Bill

Annotations and comments

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

Comments

Second Reading

About St Mary Axe

Bill  •  Link

Mary (St.) Axe, a street and parish in Lime Street Ward, united to the parish church, St . Andrew's Undershaft, about the year 1565. The street runs from Leadenhall Street to Houndsditch. The south end is chiefly let out in offices; towards Houndsditch it is chiefly inhabited by Jews. The church at the corner is St. Andrew's Undershaft.

In St. Marie Street had ye of old time a parish church of St. Marie the Virgin, St. Ursula and the eleven thousand Virgins, which church was commonly called St. Marie at the Axe, of the sign of an Axe, over against the east end thereof, or St. Mary Pellipar, of a plot of ground lying on the north side thereof, pertaining to the Skinners, in London. This parish, about the year 1565, was united to the parish church of St. Andrew Undershaft, and so was St. Mary at the Axe, suppressed and letten out to be a warehouse for a merchant.—Stow, p. 61.

Stow is not quite correct in this. The church derived its particular designation of St. Mary Axe from a holy relic it possessed: "an axe, oon of the iij that the xjmj Virgyns were be hedyd wt.” Stow has also omitted to mention that this church, Santa Maria de Hacqs, was given in 1562 to the Spanish Protestant refugees for divine service.

Jews from St. Mary Axe, for jobs so wary,
That for old clothes they'd even axe St. Mary.
Rejected Addresses (Imitation of Crabbe).

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

About Leadenhall Street

Bill  •  Link

Leadenhall Street runs from Cornhill to Aldgate. About 1582 a mathematical lecture was founded to be read in the Staples Chapel in Leadenhall Street . The scheme, which received the approval of the Privy Council, had for its object the instruction of the citizens in military matters. It was transferred in 1588 from Leadenhall Street "to the house of Mr. Thomas Smith in Grass [Gracechurch] Street." The house of Sir Thomas Allen, Lord Mayor in the critical year 1660, was in this street. Here Monk dined with him on the day on which he finally broke with the Parliament. Gibbon's great-grandfather Matthew, as the historian relates, "did not aspire above the station of a linen-draper in Leadenhall Street;" and his grandmother was the "daughter of Richard Acton, goldsmith in Leadenhall Street."
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About William Goodson

Bill  •  Link

GOODSONN, WILLIAM (fl.1634-1662), vice-admiral; captain of the Entrance in the fight off Portland, 25 Jan. 1853; rear-admiral of the blue in the battles of June and July 1653; vice-admiral under Penn, 1654, with him at attempt on Hispaniola, and capture of Jamaica, 1655; took part in siege of Dunkirk, 1658.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About James Turner ("Col.")

Bill  •  Link

Extensive information on the trial and confession of James Turner can be found in the following publication starting in col. 565. The Speech and Deportment (by the gibbet) starts in col. 619.

A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Year 1783, with Notes and Other Illustrations, Volume 6. 1816.
Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id…

"And thereupon [Turner] giving the sign, the executioner turned him off."

About James Turner ("Col.")

Bill  •  Link

TURNER, JAMES (d. 1664), parliamentary colonel; executed for burglary.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Tennis court (Whitehall Palace)

Bill  •  Link

Mr. Julian Marshall, in his Annals of Tennis (1878), gives a curious list of fourteen Tennis Courts in London in 1615 from a MS. of Lord Leconfield's at Petworth. They are as follows: Whitehall (two, covered and uncovered), Somerset House, Essex House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, Blackfriars, Southampton, Charterhouse, Powles Chaine, Abchurch Lane, Lawrence Pountney, Fenchurch Street and Crutched Friars.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

About Sir Thomas Vyner

Bill  •  Link

VINER, Sir THOMAS, baronet (1588-1665), lord mayor of London; came to London, 1600; brought up by Samuel Moore, goldsmith; alderman of London, 16461660, sheriff, 1648, lord mayor, 1653; knighted, 1654; created baronet, 1661; did much government banking business from James I's to Charles II's time; benefactor of the Goldsmiths' Company.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Tuesday 12 January 1663/64

Bill  •  Link

“did accost her alone, and spoke of his hoping she was with child”

To ACCOST, to approach, to draw near to, to make, come up to, or set upon a Person.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Monday 11 January 1663/64

Bill  •  Link

Terry says above: "the universal character" Pepys refers to may not mean what you might think.

He may indeed have been referring to John Wilkin's ideas (mentioned by SP in 1666 and published in 1668). But he may also have had this 1657 publication in mind:

[Cave] Beck is remembered for his book, "The Universal Character", published in London in 1657; it was also published the same year in French. The books's full title was "The Universal Character, by which all Nations in the World may understand one another's Conceptions, Reading out of one Common Writing their own Mother Tongues. An Invention of General Use, the Practise whereof may be Attained in two Hours' space, Observing the Grammatical Directions. Which Character is so contrived, that it may be Spoken as well as Written".

In his book Beck sought to invent a universal language that could be understood and used by anyone in the world, no matter what their mother tongue. It was based on the ten Arabic numerals, 0-9, which he proposed the following pronunciations:

1. Aun, 2. Too, 3. Tray, 4. For orfo, 5. Fai, 6. Sic, 7. Sen, 8. At, 9. Nin, 0. o.

The combinations of these characters, intended to express all the main words in any language, were to be arranged in numerical order, from zero to 10,000, which he considered sufficient to cover all words in general use.

---Wikipedia entry for Cave Beck. (1623–c.1706)

About Friday 8 January 1663/64

Bill  •  Link

“It is believed by many circumstances that his man is guilty of confederacy”

CONFEDERACY, CONFEDERATION, an Alliance between Princes and States, for their Defence against a Common Enemy; In Law, it is an uniting of Persons to do any unlawful Act.
To CONFEDERATE, to unite into a Confederacy, to combine, to plot together.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.

About Henry Scobell

Bill  •  Link

SCOBELL, HENRY (d. 1660), clerk of the parliament: appointed for life, 1648; joint-licenser of newspapers and political pamphlets, 1649; assistant-secretary to council of state, 1653; published works on parliamentary procedure.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About John Maitland (2nd Earl of Lauderdale)

Bill  •  Link

MAITLAND, JOHN, second Earl and first Duke of Lauderdale (1616-1682), grandson of Sir John Maitland; grand-nephew of William Maitland of Lethington; regarded as a rising hope of the ultra-covenanting party; commissioner for the Solemn League and Covenant, 1643-6; one of the commissioners who obtained the famous 'Engagement'; with Charles II in Holland, 1649; followed him to Worcester and was taken prisoner, 1651; kept a prisoner till 1660; secretary for Scottish affairs, 1660-80; aimed at making the crown absolute in Scotland both in state and church; had complete influence over Charles; created Duke of Lauderdale and Marquis of March in the Scottish peerage, 1672; placed upon the commission for the admiralty, 1673; made a privy councillor and a peer of England as Earl of Guildford and Baron Petersham, 1674: supported by Charles II against attacks from the English parliament.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

About Sunday 27 December 1663

Bill  •  Link

And also if one of "our" encyclopedia entries also has a link to a Wikipedia entry, I see no need to reproduce any of Wikipedia's information in an annotation. (Especially without attribution.)

About Saturday 29 September 1660

Bill  •  Link

eileen d., I have taken it upon myself to post entries from the DNB: Index and Epitome (1906) into our in-house encyclopedia. These entries are very short, abbreviated summaries of biographies in the DNB.

Since I mentioned him above, here is the longish entry for Prince Rupert: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

About Thursday 17 December 1663

Bill  •  Link

Indeed Chris, your annotation about Sam's ambition reminds me of the entry of 2 March 1661/62:

"With my mind much eased talking long in bed with my wife about our frugall life for the time to come, proposing to her what I could and would do if I were worth 2,000l., that is, be a knight, and keep my coach, which pleased her."