Bill

Annotations and comments

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

Comments

Second Reading

About William Rumbold

Bill  •  Link

Rumball is mentioned on several occasions in the Diary. On October 29th, 1660, Pepys praises his claret, and on December 8th, 1661, a great christening of Rumball’s child (Charles) is mentioned. Since these passages were printed the editor has been obligingly informed as to this worthy by Sir Horace Rumbold, Bart., G.C.M.G., H.B.M. Minister at the Hague. The forms Rumball and Rumbell given by Pepys are corruptions of the correct name, which was Rumbold. William Rumbold entered the office of the Great Wardrobe in 1629, attended Charles I. all through the Civil War till Naseby, where he was engaged, together with his father, Thomas Rumbold, afterwards taken prisoner by the Parliamentary forces, and during the period of the Commonwealth he rendered considerable service to the royal cause. He acted as Secretary to the Secret Council which was kept up in England by Charles II. during his exile, and among the Clarendon Papers at Oxford there are numerous letters from him written to the king, Lord Chancellor Hyde, Ormonde, and others. At the Restoration he became Comptroller of the Great Wardrobe and Surveyor-General of the Customs. He died May 27th, 1667, at his house at Parson’s Green, Fulham, where he is buried in the chancel of All Saints‘ Church with his wife Mary, daughter of William Barclay, Esquire of the Body to Charles I. This distinguished royalist was an ancestor of Sir Horace Rumbold, who has contributed to the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society “Notes on the History of the Family of Rumbold in the Seventeenth Century" (N.S., vol. vi., p. 145). Sir Horace mentions the Colonel Henry Norwood referred to in the text as one of those friends who spoke of William Rumbold with great affection.
---Wheatley, 1904.

About Hoy

Bill  •  Link

HOY, a small Bark.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Scallop

Bill  •  Link

SCOLLOP, a Shell Fish, also a sort of indenting of any thing.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Roger Palmer (1st Earl of Castlemaine)

Bill  •  Link

PALMER, ROGER, Earl Of Castlemaine (1634-1705), diplomatist and author; son of Sir James Palmer; of Eton and King's College, Cambridge; student, Inner Temple, 1656; married Barbara Villiers (afterwards Duchess of Cleveland), 1659, who became Charles II's mistress at the Restoration; M.P., New Windsor, 1660-1; forced by Charles II to become Earl of Castlemaine in order to propitiate Barbara's jealousy of the marriage of Charles II, 1661; accused of complicity in the Popish plot, but acquitted; as envoy to Rome, 1686, met with a cold reception, his excessive zeal for Petre and other of James II's favourites embarrassing Pope Innocent XI; privy councillor, 1687; at the revolution was exempted from the Act of Indemnity, and after imprisonment in the Tower of London escaped to the continent; indicted of high treason, 1695: on returning and surrendering himself was released without trial, on condition of going over-seas; linguist, mathematician, and political pamphleteer.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Sunday 1 December 1661

Bill  •  Link

"There hath lately been great clapping up of some old statesmen"

Anschmeidung, die, the Fettering or Clapping up in Irons, the Act of forging together
---Vollständiges Wörterbuch Der Englischen Sprache Für Die Deutschen, 1796.

About William Coventry

Bill  •  Link

William Coventry, to whom Pepys became so warmly attached, was the fourth son of Thomas, first Lord Coventry, the Lord Keeper. He was born in 1628, and entered at Queen's College, Oxford, in 1642; after the Restoration he became private secretary to the Duke of York, his commission as Secretary to the Lord High Admiral not being conferred until 1664; elected M.P. for Great Yarmouth in 1661. In 1662 he was appointed an extra Commissioner of the Navy, an office he held until 1667; in 1665, knighted and sworn a Privy Councillor, and, in 1667, constituted a Commissioner of the Treasury; but, having been forbid the court on account of his challenging the Duke of Buckingham, he retired into the country, nor could he subsequently be prevailed upon to accept of any official employment. Burnet calls Sir William Coventry the best speaker in the House of Commons, and "a man of the finest and best temper that belonged to the court," and Pepys never omits an opportunity of paying a tribute to his public and private worth. He died, 1686, of gout in the stomach.
---Wheatley, 1896.

About Old Palace Yard

Bill  •  Link

Palace Yard (Old), an open space between the Houses of Parliament and Henry VII.'s Chapel, and so called from the Palace of our Kings at Westminster. It has been the scene of many public executions. Here, January 31, 1605-1606, Guy Fawkes, T. Winter, Rookwood, and Keyes were executed for the Gunpowder Plot. Here, on Thursday, October 29, 1618: A great and very strange scene—the last scene in the Life of Walter Raleigh. Raleigh was beheaded in Old Palace Yard...
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About John Gauden (Bishop of Exeter)

Bill  •  Link

GAUDEN, JOHN (1605-1662), bishop of Worcester; M.A. St. John's College, Cambridge, 1626; entered Wadham College, Oxford; D.D., 1641; vicar of Chippenham and chaplain to Robert Rich, earl of Warwick, 1640; dean of Bocking, 1641; 'shuffled out' of the Westminster Assembly for episcopalianism: retained benefices during the Commonwealth; wrote against the Army and the Civil Marriage Act and in defence of the church of England; published 'Ecclesia? Anglicans; Suspiria,' 1659: bishop of Exeter, 1660-2; wrote treatises against the covenanters, 1660-1; edited Hooker's 1 Ecclesiastical Polity,' 1662; bishop of Worcester, 1662: claimed the authorship of 'Eikon Basilike; the Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie In His Solitudes and Sufferings,' attributed by royalist writers and Bishop Christopher Wordsworth to Charles I. Gauden's claim was apparently admitted at the Restoration.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Slops

Bill  •  Link

SLOPS, a wide Sort of Breeches worn by Seamen.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Sunday 24 November 1661

Bill  •  Link

QUART, an English Measure, the fourth Part of a Gallon.
GALLON [of Wine,] a measure containing eight Pints, or 231 solid inches.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

"The wine gallon contains 231 cubic inches."
"A gallon dry measure contains 268 4/5 cubic inches."
"The Ale Gallon contains 282 cubic or solid inches."
---A New System of Arithmetic. C.G. Burnham, 1841.

So, by Sasha's information above, a wine gallon is 4.62 x (231/282) litres = 3.78 liters. And a "quart of sack" (in Pepys's day) was .95 litres. Since an American quart is .946 litres, Sasha and bw have it exactly right. A wine gallon (or quart) in Pepys' day is the same as an American gallon (or quart).

The Burnham book (1841) makes no mention of an imperial gallon. Also an imperial gallon is 277.42 cubic inches.

Note that a "quart of sack" (at .95 litre) is not too much more than the standard .75 litre wine bottle of today.

About John Fountaine

Bill  •  Link

FOUNTAINE, JOHN (1600-1671), commissioner of the great seal, 1659-60; barrister, Lincoln's Inn, 1629; imprisoned for refusing to pay the parliament's war tax, 1642; assisted in forming royalist association of western counties, 1645; pardoned, 1652, and placed upon parliamentary commissions; serjeant-at-law, 1658.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Sir Richard Browne (a)

Bill  •  Link

BROWNE, Sir RICHARD (1605-1683), diplomatist; educated at Merton College, Oxford; travelled in France; clerk of the council, 1641-72; resident at the French court for Charles I and Charles II, 1641-60; provided in Paris a chapel for Anglican services, a home for Anglican divines, and a cemetery for protestants; created baronet, 1649; returned to England, 1660.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About John Downes (b, regicide)

Bill  •  Link

DOWNES, JOHN (fl. 1666), regicide; sat for Arundel in the Long parliament, 1642; prevailed upon, partly against his will, to sign Charles I's death-warrant; member of the council of state, 1651 and 1659; commissioner for the revenue, 1659; arrested (1660) for his share in the execution of Charles I, and kept a close prisoner in Newgate.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Lt-Gen. Charles Fleetwood

Bill  •  Link

FLEETWOOD, CHARLES (d. 1692), parliamentarian soldier; admitted at Gray's Inn, 1638; one of Essex's bodyguard, 1642; wounded at first battle of Newbury when captain, 1643; appointed receiver of the court of wards forfeited by his royalist brother, Sir William, 1644; commanded regiment of horse in the new model at Naseby, 1645; M.P., Marlborough, 1646; took leading part in quarrel between army and parliament, 1647, on side of former; joint-governor of Isle of Wight, 1649: lieutenant-general of horse at Dunbar, 1650; member of the third council of state (1651) and commander of the forces in England before Worcester, where he did good service; married as his second wife Cromwell's eldest daughter (Bridget), the widow of Ireton, 1652; named commander-in-chief in Ireland, where in 1654-7 he was also lord-deputy; after the first year came to England and only nominally filled the office; recalled on account of his partiality to the anabaptists; one of the Protector's council, 1654; major-general of the eastern district, 1655; a member of Cromwell's House of Lords, 1656; nominal supporter of Richard Cromwell; headed the army's opposition to the parliament; commander-in-chief, 1659; failed to make terms with General Monck; and at the Restoration was incapacitated for life from holding office.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Coxcomb

Bill  •  Link

From King Lear:

FOOL: Let me hire him too: here's my coxcomb.
[Offering KENT his cap]

About Monday 18 November 1661

Bill  •  Link

"I saw the quiristers in their surplices going to prayers, and a few idle poor people and boys to hear them, which is the first time I have seen them, and am sorry to see things done so out of order"

Four months ago, on 15 July 1661, Sam saw "scholars in their surplices" which he found "a strange sight." Perhaps he just hasn't adjusted yet to surplices. (Or even to prayer services on Monday mornings.)

About Chancery

Bill  •  Link

CHANCERY, a Court of Equity and Conscience, moderating the Severity of other Courts that are more strictly tied to the Rigour of the Law
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Saturday 4 January 1661/62

Bill  •  Link

"and much correspondence there has been between our two families all this Christmas"

CORRESPONDENCE, holding mutual Intelligence, Commerce, and Familiarity with; also an answering, fitting, agreeing, or Proportion of one Thing with another.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.