jeannine

Articles

jeannine has written 14 articles:

Encyclopedia topics

jeannine has written summaries for eight topics:

Annotations and comments

jeannine has posted 1,236 annotations/comments since 16 June 2004.

Comments

First Reading

About Sunday 31 May 1668

jeannine  •  Link

A little more detail, per Davidson’ “Catherine of Braganza” (little spoiler here from after the Diary)

“Mary Davis, who had been acting at the Duke’s Theater at the beginning of this year, was now accommodated by the King with a house in Suffolk Street. She had a ‘mighty fine coach’, according to Pepys, who saw her step into it at the door of her own house. She wore a ring the King had given her worth £700, and she was a source of profound mortification to Lady Castlemaine, quite as much to Catherine. At the play the King was seen gazing, enraptured, at a particular box, and ‘The Lady”, craning to see the object of his notice and finding it to be Moll Davis, ‘looked like fire’. She danced in the Whitehall theatricals, and Charles kept his eyes fixed on her faultless dancing. She appeared when the play was ended to dance again, but Catherine would not stay to see her, but rose and left the room. Burnet declares Charles’s infatuation to have been neither very ardent nor of long duration, yet he had a daughter by Moll Davis six years later, a girl named Mary Tudor, who in 1687 married that Frances Ratcliffe…. Moll Davis’s manner of life is not known after Charles left her, nor the date of her death. She sinks into complete oblivion.” (p230-231)

About Friday 8 May 1668

jeannine  •  Link

"King Charles and his Ladies" a new dice game!

"there are great disputes like to be at Court, between the factions of the two women, my Lady Castlemayne and Mrs. Stewart...and all will come to ruin!"

Thoroughout his reign one could easily 'plug and play' any 2 of Charles' mistresses into this sentence and it would pretty much work.

So, the new dice games comes with 2 dice, each with 6 names ~~Barbara, Francis, Nell, Moll, Louise & Hortense!

Roll away, fill in the blanks and you'll have just another day in the life of King Charles II!

About Thursday 23 April 1668

jeannine  •  Link

Second thoughts- a wise man runs just as fast as a coward.

As children, when speaking of the local bully, our version of a famous quote was "He who turns and runs away, lives to run another day......"

Good thing Sam left his mighty sword at home as it could easily have been used against him. He may be 'our hero' but he's never been one of those fighting types of guys.

About A Voice for Elizabeth

jeannine  •  Link

Lis-no it did not. The original portrait, which remained in Pepys's nephew's family, "was cut into strips sometime around 1830 by a Scotch nurse shocked by the immodestry of the dress. Fortunately it had been engraved for the first edition of the Diary." (quoting Tomalin)

About Sunday 2 February 1667/68

jeannine  •  Link

“the only solution was a policy of ‘one out for each one in’.”

If, of course, you were a neatnik. Some of us keep ever-growing piles of books at varying distances from our desk, and that solution was available even in Sam’s day.

Where Sam tends towards having a few OCD tendencies I can imagine that he couldn't cope with piles of books but would really need to have them neatly arranged. He's always struck me as a 'neatnik to the max'!

About Friday 29 November 1667

jeannine  •  Link

"So up again, and when Jane come, and we demanded whether she heard no noise, she said, “yes, and was afeard,” but rose with the other maid, and found nothing; but heard a noise in the great stack of chimnies that goes from Sir J. Minnes through our house; and so we sent, and their chimnies have been swept this morning, and the noise was that, and nothing else..."

Brave Jane gets to clear her mind by going to face the fearful sound and then going peacefully back to sleep, while our scaredy-cat hero (who conveniently blames his wife for staying in bed), worried for an hour and loses out on a good snooze.

Where would Sam be without his brave servants!

About Sunday 3 November 1667

jeannine  •  Link

Geoff- “Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self” by Claire Tomilin covers Sam’s entire life and is great to read along with the Diary. Another read that covers the later part of his life during the Popish Plots is “the Plot Against Pepys” by James Long & Ben Long.

About Sunday 3 November 1667

jeannine  •  Link

Catherine, Infertility & Clarendon,

In the biographies about Queen Catherine, she conceived and miscarried anywhere from 2-4 times. During one of those miscarriages, the doctor who examined the fetus noted that it was a baby boy.

There were many people working to get rid of Clarendon and they consistently worked to discredit him to the King. Lord Buckingham, Lady Castlemaine & Lord Arlington were among those who targeted him throughout his appointment.

In addition to the Court backbiting, Charles seems to have been doing his usual ‘stealth’ moves to lay the foundation to get rid of Clarendon. From” A Profane With” by James Johnson, prior to the October session, Charles appeared to be reconstituting the Lords by adding peers to the process who would vote in his favor to oust Clarendon. Lord Rochester, who was about 7 months shy of the eligibility requirements to attend Parliament, and whose family owed a huge debt of gratitude to the Counselor, was pulled into the process and actually executed documents against Clarendon. Rochester realized that ‘whatever favors Clarendon’s has in his power to do; the King was the final dispenser of benefits” (p.98). Rochester realized that the quickest way to get ahead in this Court was to do whatever the King desired.

Another incident, which ‘nailed Clarendon’s coffin” was Frances Stewart’s run away marriage, which also somehow got unfairly blamed on Clarendon. Charles’ loss of his beloved Frances (‘the one who got away”) had to be blamed on someone, and somehow, the King attributed this fault to Clarendon. Charles probably could never fathom that Frances left to save whatever was left of her reputation after the King’s non-stop advances.

Publically, the power shifting and the Frances incident wouldn’t be the fodder of open gossip as it could reflect badly on the King himself. It was much easier to target Queen Catherine’s ‘infertility’ as a fault of Clarendon. This would have been supported by the likes of Buckingham, Castlemaine, etc. who were always out to discredit her, and would be something that didn’t make Charles look bad.

About Keith Wright / Bradford

jeannine  •  Link

Above is a poem that Keith sent in his 2006 holiday card.

We all knew him from his insightful and often witty annotations, who could forget his comical mathematical calculation of Sam’s overindulgence of pasties ~~“5 pasties ÷ 3 days = 1 dose physique”!!!

When I got to know Keith through this site, in addition to his annotations, he was caring for his ailing and fully dependent elderly mother. In an article about Keith, written by Aileen Jacobson in the Library of America 2008-2009 newsletter, he explained, “It sounds Victorian, I know, but I’ve filled the role that the unmarried Victorian daughter used to fill, the family caretaker.”

In addition to his familial devotion, Keith assisted Susan Sherman in the publication of “May Sarton: Selected Letters 1955-1985” and penned a warm introduction to that book. He was a freelance reviewer of “Opera” magazine in London, and a meticulous proofreader for over 40 titles for the Library of America’s series of classic American authors, special anthologies, and the American Poets Project.

Most of all, Keith was a wonderful, albeit ‘virtual’ friend. We exchanged emails on a host of topics, sharing laughs, interesting stories, updates on the literary world, contrasting our quite different lives, and consoling each other as our mothers aged and passed away.

About six years ago, on his Amazon.com profile, he described himself this way…” I'm the family caregiver, in a small rural town, working on my last assignment. In the meantime, I am also a novelist (in the school of Hardy, Pym, Dawn Powell), poet (Louise Bogan, Anthony Hecht, classic Chinese), reviewer, indexer, editor, editorial assistant, copyeditor, and proofreader (see MAY SARTON: SELECTED LETTERS 1955-1995). (And, yes, I am looking for an agent, not to mention a publisher. Any leads?)
Devoted to music (everything from Handel, Mahler, and Simpson, through Elvis Costello, Tori Amos, and the Magnetic Fields), art (Poussin and Joseph Cornell to Cindy Sherman and Odd Nerdrum), wine (you name it, I'll drink it), exercise, and good letters from interesting and interested parties. (I'm 49, with friends from 24 to 97.)”

Farewell my friend, you are missed.

About Keith Wright / Bradford

jeannine  •  Link

“Blue Snow”
Warren Keith Wright

By night snow falls till it can fall no further
on ground where branches cast their bars by day.
Light alone gives birth and shape to shadows,
and only shadows know that snow is blue –
a deep-toned royal transitory blue
that lightly as a sundial marks a lawn
shifts its nets as hours alter time.
Time forgives by forgetting everything.

The route between two rows of bare young maples
runs checkered blue and white where trodden or not.
A dry-veined prickling oak leaf has unfurled
its time-worn map upon the upward trail.
The rays that angle through these trunks and boughs,
the random words with keen intent, attempt
to stain the heart and mind with permanent hues.
Time washes away all tears and all faces.

On gazing back from this still hilltop now,
the path required to reach this height looks steep:
light in the west greets darkness in the east.
Below, down there, the snow fades to ash,
while here above the first star pins the sky.
Shadows merge to shadow; mine then yours dissolves:
it seems all things must end save time and space.
Time is how the infinite inflicts pity.

About Sunday 13 October 1667

jeannine  •  Link

Friends of Sam,

I received a stunning email today about our “friend and family” the annotator “Bradford”, (Warren Keith Wright) who passed away due to a medical complication which resulted in a cardiac arrest. I got to know Keith through his wonderful annotations and he became a ‘virtual friend’ to me. He was a thoughtful commentator and an amazingly warm and caring person. He so enjoyed reading the Diary and always looked forward to each day of Sam and Elizabeth’s adventure. I am only comforted to believe that he’s with them now, enjoying a good meal and a glass of fine wine. A true loss to us all…..

About Saturday 11 May 1667

jeannine  •  Link

"and so away with my wife, whose being dressed this day in fair hair did make me so mad, that I spoke not one word to her in our going...."

Excerpt from the Diary of Elizabeth Pepys today,

"today I learned that if I wanted a most enjoyable, totally pleasant ride, without the constant chatter and usual fanfare from my Samuel, that I must be sure to always wear my fair locks..."

About Friday 26 April 1667

jeannine  •  Link

"Pepys was writing for others to read it"

A tease and a spoiler (but nothing will be revealed). At some point Sam will share his thoughts on this topic, but we'll all have to sit and wait for quite a bit to see what he has to say about his Diary! The good thing is that we'll all have each other to debate this with until Sam shares his opinion!

About Saturday 20 April 1667

jeannine  •  Link

" and then to walk in the garden with my wife, resolving by the grace of God to see no more plays till Whitsuntide, I having now seen a play every day this week till I have neglected my business, and that I am ashamed of, being found so much absent; the Duke of York and Sir W. Coventry having been out of town at Portsmouth did the more embolden me thereto"

When the cat's away the mouse will play! Let's see how long this vow lasts! Too bad he wasn't giving a pound to the poor box for each play he saw-he could probably rebuild London at the rate he's been going!

About Tuesday 16 April 1667

jeannine  •  Link

"where Pierce told us the story how, in good earnest, [the King] is offended with the Duke of Richmond’s marrying, and Mrs. Stewart’s sending the King his jewels again. As she tells it, it is the noblest romance and example of a brave lady that ever I read in my life"

Unlike any of of Charles' actual mistresses (i.e. Castlemaine & later the French Louise the Duchess of Portsmouth --aka "the queens of greed"), Frances Stewart, 'the one that got away' was never out for glamour, jewels, titles and riches. I doubt Charles knew how to react when a lady did something in a dignified manner!

About Monday 8 April 1667

jeannine  •  Link

Dinner Is Served…..

When Sam gives you an invite to dine
You’ll be served on his plate, oh so fine

As you arrive at his great table
Pick your seat with this warning label

Best stay far from Little Miss Tooker
Elizabeth swears she’s a hooker

If you desire the overly great
Mrs. Clerke believes she is first rate

There’s the Doctor and Mrs. Peirce
Who’ll delight with gossip most fierce

If it’s the young ones you most enjoy
Sit yourself beside their charming boy

If music makes your head swoon
Mercer can carry a tune

If you think that you ought ‘ta
There is Worship or her daughter

If you have nothing to lose,
Sit by Betty if you so choose

Best stay away from Sam’s lovely wife
Who is spirited and full of life

If your eyes to his wife do gaze
You’ll ignite Sam’s hot jealous craze

But if you tend to like self absorbed creeps
Sit yourself beside our boy Sam Pepys!

About Wednesday 3 April 1667

jeannine  •  Link

"This day I saw Prince Rupert abroad in the Vane-room, pretty well as he used to be, and looks as well, only something appears to be under his periwigg on the crown of his head"

Terry, I agree with you, this is the results of his recent trepanning and the bandages. He's lucky to be alive after that rigourous surgery.