Bill

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

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Second Reading

About Lewis Phillips

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Lewis Phillips of Brampton. He was uncle to John Jackson, who married Samuel Pepys's sister Paulina.
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Saturday 15 February 1661/62

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"I was sworn a Younger Brother"

The Corporation of the Trinity House received its first charter from Henry VIII. in 1514. In 1604 a select class was constituted, called elder brethren, the other members being called younger brethren. By the charter of 1609 the sole management of affairs was conferred on the elder brethren, the younger brethren having, however, a vote in the election of Master and Wardens. Among some miscellaneous manuscripts of Samuel Pepys, which were in the possession of Mr. S. J. Davey, of 47, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, in 1889, was a copy of this oath, in which Pepys swore to "use" himself "as becometh a younger brother for the time you shall so continue." At the end is the following memorandum: "I tooke this oath at ye Trinity House in London (Sir Wm. Rider, Dep. Maister for the Earl of Sandwich), this 15th day of Feb., 1661. — Samuel Pepys." Pepys was Master of the Trinity House in 1676.
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Wednesday 5 February 1661/62

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"the Duke’s institutions for the settlement of our office"

The Duke of York's letter "to the Principal Officers and Commanders of His Majesty's Navy," dated "Whitehall, January 28th, 1661-62," is printed in Penn's "Memorials of Sir W. Penn," ii. 265. The Instructions were a revisal and confirmation of the "Orders and Instructions" issued in 1640 by Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, then Lord High Admiral. Sir W. Penn had a hand in this revisal.
---Wheatley, 1899.

About Hezekiah Burton

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BURTON, HEZEKIAH (d. 1681), divine; fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1651; B.D., 1661; D.D., 1669; prebendary of Norwich, 1667; rector of St. George's, Southwark, 1668, and of Barnes, Surrey, 1680; his sermons published posthumously.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Charles Sackville (Lord Buckhurst)

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SACKVILLE, CHARLES, sixth Earl of Dorset and first Earl of Middlesex (1638-1706), poet; son of Richard Sackville, fifth earl of Dorset, and Frances, daughter of Lionel Cranfield, first earl of Middlesex; M.P., East Grinstead, 1660; led life of dissipation with Sir Charles Sedley and others; volunteered in fleet fitted out against Dutch, 1665, and took part in battle of 3 June; created Baron Cranfield and Earl of Middlesex, 1675; withdrew from court during James IIs reign; lord chamberlain of household, 1689-97; received Garter, 1691; thrice acted as regent during William III's absence. His poems appeared with Sedley's in 1701, his best being the song 'To all you ladies now on land,' 1665. Dryden dedicated several poems to him.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Saturday 22 February 1661/62

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"And thence to buy a pair of stands"

A STAND, a Pause or Stay, Doubt or Uncertainty; also a Frame to set any Thing upon.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Saturday 22 February 1661/62

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"my Lord of Dorset’s two oldest sons, who, with two Belasses and one Squire Wentworth, were lately apprehended for killing and robbing of a tanner about Newington on Wednesday last, and are all now in Newgate."

The following account of this transaction is abridged from the Mercurius Publicum of the day:—" Charles Lord Buckhurst, Edward Sackville, Esq., his brother; Sir Henry Belasyse, K.B., eldest son of Lord Belasyse; John Belasyse, brother to Lord Faulconberg; and Thomas Wentworth, Esq., only son of Sir G. Wentworth, whilst in pursuit of thieves near Waltham Cross, mortally wounded an innocent tanner, named Hoppy, whom they had endeavoured to secure, suspecting him to have been one of the robbers; and as they took away the money found on his person, under the idea that it was stolen property, they were soon after apprehended on the charges of robbery and murder; but the Grand Jury found a bill for manslaughter only." And it would seem, from an allusion to their trial, in the Diary, 1st July, 1663, that they were acquitted.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Tuesday 18 February 1661/62

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"the extraordinary wind the last night"

A dreadful storm of wind happened one night in February, anno 1661-2, which, though general, as least, all over England, yet was remarkable at Oxford in these two respects —1. That though it forced the stones inwards into the cavity of Allhallow's spire, yet it overthrew it not. And 2. That in the morning, when there was some abatement of its fury, it was yet so violent, that it laved water out of the river Cherwell, and cast it quite over the bridge at Magdalen College, above the surface of the water, near twenty foot high; which passage, with advantage of holding by the College wall, I had then curiosity to go to see myself, which otherwise perhaps I should have as hardly credited, as some other persons now may do.—Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 6.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

About Elizabeth Stuart (Queen of Bohemia)

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You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number, than your light;
You common people of the skies;
What are you when the moon shall rise?
etc.
--Elizabeth of Bohemia. Sir Henry Wooten, 1624.

About Elizabeth Stuart (Queen of Bohemia)

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ELIZABETH (1596-1662), queen of Bohemia; daughter of James VI of Scotland; represented the nymph of the Thames in Daniel's 'Tethys's Festival' at Whitehall, 1610; married, after the falling through of many other political plans, to the Elector Palatine, Frederick V, 1613; her husband chosen king of Bohemia, till then an appanage of the empire, 1619; crowned, 1619; found a temporary refuge with George William, elector of Brandenburg, after her husband's defeat by the Emperor Frederick II at Prague, 1620; the seizure of her husband's dominions by Maximilian, duke of Bavaria, confirmed at the conference of Ratisbon, 1623; named the Queen of Hearts for her winning demeanour; her cause ineffectually championed by her chivalrous cousin, Duke Christian of Brunswick, 1623; her charm immortalised in a poem by Sir Henry Wotton; lost her eldest son, 1629, and her husband, 1632, soon after the death of Gustavus Adolphus at Lutzen; levied a small army on behalf of her eldest surviving son, Charles Lewis, 1633, to whom part of the Palatinate was restored by the peace of Westphalia, 1648; subsidised by William, first earl of Craven; deserted by her children, Charles Lewis allowing his mother to remain dependent on the generosity of Holland; granted 10,000l. by the parliament of the Restoration, 1660; pensioned by her nephew, Charles II, who had at first looked coldly on her coming to England; bequeathed to her favourite son, Prince Rupert, most of her jewellery, 1662; died at Leicester House, Leicester Fields, London, 13 Feb. 1661-2, and buried in Westminster Abbey; long regarded as a martyr to protestantism.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

Her son: Prince Rupert http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her champion (and alleged husband): William Craven (1st Earl of Craven) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her father: James Stuart (I, King 1603-1625): http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her brother: Charles Stuart (I, King 1600-1649) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her nephew: Charles Stuart (II, King) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her nephew: James Stuart (Duke of York, Lord High Admiral) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

About Friday 27 December 1661

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"St. John and the Virgin Mary did appear to Gregory, a Bishopp"

St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the life of his Namesake, called the wonder-worker, has this story, that the Virgin Mary, accompanied by St. John the Evangelist, appeared to Gregory in a vision, and explaned to him the mystery of Godliness, in a short Creed or divine summary of faith, which he took down in writing, as they dictated it to him, and left the copy of it, a legacy to the Church of Neocaesarea, of which he was Bishop: and if any one, says he, has a mind to be satisfied of the truth of this, let him inquire of that Church, in which the very words, as they were written by his blessed hand, are preserved to this day: which, for the excellency of the divine grace, may be compared with those tables of the law, made by God and delivered to Moses.
---A free inquiry into the miraculous powers. C. Middleton, 1749.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, 'wonder-worker' (c. 210-270), the apostle of Pontus, was born at Neocaesarea in Pontus, became a disciple of Origen, and was consecrated Bishop of Neocaesarea.
---Chambers's Biographical Dictionary. F.H. Groome, 1898.

About St Thomas's Day

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Going A Gooding At St Thomas's Day.

We find some faint traces of a custom of going a gooding (as it is called) on St Thomas's Day, which seems to have been done by women only, who, in return for the alms they received, appear to have presented their benefactors with sprigs of evergreens, probably to deck their houses with at the ensuing Festival.
In the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1794, the writer, speaking of the preceding mild winter, says: "The women who went a gooding (as they call it in these parts) on St Thomas's Day, might, in return for alms, have presented their benefactors with sprigs of palm and bunches of primroses."
There was a custom in Warwickshire for the poor, on St Thomas's day to go with a bag to beg corn of the farmers, which they called going a corning.
---Popular antiquities of Great Britain. J. Brand, 1877.

There are annotations about St. Thomas's Day on 21 December 1660: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

About Cornhill

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Cornhill, between the Poultry and Leadenhall Street, an important portion of the greatest thoroughfare in the world, was, says Stow, "so called of a corn market time out of mind there holden." At the beginning of the 14th century and probably long before the corn market was held at Graschirche [Gracechurch], at the east end of Cornhill, and a general market on Cornhill proper. In 1310 a royal proclamation commanded that henceforth no one should presume "to hold a common market for any manner of merchandise . . . after the hour of noon ... in any other place within the City save only upon Cornhulle." The markets in Chepe and elsewhere were to be closed at noon. In course of time the Cornhill market-people presumed too much upon their privilege; and in 1369 the evening market was forbidden to be kept open after sunset.
...
Besides the pillory and the stocks Cornhill had its prison, called the Tun, for street offenders; its conduit "of sweet water," and its standard. The Tun was built in 1282 by Henry de Waleis, Mayor, who built the Stock Market. It was enlarged in 1475 by Sir Robert Drope, Mayor, and its site is at present marked by an unused pump nearly facing No. 30. The conduit adjoining it was first built of stone by Henry de Waleis, but it was re-erected in 1401; and the standard in 1582, for water from the Thames, brought by an artificial forcer invented by Peter Morris, a Dutchman, the first person who conveyed Thames water into houses by pipes of lead. The standard stood near the junction of Cornhill with Leadenhall Street, and was an object of such mark that distances throughout England were measured from it as the heart of the City.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Coleman Street

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Coleman Street, City, runs from Lothbury to Fore Street, Cripplegate. Stow says that it was "so called of Coleman, the first builder and owner thereof," but this is a mistake. The Robert Coleman here referred to as "the first builder" was the son of Reginald Coleman, who died in 1483, whereas Coleman Street is mentioned in the City Letter Books at least two centuries earlier; and "had its name, there can hardly be a doubt, from the charcoal-burners, or colemen, who settled in that extremity of the City, adjoining the Moor, at an early date."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Cutter of Coleman Street (Abraham Cowley)

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Cowley wrote a play, called Cutter of Coleman Street: and Dryden refers to its inhabitants :—

Some have expected from our Bills to-day
To find a Satire in our Poet's play.
The zealous rout from Coleman Street did run,
To see the story of the Friar and Nun;
Or tales yet more ridiculous to hear
Vouched by their vicar of ten pounds a year.
--Dryden's Epilogue to the Assignation, or Love in a Nunnery, 1672.

---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Steelyard

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Steelyard, Steleyard, or Stilliard in Upper Thames Street, in the ward of Dowgate (facing the river), where the Cannon Street Railway Station now stands. "Their hall," says Stow, "is large, built of stone, with three arched gates towards the street, the middlemost whereof is far bigger than the others, and is seldom opened; the other two bemured up; the same is now called the old hall."

The Steelyard, a place for merchants of Almaine, that used to bring hither as well wheat, rye, and other grain, as cables, ropes, masts, pitch, tar, flax, hemp, linen cloth, wainscots, wax, steel, and other profitable merchandises.—Stow, p. 87.

Steelyard, a place in London where the fraternity of the Easterling Merchants, otherwise the Merchants of the Hannse and Almaine are wont to have their abode. It is so called Stilliard of a broad place or court, wherein Steele was much sold.— Minsheu, ed. 1617, and H. Blount both in his Law Dictionary and his Glossographia.

The Steelyard was lately famous for Rhenish Wines, Neats' Tongues, etc.— Blount's Glossographia, ed. 1670.

Other writers derive the name from its being the place where the King's steelyard, or beam, for weighing the tonnage of goods imported into London, was erected before its transference to Cornhill.

Lambecius explains the name Steel-yard (or as he calls it Stealhof) to be only a contraction of Stapelhof, softened into Stafelhof, and synonymous with the English word Staple, which is in the civil law Latin style of Edward III. termed Stabile emporium, a fixed port depot.—Herbert's Twelve Livery Companies, p. 12, note.

This latter derivation is by far the most likely; Minsheu is without doubt wrong, as steel until long after the adoption of the name Steelyard for their guild by the Merchants of the Hanse was only quite a secondary item in their trade.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Tuesday 10 December 1661

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"So to dinner to my Lord Crew’s"

Sam was "troubled" by Lord Crew's sister yesterday. (Lady Wright) The two are brother- and sister-in-law to Sam's patron, the Earl of Sandwich.

About Dr Nathaniel Crew

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CREW, NATHANIEL, third Baron Crew of Stene (1633-1722), bishop of Durham; son of John, first baron Crew of Stene; B.A. Lincoln College, Oxford, 1656; fellow; rector, 1668; dean of Chichester, 1669; bishop of Oxford, 1671; married Duke of York to Maria d'Este, 1673; bishop of Durham, 1674; privy councillor, 1676; rewarded for subserviency to James II with deanery of Chapel Royal; helped to administer diocese of London, 1686; specially excepted from general pardon, 1690, but retained as bishop of Durham; benefactor of diocese of Durham and Lincoln College.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Lady Anne Wright

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Anne, daughter of John, first Lord Crew, married to Sir Harry Wright, Bart., M.P. She was sister to Lady Montagu. Lived till 1708.
---Wheatley, 1896.

Her sister: Jemima Mountagu ("my Lady," Countess of Sandwich) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her brother-in-law: Sir Edward Mountagu ("my Lord," Earl of Sandwich) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her father: John Crew (a, Baron Crew of Stene) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her mother: Lady Jemima Crew http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her brother: John Crew (b) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her brother: Sir Thomas Crew http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her brother: Samuel Crew http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her brother: Waldegrave Crew http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her brother: Dr Nathaniel Crew http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Her nephew: John Crew (c) http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…