Tuesday 15 October 1661

At the office all the morning, and in the afternoon to Paul’s Churchyard to a blind place, where Mrs. Goldsborough was to meet me (who dare not be known where she lives) to treat about the difference which remains between my uncle and her. But, Lord! to hear how she talks and how she rails against my uncle would make one mad. But I seemed not to be troubled at it, but would indeed gladly have an agreement with her. So I appoint Mr. Moore and she another against Friday next to look into our papers and to see what can be done to conclude the matter. So home in much pain by walking too much yesterday … [I have made my testicle to swell again – L&M] which much troubles me.

15 Annotations

First Reading

Robert Gertz  •  Link

The mysterious Ms. Goldsborough..."who dare not be known where she lives"...

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I'm sorry I can't resist...

"So Goldsborough...You expect me to talk?"

"No, Mr. Pepys...I expect you to die!"

RexLeo  •  Link

"... to treat about the difference which remains between my uncle and her"

Oh, the tales the dead leave!

Mr. Moore seems to be P's reliable hatchet man for all his problematic dealings.

vicente  •  Link

I guess it could be a family trait???
Money or? "...difference which remains ..."

Lawrence  •  Link

"Mrs Goldsborough" Per L&M "She owed £10 to the estate of Robert Pepys, and presumably did not want her address to be known for fear of arrest. There was also some dispute about the mortgage on her estate"

Mary  •  Link

"by walking too much yesterday...."

There's another Bowdlerisation here. L&M offer: "by walking too much yesterday I have made my testicle to swell again, which much troubles me."

JWB  •  Link

"Walk it off"
The coach's prescription time tested.

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

"to Paul’s Churchyard to a blind place"

BLIND
3 Unseen, private.
---A Dictionary Of The English Language. Samuel Johnson, 1756.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

OED has:

'blind adj. . . 8. a. Out of sight, out of the way, secret, obscure, privy. Cf. blind alley n.
. . 1661   S. Pepys Diary 15 Oct. (1970) II. 195   To Paul's churchyard to a blind place, where Mrs. Goldsborough was to meet me . . '

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

From Sandwich's log, in the bay of Tangier:

October 15. Tuesday.
About noon Sir John Lawson with the Newcastle and Martin frigates came into Tangier Bay to us. By whom I understood that the Martin did not arrive at Alicante until Wednesday the 22nd of October [SIC] but met with him at sea in the offing of Alicante the 5th of October.

The captain of the Martin frigate gave me a couple of packets to the Governor of Tangier which were delivered him by the Governor of Lagos to convey; but he says he was put into Cadiz by a storm and kept there for 7 days, and when he came through the gut of the Straits the wind hung such that he could not fetch Tangier nor hardly weather Tarifa.

Copied from
The Journal of Edward Mountagu,
First Earl of Sandwich
Admiral and General-at-Sea 1659 - 1665

Edited by RC Anderson
Printed for the Navy Records Society
MDCCCCXXIX

Section III - Mediterranean 1661/62

@@@

Adm. Sir John Lawson
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
The Newcastle
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
The Martin
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Alicante
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
The Governor of Tangier -- Don Luis d'Almeida, count d'Avintes, Governor of Tangier (he must also have been the Captain General, as he gets other correspondence in that role)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lui…
Lagos, Portugal -- no idea who the Governor was --
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
The Straits of Gibraltar
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Tarifa
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

LKvM  •  Link

"God was good to me in manifold outward mercies, a very comfortable season my heart through grace not left as sometimes to vanity, evil is as my death, but when lord will you slay it in the actings thereof, . . ." ? ? ? HiSometimes I think we could use some elucidation of the Rev. Josselin's diary remarks too.
A convoy of fourteen sail! It must have looked like a regatta.
Re the fish described as "meat," meat could mean just food, as in sweetmeats.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

JKvM's comments refer to the 13th; I read Josselin's stream of (drug-induced?) consciousness as meaning that God continues to send him a good life -- the harvest season has been good -- but it's his own shortcomings that cause his problems, and asks God to help him to behave better or to put him out of his misery.

How sad his sister never walked across the village to visit him -- but then, he didn't go to see her either, did he!?

And I agree -- seeing a fleet of sailing ships must have been awesome.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/s…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

We haven't heard much from Court lately. Charles II has had a visitor:

This begins in October 1661, with the burial in Rochester Cathedral of one ‘Cossuma Albertus’, a ‘Prince of Transylvania’, who had been brutally murdered on the main coast road at Gad’s Hill, a notorious haunt of highwaymen and brigands.

The Prince had been received at the court of the recently restored Charles II, where he was treated with honor. A contemporary account of the murder told a shocking tale:
"Cossuma Albertus, a Prince of Transylvania, in the dominions of the King of Poland, being worsted by the German forces, and compelled to seek for relief came to our gracious King Charles II. for succour, from whom it is said he found a kind reception and a sufficient maintenance."

"On the evening of Tuesday, Oct. 15, 1661, this Prince Cossuma was approaching Rochester in his chariot, attended by his coachman and footboy, when within a mile of Strood … the vehicle stuck fast in the mire; whereupon the Prince resolved to sleep in the coach, pulling off his coat and wrapping it about him to keep himself warm.

"Being fast asleep, his coachman, Isaac Jacob, a Jew, about midnight takes the Prince’s hanger from under his head, and stabs him to the heart; and calling to his aid his companion, whose name was Casimirus Karsagi, they both completed the tragedy by dragging him out of the carriage, cutting off his head and throwing the mutilated remains into a ditch near at hand. The Prince was dressed in scarlet breeches, his stockings were laced with gold lace, with pearl-color silk hose under them.

"The two men, having possessed themselves of a large sum of money which the Prince had about, drawing a piece of timber, that I am confident one man could easily have carried upon his back. I made the horses be taken away, and a man or two to take the lumber away with their hands."

A copy of a pamphlets giving a sensationalist account of the murder contained a handwritten marginal note, to the effect ”tis said he was a cheat, and no prince’.

In Charles II’s day, Transylvanians were Protestants, holding the borders against both the Ottomans and the Catholic Habsburgs, and their ruler Bethlen Gabor had been one of the great Protestant heroes of the Thirty Years War.

But the Transylvanians had been defeated, and many forced into exile, where they had become objects of sympathy – and of charity.

And there's the rub. ‘Cossuma Albertus’ wasn’t a prince, and wasn’t Transylvanian. His first name is probably a phonetic misspelling of ‘Casimir’, and he was almost certainly an impoverished Polish minor nobleman, who had adopted his cover story in order to con the gullible at Charles II’s court.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CONCLUSION:

There were also suggestions he had another income stream as a French spy, and was in the area to gather intelligence about the warships at Chatham dockyard.

The story he had been slaughtered at Gad’s Hill by his own coachmen also unravelled; the ‘coachmen’ were his accomplices, and the murder seems to have been the result of a falling out over the proceeds.

The killers were later hanged at Maidstone.

The published account of ‘the Prince’s’ burial reads:
"His body being brought to the parish of Strood, was accompanied from thence to the West door of the Cathedral Church of Rochester by the Prebendaries of the said church in their formalities, with the gentry and commonality of the said city and places adjacent, with torches before them. Near the cathedral they were met by the choir, who sung Te Deum before them; when divine service was ended, the choir went before the body to the grave (which was made in the body of the church) singing Nunc Dimittis. Thousands of people flockt to this cathedral, amongst whom many gave large commendations of the Dean and Chapter, who bestowed so honorable an interment on a stranger at their own proper costs and charges."

And there he lies today: a conman who gulled the King of England, the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral, and, nearly, the historical record.

FROM J.D. Davis' blog, where you can see a photo of the burial entry in the Rochester Cathedral register:
http://jddavies.com/2016/02/01/hi…

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