Monday 28 July 1662
Up early, and by six o’clock, after my wife was ready, I walked with her to the George, at Holborn Conduit, where the coach stood ready to carry her and her maid to Bugden, but that not being ready, my brother Tom staid with them to see them gone, and so I took a troubled though willing goodbye, because of the bad condition of my house to have a family in it. So I took leave of her and walked to the waterside, and there took boat for the Tower; hearing that the Queen-Mother is come this morning already as high as Woolwich: and that my Lord Sandwich was with her; at which my heart was glad, and I sent the waterman, though yet not very certain of it, to my wife to carry news thereof to my Lady. So to my office all the morning abstracting the Duke’s instructions in the margin thereof.
So home all alone to dinner, and then to the office again, and in the evening Cooper comes, and he being gone, to my chamber a little troubled and melancholy, to my lute late, and so to bed, Will lying there at my feet, and the wench in my house in Will’s bed.
18 Annotations
First Reading
Terry F. • Link
"Will lying there at my feet"
L&M note: "Sc. in a truckle bed."
Terry F. • Link
"...all the morning abstracting the Duke's instructions in the margin thereof.”
Pray, tell what instructions these be? Searching, I find some 26 days ago (pre-deluge, &c.) consistent with Sam’s interests in the Ropeyard at Woolwich, and his reading of Mr. Holland [Hollond’s] discourse of the Navy” and its “diseases” three days ago: those being “such instructions as concern the officers of the Yard” of 2 July: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
(Just a not entirely uneducated guess.)
Terry F. • Link
L&M note refers to 5 February; Mary on The duke's Institucions.
“There's a long note here by L&M. These instructions (largely stereotyped) were issued by every High Admiral at the start of his term of office. The Instructions of 1662 (based largely on those of 1640) remained substantially in force until Nelson's day. Pepys preseved two Mss copies of them .
“Officially the Navy Board could only act within the terms so established or by obtaining a special warrant for additional powers, but in practice there tended to be more flexibility than this.”
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Sam goes back to the basics; thanks, Mary.
dirk • Link
John Evelyn's diary
28 July 1662:
"His Majestie going to sea to meete Queene-mother (now coming againe for England), met with such ill-weather, as greately indangerd him. I went to Greenewich to waite on the Queene now landed."
Stolzi • Link
Aw, how sweet.
He is "a little troubled and melancholy" because his Elizabeth is not there!
stolzi • Link
Dirty and messy as the house is,
"the wench" has to sleep there in case of fire or thieves.
Lucky wench.
Cumgranissalis • Link
La Wench, she be having the nite sky to 'erself,[and a free shower] and have a free night of not be debugging 'imself [Sam] of his extra nutritional calories. '"the wench" has to sleep there in case of fire or thieves.’
And to keep those nosey neighbours, peeking at Samuells supply of goodies.
There be a man at the Grand Entrance but most likey, he be one that he be deaf having stood too near to a battery of Pen’s cannons too many times.
Robert Gertz • Link
Nice of Sam to think of poor Lady Jem in his own moment of melancholy...And Bess must have appreciated getting to be the bearer of such news.
So would that be our Jane in Will's bed valiantly guarding la maison Pepys? Or is she gone with Bess as maid?
"Now, one of us must stay in the house of course to watch over things." Pepys notes.
Ay, sir...Will and ?Jane nod.
"It should be perfectly safe. But whoever stays should be prepared to take action to rouse the watch if necessary. Someone agile, with a strong voice...Yet one whom any thief would be inclined to spare because she...er...Whoever...Appears unlikely to do them harm."
Will eyes Sam...Sam eyes Will...They eye ?Jane...
Terry F. • Link
"in the evening Cooper comes, and he being gone, to my chamber a little troubled and melancholy, to my lute late,..."
What a juxtaposition! Mathematiques, a lute and "Melancholy Baby": a short read of Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (1632)
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~rlblair/…
Mary • Link
the wench.
Probably the skivvy rather than Jane, who is more likely to have gone into the country with Elizabeth. Sam is to keep going with a skeleton staff whilst the works are accomplished.
Robert Gertz • Link
Terry, now I have this image of Sam on lute struggling to play "Melancholy Baby" while Will below covers his ears...Much as our Will misses Elisabeth too.
Nix • Link
"a troubled though willing goodbye, because of the bad condition of my house to have a family in it" --
It strikes me as odd that Samuel would feel the need to repeat in his diary this rationale for the departure. This feels much more like writing for the public -- not the normal tone of his writing.
Cumgranissalis • Link
"...in the evening Cooper comes, and he being gone, to my chamber a little troubled and melancholy..." Could it be this, he failed to get the rite answer?
...."Professor Shane Frederick, from the MIT Sloan school of management, in the United States, tried out the three questions on 3,000 students from eight universities, but fewer than half of them got the first question correct.
When told that a "horse and saddle cost a total of 1 guinea and that the Horse costs 1 quid more than the saddle, they were then asked to work out the cost of the saddle. Most said 1 bob . - which is incorrect. Although Prof Frederick admitted to thinking the answer was 1 bob when he first saw the question, he said he was amazed by how many people kept it as their final answer. ..."
plagiarized and lifted to fit the 17 C. from
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?i…
Robert Gertz • Link
I noted the repeated statement too, Nix. However I took it as Sam trying to convince himself he'd done the right thing when at heart he wishes he'd encouraged Beth's reluctance to leave.
Of course he may be thinking on the expense and money wasted...
Australian Susan • Link
So if Jane has gone with Elizabeth, Will is with Sam in the Penn house, Sarah is camping out in the damp Pepys house, where is Wayneman?
Mary • Link
Where is Wayneman?
Gone into the country with Elizabeth and Jane, who is his sister? Always useful to have a lad to run messages, draw water, keep the townees fine shoes clean, chop wood ......... plenty of opportunities for a lad to make himself useful to employer and host alike.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
'and so I took a troubled though willing goodbye"
L&M transcribe (the punctuation theirs): "and so I took a troubled, though willing, godbwy"
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San Diego Sarah • Link
Travel by coach took for ever in 1662. This describes the trip by wagon with produce and people aboard, not an expensive people-coach:
Highlights from http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/ar…
During the entire medieval period of English history the roads were so wretched the only practical means of transport for goods was on the backs of pack-horses, and strings — sometimes containing as many as 30 or 40 of these patient animals, their leader wearing a bell around its neck — were common sights in the country. For their accommodation, special bridges were built over streams as time went on, narrow bridges with low parapets that would not interfere with the low-hung loads. The well-known "Piscator's Bridge," in Dovedale, Notts., is a good example of a pack-horse bridge. By degrees proprietors of these horses and other charitable folk paved tracks for them to walk along, and traces of these trackways can be found all over England. There is an excellent specimen near Kirklees, Yorks.
By the 17th century, wheels were coming into general use, and huge cumbrous wagons of immensely strong construction were dragged about the country by teams of six and more horses. In addition, these wagons had great baskets slung at their rear for the accommodation of passengers, and their usual rate of progress was three miles an hour, four miles an hour being considered extraordinarily rapid. The wheels of these monsters played havoc with the already awful surface of the roads, and all manner of plans were devised to remedy the evil. Instead of improving the roads, our forefathers tried to stop the wagons, and also introduced regulations encouraging the use of wide wheels, until eventually rollers were tried instead of ordinary wheels.
One hundred years later the most comfortable mode of travel, and the one usually employed, was still horseback. Some idea of the magnitude of the horse-hire trade can be gained from the fact that in 1750, 400 saddle-horses were available in Nottingham (that's one for every 29 persons in the town). Many of these horses could be hired at about threepence a mile, with an addition of fourpence per stage for the post-boy who acted as guide (presumably a little less in Pepys' time).