Pauline on 9 Sep 2003  •  Link

Trained Bands
http://www.routiers.org/bands1.htm

Alan Bedford on 10 Sep 2003  •  Link

Was Sam's position in one of the Trained Bands due to his position with the Navy, or was it the Privy Seal? (or both?)

I gather from his apparent disappointment that it may have involved remuneration, and I'm a little surprised that this seems to be the first mention.

Rick Ansell on 10 Sep 2003  •  Link

Peyps was a member of the Honourable Artillery Company, who provided the officers for the London Trained Bands. At the time it was just 'The Artillery Company'. The company was originally formed in 1537 and has existed ever since.

The information on the 'Trained Bands' page regarding the present HAC is wrong. The Honourable Artillery Company, whilst it has a ceremonial role, is an operational unit. It forms part of the Territorial Army, the Reserve portion of the army. Its primary role is covert surveillance and target acquisition, providing patrols who supply targeting information from concealed positions, usually behind enemy lines.

http://www.hac.uk.com/regiment.htm

The HAC is, however, both an army unit and a Guild of the City of London with considerable independent wealth and property. Peyps name will be recorded in one of the treasures of the HAC, the 'Ancient Vellum Book' of the HAC which records the names of members from 1611 to 1682 and contains the signatures of various important guests of the company, including that of Charles II.

Rick

Paul Brewster on 10 Sep 2003  •  Link

we are all like to be speedily disbanded and then I lose the benefit of a muster
L&M have a different take on this one. "Sandwich's regiment ... was disbanded in November.... The order in which the regiments were disbanded was determined by lots drawn in full Privy Council in the presence of the King; in this case on 28 September.... Sandwich was among the last regiments paid off. Pepys as colonel's Secretary and Muster-Master (at any rate in name) was paid for each muster." We'll here about this again on the 17th of November 1660.

Back on the 4th of January 1660, L&M noted a reference to "my Lord's troop" with the following "Appointed to the command of a regiment of horse in September 1659, Montagu had been dismissed on the fall of Richard Cromwell in the following spring. His men were now commanded by Col. Matthew Alured, but Pepys (who has taken on as colonel's secretary without performing any function - a fairly common practice) ... still referred to the regiment as 'my Lord's'. The command was remodeled on 12 January, and Montagu became colonel again on 20 April."

Holt Parker on 10 Sep 2003  •  Link

Milles
Sam is very fond of Miles as a preacher and clergyman. See already the entries for 20 Aug 1660 (http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…) "A very good minister", with chip's annotation on St. Olave's Church (also http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…) and an almost identical entry coming up on Oct. 21, 1660.

10th Sunday after Trinity
Psalm 119:73-80
Epistle 1Cor. 12;1-11
Gospel Luke 19:41-47
(http://justus.anglican.org/resour…)

At this point, Mills had not yet adopted the full service of the Book of Common Prayer. On Sunday Nov. 4, Sam says "Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer," though its clear that he does do the readings appointed for the day.

Terry Foreman on 28 Jul 2013  •  Link

"Peyps was a member of the Honourable Artillery Company...."

The HAC can trace its history back as far as 1087,[6] but it received a Royal Charter from Henry VIII on 25 August 1537, when Letters Patent were received by the Overseers of the Fraternity or Guild of St George authorising them to establish a perpetual corporation for the defence of the realm to be known as the Fraternity or Guild of Artillery of Longbows, Crossbows and Handgonnes. This body was known by a variety of names until 1656, when it was first referred to as the Artillery Company. It was first referred to as the Honourable Artillery Company in 1685 and officially received the name from Queen Victoria in 1860....From its formation, the company trained at a site it had occupied at the Old Artillery Ground in Spitalfields and at The Merchant Taylors' Company Hall.[9] In 1622, the company built its first Armoury House at the site of the Old Artillery Gardens....Until 1780, captains of the HAC trained the officers of the London Trained Bands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hono…

The Old Artillery Ground had formed the southern part of the precinct of the Priory of St. Mary Spital. On 3 January 1537/8 it was leased, as the ’Tesell grounde’, by the prior to the ’Fraternyte or Guylde of Artyllary of longebowes, Crossebowes and handegonnes’ for 297 years at a yearly rent of 20s. (ref. 1) The Ground was described as adjoining the priory and lying within its precinct, the east, south and west sides enclosed by ’newe brycke walles’ and the northern part unenclosed. The east side measured 720 feet, the south side 171 feet and the south-west side 360 feet; the unenclosed northern part measured 360 feet in length and breadth. This corresponds approximately to the later dimensions of the Ground and Agas probably errs in placing the west wall considerably further east than its position in the later seventeenth century. [ more details about the facility ]
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Spitalfields -- aka Spittle Fields -- and the Old Artillery Ground are center and left on this 1746 Rocque map
http://www.motco.com/Map/81002/Se…

Bill on 8 Sep 2013  •  Link

Sir William Penn, 39, an Admiral and Commissioner of the Navy, is only 12 years older than Pepys, 27. He will be mentioned over 700 times in this diary and in practically every month. Sam has gained a mentor and a friend.

MartinVT on 7 Sep 2023  •  Link

"The HAC can trace its history back as far as 1087"

Sort of. That Wikipedia page links to a 1909 book of military prints which says it is "probable" that is was first formed "around" 1087 but cites no source. The HAC's own website is silent on 1087 and states firmly that "The Company traditionally traces its origins to 1537 when Henry VIII granted a charter to the 'Fraternity or Guild of Artillery of Longbows, Crossbows and Handguns' ".

MartinVT on 8 Sep 2023  •  Link

I probably should have omitted "firmly" in the above comment, because that statement on HAC's website (https://hac.org.uk/where-we-come-…) says "traditionally" which is a weasel word indicating that they don't really have solid documentation of direct and continuous lineage back to that 1537 outfit. Note that in their history, they describe several gaps and re-activations: They trained at Bishopsgate until 1560; then "military exercises were revived in the Bishopsgate “Artillery Garden” between 1586 and 1588 by the captains of the City’s forces (the “Trained Bands”) in response to a threatened Spanish invasion"; then, following the abatement of that threat, it seems there was another gap, after which "in 1611, during a period of chivalric patriotism, some of the “Captains of the Artillery Garden” and other citizens returned to practise in the same ground and formed the Society of Arms." Next, "the Civil War years of 1642-1649 led to division and the suspension of the Society of Arms." Ex-members fought on both sides of that war. The company was "re-formed" in 1657, presumably with Sam on board, and after that its existence appears to be more continuous and better documented.

Peter Johnson on 9 Sep 2023  •  Link

What evidence is there for the rather bald assertion at the third contribution to this thread that "Peyps was a member of the Honourable Artillery Company....", and which has led to a fair amount of comment? From the search button on this site, SP doesn't seem to have mentioned the HAC in the diary or his letters, I can't see anything in the L&M index, and the HAC Museum website doesn't mention him in a list of former notable members.

It's also suggested (more in hope than knowledge, perhaps) that "Peyps name will be recorded in.... the 'Ancient Vellum Book' of the HAC which records the names of members from 1611 to 1682 ...." Anyone with a spare hour in the City might like to drop in on the Museum to check the records?

The HAC info is interesting in itself (an uncle of mine served with them in WW1), but I wonder if it's another example of "what if-ery" and imaginative speculation - good in historical fiction, I guess, and sometimes entertaining, but tending to obfuscate if we're trying to understand what was going in SP's life at the time.

MartinVT on 9 Sep 2023  •  Link

Good points, Peter Johnson. That footnote may have pointed us in the wrong direction for 20 years. The HAC provided officers to lead the various "Trained Bands." Major Hart and Sam are members of "Mountagu's regiment", which could well be just one of the Trained Bands, not the HAC itself, that had HAC officers.

San Diego Sarah on 10 Sep 2023  •  Link

It's worth remembering that the Army and Trained Bands being paid off had been loyal to Cromwell and are the remenants of the New Model Army.

The one Charles II plans to keep are the Royalists he brought home. He needs them, safely out of sight, so they are easy to recall home if things blow up. The crown may sit on his head, but it was far from glued on. Right now he plans to send a significant number of the Royalist soldiers to Dunkirk.

San Diego Sarah on 11 Sep 2023  •  Link

Maybe this "news" is why Major Hart came to visit at 10 p.m. on August 27 -- just to prepare Pepys for his loss of income?
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

L&M: Sandwich's regiment ... was disbanded in November. ... The order in which the regiments were disbanded was determined by lots drawn in full Privy Council in the presence of the King; in this case on 28 September. ... Sandwich was among the last regiments paid off. Pepys as colonel's Secretary and Muster-Master (at any rate in name) was paid for each muster." We'll here about this again on the 17th of November 1660.

So the "news" had been known for about 2 weeks that Charles II and the Privy Council were to draw lots for the many Trained Band Regimental dates of discharge. That the drawing was going to happen on 28 September is therefore possibly the news brought today by Major Hart.

San Diego Sarah on 11 Sep 2023  •  Link

"... on the 4th of January 1660, L&M noted a reference to "my Lord's troop" with the following "Appointed to the command of a regiment of horse in September 1659, Montagu had been dismissed on the fall of Richard Cromwell in the following spring. His men were now commanded by Col. Matthew Alured, but Pepys (who has taken on as colonel's secretary without performing any function - a fairly common practice) ... still referred to the regiment as 'my Lord's'."

Col. Matthew Alured doesn't have a Pepys Encyclopedia page, so I put in a couple of posts about his 1659/60 activities at
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Peter Johnson on 12 Sep 2023  •  Link

I think the matter concerning Pepys' position in the Montagu Regiment of Horse, Major Hart, and the payments becomes clearer from the various footnotes in the L&M 1960 volume (pp 7, 242, 295, 304) and the account of that regiment on the British Civil War Project site:

http://wiki.bcw-project.org/new-m…
http://bcw-project.org/biography/…

I see no connection at all with the HAC or the trained bands, and think the 9 Sep Wheatley footnote is therefore a juicy red herring on this point.

Edward Montagu, later Lord Sandwich, was appointed in September 1658 as Colonel of what was originally Colonel Sheffield's Regiment of Horse, a substantial Parliamentarian regiment much involved in the civil war campaigns from 1645. He was then a General at Sea, heavily involved at sea in naval warfare, and embroiled in the death of Oliver and the succession of Richard Cromwell that month, and his appointment may have been political, to strengthen Richard's position among the military.

When the Regiment was disbanded in Shropshire in November 1660, Samuel Pepys was on the books as a trooper, and entitled to pay as such, and he claimed to have had the role of the Colonel's secretary. It seems to me that there was a role for him - with pressing concerns elsewhere, Montagu would want a trusted protege to act as a channel and filter between him and the senior officers running the Regiment which had been dumped on him, and also to warn him about conflicts of loyalty or if things were starting to go amiss. It could also be a good way to test the competence of an up and coming young man, and a useful perk to keep him on side. I think he was brought in as a trooper to fit into the military system and get on the pay list, but with a status and access to the senior officers, and an influence on them. I wonder if he was formally attested and if any of the regimental records survive. Perhaps he was given a little basic training, though I can't envisage him as a convincing cavalryman charging with a raised sword and a bloodthirsty screech.

When Montagu was removed from the regiment in August 1659, Pepys was left on the regimental muster and stayed there till disbandment, entitled to a trooper's pay and receiving a final payment of £23-14-0 on 28 Nov 1660. Major Hart could have been the 2 i/c of the regiment at the time, consulting Pepys as a man of influence whom he knew, or another whose perks were at risk.

That seems reasonable to me and not too fanciful, but others may disagree - it could, of course, have been only a straightforward piece of favour to a follower. Brickbats and nitpicks welcomed....

San Diego Sarah on 15 Sep 2023  •  Link

Can you believe it -- no one has paid for the BCW-Project website?! It's gone.

I thought it had been recognized as a national treasure, and had the status of something like a museum. I'm furious. This is a great loss for historical accuracy and global education. I've started sending emails, but someone in California complaining only goes so far. BRITS, TIME TO SPEAK UP TO YOUR MP AND ANYONE ELSE IN THE EDUCATION AND HISTORY BUSINESS PLEASE. (I know, they are busy!)