Thursday 19 July 1660
I did lie late a-bed. I and my wife by water, landed her at Whitefriars with her boy with an iron of our new range which is already broke and my wife will have changed, and many other things she has to buy with the help of my father to-day.
I to my Lord and found him in bed. This day I received my commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy delivered me by my Lord.
After talk with my Lord I went to Westminster Hall, where I took Mr. Michell and his wife, and Mrs. Murford we sent for afterwards, to the Dog Tavern, where I did give them a dish of anchovies and olives and paid for all, and did talk of our old discourse when we did use to talk of the King, in the time of the Rump, privately; after that to the Admiralty Office, in White Hall, where I staid and writ my last observations for these four days last past.
Great talk of the difference between the Episcopal and Presbyterian Clergy, but I believe it will come to nothing. So home and to bed.
33 Annotations
First Reading
vincent • Link
"...landed her at Whitefriars with her boy with an iron of our new range which is already broke and my wife will have changed, and many other things she has to buy with the help of my father to-day..."
a) New range very interesting " guaranteed ?"
b) No talk of of introduction to the Wardrobe Group.
c) His commission to administer oathes More Power, his words very illuminating.
d) Ah! His 4 days worth of entries
martha wishart • Link
The presbyterian clergy was by far the more conservative, and something of this tension between the conservative interpretation of protestantism, and the more liberal episcopalian interpretation had been troublesome during the reign of Charles I. Is this the same issue rearing its ugly head again?
language hat • Link
"an iron of our new range"
I don't fully understand this. "Range" is 'A form of fire-grate, fire-place, or cooking apparatus' (OED), with this quote among the citations, but the only definition of "iron" that seems to fit is 'An instrument, appliance, tool, utensil, or particular part of one, made of the metal,' which is pretty vague. Anybody know what exactly was broken?
Also, is there something missing from the first part of this sentence? " I and my wife by water, landed her at Whitefriars..."
Paul Brewster • Link
Nothing seems to be missing or problematic in the entry for L&M
Here's what constitutes the first paragraph in their edition.
"I did lie late a-bed. I and my wife by water. Landed her at White-friars with her boy, with an Iron of our new range which is already broke and my wife will have changed, and many other things she hath to buy with the help of my father today."
Paul Brewster • Link
Great talk of the difference between the Episcopal and Presbyterian Clergy, but I believe it will come to nothing.
From an L&M footnote: "Throughout the country, disputes were occurring over the possession of livings between the puritan incumbents put in during the revolution and the extruded Anglicans, and a pamphlet war between the two sides on more general issues was now reaching a climax. On 16 July the Commons had had a long debate on ecclesiastical policy, lasting until 10 p.m."
Paul Brewster • Link
I received my commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy
L&M: "By a parliamentary resolution of 11 June... these commissions were to be issued to all persons nominated by the Lord General and the Lord Admiral, the government being anxious to have the oaths taken by all members of the armed forces."
vincent • Link
Oaths were once a great test for Loyalty and Fielty. They do not appear to have the power to make a person tremble if it is not meant? But my impression is that many people do not truly take them to heart anymore, it just a custom, similarly the singing of the National Anthem. There being no fear of the After life, only a prison sentence if proven it was a lie:
vincent • Link
The brevity of phrase, it is possible due to the slight rush to put Four days of entries down to paper. So not using the usual diligence to the choice of thought.
Mary • Link
... an iron of our new range....
The ranges, admittedly 19th Century ones, that I have seen comprised a fire, held within bars, flanked by one or two closed ovens, hotplates above and a water-heating facility (back boiler) behind. I take the iron that is broken to be one of, or part of, the heavy-duty, vertical gratings that encloses the fire itself. Alternatively it could be one of the removable hotplates located directly above the fire. Either being broken would have rendered the fire in the range either dangerous or impossible to use safely.
Now that Elizabeth seems to have an oven in her new kitchen, perhaps she won't need to send out to the cook-shop for ready-roasted joints, though she is unlikely to be able to cook anything of more than modest size in the oven. She's clearly anxious to try out her new kitchen equipment and is wasting no time in getting the faulty component replaced.
maureen • Link
Kitchen range: the most impressive ancient ones I've seen are at Hampton Court, apparently from the reign of Elizabeth I but the best pictures are at http://www.bricksandbrass.co.uk/d…
The "iron" could be any of the following - bar or hook to hang food or utensils, shelf which was either pull-out or on a pivot to position a pot at the right distance from the flame or most likely from my use of slightly later ones, the riddle - a device both built-in and moveable to shake the excess ash out of the fire and introduce more air.
Remember the range would arrive in parts to be assembled on site and iron then was easier to break or distort than it is now.
Arbor • Link
"Iron range"... We have an 'Aga' range cooker in our kitchen. Around a ton on metal with four ovens and two hot plates. Can be viewed on the Aga web site. SO... very much still in use.
Paul Michell • Link
As a proud Michell (there aren't many of us around) I've spent my life pointing out that it is not Mitchell. Imagine my delight when Sam meets Mr Michell. Click on the link and horror it becomes Mr Mitchell. Which is correct? I'd always thought of Michell as being of Huguenot origin. Can I claim Sam's wife as a Michell?
Paul Brewster • Link
Michell/Mitchell
SP seems to have often used long-hand for people's names so the spelling should tend to vary as his does. In fact the L&M makes it explict that they use the longhand spelling with only minor modifications to remove archaic usages (i.e., "v" for "u").
In the case of the booksellers, Mr and Mrs. Mi[t]chell: A scan of the complete Gutenberg found mutiple instances of Michell but only a single use of the spelling, "Mitchell". To muddy the waters a bit, it is used describe the shop of this same fellow. The Wheatley Index (not in the online copy) indicates that they prefer, "Michell", by pointing the instance of "Mitchell" back to "Michell".
The L&M Diary entries seem to use the "Michell" spelling as well. An admittedly incomplete look at the L&M for 1660 shows that most entries used the spelling, "Michell", though I have in fact found one spelled, "Michalls". The L&M Companion has no entry for "Michell". It uses the spelling "Mitchell" when dealing with the Booksellers. The entry describes the Mitchell's as Miles Mitchell and his wife is Ann.
As far as Sam's wife is concerned, both L&M Companion and the Wheatley index agree that the name is, St. Michel. I'm not sure we can find any diary support for the spelling since SP doesn't seem to use the family name in the diary.
Laura Brown • Link
The word 'range' is still used in West Virginia, where I grew up, to mean the object that most Americans would call a stove and the British would call a cooker (just an ordinary one, not the Aga type). Because the people were geographically isolated for so long, Appalachian English retained many usages after they had become obsolete elsewhere. You hear 'range' mainly from older people these days, though.
Kenneth • Link
"received my commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy"
It certainly gives a start to read how "our" Sam receives his "commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy." Members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) refuse to take oaths, and tendering this oath was used to send many to prison.
Glyn • Link
Regarding Ranges
“Originally, cooking was done over a wood fire built on the floor of an open hearth. When coal was adopted as a fuel in the 1500s, however, the wrought-iron fire basket was developed, called in the 1600s the “grate” or “range”. By 1700 the usual form of range was a large oblong basket on four legs, fastened to the chimney with tie bars, ideal for roasting large joints of meat. The spits were rested on hooks on the two front legs and were usually turned mechanically by clockwork. The fire could be made smaller by winding adjustable sides inwards by a rack-and-pinion mechanism. Supports for pans, called trivets, fastened to the cheek tops, could swing our from the fire, sometimes the top front bar let down into a further ledge for pans.
Roasting was the most important facility, as it was the most favoured method of cooking meat. Boiling came second, done in large pots hung over the fire. Stewing and sauce-making, where a gentle heat was required, had been done over little chafing dishes of charcoal on the floor of the hearth. From the late 1600s fashionable houses had a brick stove built into a corner of the kitchen, under a window for ventilation. Let into the top were small round fire baskets, about the size of chafing dishes, in which charcoal was burnt. This arrangement was much more convenient and comfortable for the cook than having to bend down to the hearth, though fumes were more of a problem than they had been in the draught of a chimney.” Author = Jennifer Stead “Food and Cooking in 18th Century Britain”.
So there were a lot of things that Pepys could have meant when he referred to an “iron” such as tie bars, trivets, cheeks etc. etc. and as a man he probably didn’t know or care what the correct technical term was. But if Elizabeth had only just got this range maybe it was the equivalent of still being under guarantee, and you can’t blame her for wanting to get it right after only just buying it. And like Maureen says, depending on how the iron was made it could have been fairly brittle.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"This day I received my commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy delivered me by my Lord."
L&M refer to this action of Parliament 11 June: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…
Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance.
Mr. Pryn reports from the Committee, that, upon comparing the Returns of Members to serve in this House, with the List of those who have taken the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, before the Lord Steward, and the Commissioners deputed by him; he finds the Number of those, who have taken the said Oaths, amount unto Four hundred Fifty-five; and that he knows not that any sitting Member of the House hath refused to take them.
[...}
Ordered, That the Lord High Admiral of England be desired to take effectual Order, that the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance be administred to all the Captains, Commanders, Officers, and Mariners, of the Navy and Fleet: And the Lord Chancellor is desired to issue Commissions, under the Great Seal, directed to such Persons as the Lord High Admiral shall nominate and appoint, for authorizing them to administer the same Oaths accordingly.
Terry Foreman • Link
The oath of allegiance has its origins in the Magna Carta, signed on 15 June 1215.
Once the terms had been finalised on 19 June, the rebels again swore allegiance to King John. The later Bill of Rights (1689) included the Oath of Allegiance to the crown, which was required by Magna Carta to be taken by all crown servants and members of the judiciary.
Over the following centuries this evolved into three separate oaths; of Supremacy (repudiation of the spiritual or ecclesiastical authority of any foreign prince, person or prelate), Allegiance (declaration of fidelity to the Sovereign) and in 1702 Abjuration (repudiation of the right and title of descendants of James II to the throne). Oaths of allegiance were exacted from Lords, by Henry IV and Henry VI in 1455 and 1459, and oath of supremacy was introduced under Henry VIII in 1534. Elizabeth I introduced an Act of Supremacy in 1563 requiring an oath to be taken by all future Members of the House of Commons. A new oath of allegiance appeared under James I (prompted by the "Gunpowder Plot") under the Popish Recusants Act 1605, and the Oath of Allegiance Act 1609. This oath required recognition of James I as lawful King and renunciation of the Pope. The 1609 Act required Commons MPs to take the oath of allegiance and of supremacy, but this was not "parliamentary" oath, as it was not taken in Parliament, and there were no consequences if not sworn.
After the Restoration, oaths of supremacy and allegiance were imposed upon all MPs and Peers in Parliament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath…
Terry Foreman • Link
"Great talk of the difference between the Episcopal and Presbyterian Clergy,...."
L&M note throughout the country, disputes were occurring between the Puritan incumbents put in during the revolution and the extruded Anglicans, and a pamphlet war between the sides on a variety of issues was coming to a climax. The issues were the subject of a long debate in Commons on 16 July that lasted until 10 at night. (The Commons Journal to which we have access does not record debates -- merely actions; L&M cite the Diary of Henry Townshend.)
Bill • Link
A Range, (or grate in a Kitchen) Une Grille
---The Royal Dictionary, French and English. A. Boyer, 1729.
Bill • Link
I am still confused about Presbyterians (and please don't tell me doctrines). Surely Martha above is not right that Presbyterians were more "conservative", whatever that means in this context. They were not Royalists in the civil war, and now want the power of Charles II to be limited. Politically, they want the freedom to practice their religion without parliament dictating "common" practices. They will lose this battle, but only for a while.
Sasha Clarkson • Link
Quite right Bill, Presbyterians were politically radical in the Civil War, though not as radical as the Independents, Levellers and so on. Religiously too, their reformed religion, and its governance, was a radical departure from the norms of the previous one and a half millennia. So, in the context of the times, one could not call them conservative. But they were statists who wanted to capture the government to impose their norms upon everyone else, so they were most definitely NOT liberal either. Independents, especially Cromwell, were much more liberal in terms of religion, and, up to a point, politically too. Charles II was personally quite liberal, but his Cavalier Parliament most definitely was not, and indeed turned against him in the end.
Nowadays one might call Presbyterians of one flavour or another socially conservative, but that is a different matter completely.
Bill • Link
Thanks Sasha. The Independents, Levellers and so on seem to have disappeared into the woodwork, except for a few who seem destined to lose their heads. But the Presbyterians are struggling along. I look forward to seeing this unfold through Sam's eyes.
Sasha Clarkson • Link
The levellers had already disappeared Bill, after Cromwell suppressed them. The Independents disappeared off the political map, but were not suppressed: they were penalised until William III, and then merely disadvantaged.
Nonetheless, the Independents and other nonconformists continued to have a huge influence on English (and British) society; indeed they changed the world. They advanced education via the dissenter academies. (Look up Joseph Priestley for example.) Semi and self-educated dissenters like Thomas Newcomen, and Josiah Wedgwood helped create modern capitalism, (though they may well have been horrified at what it became.) The Quakers in particular had an influence far beyond their numbers: eg the Cadburys, Frys, Rowntrees, Barclays, and the Pease family, which (with George Stephenson), created the modern railway. Ever wondered why standard gauge throughout the world is 4 feet 8½ inches? That was George Stephenson's choice! :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diss…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwa…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geor…
Chris Squire UK • Link
‘Presbyterian, n. and adj.
. . B. adj. 1. Relating to or characterized by government by presbyters or presbyteries; designating a particular form or system of church polity (see note); belonging to or maintaining this system. In Presbyterian Churches no higher order than that of presbyter or elder is recognized, the ‘bishop’ and ‘elder’ of the New Testament being held to be identical . .
1607 T. Rogers Faith, Doctr., & Relig. Pref. sig. ¶¶¶1, By dispersing in printed bookes..their Sabbath speculations, & Presbyterian (that is more then either Kingly; or Popely) directions for the obseruation of the Lords day . . ‘ [OED]
Chris Squire UK • Link
‘nonconformist, n. and adj.
A. n. 1. a. . . after the Act of Uniformity of 1662 and the consequent ejection from their livings of those ministers who refused to conform: a member of a Church which is separated from the Church of England; (in modern use, usually) a Protestant Dissenter . .
1665 Act 17 Chas. II c. 2 (title) , An Act for restraining Non-Conformists from inhabiting in Corporations . . ‘ [OED]
Gerald Berg • Link
On a more prosaic note. I wonder at how people arrange things for meeting up? Here is Liz going shopping with Pepy's old man. When was this planned? Pepys saw Ma yesterday but Dad wasn't there and up to that point he had been avoiding him at all pains. I recall an anthropology course I took where the idea of meeting some tribal associate sometime in the future was discussed. The window of time would most probably be measured in days. My wife tells me that text messaging's most important feature is to allow the excuse for being late the only prompt item on the agenda. Strangers in a strange land!
Terry Foreman • Link
A nonconformist in Pepys's own service -- Thomas Hayter
Since July 5. His ability and industry Pepys came to think highly of. He rose to become a successor to Pepys (Joint-Clerk of the Acts in 1672, Secretary to the Admiralty in 1679) and Comptroller in 1689. All this despite his being (at any rate in the diary period) a Quaker or Anabaptist. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
San Diego Sarah • Link
In 1660, the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy declaring it unlawful on any pretense whatever to take up arms against the king, and was imposed on all soldiers and persons holding military offices (14 Car. II., c. 3, as, 17, 18).
Pepys possibly took it twice, once from Sandwich on July 19, and again on 23 July, 1660 before both Secretaries of State, so it included the Navy Board as well as soldiers.
This proved not to be enough for Parliament, so The Act of Uniformity (14 Car. II., c. 4, s. 6) of July 1663 contained a like declaration, but added a declaration against the Solemn League and Covenant, was passed.
(A similar provision in the corporation act was overlooked at the Glorious Revolution, and escaped repeal until the reign of King George I.)
By 1668 we find sailors and soldiers being discharged for not taking the Oath, so there were consequences for not swearing ... as James, Duke of York also experienced later on.
In 1672 there was a revival of anti-Catholic agitation following Charles II's attempts to dispense with the existing statutes regarding Catholics and Dissenters by a declaration of liberty of conscience, which resulted in new restrictions which fed into the Popish Plot.
This added a declaration against transubstantiation to the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, authorized by a new penal statute entitled "An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants," (25 Car. II., c. 2).
After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 William III and Mary II authorized a rewrite.
For the wording and the complete history, see
https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/…
Third Reading
john • Link
"[...] I took Mr. Michell and his wife, and Mrs. Murford we sent for afterwards, to the Dog Tavern, [...] and did talk of our old discourse when we did use to talk of the King, in the time of the Rump, privately; "
Pepys writes of being a closet royalist and admitting to dangerous private talk.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... after that to the Admiralty Office, in White Hall, where I staid and writ my last observations for these four days last past."
So he's been running around Whitehall, Westminster and pubs all day, with his notes, pen and clean paper, hoping for some peace and quiet, and found it at the Admiralty offices? He must have been waiting for something there.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... and did talk of our old discourse when we did use to talk of the King, in the time of the Rump, privately;"
'Rump' was the name given -- at the time (an example that British humor has always had an edge) -- to the Long Parliament (1648–53) after 140 members were expelled.
Unrepresentative and quarrelsome, Oliver Cromwell dissolved it in 1653.
Interesting to see Pepys has been friends with the Mitchells and Mrs. Murford for so long. He graduated from Magdalene in 1653, so he must have known them as a schoolboy. As booksellers, they probably read a lot of things before they were banned, and enquiring teenage students have a way of asking pointed questions, so this makes sense.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"I wonder at how people arrange things for meeting up?"
In the time before telephones and email, young legs often did the work. (We were still using messenger "boys" when I worked in New York in the 1960's. Many rode bikes through traffic in suicidal haste.)
I was struck by Elizabeth and "her" boy going with John Pepys Snr. for the day. Will could carry the iron and packages, and do the go-fetch routine.
So who accompanied Pepys? Why, it must be "his" boy -- the newly-arrived Will Hewer.
Gerald is probably correct in thinking Pepys and his mother confirmed this arrangement when he visited with the haunch of deer.
He probably didn't know the iron was broken then, but the house needed some things anyways, and John Pepys Snr., as a man in the trades, would have useful connections and be able to conduct the art of the deal. ("We've got some luverly venison -- how about throwing in that pillow and I'll send some over.")