Monday 22 April 1661

King’s going from ye Tower to Whitehall1

Up early and made myself as fine as I could, and put on my velvet coat, the first day that I put it on, though made half a year ago. And being ready, Sir W. Batten, my Lady, and his two daughters and his son and wife, and Sir W. Pen and his son and I, went to Mr. Young’s, the flag-maker, in Corne-hill;2 and there we had a good room to ourselves, with wine and good cake, and saw the show very well. In which it is impossible to relate the glory of this day, expressed in the clothes of them that rid, and their horses and horses clothes, among others, my Lord Sandwich’s.

Embroidery and diamonds were ordinary among them. The Knights of the Bath was a brave sight of itself; and their Esquires, among which Mr. Armiger was an Esquire to one of the Knights. Remarquable were the two men that represent the two Dukes of Normandy and Aquitane.

The Bishops come next after Barons, which is the higher place; which makes me think that the next Parliament they will be called to the House of Lords. My Lord Monk rode bare after the King, and led in his hand a spare horse, as being Master of the Horse.

The King, in a most rich embroidered suit and cloak, looked most noble. Wadlow, the vintner, at the Devil; in Fleetstreet, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white doublets. There followed the Vice-Chamberlain, Sir G. Carteret, a company of men all like Turks; but I know not yet what they are for.

The streets all gravelled, and the houses hung with carpets before them, made brave show, and the ladies out of the windows, one of which over against us I took much notice of, and spoke of her, which made good sport among us.

So glorious was the show with gold and silver, that we were not able to look at it, our eyes at last being so much overcome with it.

Both the King and the Duke of York took notice of us, as he saw us at the window.

The show being ended, Mr. Young did give us a dinner, at which we were very merry, and pleased above imagination at what we have seen. Sir W. Batten going home, he and I called and drunk some mum and laid our wager about my Lady Faulconbridge’s name, which he says not to be Mary, and so I won above 20s.

So home, where Will and the boy staid and saw the show upon Towre Hill, and Jane at T. Pepys’s, the Turner, and my wife at Charles Glassecocke’s, in Fleet Street. In the evening by water to White Hall to my Lord’s, and there I spoke with my Lord. He talked with me about his suit, which was made in France, and cost him 200l., and very rich it is with embroidery. I lay with Mr. Shepley, and … [continued tomorrow. P.G.]

64 Annotations

First Reading

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"The Bishops came next.....;which makes me think....they will be called to the House of Lords" SP doesn't say if that is good or bad but one gets the feeling he doesn't care much about the Bishops.

Alan Bedford  •  Link

"...one gets the feeling he doesn't care much about the Bishops”

And yet he makes note, which a young man with political interests - which Sam is - should do. If the Bishops are “called to the House of Lords”, they potentially will become another faction that Sam and his colleagues will be required to deal with on a regular basis.

Vicente  •  Link

Another view point, from down Essex way
22. 23. "dry. to serve the pompous show, and coronation at London. on which day...."
http://linux02.lib.cam.ac.uk/earl…

Vicente  •  Link

Smart lad, is our Sam, did not have to pay an extra fee to have it made on time."...and put on my velvet coat, the first day that I put it on, though made half a year ago..."

And here he is again "...I lay with Mr. Shepley, and ..." to lay meaning ones 'ead on the pillow only, why assume anything else?

David A. Smith  •  Link

"one of which over against us I took much notice of"
An extraordinary day, and an extraordinary entry. We start with the marvelously deft word brush strokes:

* "Embroidery and diamonds were ordinary among them"
* "The streets all gravelled"
* "our eyes at last being so much overcome"
* "the King and the Duke of York took notice of us"

and then from the grand to the personal:

"the ladies out of the windows, one of which over against us I took much notice of"

Under 500 words, and *you are there*: description, pathos, action, and personality.

Bravo, Sam.

John Mac Dougall  •  Link

But how was the weather? Yesterday it was an issue, and today.. no mention.

Paul Chapin  •  Link

How was the weather?
Thanks to Vicente's link, we know from Rev. Josselin that it was "dry, to serve the pompous show ... at London."

PHE  •  Link

The spectacle and scene described so well in so few words. A picture painted - as DA Smith suggests.

Mary  •  Link

... a company of men all like turkes..

L&M comment that these appear to have been members of the company of the royal footguard, but offer no explanation for their costume. Just possibly by 'turkes' Pepys is simply indicating exotic Eastern (or Moorish?) costume, with this company representing a reference to Algiers.

Wim van der Meij  •  Link

Which he said not to be Mary...
Mary was the daughter of Oliver Cromwell, second wife of Thomas, second Viscount Falconberg, afterwards Earl of Falconberg.

Wim van der Meij  •  Link

No mention of Elizabeth in the company!
Did Sam leave her with his parents? Possibly his stature is not yet high enough to take his own Lady to ceremonies like this.

Susan  •  Link

Reading John Evelyn's account after having just read Sam's makes one admire Sam more and more. Evelyn's account, even given such a wonderful topic is just plain boring - mainly tedious lists! As David Smith says, Sam brings us right there in 500 words. Magic stuff.

Pedro.  •  Link

Cry God,Charles,Sam,England and St.George.

What a great coincidence that we should read such a marvellous entry on this Day of St. George.

Glyn  •  Link

It's not a coincidence!!!

Obviously the king's advisers arranged for him to be formally crowned on England's saint's day. (News management is a very old profession!)

Glyn  •  Link

Of course this is the 22nd not the 23rd but I imagine the ceremony is planned to last several days.

Mary  •  Link

The weather in the streets.

Although it is possible that Josselin was enjoying weather different from that in London, I'm sure that Pepys would have passed some comment upon it if it had been wet for the royal parade. Apart from anything else, he would have regretted the danger from rainspotting to his newly-donned velvet coat. All the signs are that Sam the Tailor's Son takes good care of his clothes

Glyn  •  Link

Although this is from a smaller, much less important procession it does give us some idea of what the streets might have looked at. Scroll down and click on the pictures at the very bottom of the page to enlarge them:

http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.c…

Pedro.  •  Link

Also Cry Shakespeare!

I should have added Shakespeare as the 23rd April was also the date of his death.

Emilio  •  Link

"and the ladies out of the windows. . . . So glorious was the show with gold and silver, that we were not able to look at it"

L&M note that the 'at' was actually written as "up" in the diary. I don't think Sam's mind had quite left the ladies yet. :-)

Emilio  •  Link

A couple of small diffs. in L&M

The. Turner was probably not there at cousin Tom's with Jane Birch; L&M read "T. Pepys the turner", a description we've often seen in the past.

And here's a nice turn of phrase that got streamlined out of Wheatley: "saw the Shew very well--in which it is impossible to relate the glory of *that* this day". I like the way the extra pronoun stretches out the sentence, giving a sense of Sam sitting back to bask in the day's experiences. With so many glories to think back on, what could be better than taking a little extra time to enjoy?

Emilio  •  Link

The King's Going from the Tower

This is a very special occasion indeed--not only is this procession especially opulent because of the Restoration, but it's also the last appearance of a dying custom. L&M note that in Charles I's time the procession was cancelled on account of the plague, and after today the event will never be held again.

Emilio  •  Link

They mean, I take it, a day-long procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey held on the day before the coronation.

JWB  •  Link

"...and their horses and horses clothes,"
If you've ever ridden gussied-up horses, you know they're as vain as Sam in his velvet coat. Horses in a Cavalier parade- even this Roundhead looks back and doesn't scoff.

JBailey  •  Link

Glyn's posting of drawings of houses of this era are fascinating. Am I correct in that it looks as if the ground level has no windows but that the higher levels are full of windows? I assume windows meant less use of candles and better light during the day for tasks.

Did they really have that much glass for windows at that time? Wasn't it very expensive, or was that just in the "colonies" in America then? ALso, wouldn't these windows have resulted in chilly rooms in rainy, damp London?

Any ideas of how Pepys' home would have looked in 1661?

M.Stolzenbach  •  Link

Where Elizabeth was:

"So home, where Will and the boy staid and saw the show upon Towre Hill, and Jane at T. Pepys's, The. Turner, and my wife at Charles Glassecocke's, in Fleet Street.”

Emilio  •  Link

JBailey: "ground level has no windows"

I think what looks like the bottom floor are actually barriers set up for the procession--you'll notice that they not only have no windows, but no doors, and appear to be continuous until a gap in the third picture along. The actual ground floors would be behind them, and like the upper floors smaller than the floor above them.

Vicente  •  Link

Glyn: Fantabulous: note the protection from the elements{ or was it from the stink of horses}? for If were modern, one would say plastic sheeting: The detail is wonderful. So many little stories to be seen. Thanks

Ruben  •  Link

to see the history of English window glass see:
http://www.londoncrownglass.co.uk…
In the 17 century glass was a very expensive luxury.
I presume the windows were closed, when necesary, with wood doors. This is probably the reason that upper floors were bigger, so the lower floors were protected from the rain.

Krzysztof  •  Link

'a company of men all like Turks; but I know not yet what they are for'. Perhaps, it's a far-fetched statement, but I suspect Pepys noticed the Polish mission to the coronation of Charles II. It was the first Polish diplomatic mission to England (as far as I know) and, interestingly, the efforts of 'my lord Montague' helped Polish 'foreign affairs' men to notice the emerging power of England (I mean my Lord's 'Baltic mission' and his efforts to end the war betweeen Sweden and the Polish/Danish coalition, rewarded by a gift from Carolus Gustavus of Sweden to Montague). The mission itself was quite modest, comparing to earlier diplomatic efforts, like the magnificent Polish 'cortege' in Rome or Paris. By the way and interestingly enough, the most precious Polish diarist, Jan Pasek, was Samuel Pepys's contemporary man. His entries for the year of 1661 also noticed an exceptionally warm winter (global warming amidst the 'small ice age' or what?). And one more thing ' I think all of us enjoy the fabulous English language of Sam's diaries. Believe me, the same is true for Pasek's Polish language, though interspaced with Latin. Some don't like it, though, as some of our Latin 'hostilis'. After all, 'equus Polonus sum, loquor Latine...'. There's something special in the 16th century.
And to conclude this somewhat extensive annotation, the Polish mission was a blatant PR failure. Quite possibly, his friend Hartlib, of Polish descent, wasn't around to explain the Turkish look of Polish noblemen. How the Polish mission could look like see:
http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/C…
http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/C…

Ruben  •  Link

Krzysztof:
your exceptional annotation opens new options to understand those "Turks" marching through London. The scene becomes almost tridimensional with your contribution.
As for Jan Pasek, I understand he wrote "memoires" in his old age, while Samuel Pepys wrote a diary.
There is no way to compare the spontaineity of every day events with recolections influenced by the time passed and the knowing of events that happened after what is being written.
Still as most of us do not read Polish, it is my hope you will compare both writers and annotate whatever you find fit for the enrichment of the site.
Jeszcze Polska!

Krzysztof  •  Link

Ruben:
You are right, Pasek was more "memoirist" than diarist, though it is generally agreed that his "memoirs" are based on a diary he used to keep throughout his life. He re-worked and "enriched" the diaries in his late age, to regale the posterity with his poorly penned but still captivating poetry, I suppose.
In fact, Pasek's memoirs are available in English, at least Mr. Google says so:
At http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/P… I found
The Memoirs of Jan Pasek, Translated by M. Swiecicka, The Kosciuszko Foundation, Warsaw 1978. A 17th century soldier speaks out "much valuable information for building a persona, a very violent persona (???)
And at:
http://pl.bookchecker.com/0520027…
Memoirs of the Polish Baroque: The Writings of Jan Chryzostom Pasek, a Squire of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, University of California Press February, 1980 Hardcover ISBN: 0520027523

dirk  •  Link

"upper floors were bigger"

Re - Ruben

Protection from the rain would not have been the main reason for protruding upper floors - increasing the available floor space to the maximum was the issue here. The size of the plot on which the house was constructed could of course not be made any bigger than it was, but gaining a few feet of space on each one of the subsequent upper storeys was what you went for when building the house. It did occasionally make the front of the house structurally unstable - and some have been known to collapse even before they were finished...

Susan  •  Link

Thank you Krzysztof for the wonderful pictures - I think such costumes would have seem "Turkish" to Sam.

Ruben  •  Link

Krzysztof:
Thank you for the links. They are very interesting, but I could find only a few sentences by Pasek. Still, from SP's point of view they are exactly what we looked for. He wrote:
"Foreigners were not generally able to tell the various eastern fashions apart. While a Pole could spot a Hungarian in any crowd, westerners sometimes could not tell the Poles and Hungarians apart from the Turks. The Poles had to wear very conspicuous field signs of straw rope at the battle of Vienna to ensure the Austrian allies would not become confused."
Extraordinary!

Sjoerd Spoelstra  •  Link

This picture goes well with today's entry as well (though I am not sure "Restoration" and "Coronation") are the same occasion... no doubt someone will put me right if not ?

http://www.kipar.org/resources/re…

Sjoerd Spoelstra  •  Link

Sorry, some more information: the picture is called "Procession of Charles II's Restoration to the Throne", 1661. Dirk Stoop. The procession as it leaves the Tower of London for Westminster.

I came across this rather good collection of paintings at http://www.kipar.org , including for instance this one of Charles II on this, his Coronation Day:

http://www.kipar.org/resources/re…

Emilio  •  Link

"Procession of Charles II?s Restoration to the Throne"

Wow, thanks for more great picture links. It's interesting being able to see all the men in their red finery, and maybe that figure with its back to us in the foreground is one of the 'Turks'? The mounted figure behind Charles is Albemarle leading the (spare) "Horse of Estate".

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

"Remarquable were the two men that represent the two Dukes of Normandy and Aquitane."

John Carie and Sir Francis Lawley, two gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, represented the Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine.
---Wheatley, 1899.

john  •  Link

JWB wrote: "If you've ever ridden gussied-up horses, you know they're as vain as Sam in his velvet coat."

They also rode stallions, not mares or geldings, so the analogy fits well.

joe fulm  •  Link

More interesting than whether Lady faulconbridge's name was Mary would be what she thought about the Restoration of the monarchy, or would she be attending today's ceremonies, considering her father's head was on a Whitehall railing spike possibly along the route(where it would remain for over twenty years before being blown away in a gale).

Gerald Berg  •  Link

"made myself as fine as I could..." Neither complaint, nor vanity? Proudly I suppose.
"them that rid..." Curious past tense. Good riddance?

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

Re: OC’s head: ‘ . . [It] was stuck on a post, and displayed in Westminster Hall, where it remained until at least 1684. Pepys mentions going to look at it. It then went missing (the legend is that it was blown off in a gale and taken by a sentry), and turns up again in 18th London as a collectors item – much sought after as an investment by proprietors of then fashionable ‘museums of curiosities’. It became a more settled possession in 1824, when it was bought by the Wilkinson family from Kent – who kept it until 1960.

But was this macabre object really Cromwell’s head? Much time and ink was spent trying to answer that question . When the British Archaeological Institute examined it in 1911 a photo was published in the Daily Express – which led to calls for it to be bought for the nation. Prime Minister Asquith answered questions about it in the Commons. Finally in 1935 a major forensic examination was undertaken by two scientists whose 100 page report is, by their own admission, “neither pleasant nor lightweight to read.” They confirmed the identity of the head.

Eventually in 1960 the head was accepted by Cromwell’s Cambridge College, Sidney Sussex, and buried in an unmarked place in the chapel.’

[http://www.eyes-and-ears.co.uk/sq…]

'in Westminster Hall' should be, I suggest, 'ON Westminster Hall', i.e outside for all to see and take a lesson from - and to be finally blown away . .

eileen d.  •  Link

Bryan--
darn these changing web links!

another source of images of Charles ll coronation procession from Tower to Westminster. (also a slew of other images relevant to Restoration history.)

http://www.generalmonck.com/biogr…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"King’s going from ye Tower to Whitehall"

The secular procession or royal entry held on the day before the coronation; omitted at the beginning of Charles I's reign because of the plague, and now of special magnificence because of the Restoration; never repeated after this occasion. Pepys kept in his library copies of Hollar's prints of the cavalcade: PL 2973, pp. 340-1.
At this time I can find but these Hollar Cavalcade panels online -- at the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, California. Click to embiggen:
Panels 5 and 6" https://art.famsf.org/wenceslaus-…
Panels 10 and 11: https://art.famsf.org/wenceslaus-…
Panels 14 to 16: https://art.famsf.org/wenceslaus-…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"The Bishops come next after Barons, which is the higher place; which makes me think that the next Parliament they will be called to the House of Lords."

A bill restoring bishops to the Lords received royal assent in the following July. But they took no part in this secular cavalcade. Pepys may be copying here from a broadsheet programme of the event: E. Halfpenny in Guildhall Misc., i. no. / 1021 & n. 11. (L&M note)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Sir W. Batten going home, he and I called and drunk some mum and laid our wager about my Lady Faulconbridge’s name, which he says not to be Mary,"

She was in fact Mary, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, who had married Thomas Belasysse, and Viscount Fauconberg; Batten had probably confused one of her three sisters with her. (L&M note)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Evelyn's account omits the little people (too bad Vicente's link works no more):

22d April, 1661. Was the splendid cavalcade of his Majesty from the Tower of London to Whitehall, when I saw him in the Banqueting House create six Earls, and as many Barons, viz:

Edward Lord Hyde, Lord Chancellor, Earl of Claren[Pg 343]don; supported by the Earls of Northumberland and Sussex; the Earl of Bedford carried the cap and coronet, the Earl of Warwick, the sword, the Earl of Newport, the mantle.

Next, was Capel, created Earl of Essex.
Brudenell, Cardigan;
Valentia, Anglesea;
Greenvill, Bath; and
Howard, Earl of Carlisle.
The Barons were: Denzille Holles; Cornwallis; Booth; Townsend; Cooper; Crew; who were led up by several Peers, with Garter and officers of arms before them; when, after obedience on their several approaches to the throne, their patents were presented by Garter King-at-Arms, which being received by the Lord Chamberlain, and delivered to his Majesty, and by him to the Secretary of State, were read, and then again delivered to his Majesty, and by him to the several Lords created; they were then robed, their coronets and collars put on by his Majesty, and they were placed in rank on both sides of the state and throne; but the Barons put off their caps and circles, and held them in their hands, the Earls keeping on their coronets, as cousins to the King.

I spent the rest of the evening in seeing the several archtriumphals built in the streets at several eminent places through which his Majesty was next day to pass, some of which, though temporary, and to stand but one year, were of good invention and architecture, with inscriptions.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... And being ready, Sir W. Batten, my Lady, and his two daughters and his son and wife, and Sir W. Pen and his son and I, went to Mr. Young’s, the flag-maker, in Corne-hill;2 and there we had a good room to ourselves, ..."

Sir W. Pen's son was, of course, William Penn (later of Pennsylvania). He was born in 1644, so he would be 17 at this time, and visiting his parents.

In October 1660 young William Penn matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford. Oxford University had always supported the Royalist cause, and Charles II's younger brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was also enrolled at Christ Church; unfortunately Gloucester died before the year’s end and Penn wrote a verse in Latin in his memory.

By his second year, William Penn was having difficulty conforming to the rules of the new Dean, and in March, 1662 he arrived home for good. There is no record of his being expelled, but it can be assumed that he was "sent down for non-conformity".

And who was this new Dean? Why Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. It was a small world.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"And who was this new Dean? Why Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. It was a small world."

Hmmm ... the new CHANCELLOR of Oxford University who imposed these new rules was Edward Hyde.
The Dean who was fired, and with whom William Penn sympathized to the point of having to give up his university education, was the theologian John Owen.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Pepys mentions embroidery three times today, and nowhere else in the Diary.

Embroidery skills were very important, and young girls of all classes were expected to be accomplished needlewomen. This paper gives a lot more information and some lovely pictures -- check out the gloves!
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd…

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

If I were writing my above annotations today, I'd be less sure that Penn's son was William Jr.

According to Adm. Sir William Penn MP's website
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
he has 2 sons. The younger one is never mentioned by name in Pepys' Diary, so we have no Encyclopedia page for him.
We have no independent corroberation that William Jr. came to the Coronation.

Has anyone read a biography of either Penns with more info???

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"So home, where Will and the boy staid and saw the show upon Towre Hill, and Jane at T. Pepys’s, the Turner, and my wife at Charles Glassecocke’s, ..."

So everyone except his sister got to see the parade? Pall is indeed on the lowest rung of the stepladder in the household.

徽柔  •  Link

“laid our wager about my Lady Faulconbridge’s name, which he says not to be Mary, and so I won above 20s.”
Well , I wonder what Cromwell's daughters were doing these days. Possibly having a tough time considering they were once called "princesses".I know the Faulconbridges were honored and respected after the restoration but it surprises me that Mary Cromwell did not attempt to shelter her mother or bury her father properly.

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Few things fascinate the French more than the pomp of English monarchy. The spectacle of the people being so happy to have a king is also exactly what M. de Renaudot is desir'd to promote in his Gazette de France. And so, on May 25 (new style) we'll be treated therein to an extraordinary, 21-page Extraordinary on "Le Couronnement du Roy d'Angleterre".

Whoever wrote this may have seen it, but also had the press kit close at hand, and rattles out an interesting order of battle for today's parade, with an obsessive count of how many footmen and pages accompanied each grandee. They're carefully arranged, starting with a troop of lowly squires each permitted two footmen, up a crescendo to such as the "secretaries of Latin and French languages" with four each, etc... all the way, through six footmen, then six footmen plus two pages, to the Grand Chambellan, with (imagine that) 24 footmen and 12 pages, to the sound (in our head) of the grand finale in Ravel's Bolero. As the parade proceeded, its segments were thus larger and larger, and increasingly exalted and glittering. The duke of York, true to style, "alloit seul" (went alone). The king himself had 60 squires and footmen.

Tabulating all this, and with minimalist assumptions e.g. on how many were the "sons of viscounts" who walked with the knights of the Privy Council (we assume one only per viscount, times 24), we come to a total of over 7,257 participants; not counting a "company of volunteers" and an infrantry company that closed the show. Amusing fact: well over 90% of the parade was made up, not of lorships, but of footmen, pages, guards and assorted servants. The knights of the Bath, for instance, were surrounded by 720 non-knights-of-the-bath, and the 80 barons by an army of 1,064 non-barons. Sam could perhaps have been in there with the "secretaries of the Privy Seal", allowed two footmen at the start of the show.

Add to this a crowd of 1,100 orphans, dressed (of course) in blue, who read a petition to Charles in the courtyard of St. Paul's. It's a lot of people to fit in London's narrow streets, so the going must have been slow. The parade stopped at least four times, at St. Paul's and at the three arches, never a good thing to do in traffic. Everyone had plenty of time to hail their cousin or neighbor who's a footman to the Master of Tents.

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Mercurius Politicus shows that the narrow streets, moreover, were made even narrower by the ground-level public, the barriers, the "regiment of [the Tower] Hamlats (sic), completely armed", who stand watch, the trained bands, "several Companies of the Citty in their liveries" (24, the Gazette says). We phant'sy that the last of the volunteers were leaving the Tower after the first of the duke of York's guard had already reached Westminster.

The Gazette and Mercurius Politicus add a bit of color on what went on at the navy's arch on Cornhill: three seamen sang there to entertain the first train of the nobility, then for the king, after another "qui designoit la rivière de Tamise" (in an allegoric costume, perhaps? how do you dress as the Thames?) gave him a special speech. And that was it for the Navy, not otherwise represented in the parade (well, Sam says, *we* aren't on holiday, ye know).

Not too many speeches and harangues seem to have disrupted the merry flow. There was one that we like, as transcribed in Mercurius, made by one baronet Sir William Wylde at the Tower this morning while everyone was readying to file out. He found the ultimate compliment for the king: Charles is "not of a mushroom descent, but the son of nobles of the most royal stemme". Son of a mushroom, but that's a catchy quote.

RLB  •  Link

In case anyone wonders why they would bother "representing" the Dukes of Normandy and Aquitane at such an occasion: at this point in history, the English crown was still pretending to certain titles in France, /maugre/ the loss of the Hundred Years' War. The French throne was no longer even theoretically in sight - they still styled themselves so, but that was all - but they did have a paper claim to those two Duchies at least.

It wasn't until after the French Revolution, which obliterated all those titles whoever held them for real, that George III dropped the pretence. Even now, for ceremonial reasons, at least the Norman - and I gather even the Aquitanian - pretence is held up in the Channel Islands. And of course the Jacobean laughing stock pretends to those, and the French crown, along with all their other silliness.

RLB  •  Link

@Stephane Chenard: be honest, it is true that there are very few things that the English do better than a pomp and circumstance, and there is nobody who does it remotely as well as they do.

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

How do you dress as the Thames, we asked. We asked, and of course the French Gazette answers, in yet another Extraordinary from London on 7 July (new style). It details the maelstrom of allegories and symbols that Sam beheld today - the writhing hydras of past discord, the purple-mantled dignity of restored monarchy, useful to think about in Paris too.

And yes, there's the Thames, "represented by a great old man, who had clothes strewn with white and blue, the head crown'd with the Bridge of London, with the Flags of Ships and cables [oziers; our tentative translation] falling on his shoulders, in the manner of hair, an Oar in his right hand, a Ship in his left, & and an Urn on his side, whence issued water: attended by four Servants, figuring the four Waterways, which fall into that river."

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... it surprises me that Mary Cromwell did not attempt to shelter her mother or bury her father properly."

Why should she, 徽柔 ? On reburying Oliver: his body is in a lime pit with other bodies, and his head is on Parliament's roof. Impossible to undo that. And Mary Cromwell Belasyse, Lady Fauconberg's mother is comfortable with one of her sons. Mary's husband's position with the new administration provides protection for the rest of the family.

Elizabeth Bourchier Cromwell was well-provided for at Oliver's death, allocated an annuity and lodgings in St. James’. Even when the Protectorate fell in spring 1659, the generals urged the recalled Rump to treat her generously.

In spring 1660, on the eve of the Restoration, Elizabeth Cromwell left London, strongly denying that she had in her possession or had hidden jewels and other goods belonging to the royal family.

She petitioned Charles II, stressing that she had played no role in the public affairs of the previous years, professing obedience to the new regime and requesting that, ‘after the many sorrows wherewith it hath pleased the all wise God to exercise’ her, she might be allowed ‘a safe retirement’ ‘now in her old age’.

She was not seriously troubled by the new regime and spent her last years in quiet retirement, living with her son-in-law, John Claypole, at Northborough in Northamptonshire, where she was occasionally visited by some of her surviving children.

After a period of poor health, Elizabeth Cromwell died at Northborough in Nov. 1665 and was buried in Northborough church.

[This is the information given by the Cromwell Association.]

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Or:

Elizabeth Bourchier Cromell supposedly died in Nov. 1665, and was buried in Northborough Church Nov. 19, 1665.

However, there is an indication that this death date is a blind, put about to protect Elizabeth, and an alternative date in October 1672 is suggested.

http://englishhistoryauthors.blog…

Pepys met John Claypole on August 10, 1660
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

MORE ABOUT THE FAUCONBERGS BELOW

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CONCLUSION:

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During the 1650s there were rumors of various matches but eventually Mary Cromwell's hand was won by Thomas Belasyse, Viscount and later Earl Fauconberg.

The couple were married at Hampton Court in Nov. 1657. Having toured her husband’s family estates in Yorkshire in the summer of 1658, Mary Cromwell Belasyse, Lady Fauconberg was back in London in time to mourn her sister’s and her father’s deaths.

After the fall of the Protectorate, Thomas Belasyse, Viscount Fauconberg was out of favor and they retired to the countryside.

He returned to favor at the Restoration and embarked upon an illustrious career as diplomat, politician, administrator and courtier which added to his already considerable wealth and property.

Thomas, Earl Fauconberg and Mary Cromwell Belasyse divided their time between their estates in Yorkshire, especially Newburgh Park near Coxwold, and their London properties, especially Sutton Court, Chiswick and a new house they built in Soho.

The surviving correspondence of the Fauconbergs reveals their marriage, although childless, was close and loving. Wealthy and contented, they entertained lavishly and had a wide circle of friends.

Thomas Belasyse, Earl Fauconberg died in 1700. Mary Cromwell Belasyse, Countess Fauconberg was left a wealthy widow and passed her final years principally at Sutton Court in London.
She died in March 1713 and was buried in Chiswick church.

Information from the Cromwell Association
https://www.olivercromwell.org/wo….

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