Tuesday 6 January 1662/63

(Twelfth Day). Up and Mr. Creed brought a pot of chocolate ready made for our morning draft, and then he and I to the Duke’s, but I was not very willing to be seen at this end of the town, and so returned to our lodgings, and took my wife by coach to my brother’s, where I set her down, and Creed and I to St. Paul’s Church-yard, to my bookseller’s, and looked over several books with good discourse, and then into St. Paul’s Church, and there finding Elborough, my old schoolfellow at Paul’s, now a parson, whom I know to be a silly fellow, I took him out and walked with him, making Creed and myself sport with talking with him, and so sent him away, and we to my office and house to see all well, and thence to the Exchange, where we met with Major Thomson, formerly of our office, who do talk very highly of liberty of conscience, which now he hopes for by the King’s declaration, and that he doubts not that if he will give him, he will find more and better friends than the Bishopps can be to him, and that if he do not, there will many thousands in a little time go out of England, where they may have it. But he says that they are well contented that if the King thinks it good, the Papists may have the same liberty with them. He tells me, and so do others, that Dr. Calamy is this day sent to Newgate for preaching, Sunday was se’nnight, without leave, though he did it only to supply the place; when otherwise the people must have gone away without ever a sermon, they being disappointed of a minister but the Bishop of London will not take that as an excuse. Thence into Wood Street, and there bought a fine table for my dining-room, cost me 50s.; and while we were buying it, there was a scare-fire in an ally over against us, but they quenched it. So to my brother’s, where Creed and I and my wife dined with Tom, and after dinner to the Duke’s house, and there saw “Twelfth Night” acted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or day.1 Thence Mr. Battersby the apothecary, his wife, and I and mine by coach together, and setting him down at his house, he paying his share, my wife and I home, and found all well, only myself somewhat vexed at my wife’s neglect in leaving of her scarf, waistcoat, and night-dressings in the coach today that brought us from Westminster, though, I confess, she did give them to me to look after, yet it was her fault not to see that I did take them out of the coach. I believe it might be as good as 25s. loss or thereabouts.

So to my office, however, to set down my last three days’ journall, and writing to my Lord Sandwich to give him an account of Sir J. Lawson’s being come home, and to my father about my sending him some wine and things this week, for his making an entertainment of some friends in the country, and so home. This night making an end wholly of Christmas, with a mind fully satisfied with the great pleasures we have had by being abroad from home, and I do find my mind so apt to run to its old want of pleasures, that it is high time to betake myself to my late vows, which I will to-morrow, God willing, perfect and bind myself to, that so I may, for a great while, do my duty, as I have well begun, and increase my good name and esteem in the world, and get money, which sweetens all things, and whereof I have much need. So home to supper and to bed, blessing God for his mercy to bring me home, after much pleasure, to my house and business with health and resolution to fall hard to work again.

38 Annotations

First Reading

Bradford  •  Link

Maybe Merciful God won't mind you making fun of a parson, Sam, though isn't a man accorded the status of adult only when he stops blaming others for his own shortcomings?

Australian Susan  •  Link

"Twelfth Night" - "a silly play" ? Oh, Sam!
Shakepeare really does seem to be a blind spot, doesn't it? Wonder why? Did Sam ever read the plays and appreciate their poetry that way? Or was it poor acting? Or where the companies using altered versions of the plays? So sad he never enjoyed them.
Now, the comment about the items in the coach being left! Did that ring true down the centuries! I have to also contend with one stage beyond that - a beloved husband who cannot keep track of his own possessions, so I do not trust him with mine.
Wonder if the hackney carriage association had the equivalent of a lost property office back then? Sam does not seem to even think for a short while that the driver might be honest and try to return the items. Sad. Wish we knew what Elizabeth had been thinking....

doug  •  Link

"...I confess, she did give them to me to look after, yet it was her fault not to see that I did take them out of the coach."
Sam's trying to blame Beth when he's the one that left her things in the coach. I wonder if he got away with it; I can never seem to pull off that sort of thing.
Mr. Gertz, what do you suppose that conversation was like?

Terry F  •  Link

The King’s declaration re liberty of conscience

"Under the influence of [Sir Henry] Bennett [Baron Arlington], who became Secretary of State in October, 1662, and of the Earl of Bristol, who assumed the leadership of the English Catholics, Charles issued on December 26, 1662, a declaration announcing his intention of exempting from the penal ties of the Act of Uniformity peaceable persons [including Catholics] whose conscientious scruples prevented them from conforming. Parliament was invited to pass an Act which would enable him to exercise 'with a more universal satisfaction' his inherent dispensing power." http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/…

A. Hamilton  •  Link

but I was not very willing to be seen at this end of the town

Why so shy? ( shades of James James Morrison's mother?)

A. Hamilton  •  Link

somewhat vexed at my wife’s neglect in leaving of her scarf, waistcoat, and night- dressings in the coach today that brought us from Westminster, though, I confess, she did give them to me to look after,

Oho! Sam's conscientious about correspondence and his diary, and about the King's Navy's provisions, but a little absent minded when it comes to looking after his wife's belongings -- and detests being reminded of it!

Terry F  •  Link

"Why so shy?" of being "willing to be seen at this end of the town"?

Was there a concentration of Catholic power-brokers around St James's Palace? if so, what's an anti-Catholic boy doing there?

(just a conjecture; though our boy may secretly be James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree...)

steve h  •  Link

Taste for Shakespeare

Every indication we have is that Shakespeare "in the raw" just sounded too old-fsahioned, medieval, and crabbed to the Pepys-era audience. His plays were popular, but only after being "improved" (cut, simplified, all poetic ambiguities wiped out), in other words, when they started sounding more like the endlessly popular.

John Fletcher, who, though a contemporary of and collaborator with the elder SHakespeare, wrote in a "classical" style that was a lot easier to swallow in the Restoration. Pepys is generally approving of Fletcher plays.

It's quite amazing to read Restoration versions of Macbeth, for example, with far simpler language and much less poetical resonance (and a big chorus line of witches).

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

For the disagreeable ones there be an escape Valve, 'twas easier to sail to Virginy, rather than spend time in a mucky cell at Newgate.
"...he will find more and better friends than the Bishopps can be to him, and that if he do not, there will many thousands in a little time go out of England, where they may have it ..."
For a Man of 62 it be a death sentence.
"...that Dr. Calamy is this day sent to Newgate for preaching, ..." My guess his health be like the average 80's today.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

I dothe think that Samuell have the coach by the day, 12 hours, be discounted. "...Took my wife by coach..." Wood Street, there be four, One with the Mitre, that could be south of the Axe?{
by S John Evan church at Mill Bank goes into stone wharf
} but see no pubs be there.
The one near Cripplegate, west of Guild Hall, be many pubs and sounds like it be near his mother's brother hideaway.{but no Mitre, The Famous Mitre be on Wood yet it is also on Fenchurch ? I wonder if it be [W}Rood Lane that be off Fenchurch.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"my guess his health be like the average 80's today"
Not necessarilly!he was middle class,so he probably had enough and much more wholesome food; there would have been less artheriosclerosis, diabetes , hypertensions ,emphysemas; of course there would have been more infectious diseases.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

I was thinking of the Squallor of the Nick. The life span of a 60 year old, and his chances of reaching 80, be zero or close to that, according to the data of the times, each decade was a race of 1 in 3 dropping at the hurdles, [especially if thee could afford a doctor], your constiution has to be that of an Ox to survive all that, that be in Newgate.

Joe  •  Link

"...blessing God for his mercy to bring me home, after much pleasure, to my house and business with health and resolution to fall hard to work again."

Ah, but remember how hard it is to "fall hard to work again." Should we anticipate some entries about his boredom, low spirits and his distracting habits of mind? Good luck with your resolution, Mr. Pepys!

Ruben  •  Link

“my guess his health be like the average 80’s today”
"he was middle class,so he probably had enough and much more wholesome food;"( of course, meat, beer and then more meat, full of fats and the like...good for your Gout and arteries) "there would have been less artheriosclerosis",(more, not less) "diabetes" ,(same as today, but a diabetic in those days would die in a short time of "compsumption") "hypertensions" ,(it is possible that those who walked avoided hypertension, but middle class used coaches) "emphysemas;"(rampant in London in those days, see Evelyn's book about smoke in London) "of course there would have been more infectious diseases."

Pedro  •  Link

"somewhat vexed at my wife’s neglect"

At least Sam gets vexed with himself sometimes...

“So to my office, but missing my key, which I had in my hand just now, makes me very angry and out of order, it being a thing that I hate in others, and more in myself, to be careless of keys,”

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Pedro  •  Link

"a lost property office back then?"

Perhaps not, did we not have an entry where Sam went back searching for the carriage that he had left something in?

Robert Gertz  •  Link

For the most part Sam keeps his vows well. Of course he has quite a bit to keep him occupied and free of boredom once he settles back into the job.

***

I'm trying to imagine getting my missus to buy my complaining about her neglect over my losing things she entrusted to me...

"Bess, I was off my vows and plastered to the gills. How can you possibly have been foolish enough to trust me with your things in my condition?"

"You forgot to mention busy trying to look down the dress of that young woman across from us when we alighted." Bess notes grimly.

"Yeah. Exactly." Sam nods. "Thanks, dear. Just the colorful detail I need for my journal."

A. Hamilton  •  Link

Up and Mr. Creed brought a pot of chocolate ready made for our morning draft

Until now, when I thought of it at all, I had thought of Sam having his morning draft of ale at the local. In the past year, however, his early rising and devotion to work has crowded out references to this custom, and perhaps he dropped it altogether. A mug of chocolate seems to mark a move upward on the socioeconomic ladder. Most brief histories say it was still a rare and expensive drink in the 17th Century, althogh the Field Museum notes that the first choclate house in London opened in 1657. Maybe a morning draft of chocolate was one of the perks of the Sandwich household?
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/chocol…

Benvenuto  •  Link

"there will many thousands in a little time go out of England, where they may have it"

And they did, didn't they? -- to Penn's son's colony, and other such places? I don't know much about the timetable of colonization, but was the Major's prophecy here inspired or obvious?

stolzi  •  Link

Well, Virginny wouldn't be the place - that colony had an established Anglican church before the American Revolution.

A. Hamilton  •  Link

I was not very willing to be seen at this end of the town

Barbara Villers looks out of the window of the unmarked hideaway apartment next to the Wardrobe at Whitehall and says, "Charles, who is that little, commonly dressed man just going out next door? I've seen his face among the gawkers at court, and have noticed how he stares at me. Doesn't he look ridiculous?"

Charles, looking: "O, just one of Sandwich's servants. A little too close to Coventry and my brother, I fear, and a bore about the Navy. But never mind."

andy  •  Link

Twelfth Day). ...... “Twelfth Night” acted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or day.

We didn't manage to take the decorations down at 12th night this year, although we did take the cards down and the tree is now in the garden sans decorations but with bacon rind for the birds...my wife asking me if there were any consequences for not having observed 12th night...

andy  •  Link

we met with Major Thomson

not, presumably, of "Les Carnets de..." fame.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

"You forgot to mention busy trying to look down the dress of that young woman across from us when we alighted"
The scallop slipped. No need to peer, free advertising be every where. Eliza would not be worried,[her portrait explains it all] it be a few more years before the Paphian display be a No No.

Pauline  •  Link

"...I was not very willing to be seen at this end of the town...."
This continues to puzzle me. Perhaps he doesn't want it known that he is taking a vacation for the holiday--wants to be thought back at the Navy Yard working away?

Any chance Sandwich doesn't know he and E are taking advantage of his hospitality---in cahoots with Sarah and Creed? (I think not.)

Glyn  •  Link

It's around about this time that one of the playwrights (perhaps Thomas Davenant?) improved "Othello" by putting in a few songs and adding a happy ending.

That became the favourite version for more than 100 years.

language hat  •  Link

"to Penn’s son’s colony, and other such places"

There was no Pennsylvania yet; it wasn't founded until 1682. At this time, Rhode Island would have been the obvious choice for dissenters. If you were a regular Puritan, of course, most of New England was your oyster. From Alan Taylor's wonderful American Colonies:

"Once in Massachusetts, the company leaders established the most radical government in the European world: a republic, where the Puritan men elected their governor, deputy governor, and legislature (known as the General Court)... By 1640 the expanding settlements spawned new colonies. To the northeast, some Puritans settled along the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, where they mingled uneasily with fishing folk, nominal Anglicans who came from the English West Country. Southwestern New England became a haven for especially radical Puritan Separatists who settled around Narragansett Bay in independent towns that eventually made up the colony of Rhode Island. At the other religious extreme, some particularly conservative and ambitious Puritans found Massachusetts too lax in religion and too stingy in land grants. They proceeded southwest to found the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven..."

The aftermath of King Philip's War (1675-76) led to the king's men in New York (with the help of their Mohawk allies) gaining the upper hand over the recalcitrant Puritan colonies and imposing imperial control from London.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Chocolate
If this had been a novelty for Sam, I think he would have mentioned it as such - he usually does with such things - so I think he must have used to having such luxuries. Coming up in the world!

celtcahill  •  Link

As to Sam's health, much as he often rides or goes by boat, he walks everywhere with considerable alacrity and no mention of fatigue nor apparent harm to his schedule, and his Kidneys are aging pretty fast too - I think his health would compare well to anyone of his age in our time.

in Aqua Scripto  •  Link

Walking Every-where, not any more, He ,Samuell that be, be getting use to using the Coach, as there seems to be at the stand at the 3 Tuns?, besides which I Dothe think, he could put in a ticket for the expense, thereby not be ex-penced.

maureen  •  Link

Major Thomson had already lived in Virginia - a businessman and tobacco monopolist - then he and his 3 elder brothers, all Puritans, returned for the Civil War. Later he had a significant role in building up Cromwell's navy.

GrahamT  •  Link

Major Thompson was mentioned in relation to Samuel Pepys last night on "Who Do You Think You Are", a genealogy programme on the BBC. The passage above mentioning him was read out.
He was an ancestor of actor Kevin Whately, who British readers may remember from "Morse" and "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet"

Second Reading

arby  •  Link

"Night-dressings"?

JayW  •  Link

Night dressings = nightwear. They have been staying overnight at Lord Sandwich's lodgings.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Why so shy?" of being "willing to be seen at this end of the town"? Seems to me he was acting paranoid about being seen by Coventry yesterday, and noted that people were recognizing him so he didn't need to visit so often any more. So I agree: he was worried Coventry and others would know he wasn't working at the office, and he and Elizabeth "hid out" with friends.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Coach use: The weather is awful ... James didn't go hunting last Monday. Plus on January 4 Pepys reports
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
After dinner I and she walked, though it was dirty, to White Hall (in the way calling at the Wardrobe to see how Mr. Moore do, who is pretty well, but not cured yet), being much afeard of being seen by anybody, and was, I think, of Mr. Coventry, which so troubled me that I made her go before, and I ever after loitered behind.
So if Pepys is riding around in a carriage more than usual recently, the weather might account for it. Elizabeth probably put her foot down about taking long hikes in the dirt, and being made to walk apart from the paranoid Sam. Plus I guess a new pair of shoes to replace the water-logged leather ones would cost more than a coach ride.
We shall see what Pepys does when the weather improves.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He tells me, and so do others, that Dr. Calamy is this day sent to Newgate for preaching, Sunday was se’nnight, without leave, though he did it only to supply the place; when otherwise the people must have gone away without ever a sermon, they being disappointed of a minister but the Bishop of London will not take that as an excuse."

L&M: Edmund Calamy, sen., a leading Presbyterian, hd preached in St Mary's Aldermanbury, from which he had been extruded in August 1662 for nonconformity. He had been released from Newgate on 13 January on the ground that he had acted with the approval of several privy councillors, and not in contempt of the law: CSPD 1663-4, p. 10. The Act of Uniformity made dissenting clergymen liable to three months' imprisonment for public preaching, This was the first prosecution under the act. Cf. CSPVen. 1661-4, p. 229. The Bishop was Gilbert Sheldon.

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