jeannine

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jeannine has written 14 articles:

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jeannine has written summaries for eight topics:

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

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First Reading

About Wednesday 3 April 1667

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"Here I hear how the King is not so well pleased of this marriage between the Duke of Richmond and Mrs. Stewart, as is talked; and that he [the Duke] by a wile did fetch her to the Beare, at the Bridge-foot, where a coach was ready, and they are stole away into Kent, without the King’s leave; and that the King hath said he will never see her more; but people do think that it is only a trick."

Frances Stewart eloped with the Duke of Richmond and the King is devastated by this. I understand that he bans her (for now), but I don't understand the line "but people do think that it is only a trick". I'm not sure if people think that the elopement is a trick or the King's reaction to it. Both the elopement and the reaction are very real. If anything, the King's public reaction is mild compared to his private one.

About Tuesday 2 April 1667

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Sam and Music

Sam wrote 3 songs during the time of the Diary, "Beauty Retire" (lyrics taken from Davenant's "The Siege of Rhodes"), "It is Decreed" (lyrics from Ben Jonson's play "Cataline His Conspiracy A Tragedy") and "Gaze not on Swans" (lyrics attributed to an obscure writer, Henry Noel). The book "Sam Pepys Curioso" by David Weiss, only has the musical score for "Beauty Retire". According to Percival Hunt's "Samuel Pepys in the Diary', the manuscript for "It is Decreed" was at Cambridge, but Hunt's book was printed in 1958. The CD, "The Musical Life of Samuel Pepys" has "Beauty Retire" on it, but none of Sam's other pieces.

About Monday 25 March 1667

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“and much troubled in my sleep of my being crying by my mother’s bedside, laying my head over hers and crying, she almost dead and dying, and so waked, but what is strange, methought she had hair over her face, and not the same kind of face as my mother really hath, but yet did not consider that, but did weep over her as my mother, whose soul God have mercy of.”

I feel very badly for Sam, not because he is dreaming of his mother dying, but because he isn’t with her while she is dying. There is nothing as difficult as being with someone you love as they pass on, but being beside that person to comfort them through their final moments, as wrenching as those moments may be, can be the ultimate expression of devoted love, and in the long term, a comfort to the survivor.

About Tuesday 19 March 1666/67

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(SPOILER ALERTS NOTED)

and that for certain the match is concluded between the Duke of Richmond and Mrs. Stewart, which I am well enough pleased with; and it is pretty to consider how his quality will allay people’s talk; whereas, had a meaner person married her, he would for certain have been reckoned a cuckold at first-dash."

Maybe a spoiler (not sure). The Duke of Richmond and Frances actually had a daring plan where they ran away and eloped. I do not know the exact date that their marriage takes place (but it's around this time). I don't know if Sam's comment about the marriage being 'concluded' means that they actually did get married. This marriage was never sanctioned by the King, which would have been customary at this time.

(This is a spoiler, but Sam won’t have the details on this) The King is devastated by this elopement and did not easily get over this. With all of the mistresses that he took over the years, Frances, who never gave in to his advances, totally broke his heart. He struggled with this loss well into the summer, as seen in his correspondence to his sister Minette. Considering his ego and need to rationalize that Frances would leave him, the King looked for someone to blame for convincing her to marry. The cabals and the politics worked against Lord Clarendon as the usual Court backstabbers (Lady Castlemaine, Lord Buckingham, Lord Arlington, etc. jumped on this opportunity to blame Clarendon for this marriage. The devastated King will turned against him, and will then stacked the deck to go after him. Sam will see the results of this, but will not see the politics behind this.

About Tuesday 19 March 1666/67

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Wheatley's Victorian Censorship

All you have to remember is that

........ equals the Limerick below

There once was a man named Wheatley
Who preferred his translations done sweetly
So if words were found
With an indelicate sound
He deleted those words completely

About Monday 18 March 1666/67

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and tells me that for certain the Duke of Richmond is to marry Mrs. Stewart, he having this day brought in an account of his estate and debts to the King on that account

This is potentially devastating news for the King as he has been hotly pursuing Frances to be his mistress. The Duke of Richmond’s (DOR) character is described by Cyril Hartmann in “La Belle Stuart”, as ‘scarcely engaging’ , with his biggest faults being his “addiction to drink, and more especially his failure to confine his excesses to his leisure hours”; his extravagances, including gambling, and his lack of “polished wit.” His second wife, whom he had an acrimonious relationship with, had very recently died. He had one thing going for him at this time, which was that Frances “was now so unnerved by the King’s importunities that she was only too eager to accept legitimate advances from anyone so eligible as His Grace of Richmond. But even when she had made up her mind to accept the Duke’s proposal her difficulties were by no means at an end. The King’s passion for her remained a seemingly insurmountable obstacle between her and her lover. It was difficult to say how his Majesty would take the news of her decision to marry”.

Previous to today, the King had found out that Frances had intended to marry the DOR. Lady Castlemaine led the King into a ‘set up’ where the DOR was alone visiting Frances in her bedchambers (not sexually) and the King lost his temper at the situation. The DOR took off and left Frances to fend for herself, which she did rather sharply. She admonished the King for sending away a man who at least had honorable intentions for her. Their argument ended with the DOR being banned from Court and Frances throwing herself at the Queen’s feet for mercy, ‘sobbing out the whole story”. Frances admitted her foolishness in her flirtations with the King and admitted that she knew she had deeply offended the Queen by her actions. She begged Catherine to intercede on her behalf to persuade the King to allow for her marriage to the DOR, or to obtain a leave for Frances (a Catholic, like Catherine) to go into a convent.

After much thoughtful consideration, Catherine “decided in favour of forwarding the marriage, and by the exercise of great tact succeeded a few days later in patching up reconciliation between Frances and the King.” At this point in their relationship, Catherine had gained considerable tact and a much better understanding of how to keep things running smoothly with the King, and her suggestions met with outward success. After this, the King decided to try a subtler method to de-rail this marriage. He knew that the DOR’s finances were in disarray so one hope was that he could “wreck the marriage on the rocks of finance”. These are the estate papers Pepys writes of that the DOR presented to the King today.

About Thursday 28 February 1666/67

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“Here’s to hoping that Mr. Greeting proves less vexing to Sam than the dancing-master Mr. Pembleton…”… Horace, nothing to worry about here, there was a note on the margin of the Diary that clarified the situation, and it should read as below:…

"Up, and there comes to me Drumbleby with a flageolet, made to suit with my former and brings me one Greeting, a grotesquely squat, feeble, toothless, crooked neck, lumpish, pock-marked, distorted, haggard, grotesque, withered, one-eyed man with a revolting and most vile stench, dressed in slovenly tattered and ill-fitting clothing made of the most pitiful cloth with distasteful tailoring, with bulging lardy hands, who moved with the gait of a three-legged horse stuck in the mud, who I find to be a perfect master, to be left alone with and to teach my very beautiful wife."

About Sunday 17 February 1666/67

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This evening, going to the Queen’s side to see the ladies, I did find the Queene, the Duchesse of York, and another or two, at cards, with the room full of great ladies and men; which I was amazed at to see on a Sunday,

Shame on the Queen and those ladies for their wild card playing ways!! Didn't they know that Sunday's were devoted to complaining about boring sermons, coveting other people's wives, committing adultery, picking up a little graft, etc. On Sundays it seems anything done in private is ok, but in public, horrors and shame on them all!

About Thursday 14 February 1666/67

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"This morning come up to my wife’s bedside, I being up dressing myself, little Will Mercer to be her Valentine; and brought her name writ upon blue paper in gold letters, done by himself, very pretty; and we were both well pleased with it."

Nothing in the world beats one of those lovely hand written Valentine's from a little one. Holidays that lose thier luster as we age still hold such excitement for children. I wish Sam and Elizabeth had been blessed wtih children of their own.

About Saturday 9 February 1666/67

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“…he did judge of the work to be very good work…” This caused me to reflect on the fact that many no longer wear watches, except to accessorize..
Cape Henry, I read a funny fashion article that was called something like 'How not to look old and outdated'. One of the main fashion tips was to get rid of your watch! Just as you'd mentioned, these days there are more trendy ways to tell the time.

About Friday 1 February 1666/67

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"and the new clerk of the ‘Chequer".

I must have been reading Sam for too long. As I read through the Diary each day, I automatically think that anything written with any type of "foreign flair", accent mark, etc. immediately means that Sam is fooling around with someone and jumping into his 'code'. When I came to this sentence it actually took me a second or two to realize that 'Chequer was actually Exchequer and that he wasn't about to go grabbing after the clerk!

I also agree with martinb -Ruben does a wonderfully elegant dance describing some not so elegant actics of our hero.

About Monday 28 January 1666/67

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Prince Rupert's trepanning.

The trepanning was a horrible operation done without any anesthesia or pain medication, and the miracle is that Rupert survived. Not for the queasy mind you, but in “Prince Rupert, The Last Cavalier”, Charles Spencer explains that:

“The area around Rupert’s wound was shaved and then the skin cut in a vertical and a horizontal incision, to form the shape of a cross. His ears were stopped with cotton, both to deaden the sound of the surgeon’s drilling and to soak up excess blood. Assistants held the prince’s head still and his arms back. His wound was infected and raw, but the surgeon’s point of attack would have been close to the centre. There was no anesthetic, no antiseptic, and little understanding of the need for hygiene. The surgeon sliced through the rotten flesh, scooping it out in order to have a clear run at the exposed skull beneath.

A pin was then inserted where the drill was to go and the surgeon gently twisted it into the bone, until it was fixed at some depth. It was then unscrewed and the opening was used as the starting point for the invasion of the skull. The drilling was the job of the trepan, an instrument that looked and acted like a corkscrew –except, instead of a twisting piece of thin and tapering metal; it had a solid and cylindrical stem with a circular, serrated blade at its base. While the surgeon held the shaft firm in his left hand, he turned the blade with his right, boring the trepan’s teeth into the bone.

At this stage he may have used a Hey saw or a bone file – the former like a small tomahawk, the latter more like a package cutting knife- to tidy up the bone. Then he would have bored deeper with the trepan, using a brush to remove dry bone flakes from around the widening, deepening cavity. Splinters that were sodden with blood or pus were swabbed away with a cloth.”

In Rupert’s case, the first trepanning didn’t quite work and he had to have a second round at it. The second operation “going wider and deeper to complete the job he [the surgeon] had previously botched. ‘Prince Rupert has again been trepanned’, wrote a pamphleteer, ‘the former [operation] not having gone down deep enough; this gave him present ease, by letting out a great quantity of corrupt matter, since when he has slept better, and is amending.’ The second trepan had worked.” (p 304-305)

About Wednesday 16 January 1666/67

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"So home to supper with my wife, and after supper my wife told me how she had moved to W. Hewer the business of my sister for a wife to him, which he received with mighty acknowledgements, as she says, above anything; but says he hath no intention to alter his condition"

This must have been an interesting conversation. I often wondered why Will never chose to marry and often thought that perhaps he was just too enamored with Elizabeth. Hmmm.....

About Monday 7 January 1666/67

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Shakespeare's plays

Maybe Sam prefers the plays based on Shakespeare's tragedy as a main theme as opposed to romance? He didn't like Romeo and Juliet (a tragedy, but really a love story) or Midsummer's Night Dream, but he's liked some of his other more 'serious' work.

About Monday 7 January 1666/67

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Lady Denham’s death, from “Beauties of the Court of Charles II’ by Mrs. Jameson. May contain spoilers as I’m not sure what Sam will write about.

There is some background on Lady Denham. She was married to the much disliked Sir John Denham who was old enough to be her grandfather. After her marriage she caught the eye of James, DOY and became his mistress. Lady Denham had made it very clear to James that she would only be a ‘public mistress’ to him and not a ‘back stairs’ mistress.

In order to find a respectable place for herself, she had tried to become a lady of the bedchamber to the Duchess of York. The Duchess, resisted the request (via her husband the DOY) as she didn’t want to be stuck in the position playing ‘second in her personage in her own court’ as the poor Queen Catherine obviously was in relation to Lady Castlemaine.

At the time of her death (age 21) the positioning of Lady Denham into the Duchess’ bedchamber was still in discussion. Also, of note, Lady Denham had been ill on and off for some time as Sam has noted. In spite of this, her death was sudden and perhaps rather violent in its appearance.

“It was believed at the time of her death that she had been poisoned by a cup of chocolate, and her death being so sudden, it took place so critically, and was accompanied by such agonizing symptoms, that there was some ground for that belief: Lady Denham herself ceased not to aver, with tears, that she had been poisoned. Her husband was so strongly suspected that for some days afterwards his house in Scotland-yard was surrounded by an enraged populace, who threatened to stone him on his appearance. Others did not scruple to accuse the Duchess of York of being privy to this horrible affair, and an infamous libel to that effect was posted on her door; but there is not the slightest ground for believing in the accusation. Sir John Denham is not so easily acquitted: it is remarkable that he became insane immediately after his wife’s death, and continued so for several months. This insanity might, however, have been caused by terror, or by indignation and grief, and not by remorse, as it was insinuated. The matter at the time was hushed up with all convenient speed, and the horrible fate by which this unhappy woman expiated her errors remains a mystery.”

Perhaps James declared he would never take another ‘public’ mistress as his wife was taking the rap for his bad behavior ??? History will show, that much like Charles II when it came to woman, that James would not changes his ways.

About Wednesday 2 January 1666/67

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“Thence to the Hall again, and with Sir W. Pen by coach to the Temple, and there ‘light and eat a bit at an ordinary by, and then alone to the King’s House, and there saw “The Custome of the Country,” the second time of its being acted, wherein Knipp does the Widow well; but, of all the plays that ever I did see, the worst-having neither plot, language, nor anything in the earth that is acceptable; only Knipp sings a little song admirably. But fully the worst play that ever I saw or I believe shall see.”

I wonder if this knocks out the other 2 contenders for the ‘worst play I ever saw”?

March 1 1661/62

Thence my wife and I by coach, first to see my little picture that is a drawing, and thence to the Opera, and there saw “Romeo and Juliet,” the first time it was ever acted; but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do, and I am resolved to go no more to see the first time of acting, for they were all of them out more or less.

September 29 1662

I sent for some dinner and there dined, Mrs. Margaret Pen being by, to whom I had spoke to go along with us to a play this afternoon, and then to the King’s Theatre, where we saw “Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure.

About Tuesday 11 December 1666

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“Lady Mordant, which was Betty Turner, a most homely widow, but young, and pretty rich, and good natured.”

No matter what definition of ‘homely” is used (plain, drawn to the home or downright ugly), Lady Mordant has all of the attributes of a great catch –“young, rich and good natured”. If she circles her life around her home a man wouldn’t have to worry about her flitting through the Court, etc.

But, if she is plain or ugly, even better because

If You Wanna Be Happy
Jimmy Soul

you tube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw…

If you wanna be happy
For the rest of your life,
Never make a pretty woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you.

A pretty woman makes her husband look small
And very often causes his downfall.
As soon as he marries her
Then she starts to do
The things that will break his heart.
But if you make an ugly woman your wife,
You'll be happy for the rest of your life,
An ugly woman cooks her meals on time,
She'll always give you peace of mind.

Don't let your friends say
You have no taste,
Go ahead and marry anyway,
Though her face is ugly,
Her eyes don't match,
Take it from me she's a better catch.

Say man.
Hey baby.
Saw your wife the other day.
Yeah?
Yeah, she's ugly.
Yeah, she's ugly but she sure can cook.
Yeah?. Okay.

About Sunday 18 November 1666

jeannine  •  Link

• Is anyone aware of a copy of Sam’s “great letter?”
Larry, Sam’s ‘great letter’ is in the Further Correspondence of Samuel Pepys” edited by J.R. Tanner. It’s about 10 pages long and walks through the current dismal state of finances, including
1. The state of the supplies for the stores and the inability over the last 3 months to buy what they used to buy due to lack of payments to their vendors
2. The tradesmen who will no longer do business with them due to outstanding payments due to them
3. The forests and other areas where they have to only pay transportation costs (i.e. the trees are free) where they can’t even pay for the land and water carriage
4. The workmen in the yard, who will not perform a full day’s work, often for want of credit to buy food. There is a need to increase the numbers of men, but nobody will show up for the work as they know they won’t get paid.
5. The difficult situation of the supplying and dispatching of ships
6. The lack of the officer’s and seamen to perform their duties regarding the ‘safe keeping and refitting of their ships’ supposedly due to lack of pay

Sam then presents a spreadsheet with the itemized necessities for the next year’s material Provisions required, which amounts to £179,793. The original letter was signed by Brouncker, Mennes, Coventry, Batten, Harvey and Sam.

About Monday 12 November 1666

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From “the Royal Whore’ by Allen Andrews (p. 174-175), regarding the body of poor Bishiop Braybrooke, which has become quite the spectacle. After the flock of onlookers had died down,

“Lady Castlemaine came to see the body for herself. It was unmarked except for two pickaxe wounds unintentionally inflicted by a labourer clearing the site after the fire. ‘Yet it later received a greater maim than these before mentioned,’ the antiquary Henry, Lord Coleraine, wrote with somewhat facetious severity, ‘by a female’s defrauding (shall I say?) or deroding of the virile instrument, as I was told by Thomas Boys, Keeper of the Chapter House, then present’.

According to Lord Coleraine’s account, Lady Castlemaine was accompanied to the ruined cathedral by a gentleman and two or three gentlewomen, but she told the keeper that she wished to be left alone with the body. He therefore retired with her attendants, noticing as he went, ‘Her Ladyship addressing herself towards the carcass with many crossings and great tokens of superstition”.

Later she rejoined her gentlewomen ‘with much satisfaction,’ gave the keeper a gratuity and left. Thomas Boys ‘returned to shut up the carcass but unexpectedly found it served like a Turkish eunuch and dismembered of as much of the privity as the lady could get into her mouth to bite (for want of a circumcising penknife to cut).”

Lord Coleraine could not deny himself the topical pleasantry. “Thought some ladies of late have got Bishopspricks for other,” he commented, “yet I have not heard of any but this that got one for herself”