Tuesday 3 January 1664/65
Up, and by coach to Sir Ph. Warwicke’s, the streete being full of footballs, it being a great frost, and found him and Mr. Coventry walking in St. James’s Parke. I did my errand to him about the felling of the King’s timber in the forests, and then to my Lord of Oxford, Justice in Eyre, for his consent thereto, for want whereof my Lord Privy Seale stops the whole business. I found him in his lodgings, in but an ordinary furnished house and roome where he was, but I find him to be a man of good discreet replys.
Thence to the Coffee-house, where certain newes that the Dutch have taken some of our colliers to the North; some say four, some say seven.
Thence to the ’Change a while, and so home to dinner and to the office, where we sat late, and then I to write my letters, and then to Sir W. Batten’s, who is going out of towne to Harwich to-morrow to set up a light-house there, which he hath lately got a patent from the King to set up, that will turne much to his profit. Here very merry, and so to my office again, where very late, and then home to supper and to bed, but sat up with my wife at cards till past two in the morning.
40 Annotations
First Reading
Pedro • Link
"newes that the Dutch have taken some of our colliers to the North; some say four, some say seven."
Back on the 25th November 1663 there was the discussion concerning the insurance of a ship from Newcastle...
"and I to White Hall, to the Duke of York and Mr. Coventry, and there advised about insuring the hempe ship at 12 per cent., notwithstanding her being come to Newcastle,"
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Coliers maybe similar to that shown below...
Collier Brig - 1680
The only method open to owners of coal mines in the Tyneside area of Northern England to get their coal to London , was by sea. A large number of cheap to build and cheap to operate ships were required and the type that met these criteria was the Collier Brig . The hull is bluff with no ornamentation , with no beakhead or figurehead . We can assume that life on board was hard , uncomfortable and dirty , dirtier even than was usual in those no too hygienic days . Even the sails were blackened by coal dust in a few short weeks . They generally arrived at the mouth of the Tyne and were loaded by keel boats that had brought the coal from the pits up river . They were carrying "Black Gold" and often subjected to attacks from Pirates , which forced them to travel in convoy , sometimes with an escort . Soon the scene was set for the North East of England to spawn what became the largest Collier fleet based on one river - the Tyne collier brig was born and reigned supreme in the Pool of London with all the resemblance of a black armada ! . This Geordie fleet became the biggest single group of coordinated shipping ever seen around these shores and in consequence , was also a prime target of Press gangs . The masts ,sails and rigging would be as simple and consistent with strength and longevity . Later brigs were longer and had more conventional bows , all in all they kept London warm for over 250 years .
Length 77 ft.
Beam 24 ft.
Depth 12 ft.,
Tonnage 180 tons
Crew 10 - 25 men
http://website.lineone.net/~dee.o…
Pedro • Link
The Low Lighthouse (Harwich).
In 1664 Sir William Batten obtained a patent from King Charles II to provide two lighthouses at Harwich, the lease to run for 61 years, paying an annual rent of £5.00 to the King. It enabled Batten to charge light dues on all ships passing the light, (1d. per ton on foreign ships, 1/2d. on English, plus a subsidy for the coal used.) This enabled him to make a fortune, for even in those days it is estimated that he would have realized £1000.00 per annum. The two lighthouses formed “leading light” where mariners must get one light positioned above the other to be on the correct course through the shoals for the harbour entrance. The lower of Batten’s two lighthouses was a wooden structure on the shore, with a, “lantern containing 6 great candles each weighing a pound.” The higher light was provided by a fire in the room over the town gate.
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=ca…
Terry Foreman • Link
On behalf of Dirk: Ormond issues a blizzard of conscription orders, discusses impressment abuses as noted in the Carte Calendar
Ormond to Sir William Wyndham & others
Written from: [Whitehall]
Date: 3 January 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 89-90
Document type: Copy [in Letter Book]
Instructions concerning the raising of seamen, on the coast of Somersetshire, for his Majesty's service.
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Subjoined
A List of the Principal Justices of the Peace, in the county of Somerset
Date: January 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 89
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Ormond to the Justices of Bristol
Written from: [Whitehall]
Date: 3 January 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 89
Document type: Breviate
To like effect, for "the raising of five hundred able seamen at Bristol".
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Ormond to Sir Thomas Brydges [in MS.: "Bridges"], Vice-Admiral of Somersetshire
Written from: Whitehall
Date: 3 January 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 91
Document type: Copy [in Letter Book]
To like effect with the letter addressed to the Justices of the Peace of that county, calendared above.
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Ormond to the Justices of Bristol
Written from: [Whitehall]
Date: 3 January 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 91
Document type: Breviate
To like effect.
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Ormond to the Mayor of Bristol
Written from: [Moor Park]
Date: [3 January] 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 91
Document type: Breviate
Communicates the Letter of the Lords of Council concerning seamen; and also the Order in Council on the same subject.
Notifies the employment of Mr Tempest, bearer of this letter, for whom all due countenance & assistance is earnestly desired, in respect of the service aforesaid.
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Ormond to William Coventry
Written from: Moor Park
Date: 3 January 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 92
Document type: Copy [in Letter Book]
Returns Mr Tempest ... concerning whom the Duke has written to the Mayor of Bristol. Mr Tempest will receive that letter from Sir George Lane.
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Ormond to the Mayor of Bristol
Written from: Whitehall
Date: 3 January 1665
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 92
Document type: Copy [in Letter Book]
His Majesty, having been informed of former great abuses in the impressment of seamen, has thought it fit that persons should be supplied to oversee that service. ... Mr John Tempest ... is sent "expressly to be employed in the pressing of the 500 seamen to be raised in your City, and to undergo the clamour which possibly might otherwise be inconvenient to you, who are to continue in the Magistracy there". ...
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…
Michael Robinson • Link
“my Lord of Oxford, … I found him in his lodgings, in but an ordinary furnished house and roome…”
Contrast with yesterday’s “Mrs. Martin, and to her, and to her lodgings which she has now taken to lie in, in Bow Streete, pitiful poor things, yet she thinks them pretty, and so they are for her condition I believe good enough.”
SP’s simple snobbery or part of the increasing scorn for Betty since she by choice married a man of whom SP did not approve and interfered thereby with his plans to set her up with a complaisant husband? Bow Street was not such a bad address at the time; perhaps the socially grand and influential, like the 20th Earl of Oxford, are less preoccupied with appearances than H.M. Clerk of the Acts.
Ralph Berry • Link
Pedro describes the Collier Brig of Pepys's time. These were essentially the same small vessels chosen by James Cook for his voyages over a hundred years later.They proved highly seaworthy and reliable.
cape henry • Link
Coal has not relinquished its filth. My grandparents lived in a coal town that carried the double burden of coke ovens which operated 24 hours every day. And though the landscape was magnificent, everything in it was eternally tinged black and gray: the people, the laundry, the streets, the buildings, the trees. They lived just down the hill from one of the town's wealthiest men, the undertaker.
Patricia • Link
What are these 'footballs'? And what do they have to do with the great frost last night? It was -18°C here when we got up this a.m., and nary a football did we see...
Michael Robinson • Link
What are these footballs?
L&M note "Play would be possible since the streets would be empty of horse traffic. Regulations against football in the streets were periodically issued ... but are said to have ceased about this time: ...."
Robert Gertz • Link
Up with Bess again, eh?...I wonder if Will Hewer was winning too many games of blindman's bluff the other night.
I also wonder now if Sam's strange remark about jealousy the other night was really a general anger at finding Bess so occupied with others. Sam hates to suggest his dependence on her companionship and affection (and probably her devoted attention to his tales of his daily adventures) but it seems he's trying to reinstate himself with her after finding her quite content to amuse herself without him these last few evenings.
Martin • Link
"footballs? -- L&M note “Play would be possible since the streets would be empty of horse traffic"
But Sam's traveling by coach, why isn't anyone else? -- it's a great frost, not a great snow. L&M seem to be just guessing, there. I think it's just a passing observation of football being played on the way to Warwicke's, not something happening because of the frost.
Terry Foreman • Link
"the streete being full of footballs, it being a great frost," suggests to me that Pepys is making a causal connection between frost and the play.
Jesse • Link
"streete being full of footballs, it being a great frost"
Johnson has foot[f]all as 'a stumble; a trip of the foot' - might "football" be a typo?
Terry Foreman • Link
All transcribers of Pepys's Diary have "footballs"....no kidding.
Terry Foreman • Link
"Justice in Eyre"
"In English law, the Justices in Eyre were the highest magistrates in forest law, and presided over the court of justice-seat, a triennial court held to punish offenders against the forest law and enquire into the state of the forest and its officers. (Eyre, meaning 'circuit', refers to the movement of the court between the different royal forests.)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just…
Michael Robinson • Link
Frost and horse traffic
Horses are shod with iron shoes providing no traction on ice and frost, dangerous to horse (a valuable asset) and rider alike -- presumably the streets filled later as the ice or frost melted and traffic increased. SP must have been amongst the first on the road.
cf:-
FOUR-IN-HAND HAS WRECK.; Pole-Horse of Fahnestock Coach Falls and Ties Up Fifth Avenue.
NY Times February 9, 1912, Friday, Page 2, 417 words
Traffic at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-second Street was muddled up just when it was the heaviest, at 4:30 o'clock, yesterday afternoon, when the off pole horse of a four-in-hand owned and driven by Harris Fahnestock of 37 West Fifty-second Street, fell on the slippery pavement.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abst…
Mary • Link
footballs and frost.
Very few of the city streets were properly paved and their normal winter condition would tend to be muddy or sloppy. Given a hard frost (remember that it was frosty yesterday as well) the road surfaces will be hard enough for the better playing of football. Much less mud and dung flying about or caking the lads' clothes.
Pedro • Link
And at 3.00pm...
Holmes drops his anchor and comes to face the music.
GrahamT • Link
Life on the colliers was dirty and dangerous. The boats were often overloaded to get the best return for a voyage, the sailors often having to climb over the shifting coal to get to the rigging. The coal also tended to spontaneously ignite when exposed to air. many ships and hands were lost through fire at sea.
In the 19th century, Samual Plimsoll started his great campaign to prevent the overloading of ships, having watched three colliers sink with all hands in a storm one night when travelling back from Newcastle to London.
It is unlikely conditions were much better in the 17th century, and they had the Dutch to contend with too.
Robert Gertz • Link
I wonder how crippling a cut-off of the coal supply might have been at this time. Certainly it would have been much more serious to industry during the nineteenth century but at this time I'd assume the principle use of coal would have been for heating and mainly confined to the middle and upper classes with the poorer sort still using wood (or peat moss for my Irish forebears). A bother but not yet a way to bring your opponent's economy to a halt.
Robert Gertz • Link
I'd put my money on the New England King's Men.
Martin Beagles • Link
It isn't easy to imagine playing football, or even being able to stay upright, on heavily rutted streets that have now been frozen by the winter temperatures. And why would the streets be full of "footballs" anyway? Footballers or football posts, possibly, but footballs? Does this mean that several different groups of people have walked away after their games, all leaving their footballs behind them...?
Still, the dilemma could be solved by altering just one letter in the text. What if Pepys had actually written the word "sootballs" in that first sentence? It's cold, fires have been kept burning for days, and the streets are filling up with pieces of coal grit and suchlike. A misreading of S as F is all it would take.
Congratulations on the site, which I only discovered very recently.
language hat • Link
"'the streete being full of footballs, it being a great frost,' suggests to me that Pepys is making a causal connection between frost and the play."
I don't think so. Remember that he uses the "being" construction much more freely than we do, pretty much as a bare connective; we might say "the street was full of footballs, and it was a great frost." I do find the picture of a street full of footballs odd -- as Martin says, wouldn't people take their balls with them? But Martin's suggestion of "sootballs," though clever, fails on the grounds that there is no such word and (per the OED) never has been.
Don McCahill • Link
Thanks to Pedro for his annotations today. I was wondering particularly how a lighthouse would be profitable. The description of the colliers was also useful.
Mary • Link
streets full of footballs.
Surely Sam means footballs flying about, whizzing past one's ears, hitting one in the back etc. Very annoying to the sober citizen, no doubt, and hence the number of ordinances made against playing football in the streets over the years. We are still in the season of Christmas/New Year jollification (Twelfth Night hasn't arrived yet) and the lads in various streets are having a kick-about. I don't see the problem with accepting the reading as it stands.
NB we are talking about football football (i.e. something like soccer) rather than any of the later games that allowed the ball to be handled.
Terry Foreman • Link
Actually, Mary, it seems some versions of "football" or included handling the ball even early on:
"In 1633, David Wedderburn, a teacher from Aberdeen, mentioned elements of modern football games in a short Latin textbook called 'Vocabula'. Wedderburn refers to what has been translated into modern English as 'keeping goal' and makes an allusion to passing the ball ('strike it here'). There is a reference to 'get hold of the ball', suggesting that some handling was allowed." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot…
Wedderburn's was but one attempt to describe what ensued after "mob football," of which here's a very entertaining image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imag…
cape henry • Link
And there is this concerning ball games to consider: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/wh…
Martin Beagles • Link
The fact that it's the festive season certainly tilts the balance in favour of footballs and not soot, so I'll withdraw my rather far-fetched suggestion. The image is thus reminiscent of the opening scene in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where Flavius finds the streets full of rude mechanicals and reacts angrily ("Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home! Is this a holiday?"). Pepys, it should be noted, seems a bit more tolerant of others' leisure activities.
cgs • Link
Football [pila pedalis] any ruffian can play, does not need pieces of silver to play; the ball be a pigs bladder, plenty of butchers shops around, fill it with breath, and tye a knot [noose maybe] and it be kicked around by 'prentices.
Known since 1400's
OED Football :under 2a
1424 Sc. Act Jas. I, c. 18 The king forbiddes {th}t na man play at {th}e fut ball vnder {th}e payne of iiijd
2. a. An open-air game played with this ball by two sides, each of which endeavours to kick or convey the ball to the goal at the opposite end of the field.
There are various styles of playing the game, but the most widely recognized are the Association and the Rugby Union and League games, and American football (see sense b below).
1605 SHAKES. Lear I. iv. 95 Ste. Ile not be strucken, my Lord. Kent. Nor tript neither, you base *Foot-ball plaier.
1627-47 FELTHAM Resolves II. lxxxiii. 427 To see how well meaning simplicity is foot~ball'd.
1. An inflated ball used in the game (see 2). It is now either spherical or (as in the Rugby game) elliptical, and consists of an inflated bag or bladder enclosed in a leather case.
1486 Bk. St. Albans, Her. Evja, It is calde in latyn pila pedalis a fotebal.
1508 BARCLAY Egloges v, The sturdie plowmen..driuing the foote ball.
1650 BAXTER Saints' R. IV. (1653) 282 Like a Football in the midst of a crowd of Boys.
cgs • Link
A game that be so well known amongst hoi polloi but it being the enjoyment of the lessors there be little rit until there was money to be made, ie watching grown men chasing bladder full of [hot ] aire.
more info here:
http://expertfootball.com/history…
Pedro • Link
For Jeannine
In the morning Mr Pickering went off the ship to Portsmouth bound for London. About 6 o’clock in the evening I saw the Blazing Star in the leg of Aries, distant from Os Baleni 14° 34´ Star in Ligatura Piscium 9° 17´. His stream was directed to the Bull’s eye, about 6° 00´, both it and its body weak of light, growing hard to be discerned.
The Journal of Edward Montagu edited by Anderson
JWB • Link
"...in the forests..."
"All forests which have been afforested in our time shall be disafforested at once." Magna Carta, Clause 47
For an insightful discussion of early forest law see Danziger & Gillingham's "1215, The Year of the Magna Carta", chapter 7, "Hunting in the Forest".
Sharon • Link
Re: footballs
Sorry to be late to the conversation and I hardly ever annotate, but really, the notion of actual footballs (not to mention footballers) out on a frosty morn strikes me as a bit fanciful. How about the possibility that heavy frost or light snow tends to whiten and round out the contours of ordinary objects. Hence, small shrubs, horse turds, chamber pots etc. would look rather like footballs until the ice melts a bit....
Michael Robinson • Link
" ... to Sir W. Batten’s, who is going out of towne to Harwich to-morrow to set up a light-house there, which he hath lately got a patent from the King to set up, ..."
Charles the Second by the grace of God, King of England, ... To all to whom these presents shall come greeting: whereas we have been informed by the humble petition of Sir William Batten Knight, surveyor of our Navy, that the port of Harwich is a very convenient harbour, but difficult to come into, ... Witness Our self at Westminster the four and twentieth day of December, in the sixteenth year of Our reign.
[London : s.n., 1664]
1 sheet ([1] p.) ; 1⁰. Wing (CD-ROM, 1996), C3611B
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"to Sir Ph. Warwickes about the felling of the King’s timber in the forests"
Timber in the royal forests was felled under the supervision of naval purveyors on the authority of the Treasurer authenticated by privy seal warrants.
(Per L&M footnote)
This surely has to do with Clarendon's confrontation last July of Pepys as responsible for others (assumed to be the agents of Carteret) having marked standing trees for harvest in Clarendon-Park: Jeannine summarizes the issue: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Terry Foreman • Link
“my Lord of Oxford, … I found him in his lodgings, in but an ordinary furnished house and roome…”
L&M note Oxford, Warden and Chief Justice in Eyre of the R\royal forests south of Trent, lived in the Piazza, Covent Garden.
Terry Foreman • Link
"newes that the Dutch have taken some of our colliers to the North; some say four, some say seven."
L&M: The Newes of 12 January (p. 11) reports Capt. Bankert had taken four.
San Diego Sarah • Link
So Sir William Batten is off to Harwick to build his fortune. Remember who is the new Navy Commissioner there?
Capt. John Taylor was appointed as Navy Commissioner to Harwich on Nov. 1, 1664, http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Sir William Batten and Sir John Robinson objected after-the-fact to the appointment because he was a fanatic.
The on 19 December 1664 Mr. Coventry had "to vindicate himself before the Duke and us, being all there, about the choosing of Taylor for Harwich" -- http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… , because a hold had been put on sending Capt. John Taylor there until that day's rather pro forma proceedings.
Now we hear that in December 1664 Sir William Batten obtained a patent from Charles II to provide two lighthouses at Harwich. He leaves on January 4, 1665.
No wonder it was so important for Coventry and the Duke of York to make a point that Capt. Taylor was their choice and make Batten reveal his objections first. Tee Hee ... they are going to have to work together now.
Nate Lockwood • Link
"Light houses". The lights, 'leading lights' in the British Isles, were arranged with the low one some distance from out, toward the channel, from the higher rear light. When the lights were seen one over the other the vessel would be in the channel. Some skill was required even then as often there were currents that would push the vessel to port or starboard unless it crabbed.
Since the vessel needing the light had to enter the harbor it could easily be identified and billed.
Today, or 50 years ago when I was was in the US Navy, we called them 'range lights'.
This link should be good for a few years before it rots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lea…
Chris Squire UK • Link
Re: ‘ . . then to my Lord of Oxford, Justice in Eyre . . ‘
‘eyre, n. < Old French . . < late Latin . . Obs. exc. Hist.
1. a. Itineration, circuit: in the phrase justices in eyre . . : itinerant judges who rode the circuit to hold courts in the different counties . . until the judges of assize . . were appointed in the year 1285 . .
†b. Eyre of the Forest: a circuit court held periodically by the Justices of the Forest, hence called Justices in Eyre. Obs.
1622 J. Rawlins Famous Recoverie Ship of Bristoll Ded. sig. A2 The..Marquisse of Buckingham,..Iustice in Eyre of all his Majesties Forrests . . ‘
Chris Squire UK • Link
Re: ‘leading light’
‘leading-light n. Naut. (cf. (compare) leading-mark n.).
1875 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. Leading-light.’
‘leading-mark n. Naut. one of ‘those objects which, kept in line or in transit, guide the pilot while working into port, as trees, spires, buoys, etc.’ (Adm. Smyth 1867).
1804 Ld. Nelson in Dispatches & Lett. (1845) V. 521 The leading mark for running in, is the Light-House.’
(OED)