative algorithm for multiplying, he called it the "off square," and found out, though easier, it overcharged the king when calculating the volume of a large piece of wood.

Here is my annotation about that method: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Monday 18 August 1662

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"he showed me the whole mystery of off square"

Off-square is evidently a mistake, in the shorthand M.S., for half-square which is explained by the following extract from W. Leybourn's Complete Surveyor, 3rd edit., London, 1674, folio. ...
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

And now, modern reader, I interrupt Leybourn's explanation to make it intelligible to you. GrahmT, above, had the right idea, though I think deception wasn't the intent of the half-square method.

The problem, hard to believe perhaps, is that multiplication is difficult! So workers in lumber yards, and buyers like Pepys, needed help. They used tables of results and, very surprising to me, slide rules. Slide rules in their simplest form are mechanical devices to do multiplication. In 1662 they weren't called slide rules and they didn't work like "modern" ones, which have totally disappeared BTW, replaced by calculators. What they were I don't know, but they were simple hands-on devices for the arithmetically-challenged.

So, what is the volume of a piece of lumber 26' by 2.24' by 1.3'? (This is Leybourn's example.) Easy for us: multiply (whoops) the 3 numbers together.

The half-square method would add 2.24 and 1.3 to get 3.54. Then take HALF that number, 1.77, SQUARE it 1.77 x 1.77 = 3.14. This number would be used instead of 2.24 x 1.3 = 2.78.

Obviously 3.14 x 26 is bigger than 2.78 x 26 so the volume of lumber is being over-estimated and the King is being over-charged.

The whole point is that it was easier to find 1.77 x 1.77 (from a table perhaps) than it was to find 2.24 x 1.3. As I said, hard to believe.

About Sunday 10 August 1662

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"Mr. Herring, being lately turned out at St. Bride’s, did read the psalm to the people while they sung at Dr. Bates’s, which methought is a strange turn."

A practice still obtains amongst the Dissenters of reading the psalm or hymn to be sung, two lines at time.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Thomas Gouge

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Thomas Gouge, an eminent Presbyterian minister, who had the church of St. Sepulchre during the Commonwealth, and abandoned it on the Act of Uniformity coming into force. There is an account of him in Calamy's Lives of the Ejected Ministers, 8vo, 1713.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About London Bridge

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When the first editions of this Diary were printed no note was required here. Before the erection of the present London Bridge, the fall of water at the ebb tide was great, and to pass at that time was called "Shooting the bridge." It was very hazardous for small boats. The ancient mode, even in Henry VIII.'s time, of going to the Tower and Greenwich, was to land at the Three Cranes, in Upper Thames Street, suffer the barges to shoot the bridge, and to enter them again at Billingsgate. See Cavendish's Wolsey, p. 40, ed. 1852 Life of the Duke of Somerset in Fox's Acts, vol. vi., p. 293; Life of Bp. Hall, in Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog., iv., 318, ed. 1853.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Hugh Cholmley

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Hugh Cholmeley, afterwards the third baronet of that name; he was the second son of Sir Hugh Cholmeley, of Whitby (governor of Scarborough for Charles I.), whose autobiography has been printed. This Hugh succeed his nephew of the same name, who died minor in June, 1665, after which date Pepys speaks of him by his title. In February, 1666, he married Lady Anne Compton, eldest daughter of Spencer, Earl of Northampton. He was afterwards, for some years, governor of Tangier, of which he published an account. He died 9th January, 1688. He was descended from younger branch of that great family of Egertons and Cholmondeleys, of all of whom Sir Philip Grey Egerton is the head.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Wednesday 25 June 1662

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"there enquired among the shops the price of tarre and oyle"

After the sides of a ship are sufficiently scraped, they are varnished over with turpentine, or a mixture of tar and oil, or such materials; which preserves the planks from being rent or split by the sun and wind, and gives the ship a more gay and splendid appearance on the water.
---An Universal Dictionary of the Marine. W. Falconer, 1784.

About Custom House

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The first Custom House of which we have any account was "new built" by John Churchman, Sheriff of London in 1385, and stood on "Customers'-key" to the east of the present building, and therefore much nearer Tower Wharf. In Strype's Map the site of the present building is taken up by a series of small quays, called respectively (commencing at the east) Porters, Great Bear, Little Bear, Young's, Wiggin's, Ralph's, Temple, Little Dice, Great Dice, and Smart's. Another and larger edifice on the same site, erected in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was burnt in the Great Fire of 1666, The new house designed by Wren in its place was a "commodious and substantial building of brick and Portland stone" -Elmes. It was completed in 1671.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.