Wednesday 21 May 1662

My wife and I by water to Westminster, and after she had seen her father (of whom lately I have heard nothing at all what he does or her mother), she comes to me to my Lord’s lodgings, where she and I staid walking in White Hall garden. And in the Privy-garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine’s, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and did me good to look upon them. So to Wilkinson’s, she and I and Sarah to dinner, where I had a good quarter of lamb and a salat. Here Sarah told me how the King dined at my Lady Castlemaine’s, and supped, every day and night the last week; and that the night that the bonfires were made for joy of the Queen’s arrivall, the King was there; but there was no fire at her door, though at all the rest of the doors almost in the street; which was much observed: and that the King and she did send for a pair of scales and weighed one another; and she, being with child, was said to be heaviest. But she is now a most disconsolate creature, and comes not out of doors, since the King’s going.

But we went to the Theatre to “The French Dancing Master,” and there with much pleasure gazed upon her (Lady Castlemaine); but it troubles us to see her look dejectedly and slighted by people already. The play pleased us very well; but Lacy’s part, the Dancing Master, the best in the world.

Thence to my brother Tom’s, in expectation to have met my father to-night come out of the country, but he is not yet come, but here we found my uncle Fenner and his old wife, whom I had not seen since the wedding dinner, nor care to see her. They being gone, my wife and I went and saw Mrs. Turner, whom we found not well, and her two boys Charles and Will come out of the country, grown very plain boys after three years being under their father’s care in Yorkshire. Thence to Tom’s again, and there supped well, my she cozen Scott being there and my father being not come, we walked home and to bed.

29 Annotations

First Reading

tc  •  Link

...with much pleasure gazed upon her...

Sam has it bad for Lady Castlemaine!

Bradford  •  Link

"And in the Privy-garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and did me good to look upon them.”

Ah, there’s nothing like Fashion to freshen a man’s mind.

“The French Dancing Master” is making his debut in the Diary; but surely this isn’t by Fletcher. Is it?

JWB  •  Link

"...and a salat."
'nuff said

Cumgranissalis  •  Link

'twas her "K*******", not her person, it being the wash day when one could hang out the unmentionables. "...And in the Privy-garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw…”
She doth not want to be seen enceinte.

Cumgranissalis  •  Link

who wrote this play : there be the "The French Dancing Master" A book of dance music. John Playford's first edition of The English Dancing Master, of 1651
then came later :
The gentleman dancing-master
by William Wycherley
"Non satis est risu diducere rictum
Auditorus: et est quaedam tamen hic quoque virtus.”—HORAT
” from the play :The French Dancing Master
To confine a woman just in her rambling age! take away her liberty at the very time she should use it! O barbarous aunt! O unnatural father! to shut up a poor girl at fourteen, and hinder her budding! All things are ripened by the sun:—to shut up a poor girl at fourteen……”
when Wycherley be 30+ But he be missing from 18 until his first acknowledge play in 1670? this one be 1673; was this a secret try out as none lays claim to this date?
http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/…

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/…

but after the production of The Gentleman Dancing Master, in 1673.
http://12.1911encyclopedia.org/W/…
http://encyclopedia.lockergnome.c…
http://www.earthlydelights.com.au…
So who wrote this??? the One watched??
N.B. The titles be varying depeng who be writing, an Editors nitenag.

Australian Susan  •  Link

After yesterday's mention of "we all", when previously only Sam and Elizabeth had been mentioned, we now have "my wife and I", but then suddenly, Sarah is in the party with them, so presumably had accompanied them. Sarah, incidently, seems to be the 17th century equivalent of "Hello!" magazine as far as celebrity gossip goes!

Australian Susan  •  Link

"did me good to look upon them"
17th century equivalent for the lad about town of a Victoria's Secret catalogue?

Cumgranissalis  •  Link

If it was this version, then Sam would I think, enjoy "...Mons.[Monsieur de Paris] Why--he is truly a pretty man, a pretty man--a pretty so so--kind of man, for an Englishman.[Mr Gerard]..."
http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/…

Mary  •  Link

"The French Dancing Master"

L&M suggest that this was may have been a "droll" ... i.e. a short adaptation of a full-length play. Drolls became popular during the Commonwealth for surreptitious performances staged at a time when acting was officially prohibited.

Speculation about what Pepys actually saw on this occasion:

-the droll "The Humours of Monsieur Gaillard" (based on two scenes from Wm. Duke of Newcastle's play "The Variety" (c1641))
-"The Variety" itself, but referrd to by a title given to the 'droll' version.

Xjy  •  Link

"it troubles us to see her look dejectedly and slighted by people already"
Is Sam siding with "love" against "duty" here? Sounds like it. Great little domestic vignette with the weigh-in. Then the undies, and the bonfire not lit, and meeting every day before the fateful day when her man the King rushes off to meet his blushing bride-to-be. Sam is navigating more and more skilfully between the Scylla of personal ties and the Charybdis of formal duty, and using the King as one of his coordinates. Too bad there's no Telemachus to his Ulysses. And Beth is more Becky than Penelope (or Molly). But Restoration London is as full of suitors, monsters and prodigies as 1904 Dublin, at any rate.

Wim van der Meij  •  Link

The pregnant Lady Castlemaine: her son by the king was born in May 1662. He (the son) became the Duke of Southampton.

language hat  •  Link

a "droll" - i.e. a short adaptation of a full-length play

Still with us:

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (abridged)
The record breaking hit! All 37 Plays in 97 Minutes!

http://www.reducedshakespeare.com…

Stolzi  •  Link

"my uncle Fenner and his old wife,
whom I had not seen since the wedding dinner, nor care to see her"

Ooh, mee-YOWW!

And the Turner boys are "plain."

Hobnobbing with the rich and famous, gazing enraptured at Lady Castlemaine's lacy underthings, Pepys now hasn't much time for the simple folk, even though they be his own relatives.

Pedro  •  Link

May 21st 1662.

The public marriage of the King takes place, in the afternoon, after a private and secret marriage in the Catholic faith, in Catherine's bedchamber.

The church Domus Dei where they were married.

http://www.portsmouth-guide.co.uk…

Pedro  •  Link

Date Confusion.

Davidson...

"The marriage register was signed, and it is still preserved in the Parish Church in Portsmouth. It is extremely curious to remark that the date in this entry in the register is incorrect (22nd May). It was on the 21st that the marriage took place, as a dozen contemporary accounts assure us, and this mistake only gives us more proof of the extreme looseness about dates displayed by our ancestors."

Glyn  •  Link

I don't think Pepys is being snobbish, because he never liked the woman; it's nothing to do with his attitudes changing as he grows in importance.

And I suspect he thought his uncle Fenner married too quickly after the death of Pepys' real aunt.

dirk  •  Link

The King's marriage

One "second hand" eyewitness account:
Lady Fanshawe's Memoirs (based no doubt on what her husband told her)

"[...] and upon the 21st of May the King married the Queen at Portsmouth,
in the presence-chamber of his Majesty's house.

There was a rail across the upper part of the room, in which entered
only the King and Queen, the Bishop of London, the Marquis de Sande,
the Portuguese Ambassador, and my husband: in the other part of the
room there were many of the nobility and servants to their Majesties.
The Bishop of London declared them married in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and then they caused the
ribbons her Majesty wore to be cut in little pieces, and, as far as
they would go, every one had some."

dirk  •  Link

"the date in this entry in the register is incorrect (22nd May)"

Probably the ceremony and everything around it took up most of the afternoon. As it was not in any church (where the registers were kept) but in "the presence-chamber of his Majesty's house”, the actual registration probably took place the next morning - hence the date?

Australian Susan  •  Link

A lovely find, dirk!

Australian Susan  •  Link

Marriage medals and badges.
Anyone know who would have received one of these? - the medals are particularly fine and a wonderful keepsake of the occasion.

dirk  •  Link

The King's (two) marriage(s)

"The Infanta of Portugal landed in May at Portsmouth. The king went thither, and was married privately by Lord Aubigny. a secular priest, and almoner to the queen, according to the rites of Rome, in the queen's chamber; none present but the Portuguese ambassador, three more Portuguese of quality, and two or three Portuguese women. What made this necessary was, that the Earl of Sandwich did not marry her by proxy, as usual, before she came away. How this happened, the duke knows not, nor did the chancellor know of this private marriage. The queen would not be bedded, till pronounced man and wife by Sheldon, bishop of London." -- Extract 2, from King James II.'s Journal. -- Macpherson's State Papers, vol. i.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/repre…

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Here Sarah told me how the King dined at my Lady Castlemaine’s, and supped, every day and night the last week"

She then lived in King St, Westminster. (L&M note)

Bill  •  Link

"she, being with child, was said to be heaviest"

Charles Fitzroy, Lady Castlemaine's son by the King, was born in June, 1662; created Duke of Southampton, 1675; succeeded his mother as Duke of Cleveland in 1709, and died September 9th, 1730.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

OED has:

‘plain, adj.1 . .< classical Latin plānus
. . V. Of a person, or a person's attributes or character: ordinary, unexceptional, homely.
13. Simple or unpretentious in behaviour, manners, or expression; homely, unaffected. Now rare.
. . 1601 R. Johnson tr. G. Botero Travellers Breviat (1603) 82 Being (as all the Germaines are) plaine and homely in their behauiour and intertainment.
1667 S. Pepys Diary 20 Sept. (1974) VIII. 443 And endeed [she] is, as I always thought, one of the modest, prettiest, plain women that ever I saw . . ‘

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Journals of the Earl of Sandwich

21st. Wednesday. In the afternoon the King and Queen came into the presence chamber upon the throne and the contract formerly made with the Portugal Ambassador was read in English by Sir John Nicholas, in Portuguese by the Portugal Secretary, de Saire; and after which the King took the Queen by the hand and (as I think) said the words of matrimony appointed in the common prayer, the Queen also declaring her consent. Then the Bishop of London stood forth and made the declaration of matrimony in the common prayer and did pronounce them man and wife in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. https://www.pepysdiary.com/indept…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"My wife and I by water to Westminster, and after she had seen her father (of whom lately I have heard nothing at all what he does or her mother)"

L&M: They lived close by Westminster Hall until the Autumn of 1662, when they moved near to Covent Garden, possibly to the house in Long Acre ('among all the bawdy-houses') where Pepys found then on 17 February 1664. What Alexandre St Michel was working at is a mystery.

Third Reading

Log in to post an annotation.

If you don't have an account, then register here.