Tuesday 24 September 1661

We rose, and set forth, but found a most sad alteration in the road by reason of last night’s rains, they being now all dirty and washy, though not deep. So we rode easily through, and only drinking at Holloway, at the sign of a woman with cakes in one hand and a pot of ale in the other, which did give good occasion of mirth, resembling her to the maid that served us, we got home very timely and well, and finding there all well, and letters from sea, that speak of my Lord’s being well, and his action, though not considerable of any side, at Argier. I went straight to my Lady, and there sat and talked with her, and so home again, and after supper we to bed somewhat weary, hearing of nothing ill since my absence but my brother Tom, who is pretty well though again.

17 Annotations

First Reading

Pedro.  •  Link

Hollaway.

The inn at Holloway mentioned by Samuel Pepys in 1661 as the Sign of the Woman with cakes in one hand and a pot of ale in the other was the Mother Red Cap, Upper Holloway, (Footnote 65) which existed in the 1630s. (Footnote 66)

From: British History Online
Source: Islington: Social and cultural activities. A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume VIII, Patricia Croot (1985).

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Glyn  •  Link

Holloway would have been the last stop on the coaching road before arriving in London, which is downhill from there. So Sam and Elizabeth would have seen the whole city stretching out before them surrounded by the city wall and the open countryside.

Pauline  •  Link

"...only drinking at Holloway..."
Sam and Elizabeth have come home from Brampton by the westerly route (the Great North Road): Brampton, Buckden, St Neots, Biggleswade, Baldock, Stevenage, Welwyn, Hatfield, Barnet, Highgate, Holloway. L&M Companion gives three usual routes, the most easterly via Cambridge and the middle route with two Cambridge options.

Lawrence  •  Link

Coming south towards London on the M.11, one can quite clearly see Canary Wharf if its a clear day, after last night's rain Sam would have had a wonderful view, imagine all the smoke from the Soap makers/tallow works and baker shops to mention a few, I wonder if it left a yellow grey cloud hanging over the city as they approched? John Evelyn, wrote of this pollution.

andy  •  Link

"letters from sea, that speak of my Lord's being well, and his action, though not considerable of any side, at Argier”

Just to record that in my 1889 edition of the Diary, edited by Lord Braybrooke (Chandos Claassic), [and bought in a charity shop a couple of weeks ago] the above entry is the sum total for the 24th. Previous entry was the 12th.

So contemporary (Victorian)readers of Braybrooke’s edition would have missed out on everything we’ve read in the last few days, and on our developing understanding of Sam’s character and personal relationships.

But Braybrook put it” As he [Sam] was in the habit of recording the most trifling occurences of his life, it bacame absolutely necessary to curtail the MS materially..”.

We read Sam today with eyes different from those with which Braybrooke read Pepys.

Grahamt  •  Link

"the sign of a woman with cakes in one hand and a pot of ale in the other"
I wonder if this is related to the pessimists' proverb:
"Life isn't just cakes and ale" (Or "beer and skittles" two ther things that Pepys enjoys)

Glyn  •  Link

Today, I had a "morning draught" at the Mother Redcap in Holloway (specifically on Holloway Road near Archway Underground Station).

It now has no connection to the tavern that the Pepys visited but does have an information panel containing today's diary entry.

The Mother Redcap was an important stop on the coaching road north, and apparently beneath the sign of a woman holding cakes and a pot of ale there were the following lines of verse:

"Old Mother Redcap, according to her tale,
Lived twenty and a hundred years by drinking this good ale,
It was her meat, it was her drink and medicine beside,
And if she still had drank this ale, she never would have died."

A Mr Jim Backster owned the Mother Redcap in 1667, so was probably also the owner when the Pepys were there.

Glyn  •  Link

So if the woman who served them did indeed look a 120 years old, then I can understand these two hard-hearted 20 somethings laughing about it.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"letters from sea, that speak of my Lord’s being well, and his action, though not considerable of any side, at Argier."

John Creed to Pepys, Lisbon, 31 August/10 September (partly in Latin); Edward Shipley to Pepys, 1/11 and 2/12 September: the former is printed in HMC, Eliot Hodgkin, pp. 168-60. The letters report Sandwich's bombardment of Algiers, 5-8 August, which had been broken off by bad weather. Sandwich had thereupon left a squadron under Lawson plying before the harbour, and had set sail for Lisbon. A treaty was made with Algiers the following spring: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Meanwhile, in London, apparently things were not so serene:

"Presbyterians and Calvinists, who have always been fatal to this country, as the past miseries clearly showed, of which the scars remain, are still studying how to rekindle the fire, working in conjunction with fanatics and other turbulent spirits whose object is to overthrow the Episcopalians and destroy the Anglican Church, although they dissimulate and play the hypocrite.
"These designs being discovered by his Majesty, to prevent the disorder which might ensue, they have taken suitable measures, arresting some of the leaders in this city and the country and laying hands on a number of horses which belonged to them. In this way they hope to preserve the peace of this sorely tried country.
"The entry of the ambassador extraordinary of Sweden is fixed for Monday. ..."

FROM 'Venice: October 1661', in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 33, 1661-1664, ed. Allen B Hinds( London, 1932), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk…

Yes, the report is dated October 7 -- take off 10 days, and then remember Francesco Giavarina, Venetian Resident in England, is reporting on events the week before, and I come up with roughly today. Charles II seems to be on top of the trouble-makers.

Jeremy Buck  •  Link

The Mother Redcap pub at Holloway, which Glyn visited 20 years ago, is still standing but currently closed with an uncertain future.

Matt Newton  •  Link

A review of the pub from 2017:

The Mother Red cap is a corner pub that is situated at the top end of Holloway Road and close to Archway tube station.
Once inside there is a U shaped room which is bare boarded,there is bench seating to the front with small stools,plus a drinking shelf on the left side which had chairs to sit on.
The TVs were showing rugby and there was a pool table to the rear left.
There were no real ales on the bar ,I had a drink of Worthington Cream Flow, which was a poor drink.
Not a pub to go out of your way to do ,but i was on a crawl and trying to do all pubs on Holloway Road.
It seemed friendly enough to me.

As mentioned, now closed.

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Letters such as Sam has found in his in-tray (we phant'sy he has one; his "letterbox" is 200 years in the future) are rebounding all over Europe, from Genoa to Marseilles to Cordoba to points north, bringing more or less vague news that may not be first-hand, compleat or sincere, and of course are several weeks late. At least, his mail doesn't seem to include the sad tidings of a "great defeat" which had separately reached the Venetian embassy in London two weeks ago (and which we noted at https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…)

On September 30 (new style), ambassador Giavarina saw some corroboration in that reinforcements seemed to be "haste[ned]" from Portsmouth, suggesting "that the English have received some hurt", and reported being told by "the duke of York himself (...) that the vessels now at Algiers should return to England, from which one may conclude that they are not in a very good state".

But perhaps he was over-interpreting and the bad news were all untrue. On October 15 (new style), the French Gazette will publish a week-old dispatch from London, reporting letters sent "from our fleet" (the English fleet, in the gazette's style) in early September, which relate a string of "Turkish" ships sunk or captured: one forced ashore on July 20, two captured on the 21st, two sunk and two ran aground sometime before the 23rd, one sunk in Algiers harbor on the 24th, and another captured on the 27th. It's a bit ambiguous if the dates are converted to new style from the gazette's English sources, but it all happened while Sandwich was in Spain, having apparently left Adm. John Lawson in command. Indeed his diary mentions none of this, and reports engagements only on July 31 and September 10, making Sandwich look more like a diplomat than a war commander, notwithstanding the martial cuirass in his portraits.

Maybe there is more to come in the mail. For now, it seems doubtful if the loss or impairment of six to nine ships will make any difference to the Barbary pyrates, to say nothing of their Turkish masters. In such cases it can be a good idea to just declare victory (maybe with a big "Mission Accomplished" banner on the quarterdeck) and to go home before anyone gets hurt. Alvise Grimani, the Venetian ambassador to France, also reports today (October 4, new style) that the Dutch are happy to capture ships but not with shore bombardments such as Sandwich has overseen, "out of respect for the Grand Turk, because of the trade and the fear of upsetting it" - the military Art of Not Getting Too Far, which future Ages will perhaps see at play in, perhaps, the Caspian. And there's also a beautiful Portuguese princess to deliver; it would be sad if an actual "great defeat" was to interfere.

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

... And in the State Papers today, we can't resist quoting this summary of a letter from Jonas Shish to the Navy Commissioners, for being (involuntarily) worthy of the Surrealists, or of the BBC's wartime messages: "The Mermaid is worm-eaten".

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

Ah yes, there was more to come in the mail: On October 20 (all dates new style), the same Gazette will publish in a long Extraordinary a letter "from a Gentleman of England", himself quoting updates from the Mediterranean dated through September 18 - perhaps copies of all or some of those "letters from the Sea" that Sam has received. It gives a slightly greater tally, adding two Algerine ships sunk and two driven to the coast under Sandwich's command in early September (again, without confirmation in the latter's own diary), plus two sunk, one beached and eight captured by Lawson after Sandwich went away. So 15 more, to a total of 21-25, evenly split between My Lord and his able vice-admiral in case anyone pays attention to that.

Perhaps this level of damage could begin to enter "considerable" territory? The Barbarian pyrates do not have an unlimited fleet; a further Gazette dispatch, dated October 10 (new style) from London, says that Algiers "has 40 Ships at sea", so a score of sunk, beached or captured vessels could already have taken out 20-25% of their strength. In principle plenty of reinforcement could come from other "Turkish" dominions, or even from Constantinople should the Sultan be truly aggrieved, but he's far, he has an even bigger conflict going in Cyprus, and he may not care that much about a bunch of irregulars.

The October 10 report adds that "those of Algiers have, recently, killed their Chief, being quite at odds among themselves [fort broüillez entr'eux], in particular over the proposals for Settlement, that had been made to them by (...) Admiral Montagu". Possibly true; sadly there's no source, and "those of Algiers" ain't writing letters to the Gazette.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"The October 10 report adds that "those of Algiers have, recently, killed their Chief, being quite at odds among themselves [fort broüillez entr'eux], in particular over the proposals for Settlement, that had been made to them by (...) Admiral Montagu". Possibly true; sadly there's no source, and "those of Algiers" ain't writing letters to the Gazette."

Pasha Ramadan Agar's administration ended in 1661, so he must have been murdered. An example of Algeria's state of anachy.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

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