Bill

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Second Reading

About Sunday 19 May 1661

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"the greatest and most desperate frolic that ever I saw in my life"

A FROLICK, a merry Prank, a Whim.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About York House

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In 1661 it was occupied by Baron de Batteville, the Spanish ambassador; in 1663 the Russian ambassador was lodging here.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891

About Smithfield

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In a suburb immediately outside one of the gates there is a field that is smooth, both in name and in fact. Every Friday (unless it is an important holy day requiring solemnity) crowds are drawn to the show and sale of fine horses. This attracts the earls, barons and knights who are then in the city, along with many citizens, whether to buy or just to watch. It is a delight to see the palfreys trotting gently around, the blood pumping in their veins, their coats glistening with sweat, as they alternately raise then lower both feet on one side together. Then to see the horses more suitable for squires, rougher yet quicker in their movements, simultaneously lifting one set of feet and setting down the opposite set. After that the high-bred young colts, not yet trained or broken, "high-stepping with elastic tread". Next packhorses, with robust and powerful legs. Then expensive war horses, tall and graceful, "with quivering ears, high necks and plump buttocks". Prospective buyers watch as all are put through their paces: first, their trot, followed by their gallop (in which their two sets of legs, front and rear, are thrust out forwards and backwards, in opposition to each other).
---Description of the City of London. William FitzStephen, late 12th centuy.

About Richard Coling

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COOLING or COLING, RICHARD (d. 1697), clerk of the privy council, 1689, and gossip of Samuel Pepys; secretary to the lord chamberlain of the household, 1660-1680; hon. M.A. Oxford, 1665.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Royal Exchange

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The first Royal Exchange was founded by Sir Thomas Gresham; the first stone was laid June 7, 1566, and the building opened by Queen Elizabeth in person, January 23, 1570-1571.
The materials for the construction of the Exchange were brought from Flanders, or, as Holinshed has it, Gresham "bargained for the whole mould and substance of his workmanship in Flanders," and a Flemish builder of the name of Henryke was employed.
In general design the Exchange was not unlike the Burse at Antwerp —a quadrangle, with a cloister running round the interior of the building, a corridor or "pawn " above, and attics or bedrooms at the top.
On the south or Cornhill front was a bell-tower, and on the north a lofty Corinthian column, each surmounted by a grasshopper—the crest of the Greshams. The bell, in Gresham's time, was rung at twelve at noon and at six in the evening. In niches within the quadrangle, and immediately above the cloister or covered walk, stood the statues of our kings and queens, from Edward the Confessor to Queen Elizabeth. James I., Charles I., and Charles II. were afterwards added. Charles I.'s statue was thrown down immediately after his execution, and on the pedestal these words were inscribed in gilt letters, Exit tyrannus Regum ultimas - "The tyrant is gone, the last of the Kings." Hume concludes his History of Charles I. with this little anecdote of City disaffection, which no doubt was in Addison's mind when he made his Tory fox-hunter satisfied that the London merchants had not turned republicans "when he spied the statue of King Charles II. standing up in the middle of the crowd, and most of the Kings in Baker's Chronicle ranged in order over their heads."
Gresham's Exchange was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Pepys describes its appearance as "a sad sight, nothing standing there of all the statues or pillars, but Sir Thomas Gresham in the corner."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Islington

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Islington, an extensive suburban parish, extending north from Clerkenwell to Highgate and Hornsey, and east and west from Shoreditch, Hackney, and Stoke Newington to St. Pancras. It is 3 1/4 miles long, 2 1/8 wide, and 10 1/4 miles in circumference, and has an area of 3107 acres. It includes the town of Islington and the hamlets of Holloway, Highbury, Canonbury, Barnsbury, Kingsland, Ball's Pond, and other places. In the 17th century a country village, - when the first census was taken in 1801, it was still rural, and the entire parish had only 10,212 inhabitants.
...
The origin of the name is uncertain. In ancient records it is written Isendone, Iteldone, Yseldon, Eysddon (Domesday and City Books, 1398). From about the middle of the 16th century it was commonly written Hisselton.
Hither came alle the men of that contray
Of Hisselton, of Hygate, and of Hakenay.
---Turnament of Tottenham.
Stow (1598, 1604) writes Iseldon, but Islington was in use much earlier.
...
Islington was famous for its dairies, brick-kilns, houses of entertainment with their tea-gardens and ducking-ponds, cheesecakes and custards, and fields, the favourite Sunday resort of rural-minded citizens.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Angel

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ANGEL a Gold Coin worth about 10s.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Tuesday 14 May 1661

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"a gammon of bacon"

GAMMON, a Thigh, Ham, or Shoulder.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Tuesday 24 January 1659/60

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"A patten was a type of 'undershoe' consisting of a wooden sole fitted with leather straps and mounted on a large metal ring to raise the wearer from the muddy roads. By fastening the shoe on top of this with a leather strap, the wearer could walk through the mud of the City and arrive cleanshod."
---from the web site of St. Margaret Pattens where there is an explanation of the church's name and also a picture of a pair of pattens. http://www.stmargaretpattens.org/…

About Sunday 12 May 1661

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From Mary above: "For 'vent' read 'tent' (L&M)."

TENT, a Roll of Lint to be put into a Wound.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Tuesday 24 January 1659/60

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PATTEN, PATTIN, a sort of wooden Shoe with a Supporter of Iron.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

About Gray's Inn

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Gray's Inn, an Inn of Court, with two Inns of Chancery attached - Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn; "a goodly house," says Stow, "by whom built or first begun I have not yet learned, but seemeth to be since Edward III.'s time." The early records of the Society are lost, but Pearce quotes a MS. in the Harleian Collection to the effect that William Skepworth was the first reader at Gray's Inn, and he was Justice of the Common Pleas in the reign of Edward III. The manor of Portpoole, otherwise called Gray's Inn, four messuages, four gardens, the site of a windmill, 8 acres of land, 10 shillings of free rent, and the advowson of the chantry of Portpoole were sold in 1505, by Edmund, Lord Gray, of Wilton, to Hugh Denny, Esq., his heirs and assigns. From Denny's hands the manor passed into the possession of the prior and convent of East Sheen, in Surrey, by whom it was leased "to certain students of the law," at an annual rent of £6:13:4; and the same lease was renewed to the students by Henry VIII., when at the dissolution of religious houses Gray's Inn became the property of the Crown. The name of Portpoole survives in Portpoole Lane (running from the east side of Gray's Inn Road into Leather Lane), and Windmill Hill still exists to mark the site of the windmill mentioned in the deed of transfer from Lord Gray. When the first hall was built is unknown; but Dugdale records the erection of the present hall between the years 1555 and 1560.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Tuesday 7 May 1661

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"being much stopped in our way by the City traynebands, who go in much solemnity and pomp this day to muster before the King and the Duke"

May 7. [1661] A General Muster of the Forces of the City of London, in Hide-Park, consisting of two Regiments of Horse, and twelve Regiments of foot.
---A Chronological History of England. J. Pointer, 1714.

About Sunday 5 May 1661

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There was some discussion of "the minister of the Town, with a red face and a girdle" yesterday.

About Cakes

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CAKE.
1. A kind of delicate bread. Dryden.
2. Any thing of a form rather flat than high. Bacon, Dryden.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.