Tuesday 18 February 1661/62

Lay long in bed, then up to the office (we having changed our days to Tuesday and Saturday in the morning and Thursday at night), and by and by with Sir W. Pen, Mr. Kennard, and others to survey his house again, and to contrive for the alterations there, which will be handsome I think.

After we had done at the office, I walked to the Wardrobe, where with Mr. Moore and Mr. Lewis Phillips after dinner we did agree upon the agreement between us and Prior and I did seal and sign it.

Having agreed with Sir Wm. Pen and my wife to meet them at the Opera, and finding by my walking in the streets, which were every where full of brick-battes and tyles flung down by the extraordinary wind the last night (such as hath not been in memory before, unless at the death of the late Protector), that it was dangerous to go out of doors; and hearing how several persons had been killed to-day by the fall of things in the streets, and that the pageant in Fleetstreet is most of it blown down, and hath broke down part of several houses, among others Dick Brigden’s; and that one Lady Sanderson, a person of quality in Covent Garden, was killed by the fall of the house, in her bed, last night; I sent my boy home to forbid them to go forth. But he bringing me word that they are gone, I went thither and there saw “The Law against Lovers,” a good play and well performed, especially the little girl’s (whom I never saw act before) dancing and singing; and were it not for her, the loss of Roxalana would spoil the house. So home and to musique, and so to bed.

60 Annotations

First Reading

Pedro  •  Link

"the extraordinary wind the last night (such as hath not been in memory before, unless at the death of the late Protector)"

Ralph Josselin says...

17. my fit very gentle blessed be god, in the night it rained the wind rose and was 18: violent beyond measure. overturning a windmill at Colchester wherein a youth killed, divers barns, stables, outhouses, trees, rending divers dwellings few escaped, my loss much, but not like some others, god sanctify all to us. throwing down stacks of chimneys, chimneys, part of houses. the lady Saltonstall killed in her bed her house falling - Whitehall twice on fire that day, some orchards almost ruined. 27 trees blown down within priory wall , timber trees rent up in high standing woods. the wind was general in England and Scotland Holland sea coast, but not in Scotland.

http://linux02.lib.cam.ac.uk/earl…

For John Evelyns (mentioned in yesterday's annotations) see...
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Le…

For what is considered the worst storm see Great Storm of 1703....
http://www.edp24.co.uk/Content/Hi…

Australian Susan  •  Link

It seems odd to me that Sam records getting up and going off to work as normal and then indulging in his hobby of overseeing and planning renovations, but does not seem to have noticed any effects of the storm until he goes out and about. One would have thought either his house or one of his neighbours' at least would have lost tiles or he would have been roused in the night by the wind. In Pedro's link above to the Great Storm site (thanks, Pedro) there is reference to the storm of October 15th, 1987, which I remember as one of the most frightening nights of my life as I listened to the sound of a wind such as I had never heard before and heard the sickening scrunch of trees falling around us (Kent countryside) and waking to horrific scenes of destruction (not only tiles, but whole roofs gone) and being completely cut off with trees down on every road out of the village.

Bradford  •  Link

To give a sense of what such a wind can do, further details and photos about the disaster A. Susan describes can be found in the late W. B. Sebald's "The Rings of Saturn."

And what is point of staying indoors After the wind's died down?

Perhaps memory fails, but surely if we'd had Roxalana before I would remember her. Apparently an actress under the new state of theatrical affairs, how was she Lost?

JWB  •  Link

"The Law against Lovers,"
Davenant’s amalgam of “Measure for Measure” with Beatrice & Benedick from “Much Ado About Nothing”.

Roxalana

“When The Siege of Rhodes was revised for the opening of the more spacious Duke’s Playhouse in 1661 Davenant, because he now had more than one actress, added the character Roxalana, who is jealous of the virtuous Ianthe. Roxalana was played by Hester Davenport, the first well-known English actress.”
http://oldpoetry.com/authors/Sir%…

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"late protector"
Amazing how SP is still referring to Oliver Cromwell as the protector at this stage; I guess newspeak did not move as fast then!

Mary  •  Link

"the agreement between us and Prior"

This refers to the business, begun last October, of selling to Mr. Prior a small house at Brampton which had formed part of Uncle Robert Pepys's estate.

Ken  •  Link

In the storm of 1987 I lost fences and bits of roof, and couldn't go to work the next morning because of the fallen trees all around blocking roads and railway lines.

Australian Susan mentions this as one of the most frightening nights of her life. However, I have sympathy with Sam here as I too slept through the whole thing!

E  •  Link

Bradford, are you up for a Darwin Award? Bits may well continue to fall off after a storm is over. A neighbour of ours was nearly killed by a falling branch when inspecting storm damage the next day. Apparently not at all unusual.

I also remember somebody going hard for a Darwin Award -- sheltering from a storm under the lee of a barn, with his feet among broken tiles. Told in no uncertain terms by the farmer that he was a __ fool not to have forced his way into the barn in the circumstances.

Sjoerd  •  Link

Lady Saltonstall wasn't feeling very well in 1660 either, judging this painting from David des Granges (Family of Sir Richard Saltonstall, 1660)

http://www.kipar.org/period-galle…

Mary  •  Link

"the loss of Roxalana...."

The actress concerned is Mrs. Hester Davenport. She had been one of the leading actresses in the Duke of York's Company, but had left the stage to live with Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford.

She acquired the name Roxalana as a result of playing that part in 'The Siege of Rhodes' by Davenant (1656).

Stolzi  •  Link

Three half-days of office time
in the week?

Sweet!

Stolzi  •  Link

Roxalana

I went to the John Evelyn link, and in January of this year he wrote

9 I saw acted the 2d part of the Seige of Rhodes: In this acted the faire & famous Comedian call'd Roxalana for that part she acted, & I think it was the last; then taken to be the E. of Oxfords Misse (as at this time they began to call lew'd women) it was in Recitativa Musique.

JohnT  •  Link

Is the reference to the weather at the death of Cromwell factual or something more akin to Shakespeare's descriptions of foul weather before the death of Julius Caesar or after that of Duncan ?

vicenzo  •  Link

Will Pen Adm. would be aware this day of the position his son is creating for his 'being sent down' by the talk in the House of L:
"..... They adhere to the Word ["others"] in the Title of the Bill, to meet with all others who refuse Oaths besides the Quakers, such are some Anabaptists; ...
.... And besides, 'tis not easy to define what a Quaker is, if so restrained;....

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

c Copyright 2003-2005 University of London & History of Parliament Trust

Besides which, any 5 quakers would be enough to shake up the local power base group. I mean to say, not doffing ones ‘at or saying the correct Oath. Not rite ye know.

vicenzo  •  Link

winds of havoc from J.E: 1658:June
2. An extraordinary storme of haile & raine, cold season as winter, wind northerly neere 6 moneths.
3 August
The 10th to Sir Ambros Brown at Betchworth Castle in that tempestious Wind, which threw-downe my greatest trees at Says Court, & did so much mischiefe all England over: It continued all night, till 3 afternoone next day, & was S. West, destroying all our winter fruit...
***
September 3 Died that archrebell Oliver Cromwell, cal'd Protector.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Le…

no mention of winds upon the death of the Arch-rebel

JWB  •  Link

Cromwell's Storm
T.H. Huxley of Newton:"His first scientific experiment was made on the force of a storm on the day of Cromwell's death. He jumped first in the direction of the wind, and then against it, and took the difference of distance as a measure of the force of the gale.”

Pedro  •  Link

Royalty Restored or London under Charles II
by J. Fitzgerald Molloy

As evening closed in, the elements appeared in unison with the distracted condition of the kingdom. Dark clouds, seeming of ominous import to men's minds, gathered in the heavens, to be presently torn asunder and hurried in wild flight by tempestuous winds across the troubled sky. As night deepened, the gale steadily increased, until it raged in boundless fury above the whole island and the seas that rolled around its shores. In town houses rocked on their foundations, turrets and steeples were flung from their places; in the country great trees were uprooted, corn-stacks levelled to the ground, and winter fruits destroyed; whilst at sea ships sank to rise no more. This memorable storm lasted all night, and continued until three o'clock next afternoon, when Cromwell expired.

http://www.worldwideschool.org/li…

Bradford  •  Link

Much as, E, most injuries during moderate earthquakes come from people fleeing their houses only to be struck by, say, a falling chimney-brick. N.B. to those living in fault zones, which I think is one thing Londoners like Sam perhaps need not fear.

Glyn  •  Link

Stolzi has highlighted the time Pepys spend in the office, which I hadn't noticed. However, I had thought that morning meetings were regularly held at 8 am (which we should keep in mind for future entries for Tuesdays and Saturdays), so I don't understand how he could lie long in bed when he had a morning meeting (at whatever time of the morning it was).

He and his colleagues are still working 6 days a week though.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Sjoerd has found a delightful period portrait, showing Lady S "lying-in" after the birth of a baby. Yes, she looks v. pale,and has obviously had 3 children in rapid succession, but at least she was able to lie in bed and recover after childbirth - working class women would have been up and about very soon after the birth and no nursemaid to help out. What a shame though that, like so many women in the 17th century she didn't live to enjoy her children for long. She did, however, survive childbirth which one in three didn't.

Pauline  •  Link

Sjoerd's portrait find of Lady S
The Lady S who dies today and was painted with her family last year, was predeceased by her husband, Sir Richard, who died in 1658. So this portrait must be of her in her long illness-unto-death surrounded by her son, the new Sir Richard (?), and his wife (seated to the right) and their three small children.

I love the way the older daughter grips the younger by the wrist to retain her within the frame of the picture; then I realize that I am seeing this from our world of family gathering before a camera--say "cheese" and it's over. How steadily she must have gripped through how many sittings?

Mary  •  Link

"The new(?) Sir Richard"

There was a practice, which certainly persisted into the 18th Century, of 'painting in' deceased members of a family into group portraits, so this could be an example of that practice. The artist would need an existing portrait of the deceased subject in order to effect the project.

Sjoerd  •  Link

Some further Googling, encouraged by Mary, Pauline and Susan turned up this:

"The pale dead mother lies all in white, her eyes open, and her upturned hand reaching towards her children. On the right side of the picture sits Saltonstall's second wife, and she holds her baby on her lap. She also is dressed in white and is separated from her husband by the first wife. In addition, the diagonal line between Saltonstall's left hand and his baby is interrupted by his dead wife. However, he does gaze in the direction of his second wife, although no one in the portrait looks directly at another person.

Commentary: This is a portrait of love, remembrance, and promise. In our current age of complicated family relationships and "blended" families, it is refreshing to note that family relationships have always been complex. This artwork is both document (of lineage and wealth) and story. From our modern viewpoint we would wonder what the second wife thought as she passed this painting everyday in her home. At the time, however, depictions of living and dead family members together were not uncommon, particularly in tomb art."

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-m…

Interestingly, no mention of the storm that was at the start of all this.

Mary  •  Link

The Saltonstall family portrait.

Congratulations, Sjoerd! This just leaves us with a slight puzzle over dates. The painting is dated 1660, but Sir Richard himself is said to have died in 1658. Either the date of execution (perhaps it was begun before 1658 but only finished later?)must be wrong, or both Sir Richard and his first wife are painted posthumously.

I have so far found reference to only one Lady Saltonstall, but will keep poking around for another.

Pauline  •  Link

The Saltonstall family portrait.

Sjoerd's link says it was painted 1636-37.
So the lady who has died today is the second wife, shown to the right holding her baby.

Ruben  •  Link

Thank Sjoerd for the stupendous finding.
I do not know if it belongs to our time (1661).
All this is really strange. If Saltonstall was painted after he was dead, O.K., but how did he impregnate his wife 2 years after being dead?
Everyone will agree that was imposible.
Another point is that the picture looks anachronic for the Restoration. I tend to think that this is an old picture of another Saltonstall, not contemporaneous with the diary.

vicenzo  •  Link

History only documents the memorable versions of a Family, even tho each generation names the offspring, hoping for a repeat in good memorable genes.
So the number of sir Richards available at the time are unknown, there doth be one for Mass., but there be others in background. [every generation and branch of a successful family, used a name of the illustrious one ]

Ruben  •  Link

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
Sir Isaac Newton

Australian Susan  •  Link

Just another pebble: the children shown at the left of the portrait are probably boys, who were dressed as girls until they were "breeched" at around 4. This was a sort of folk-medicinal thing. It was known by observation that more boys died as infants (before 5) than girls, so it was thought you could "fool the fates" and present a male infant as a female. It probably by this time (mid-17th century)just a custom. It still happened in England in the 19th century (in poorer country areas) as clothes were handed down and if you were a boy after a lot of girl children, well, tough, you got to wear petticoats. Incidently, Sjoerd's portrait looks nothing like the one Ruben's found.....?

vicenzo  •  Link

Rubens' pix is of Carlos II period when men were peruked.

Sjoerd  •  Link

The family painting must be painted much earlier then 1660, the portrait in the Saltonstall Saga is much later (and no Rembrandt either),but still playing with these pebbles is fun. I will be visiting London with the family later in the week and will have a look in at the Tate to see what "my" painting looks like for real. Isn't this site great ?

Pauline  •  Link

Saltonstall family painting

You all missed my message above, the link Sjoerd provided says it was painted 1636-7. (Am I that boring?)

andy  •  Link

Storm of 1987

I was living in London that night - my dad had died just hours before and I couldn't sleep anyway, but I remember watching the faux-Victorian iron lamposts of Tower Hamlets Council swaying in the wind.

Jenny Doughty  •  Link

Regarding boys being 'breeched' - I imagine it also saved a certain amount of washing before potty-training in the days before diapers had waterproof covers.

vicenzo  •  Link

Breech: 1] short trousers covering covering the hips and thighs and fitting snugly at the lower edges at or just below the Knee. Up to age of Four, boys would be in petty-coats and under petty coat rule, and all that it entails [ pettish we be then] then we be breeched: All English boys suffered that mode of dress regardless of snow, ice, rain or other versions of the delightful invigorating English weather 'til they lost that innocent soprano voice and could then proceed to wear long pants.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Pauline - sorry - yes, I am paying attention and no, you are *not* boring! I saw this painting when in England last summer. It is very large and impressive and, yes, rather odd. here is the Tate's caption: "This great family piece is something of a puzzle. It apparently takes its inspiration from the elaborate dynastic tombs of the period, where the living and the dead are shown intermingled. Sir Richard Saltonstall draws back the red curtain round the bed that contains his deceased first wife, who gestures towards the couple's two surviving children. He, meanwhile, gazes towards his second - living - wife, who sits holding her own Saltonstall baby.”
You are quite right. The lady who died in this storm when her house collapsed is the 2nd Lady S who is holding the baby on the right. Her husband had already died in 1658. As far as i know, there is no other English painting quite like this one with the dead and the living portrayed.

Mary  •  Link

"painting .... with the dead and living portrayed"

I've seen another (late 18th/early 19th century (?) portrait of a mother with children at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. As far as I remember it is one of the children that is represented posthumously.

ruben  •  Link

The portrait is considered by the experts to have been painted 30 years before Pepys diary. In my opinion it has nothing to do with the lady who died that day.

Wim van der Meij  •  Link

Warrington has the following note on Roxelana:
This actress, so called from the character she played in the 'Siege of Rhodes'. was Elizabeth (!) Davenport. Evelyn saw her on the 9th January 1662, she being soon after taken to be 'My Lord Oxford's Miss'; but she returned to the stage within a year. (See 20th May, post.) She was induced to marry the Earl of Oxford, after indignantly refusing to become his mistress, and discovered, when too late, that the nuptial ceremony had been performed by the earl's trumpeter in the habit of a priest. For more of her history, see 'Memoires de Grammont'. Ashmole records the birth of the Earl of Oxford's son by Roxelana, 17th April 1664, which shows that the liaison continued after her return to the stage. The cild was called Aubrey Vere. (Ward's Diary, p.131)

David Ross McIrvine  •  Link

Out of curiosity, are there any speculations as to what Force gales
per the Beaufort Scale
we are talking about in each case (1658, 1662, 1987)?

I'm not meaning to slight English
storms, but it occurs to me that
they wouldn't ever get up to force
12, or am I wrong?

So Sam has been through maybe a Force 10, and the Cromwell Wind was an 11?

I know I've been through several hurricanes and have even secured a vessel
(successfully!) moored in a harbor so
it took no damage from one hurricane. Oddly, the subsequent tropical storm,
which arrived without warning, beached many more vessels from the Stamford Yacht Club than did the preceding hurricane, which we knew about for days.

StewartMcI  •  Link

Despite "My Fair Lady" hurricanes can happen in the Home Counties, and one did just a few years back. I remember the famous storm of January 1953 in Scotland which was accompanied by hurricane force winds.

Having said that, what Sam describes is something over a force 9 Gale, in the force 10 Storm or perhaps force 11 Severe Storm, rather than a full force 12 Hurricane.

Mary  •  Link

Windy weather.

Just a couple of weeks ago hurricane-force winds were forecast for parts of the Scottish coast.

However, my understanding was that although southern parts of the British Isles can suffer severe storms with occasional gusts of hurricane-force (12) wind, no true hurricanes (sustained force 12 winds) have been reliably recorded for the region. Nevertheless, the 1987 storm was sufficiently hurricane-like for those of us who spent the night listening to trees crashing to the ground around us and wondering whether the roof would blow away before it was demolished by a tree.

Glyn  •  Link

The Pageant in Fleet Street

This was a series of trumphal arches erected in Fleet Street and the Strand last April to commemorate the king's return to England, and which have been left standing there. I don't know what they were made of or whether they were meant to be temporary or permanent, but obviously they were substantial enough to do damage to the houses on which they collapsed. Were there any references to them back in April/May?

Jenny Doughty  •  Link

'As far as i know, there is no other English painting quite like this one with the dead and the living portrayed.'

I've seen a painting in Hampton Court Palace showing Henry VIII and his family, painted well after Jane Seymour's death but depicting her. You can see a very small copy of it here - http://tudorhistory.org/henry8/ga… - along with another picture of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, depicting all of their children, including those who died young.

Sallie Saltonstall Fleet  •  Link

The Sir Richard Saltonstall in the Des Grandes painting, is not the Sir Richard who travelled to New England. That Sir Richard had an uncle by the same name, also a knight and Lord Mayor of London dying in 1601. He was the father of 16 children, three of them knighted. One also named Sir Richard who is thought to be the subject in the painting.

Daryl  •  Link

Are there any other portraits of the Richard Saltonstall who travelled to New Engand with John Winthrop. I hear references to a Rembrandt that may still be in the family's possession here in MA. I am reaseaching a book on the earliest settlements here in the Boston area and really need to find a likeness of Richard Saltonstall.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the pageant in Fleetstreet" -- note L&M -- had been erected for the coronation of 1661.

Bill  •  Link

"the extraordinary wind the last night"

A dreadful storm of wind happened one night in February, anno 1661-2, which, though general, as least, all over England, yet was remarkable at Oxford in these two respects —1. That though it forced the stones inwards into the cavity of Allhallow's spire, yet it overthrew it not. And 2. That in the morning, when there was some abatement of its fury, it was yet so violent, that it laved water out of the river Cherwell, and cast it quite over the bridge at Magdalen College, above the surface of the water, near twenty foot high; which passage, with advantage of holding by the College wall, I had then curiosity to go to see myself, which otherwise perhaps I should have as hardly credited, as some other persons now may do.—Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire, p. 6.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

"The late Protector" It is notable that Pepys refers respectfully to Cromwell throughout the course of the diary.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

Daryl, 2008: There is a portrait of ‘Saltonstall, Sir Richard (bap. 1586, d. 1661), colonist in America,’ in oil, 1644, at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts.

Shane Hines  •  Link

From parish registers for Bramford, Suffolk:
"Memorandum - there happened such a great and violent winds the 18 Februarye 1661 that the Parsonage Barne of Bramforde and allsoe many other barnes in this towne fell down by reason of the violence of the winde, likewise the spire of the Towne Steple of Ipswich fell downe and allsoe seven score oake trees were blown up by the roots in my Lord Herefordes parke this I say as an eye witness of this oculis vidi
This was entered in the Register booke by me the 24 of February 1661
Anthony Glover
Vicar"

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"After we had done at the office, I walked to the Wardrobe, where with Mr. Moore and Mr. Lewis Phillips after dinner we did agree upon the agreement between us and Prior and I did seal and sign it."

L&M: Pepys's office memorandun-book has a note under this date: 'We altered our sittings to Tuesd. & Saturday mornings and Thursday afterniin': PRO, Admin. 195/3520, f.br.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

CORRECTION
"Lay long in bed, then up to the office (we having changed our days to Tuesday and Saturday in the morning and Thursday at night),"

L&M: Pepys's office memorandun-book has a note under this date: 'We altered our sittings to Tuesd. & Saturday mornings and Thursday afterniin': PRO, Admin. 195/3520, f.br.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Having agreed with Sir Wm. Pen and my wife to meet them at the Opera, and finding by my walking in the streets, which were every where full of brick-battes and tyles flung down by the extraordinary wind the last night"

L&M: Dr D.J. Shove writes: "Windy Tuesday" was certainly the best documented, and in S. England perhaps the worst, storm between 1362 and 1703. It was associated with the death of the Queen of Bohemia, all Europe being affected by the gales about this time. Rugge (ii, F12r) estimated the damage at £11m and described the London streets as full of "brick bats, tileshards, spouts, sheets of lead...hats and feathers and perriwigs". Cf. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Evelyn 17 February; Mirabilis annus secundus (1662): A full and certain account of the last great wind (1661/2); C.E. Britton in Met. Mag. (1939)/22-4.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

John Evelyn's Diary – he and Mary Browne Evelyn live at Saye's Court, Deptford.

http://brittlebooks.library.illin…

@@@

20 February, 1662.
I returned home to repair my house, miserably shattered by the late tempest.

@@@

It can't have been that miserably shattered; 4 days later his wife and children join him at Sayes Court.

Third Reading

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