Tuesday 8 September 1663
Up and to my viall a while, and then to my office on Phillips having brought me a draught of the Katherine yacht, prettily well done for the common way of doing it. At the office all the morning making up our last half year’s account to my Lord Treasurer, which comes to 160,000l. or there abouts, the proper expense of this half year, only with an addition of 13,000l. for the third due of the last account to the Treasurer for his disbursements, and 1100l. for this half year’s; so that in three years and a half his thirds come to 14,100l.. Dined at home with my wife. It being washing day, we had a good pie baked of a leg of mutton; and then to my office, and then abroad, and among other places to Moxon’s, and there bought a payre of globes cost me 3l. 10s., with which I am well pleased, I buying them principally for my wife, who has a mind to understand them, and I shall take pleasure to teach her. But here I saw his great window in his dining room, where there is the two Terrestrial Hemispheres, so painted as I never saw in my life, and nobly done and to good purpose, done by his own hand.
Thence home to my office, and there at business late, and then to supper home and to bed, my people sitting up longer than ordinary before they had done their washing.
28 Annotations
First Reading
Todd Bernhardt • Link
Why does washing day lead to a "a good pie baked of a leg of mutton"?
And I trust someone with access to L&M will help explain the Treasurer's disbursements ... please?
TerryF • Link
The Navy Board's account for the past six months
This was the Invoice to the Treasury from the Navy Board, which, L&M say, had agreed to a limit of £200,000 p/a. [over £160,000 is clearly more than half of that]. The "third" is the Navy Treasurer's allowance.
Nate • Link
Why does washing day lead to a "a good pie baked of a leg of mutton"?
There are some descriptions of washing day in past posts. In short, there was no time for cooking. I think it's the same reason for corned beef and cabbage in the 19th century. Shove it in the pot and let it simmer.
Robert Gertz • Link
"...there bought a payre of globes cost me 3l. 10s., with which I am well pleased, I buying them principally for my wife, who has a mind to understand them, and I shall take pleasure to teach her."
Hmmn...Sweet, if a little reminiscent of Brantley's cocooning of his wife by bring the world home to her in "The Joy That Kills".
Lurker • Link
What exactly is a "payre" of globes, and why would he need more then one globe?
Michael Robinson • Link
payre of globes
One celestial and one terrestrial -- of particular importance for astronomy and therefore navigation.
Moxon’s first publication was “A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography; or, An Easie and Speedy way to Understand the Use of both the Globes, Celestial and Terrestrial”. (1654) a translation from William Blaeu. Later he published under his own name “Astronomie and Geographie: Or an Easie and speedy way to Know the Use of both the Globes, Celestial and Terrestrial. In Six books” (1659)
Michael Robinson • Link
Katherine yacht
Greenwich has a group of photographs on its web site of "a Scale: 1:32. Navy Board skeleton model of a yacht, possibly royal (circa 1690). The model is decked and rigged with the sails (modern) set ..."
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/…
Robert Gertz • Link
Six months later...
"Ridiculous..." Sam waves a casual hand.
"Sam'l, I've done the observations and calculations five times."
"My dear Mrs. Pepys. Everybody knows there are six planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. There is no seventh planet."
"I'm telling you..."
Whatever possessed me to tutor her in astronomy? Sam shakes head.
"If you'd just read over my notes and do the observations with me... I'm sure someone at the Royal Society could confirm the results."
"Bess... I am Clerk of the Acts of His Majesty's Royal Navy and there is no way under Heaven that I am going to a meeting of the Royal Society and telling them "Gentlemen. My wife has discovered a seventh planet while fiddling about with her astronomy lessons."
"I wasn't 'fiddling about'. And its name will be...Minerva. After the goddess of wisdom."
"May as well call it 'Uranus'. Bess, it's all nonsense. This is that father of yours putting his crazy dreams of success via his "inventions" into your head. Now do you want me the laughinstock of London and us in the poor house? Or retiring early to Brampton to live with my parents?"
Uh....Brampton? Living with the in-laws?
"I suppose I could have been mistaken."
Michael Robinson • Link
washing day, we had a good pie baked ...
I guess the same source of heat for the water could be used also to heat an oven; perhaps the stove served both purposes.
TerryF • Link
"my wife...has a mind to understand them"
The Seventeenth Century and Education
Broadening who is to be educated and the educational experience
http://www.education.umn.edu/EdPA…
Taking into account not only what Mary Ashwell was about before she was engaged as a companion for Elizabeth Pepys, but the latter herself, who would be called by Marjorie Hope Nicolson a vituosa http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi…
Aqua • Link
Seriously thou, I wander how many were laughed out of town suggesting that a heavenly planet called Uranus be up there and Greeks said it be the father of Titan,Furies [ winds that blu that Genoan thru the windwards]and Cyclops [single mindedness] and Mumsy be Earth.
Lurker • Link
Uranus was named after George III when discovered, so wouldn't it be "as well called 'Carolus'" ?
Australian Susan • Link
The Pie
I think this was a takeaway pie as there would not have been room or time to cook dinner on washdays - also the Pepys house would not have had an oven: people took things to the baker's to be baked in his oven. They had a jack in the chimney as a turnspit to roast things on. Because Sam seems to know exactly what was in the pie, I take it that they had the leg of mutton hanging at home - the cook maid cut it up and made it into a pie and then took it to the baker's to be baked. The washing would have been done in a copper washing pot set on a brick framework which would have had a fire underneath. These continued in common use in England into the 20th century. As a child, I lived in 2 houses which still had this system in place, but not in use: one was in the basement of the house, along with a the kitchen range, and the other in a purpose built laundry in the back yard (and freezing cold).
Half Year
I'm puzzled - what half year are they talking about. Surely it should be Lady Day to Michaelmas, which would be March 25th to Sept 28th? Is this a chronological half year, being done late? What does L&M say? Hint to anyone of my family reading this - maybe this year is the year I get this (L&M)for Christmas or birthday, folks!
Robert Gertz • Link
Well, she was going to call it "Samuelus" till he acted like such a jerk.
TerryF • Link
Half year
25 March-30 September
Bradford • Link
It's been years since I last saw a celestial globe, but it can be a very beautiful object. Might some intrepid soul search out pictures of one contemporary with Pepys's time, as well as a modern one?
Let me urge those who haven't done so to read the essay by scientific literary scholar Marjorie Hope Nicholson, which Terry kindly found and linked for us (see above). If you Copy and Paste it covers 11 printed pages, much information delivered in sprightly style, with a fine tribute to Our Elizabeth.
TerryF • Link
Celestial globes
See Michael Robinson's link in the Background to Celestial Globes in the Maritime Museum collection. Alas, the images are dark, but you can copy any and paste it to a Photo edit program and make it quite lovely. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
jeannine • Link
The Planet Formerly Known as “Samuelus”
(For Robert)
By Elizabeth
I saw a new planet far off in the night
A joy, an excitement, a wondrous delight
I looked at my Sam, the man I hold dear
And thought his name quite fit for this sphere
I brought forth my finding to share with my love
I asked him to join me as I looked above
He laughed at me heartily and made such a fuss
Thus ending the choice of the name Samuelus.
My fury now flying deep inside my head
I know well harsh words are best left unsaid
I do think that my Sam is such a big ‘painus’
I name this planet after his stuck up anus.
Miss Ann fr Home • Link
Well done Jeannine! Absolutely wonderful.
Robert Gertz • Link
Wonderful, Jeannine. I much prefer Minerva anyway. Hmmn...Planet X (UB whatever) is still unnamed I believe.
(Rescue Pluto from oblivion! "Dwarf" indeed.)
***
2005...Heaven.
350th wedding anniversary of the Pepys.
(Yes, hard to believe...Yes, a certain devoted lady who shall remain nameless during Diary time is hurt and furious. But Will Hewer would have been so disappointed, as Bess likes to note. And Sam's parents so pleased as Sam likes to counter. )
"Here. Yes, you don't deserve it." Bess notes handing box to an eager Sam.
His favorite moment at such events.
"Thank you." Bess accepts hastily proffered box from Sam. "Will." she eyes a sheepish Will Hewer.
"Mr. Pepys did remember to send me to get...Something...This time." Will notes.
"What's..." Sam eyes golden ball on chain in his opened box.
"It'll always be 'Samuelus' in my heart." incribed on said ball.
"Why, Bess..." Sam shakes head, looking up.
"Just to remind you you'll always be a big ball of gas to me, dearest."
***
Australian Susan • Link
Thank you, both! - jeannine and RG!
Mary • Link
The Pie.
I agree with Australian Susan that this was probably fetched in from the bake-shop. However, Elizabeth could (and did, in 1660. though I've lost the precise date) bake her own pies in an oven and Sam commented on the fact.
Nix • Link
Would a celestial globe show planets?
I wouldn't think it would, since their position is not fixed relative to the stars.
Michael Robinson • Link
Celestial Globes; Armillary Spheres & Orrerys
Nix, the links will take you to photographs of examples and a full dictionary of globe and related terminology.
George Glazer Gallery - Glossary of Globe Terminology
"A celestial globe (star globe) is a globe of the stars and constellation. They are mapped onto a sphere to show how they appear in the night sky from the earth, as if the earth were in the center of the sphere. Given this point of view, the constellation figures are rendered differently from those on a star map--they are usually reversed and drawn as if we were viewing them from the back, from some imaginary point in the cosmos beyond the earth and stars. "
http://www.georgeglazer.com/globe…
"Armillary spheres have concentric rings to indicate planetary orbits, the zodiac band of constellations, and terrestrial and celestial measurement circles such as the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and the equator. Sometimes they are mounted with an orrery inside. Sometimes they are mounted as garden sundials.
A Ptolemaic armillary sphere has an earth globe at the center, surrounded by celestial circle and zodiac armillary rings, demonstrating the geocentric theory of the universe developed by Ptolemy and others in ancient Greece and Rome.
A Copernican armillary sphere has a sun ball at the center, with planetary and zodiac armillary rings, demonstrating the modern theory of the solar system, first popularized by Nicolaus Copernicus during the Renaissance."
http://www.georgeglazer.com/globe…
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
L&M refer to a sketch of the Katherine yacht by the elder van der Velde c. 1671 Searching for that provides related images
https://www.google.com/search?q=k…
San Diego Sarah • Link
Deborah Swift did a wonderful blog about wash day, based on 1677's The Compleat Servant-Maid:
http://englishhistoryauthors.blog…
Bill • Link
"we had a good pie baked of a leg of mutton"
A Mutton Pye.
Season your Stakes with Nutmeg, Pepper, and Salt; fill the Pye; lay on Butter, and close it: When 'tis bak'd, toss up a Handful of chopp'd Capers, Cucumbers, and Oysters in Gravy, and an Anchovy, and drawn Butter, and pour in.
---Court Cookery. R. Smith, 1725
San Diego Sarah • Link
Extracted from CHARLES II AND HIS COURT
BY A. G. A. BRETT
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: METHUEN & GO. LTD.
1910
https://archive.org/stream/charle…
From 1662-1670 Queen Catherine still hoped for children, and in default of shrines whither to make pilgrimages, she sought physical aids in the various watering-places of England, of which Bath and Tunbridge were then the most famous.
...
In September 1663, the Court was at Bath, 2 where Charles II writes to Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon:
2 In 1672 there were two Baths here, the King's, or large bath, and the Queen's, a smaller one. They were surrounded by a gallery, whence ladies and men watched the bathers, most of whom apparently scorned all costume. In the middle of the bath rose a tall structure, with a cupola, rather like a market cross, where bathers could recline and chat. Cf. a contemporary print reproduced in Fea's Gramont (opp. p. 322).
"Bath, 8 September, 1663. I did not think it necessary to answer you till I could give you certain information of the time my wife would stay here, which I could not do till this day, it being the first time she has made use of the bath, we intend then, god willing, to leave this place on Monday next come sennight, and a Tuesday to be at Oxford, where we will stay till the Monday following: my wife and I intend to dine with you at Cornbury the day we come to Oxford, which I think sufficient trouble for you, it would have been impossible for us to have lain there with half the wemen we have, for you know the baggage and bagages of an army is the troublesomest part of it, but when I am at Oxford I may from thence go thither and to Woodstocke as I please and make a train accordingly. It is impossible for me to go to Worcester this time, for my train is so absolutely nothing, that I have no conveniency at all to perform such a journey without robing my wife of hers, so I must not think of that voyage till next year. ...
186 CHARLES II AND HIS COURT
“My wife is very well pleased with the bath and finds herself in very good temper after it, and I hope the effects will be as she desires, and so God keep you. For the Chancelour."
The various statements, indirect or otherwise, as to the queen's incapability, are fully negatived by the clearest evidence, from which it is enough to quote Charles II's own statement to Madame:
"My wife miscarried this morning."