Monday 14 September 1663

Up betimes, and my wife’s mind and mine holding for her going, so she to get her ready, and I abroad to do the like for myself, and so home, and after setting every thing at my office and at home in order, by coach to Bishop’s Gate, it being a very promising fair day. There at the Dolphin we met my uncle Thomas and his son-in-law, which seems a very sober man, and Mr. Moore. So Mr. Moore and my wife set out before, and my uncle and I staid for his son Thomas, who, by a sudden resolution, is preparing to go with us, which makes me fear something of mischief which they design to do us. He staying a great while, the old man and I before, and about eight miles off, his son comes after us, and about six miles further we overtake Mr. Moore and my wife, which makes me mightily consider what a great deal of ground is lost in a little time, when it is to be got up again by another, that is to go his own ground and the other’s too; and so after a little bayte (I paying all the reckonings the whole journey) at Ware, to Buntingford, where my wife, by drinking some cold beer, being hot herself, presently after ’lighting, begins to be sick, and became so pale, and I alone with her in a great chamber there, that I thought she would have died, and so in great horror, and having a great tryall of my true love and passion for her, called the mayds and mistresse of the house, and so with some strong water, and after a little vomit, she came to be pretty well again; and so to bed, and I having put her to bed with great content, I called in my company, and supped in the chamber by her, and being very merry in talk, supped and then parted, and I to bed and lay very well. This day my cozen Thomas dropped his hanger, and it was lost.

23 Annotations

First Reading

TerryF  •  Link

"my cozen Thomas dropped his hanger"

hang·er n.
1. One who hangs something: a house painter who also works as a paperhanger.
2. A contrivance to which something hangs or by which something is hung, as:
a. A device around which a garment is draped for hanging from a hook or rod.
b. A loop or strap by which something is hung.
3. A bracket on the spring shackle of a motor vehicle, designed to hold it to the chassis.
4. A decorative strip of cloth hung on a garment or wall.
5. A short sword that may be hung from a belt.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/…

I'm betting on 5.

TerryF  •  Link

"strong water" = "distilled spirits"
(L&M Select Glossary)

Hair of the dog? That would make her vomit!

Aqua  •  Link

Samuell 'got frit'."...where my wife, by drinking some cold beer, being hot herself, presently after ‘lighting, begins to be sick, and became so pale, and I alone with her in a great chamber there, that I thought she would have died, and so in great horror, and having a great tryall of my true love and passion for her, called the mayds and mistresse of the house, and so with some strong water, and after a little vomit, she came to be pretty well again; and so to bed, and I having put her to bed with great content, I called in my company, and supped in the chamber by her, and being very merry in talk, supped and then parted, and I to bed and lay very well...."
only a rumor , across a few cow pastures, [westerly] there be village that be named Nasty, enough said.
The local brew may have been mentioned.

Aqua  •  Link

Errata:- [Westerly] should have been [west of Braughing which they past on the old Roman road]. The new map of Ware can get one easily to the Osler's joint in Buntingford.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"by drinking some cold beer,being hot herself"
Again hot and cold theory of disease.

Aqua  •  Link

Hanger, has such pictoresque meaning,
But there be less obvious meaning.
1 it be OED:A wood on the side of a steep hill or bank: cf. HANGING ppl.
Hanger a. then there be him or more swinger in the wind.
1680 AUBREY Lives Eminent Men (1813) II. 351 A very severe hanger of highwaymen.
c. One who hesitates or wavers: see HANG v. 17. Obs.
1536
Popular version :2. Something that hangs down or is suspended.
a. A piece of tapestry hanging

b. A hat-band with a part hanging loose behind.
c. A pendant; also attrib., as hanger-pearl
d. A bell-rope. e. A pendant catkin.
f. A local name for the sea-weed tangle.
3. Something that overhangs; in Mining, The rock over the lode or vein; the ‘roof’.
1631 E. JORDEN Nat. Bathes xiv. (1669) 136 Most metals breeding between a Hanger and a Lieger..are seldome above a foot thick.
4. a. A contrivance by which anything is hung; a rope, chain, or hook used to suspend something; a support for a journal-box, etc., of a shafting. Also attrib.
---- as already pointed out by Terry F. ---------
b. A loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was hung; often richly ornamented.
Bury Wills (Camden) 217, I give vnto my nephew..my guilt wrought sword and the girdle and hangers to it. 1676 HOBBES Iliad (1677) 289 The boys with silver hangers were adorn'd And golden swords.
c. A loop by which anything is hung, as the loop at the back of the neck in a coat, etc.; the loop of a hunting-whip or crop.
1684 Lond. Gaz. No. 1935/4 He had a Whip with a red Handle and a Buff hanger at the end of it.
d. A chain or iron rod to which a pot or kettle is hung by means of a pot-hook in the old-fashioned kitchen fireplace.
Hence transf. A nursery name for the stroke with a double curve, one of the elementary forms in learning to write; usually in the phrase pot-hooks and hangers.

Bradford  •  Link

Travel is so broadening. What sort of "mischief" does Pepys have in mind? This sounds less legal than physical.

Australian Susan  •  Link

This entry shows some of Sam's very particular characteristics: he has to set everything in order at home and in the office before he leaves ( Will watches Sam align a pile of papers neatly and move it from one side of the desk to the other; new cook maid watches as Sam walks all over the house checking doors, cupboards, locks and keys). Then he is agitated at waste of time "which makes me mightily consider what a great deal of ground is lost in a little time" (Bet he urged the relatives to trot or canter as much as possible!). And then his great love for Bess is shown as he fears for her life - so poignant and truthful. And finally he records the loss of the sword - a valuable article and if he, Sam had lost it, he would have been very, very displeased.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

True drama today. The image of Sam shaken out of his usual careful appraisal as Bess nearly dies at his feet, he screaming for help through the inn. She must have suddenly passed out...Good thing he stayed close when she started vomiting.

***
"Well, a fine supper, nephew. Thomas." Turns to his still somewhat edgy son. "And again, my best to dear Elisabeth, we three give true thanks to God for her preservation, Samuel. Mr. Moore." Nod from Moore. "Good night, then."

"Uncle. Thomas. My dear Mr. Santhune." Sam rises, nodding.

Door closing, a furious Uncle Thomas eyes the hapless Tom. Santhune now looking anxious.

"You goddamn fool!" Uncle Thomas whacks Tom. "That beer was meant for Pepys, not his wife!"

Australian Susan  •  Link

Thanks, RG! Your scenario had crossed my devious little mind too.

Reading the entry again, I had assumed that the son-in-law had just come to see them off and that Sam had been expecting to travel just with the Uncle and then finds he had got the nephew as well - but you think there was the son-in-law travelling too?

TerryF  •  Link

"after a little bayte...at Ware"

bayte, bait
- refreshment on a journey, for travelers or their horses.
(Select Glossary)

Paul Dyson  •  Link

"after a little bayte…at Ware"

"Bait" survived, at any rate in the North of England, as a word for a packed lunch, often in the context of work. So a miner would take his "bait tin" underground with his food for breaktime. Another word for it is "snap".

Dan Jenkins  •  Link

Having myself experienced a "cardiac event" after merely drinking a large glass of cold milk whilst being overheated, I can sympathize with Bess - and with Sam's reaction.

Coughing or vomiting was actually recommended by the EMTs to restart the fibrillating chambers of my heart. They said such a reaction was not uncommon - and usually goes away in a bit on its own. It does make you feel quite sick, and makes you quite pale.

Aqua  •  Link

Hanger 'herd' to_day : A hanger be a scrawney girl, wareing fancy clothe on a runway, not tripping on down the aisle, looking for a baite, but getting flashed for the Headline of the day.
pronounced ? 'unger?

Jane  •  Link

"Drinking some cold beer, being hot herself," is more likely to be more or less the same reaction we would have today, putting aside the humoral theory. Beer was a very common drink. The ubiquity of 'cold beer' as opposed to cold *water* in this time may have had something to do with the humoral system, but in this specific case there isn't much to say that it was intended to counteract a physiological hotness...it's probably more that she's just feeling uncomfortably warm.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"so after a little bayte...at Ware, to Buntingford"

Buntingford was on the London to Cambridge coach road.... The first turnpike act, that for a stretch of the Old North Road between Ware and Buntingford was passed in 1662. The George and Dragon Inn was the meeting place of the Trustees of the Wadesmill Turnpike Trust, and also of the local Justices.

A popular local story tells that Samuel Pepys recorded, in 1663, that he and his wife stayed at the George Inn (or perhaps the Bell), where she became ill after drinking cold beer. http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.c…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"The ubiquity of 'cold beer' as opposed to cold *water* in this time" appears (as Jane said) to have had to do with the view of the humoral medical community. They concurred in the teaching of the sixteenth-century dietitian Andrew Boorde that "Water is one of the foure Elementes, of the which dyuers licours or drynkes for mānes sustynaūnce be made of, takyng theyr orygynall and sustaunce of it, as ale, bere, meade, and metheglyn, water is nat holsome sole by it selfe for an Englysshe man, consyde rynge the contrarye vsage, whiche is natrō∣curraunt with nature, water is colde, slowe, and slake of digestyon....And let euery man be ware of all waters the whiche be standynge, and be purryfyed with froth, duckemeat, and mod••, for yf they bake, or brewe, or dresse meate with it, it shall ingendre many infyr∣mytes. ... http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

http://englishhistoryauthors.blog…

"Ermine Street was built in the 1st century, probably by the Ninth Legion Hispana.
The road left London through Bishopsgate and ran along the western edge of the fens of East Anglia.
As the legion advanced north they continued to build the road, ... and erected a string of forts at stopping points along the way, ..." to Lincoln and York.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"The George and Dragon Inn was the meeting place of the Trustees of the Wadesmill Turnpike Trust, and also of the local Justices."

Is the G&D in Ware or Buntingford?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"The George and Dragon Inn was the meeting place of the Trustees of the Wadesmill Turnpike Trust, and also of the local Justices."

Is the G&D in Ware or Buntingford?

Apparently
34 High Street,
Buntingford,
Herts.
http://www.buntingford.com/isabel…

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Bishopsgate street is the street which leads to Bishops Gate in what used to be the London Wall. Simple enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon…

BUT in York, where the names derive from Norse rather than Saxon, "'gates" are streets and 'bars' are gates. Eg Micklegate is the street (Great Street), and the gate at the end of it is Micklegate bar.

If you look on Google maps at any town in Denmark, you will find that a street is a "gade" to this day, and a Hovedgade is a High Street.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

Re: ’ . . my cozen Thomas dropped his hange . . ‘

‘hanger, n.3 < hang v. Old English/Old Norse . . A kind of short sword, originally hung from the belt.
. . 1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 229/1 Hangre a weapen, bracquemart.
. .1590 R. Harvey Plaine Percevall sig. D4, The sight of a Hanger rusted in the sheath hanging by ones side.
. . 1719 D. Defoe Life Robinson Crusoe 263, I made him a Belt, with a Frog hanging to it, such as in England we wear Hangers in; and in the Frog, instead of a Hanger, I gave him a Hatchet . . ‘

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