Wednesday 19 September 1660
(Office day). I put on my mourning and went to the office. At noon thinking to have found my wife in hers, I found that the tailor had failed her, at which I was vexed because of an invitation that we have to a dinner this day, but after having waited till past one o’clock I went, and left her to put on some other clothes and come after me to the Mitre tavern in Wood-street (a house of the greatest note in London), where I met W. Symons, and D. Scobell, and their wives, Mr. Samford, Luellin, Chetwind, one Mr. Vivion, and Mr. White, formerly chaplin to the Lady Protectresse1 (and still so, and one they say that is likely to get my Lady Francess for his wife).
Here we were very merry and had a very good dinner, my wife coming after me hither to us. Among other pleasures some of us fell to handycapp, a sport that I never knew before, which was very good. We staid till it was very late; it rained sadly, but we made shift to get coaches. So home and to bed.
20 Annotations
First Reading
Paul Brewster • Link
my Lady Francesse for his wife
per L&M: "The Lady Protectresse" was Elizabeth, widow of Oliver Cromwell; at her death in 1665 she left her property in the hands of Jeremiah White, who had been chaplain both to her and to her husband…. Frances was her fourth daughter, who from 1658 until her marriage in 1663 to Sir John Russell was the widow of Robert Rich. Pepys’s story is at variance with that given by Oldmixon, who knew White well. According to him … White had paid court to Lady Frances some years before. Discovered on his knees before her by the Protector (who planned to break off the affair), he quickly explained that he was asking to marry her gentlewoman, whereupon Oliver had him married to the gentlewoman immediately. The marriage, says Oldmixon, was not very happy and lasted for fifty years.”
J A Gioia • Link
the Lady Protectresse
can anyone explain the status of the cromwell women after the restoration? it seems high enough for sam to be impressed meeting their chaplain here. (has the old man been dug up yet? is junior in irons somewhere?) lacking any presumptive male heirs, was the family allowed a comfortable retirement?
Mary • Link
The status of the Cromwell women
After the death of the Protector is well outlined by Antonia Fraser in her "Cromwell, Our Chief of Men" p. 687ff. The treatment of the Cromwell family after the Restoration was broadly very humane. "The King, ever courteous to the female sex, suffered her [the widow, Elizabeth] to live without molestation..... she was able to spend her last days in peace at the home of her son-in-law .... Northborough Manor in Northamptonshire, where she died in 1665. ..... The truth was that the Cromwell family, in the absence of their august head, were considered harmless."
vincent • Link
"it rained sadly, but we made shift to get coaches." so nicely put (Londons be smogged drizzle, one being washed by soot,white linen becomes wonderfully grey.)
Second Reading
Sasha Clarkson • Link
Richard Cromwell, poor old "Tumbledown Dick", who had never sought office, lived until 1712. After the restoration he lived in France, returning to England around 1680. By then, even as a figurehead, he posed no threat to the regime. (By then, Charles' illegitimate son, Monmouth, was already becoming a popular focus of opposition.)
Of course, had Cromwell's eldest son Henry, or his son-in-law Henry Ireton, survived him, there might well not have been a restoration at all. One might speculate that the office of Protector might have then become like the Dutch office of Stadtholder.
Sasha Clarkson • Link
Interesting that, every now and then, Pepys gets his gossip wrong. In this case, White, being still married, was in no position to pay court to the recently widowed Frances.
These mistakes don't reflect badly upon Pepys: it's just a reminder of how different the times were. These days, one can check almost any fact on the internet. When I was young, we had Chambers' Encyclopaedia at home, and had the yearbooks delivered annually: so, in our "upper working class" semi, we had access to huge amounts of accurate and up-to-date information. And there were newspaper archives in the major public libraries too. Pepys had none of this, so for most things he - and everyone else - had to rely on gossip and rumour.
MarkS • Link
The Mitre tavern was a favourite haunt of Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell a century later.
Chris Squire UK • Link
MarkS: you are correct but it was not Pepys' Mitre but the one in Fleet St: Mitre Court EC4 Opposite Fetter Lane, on the south side of Fleet Street.
As it takes its leave of Fleet Street by way of a short passage beneath Mitre House, Mitre Court soon opens out into a small but attractive courtyard giving access to Serjeants Inn, within the Temple. Adjacent to the Court with its frontage on Fleet Street was the Elizabethan Mitre Tavern.
'I had learnt that his place of frequent resort was the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street, where he used to sit up late, and I begged that I might be allowed to pass an evening with him there soon, which he promised I should' . . Alas the Mitre was demolished in 1829 by Hoar's Bank to provide space for an extension to their premises.
http://www.gyford.com/archive/200…
Annie B • Link
I wonder what Elizabeth wore instead!
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
This is the mourning party Pepys for which has spent about 40/.s on new clothes?
You think Peter Llewellyn noticed or was impressed? No, nor do I.
At the very least I thought they were off to ogle the Royals at Westminster Abbey. What a let down!
San Diego Sarah • Link
Diary of Ralph Josselin (Private Collection)
19.9.1660 (Wednesday 19 September 1660) document 70012680
19. This day a stock of plank at the park fell down, which may be a warning, a matter of thankfulness it doing no hurt and my children being wont in the summer to play and work under them.
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An example of the Old Testament, Presbyterian way of thinking by Rev. Ralph: I wonder what sort of warning he thought might that be.
Just 15 years before, if the planks had hurt someone, Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins might have hanged some witches for causing the collapse.
Earls Colne is only 22 miles away from Chelmsford, where they executed 15 of the Essex witches in 1645, so the people in Earls Colne would have know all about it -- and may well have attended.
https://www.historic-uk.com/Histo…
https://www.oxfordcastleandprison….
Chrissie • Link
Seems a bit odd to make a correction after 10 years but Sasha Clarkson was wrong about Henry Cromwell. He was Oliver’s 4th son and didn’t predecease his father. He was governor in Ireland when his father died and made no attempt to prevent the Restoration. He made his submission to Charles the second and was allowed to retire, although most of his estates were forfeited. Henry Ireton died in 1651, Difficult to know what his position /attitude might have been seven years later… although, as a regicide he was unlikely to have been a supporter of the restoration! He was one of those exhumed post-mortem to receive his punishment
Carol D • Link
It seems to have been quite a jolly "day of mourning"...
john • Link
@Carol, similar to a wake to me.
When a child, I was taken to a wake of a family friend. Not knowing that he had died and as the entire wake seemed like a party to me, I innocently asked where he was. Someone pointed to the casket at the end of the hall and calmly said: He's over there.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Seems a bit odd to make a correction after 10 years but Sasha Clarkson was wrong about Henry Cromwell."
Good catch, Chrissie -- and you're not correcting Sasha so much as making sure people don't use incorrect info. they see here and giving Pepys Diary as the citation.
Keep on posting! The more the merrier.
RLB • Link
Mourning attire, in those days, was not for being very, very sad in. It was there to show that, though you went on your daily life, you showed support for the famous and important bereaved. You didn't go around in all black crying all the time, you wore the equivalent of today's football captains' black armbands. Basically, it was networking.
It was different, of course, for those directly impacted. Close family members would not go out cavorting in mourning weeds. Centuries later, Queen Victoria was genuinely devastated by the death of her beloved Albert, and spent decades *actually* mourning. But if you're only "in mourning" for your employer's son, or the King's teenaged brother? Put on the socially acceptable attire, then go about your business.
San Diego Sarah • Link
You bring up a good point, RLB: Recently I tracked down the color of the 2 new suits Pepys had made for his Navy Commissioner's job. They were both black.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
We know Charles II wears purple. Somewhere I saw that described as the correct color for princely mourning.
What color is for regular people's mourning? Or was it a style of clothing?
I found a website
"The History of Mourning Dress and Attire in the West"
https://www.eterneva.com/resource…
The French didn't write down what the "rules" were until 1765.
No mention of what the British did.
A section on the Middle Ages, and then she skips to the Victorians, apart from showing a painting of Mary, Queen of Scots when she was in mourning as Queen of France for her first husband, wearing white.
The surrounding notes say white was the cheapest color available, and everyone had white clothes, so white was the agreed color. Even later, children wore white to funerals to indicate their innocence.
Phil has given us an Encyclopedia page for FUNERALS, and Terry copied in the L&M entry, and they say people wore black.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
So why did Pepys bother to have a new outfit made? To impress Peter Llewellyn? Because he needed another one anyway?
It clears up what Elizabeth wore, as I'm sure she had a black dress, but maybe not in the latest style.
RLB • Link
You are quite right: the colour of mourning varies by time and by - not even region, but AFAICT by country. In my own Netherlands, apparently queen Whilhelmina brought white mourning back into fashion. That didn't stick, though: black is now the usual colour. In any case, there is no fixed habit forever everywhere.
Nevertheless, when one looks through Wikipedia & al., it appears that the main options are black or white. I'm not surprised: these are liminal shades, not really colours, and so it is not a surprise that they are present at the boundary between life and death, either. [Insert remark about monastic orders here; that will almost surely come up in reading the rest of Sam's diary.] I cannot explain purple, except out of foppishness.
At any rate, I don't think we should conclude that Pepys had an entire new outfit made. I believe that he bought some accoutrements - not quite like, but similar to, the above-mentioned black armband - and that would have been enough for a man of his (new) status. Nobody would have expected a mere clerk, let alone a newly-appointed one, to buy more than a sash or, at worst, a doublet.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Saturday 15 September 1660
Called at my father’s going home, and bespoke mourning for myself, for the death of the Duke of Gloucester. [I take this to be a new suit.]
Monday 17 September 1660
I did give my wife 15/. this morning to go to buy mourning things for her and me, which she did. ... So to bed after I had looked over the things my wife had bought to-day, with which being not very well pleased, they costing too much...
Tuesday 18 September 1660
So on foot home, by the way buying a hat band and other things for my mourning to-morrow.
Saturday 22 September 1660
I bought a pair of short black stockings, to wear over a pair of silk ones for mourning;
Plus we have this miscellaneous item:
Sunday 23 September 1660
This morning came one from my father’s with a black cloth coat, made of my short cloak, to walk up and down in. [So not for mourning, apparently. Just keeping warm in a black coat as Pepys cools his heels, waiting for one of the Stuart brothers, at Whitehall.]
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I found the Princely color for mourning -- from a Wheatley annotation:
“The Queen-mother of France,” says Ward, in his Diary, p. 177, “died at Agrippina, 1642, and her son Louis, 1643, for whom King Charles mourned in Oxford in purple, which is Prince’s mourning.” ↩
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
San Diego Sarah • Link
Charles II had more on his mind concerning his brothers, dead and alive.
If you're following life from Pepys' point of view, this from here on contains SPOILERS.
If you want to know what roughly happened when, Stephane's Venetian report was written on this day, old style.
Charles probably learned the news about 2 months ago; he obtained proof of the Breda ceremony, and decided to support the match, asking for a private CofE ceremony to be held at Worcester House on September 3.
So this has been kept secret for a long time in Royal circles -- but now the news has leaked as far as the foreign ambassadors, but it takes even longer to reach Seething Lane and Paris.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…