Tuesday 28 February 1664/65

At the office all the morning. At noon dined at home. After dinner my wife and I to my Lady Batten’s, it being the first time my wife hath been there, I think, these two years, but I had a mind in part to take away the strangenesse, and so we did, and all very quiett and kind.

Come home, I to the taking my wife’s kitchen accounts at the latter end of the month, and there find 7s. wanting, which did occasion a very high falling out between us, I indeed too angrily insisting upon so poor a thing, and did give her very provoking high words, calling her beggar, and reproaching her friends, which she took very stomachfully and reproached me justly with mine; and I confess, being myself, I cannot see what she could have done less. I find she is very cunning, and when she least shews it hath her wit at work; but it is an ill one, though I think not so bad but with good usage I might well bear with it, and the truth is I do find that my being over-solicitous and jealous and forward and ready to reproach her do make her worse. However, I find that now and then a little difference do no hurte, but too much of it will make her know her force too much. We parted after many high words very angry, and I to my office to my month’s accounts, and find myself worth 1270l., for which the Lord God be praised!

So at almost 2 o’clock in the morning I home to supper and to bed.

And so ends this month, with great expectation of the Hollanders coming forth, who are, it seems, very high and rather more ready than we. God give a good issue to it!

40 Annotations

First Reading

Robert Gertz  •  Link

7s short…

Well, at least Sam has the honesty to admit he’s aware he's being a jackass.

***

Gee, (to steal from Douglas Sirk) I didn’t know you had any friends, Bess.

JWB  •  Link

Povey moves up a notch with this entry.

Eric Walla  •  Link

Hmmmm, maybe Sam found himself 7s. short when running to the bookbinders and happened upon the kitchen funds ...?

Carl in Boston  •  Link

it being the first time my wife hath been there, I think, these two years, but I had a mind in part to take away the strangenesse, and so we did, and all very quiett and kind.
I have come upon my brother and sisters after some years of apartness, and upon friends after 25 years absence, and they find it strange, and what could I be plotting, but we take up as before and it's very nice. One needs friends who remember the old times. Now my brother and I are the best of friends, though we live on the opposite sides of the continent.
I went back to my 45th high school reunion, hadn't been back in town in 43 years, how about that. All the fiddle faddles I fretted over these forty years, all forgotten. They were just glad to see me. Go to your reunion.
Know any Lady Batttens that need visiting? I bet they will be glad to see you, especially if you remember the old times (and plain to see have no need for their money).

CGS  •  Link

"Samuell! seven bob!, you spent that on the lunch with the lads the other day, and you begrudge me my Povian accounting. ger, go take a Turkish bath."

JWB  •  Link

From "A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, and Expositor of the English Language" by John Walker, 1806 we learn stomachfully means chuffily and that a chuff is a blunt clown. So there.

http://books.google.com/books?id=…

CGS  •  Link

another entry into OED by the famed Diarist:
1664-5 PEPYS Diary 28 Feb., I..did give her very provoking words,..which she took very stomachfully, and reproached me justly with mine.
3. Spirited, courageous.
etm obs.
Full of ‘stomach’ (STOMACH n. 8).
other meanings
1. Obstinate, self-willed. (Often said of horses; also of children.)
2. Resentful, angry, malignant.

Stomac
[a. OF. estomac, stomaque, stomeque (mod.F. estomac) ad. L. stomachus, a. Gr. {sigma}{tau}{goacu}{mu}{alpha}{chi}{omicron}{fsigma}, orig. the throat, gullet, hence the mouth or orifice of any organ, esp. of the stomach, and later the stomach itself; f. {sigma}{tau}{goacu}{mu}{alpha} mouth. Cf. Pr. estomac, Sp. estómago, Pg. estomago, It. stomaco.

Paul Chapin  •  Link

CGS, thanks for the OED citation on "stomachfully." I would guess that meaning 2, 'resentful, angry, malignant [+ly],' is the one we should assign in this context. The format of the OED entry allows that interpretation.

Pedro  •  Link

On this day Chomley writes to the Lords Commissioners for Tangier...

"the poor soldier, being six or sometimes nine months without pay, when he gets a flood of money spends it all in a week and by that intemperance either has suddenly a sickness or by the consequence of it a sickness in a little time, and when there comes to help himself he has no money because that is spent, or credit because his pay is not till six months afterwards, and few merchants there are in this town can stay so long for their money, and fewer, compassionate enough to supply the necessities of a miserable man. I have told that many have died for wan to twelve pence to relieve him."

(CO 279/4, ff. 50-53)

The Army of Charles II by Childs.

Snow  •  Link

7 shillings out and then finds he's worth £1270! I hope the next entry shows an apology.

'which she took very stomachfully and reproached me justly with mine'...the worm is turning!

dirk  •  Link

"when she least shews it hath her wit at work"

In other words: she's smarter than she looks!
I'm not sure Elizabeth would have taken that as a compliment...

dirk  •  Link

"I find that now and then a little difference do no hurte, but too much of it will make her know her force too much"

Strange reasoning. If they quarrel a lot, Elizabeth will find out that she's stronger than she thinks. In a way it's a privilege that we are allowed to be a witness to this kind of implied self-criticism - this is something Sam would never have admitted to anybody but his very own private diary. (And as a matter of fact, neither would we I suppose.)

jeannine  •  Link

No entry for Leap Year!

As we're all missing Sam today, I'll guess we'll just have to blame it on Leap Year, which I suppose, is a confusing concept no matter what calendar you're looking at...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap…

dirk  •  Link

No 29 February

Yes, OK, but what are we, poor lonesome annotators, going to do tomorrow?

dirk  •  Link

tomorrow: well I mean tonight obviously.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...the truth is I do find that my being over-solicitous and jealous and froward and ready to reproach her do make her worse."

Well, duh...
***

"So, there it is, just as I laid it out in my Journal. But what shall I do, Hewer?"

"Well...Sir. You know the way you always are...? Don't be that way."

Hmmmn...

A new Pepys, or rather a return to an older, better, less self-indulgent Pepys? The warm-hearted Pepys of 28, the salmon dinner Pepys, only even kinder and more considerate. The husband who encouraged his wife's intellectual tastes...Who gave her a study of her own...Who panicked at the thought of losing her. A Pepys who transcends even that Pepys and places his marriage even before his career. Who has more important things to heart than his accounts.

And of course, no more avec les Bagwells et les Martins...

Hmmn...Sam ponders.

On the other hand, would make for a rather dull Diary.

Nah.

***

JWB  •  Link

No 29 February

Blame it on the earthquake of the 27th. Who knew UK has earthquakes?

language hat  •  Link

"few merchants there are in this town can stay so long for their money"

Except, of course, that they stayed indefinitely and frequently forever when the customers were aristocratic. They could wait for Lord So-and-so's thousand quid, but not for poor Tom's tuppence!

jeannine  •  Link

Off topic but an interesting find for the times, and since there is no Sam for today this might fill your lunch time with a little taste of Restoration England....

In the Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography, one of the people of the week is a female painter of Sam's time. Although there ins't a reference to Sam, it refers to Peter Lely.

http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/l…

CGS  •  Link

Not so off topic, she ages with Samuell, this is a great find, Samuell may [could] have run into her "old tin can" on one of his forays. This illustrates there be more facets to the Carlos II times than just the Palmers et al. Contrasts nicely with Elizabeth and her situation, it is sad that people of Talent do not always get their due or 5 seconds of fame.
The social revolution was slowly evolving.
Brains should not be stereo typed by facade, titles and money, but they are .
Seeing this sample, then looking at Ver Meer, I as one of the ignoramuses, see her work and control of light be in the same class.
Judgment , of course be colored by the information surrounding the work, it reminds me when wine be truly be blind tested the two dollar one has been known to be better received than the fifty dollar one, so why not female English Painting versus the male Dutch school.
I just like wot I see , not wot I be told.

Vermeer [ Meer] covers the same period 1632- 1675.

CGS  •  Link

Todays House of L be interesting, there be those that complain that servants of the good Lords can not be arrested, they be part of the privileged segment,
there be bills for selling lands, getting rid of wet lands, for finding enough jurors to make sound judgments on their peers then the making of Bricks and tiles to be regulated, then finalise the bill to make the river Medway safe for incursions by the Dutch?, but who had the foresight..

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The page Jeannine links to tells us Mistress Beale, the painter, also addressed Samuel and Elizabeth's relationship: "By 1664 Charles Beale's job had become insecure, and, with the plague threatening, the family departed for Albrook, Otterbourne, Hampshire. While there, Mary wrote the ‘Essay on friendship’ (BL, Harleian MS 6828, fols. 510–23) in which she propounds the somewhat radical notion (for the period) of equality between men and women, both in friendship and marriage."

Terry F  •  Link

SP and the Beales had personal links through the Royal Society et al.: "[Her self-portrait (see Jeannine's link)] is one of the many legacies that Mary, usually and justly labelled as 'the first female professional artist in England', has left us. The Beales' life was well-documented, by him, in a series of annual account books (some of which survive), and in the letters and journals of their friends in a moderate religious set that was influential in public and scientific life after the Restoration of the monarchy after the civil war.

"Their close friends included two Archbishops of Canterbury, the poet Samuel Woodford, the miniature painter and lawyer Thomas Flatman, John Wilkins, the first secretary of the Royal Society, and Thomas Sprat, the Bishop of Rochester. She also painted Robert Hooke. They have been described as the first 'Bloomsbury' group of intellectuals.

"One piece of her written work, a manuscript 'Treatise on Friendship', which survives in two versions, one of which, Mary's copy, is in the British Library. The treatise was addressed to her 'Honour'd Friend', Elizabeth Tillotson, the wife of John, who would be an Archbishop of Canterbury. It was sent from Allbrook on March 9, 1666. Mary has a neat, very readable, hand, which is tightly packed across the small sheets. Touching these pages it is easy to imagine Mary sitting straight-backed before a neat bureau, the draft text beside her." http://commentisfree.guardian.co.…

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"Mistress Beale...A pleasue. You know, I do encourage my own wife's intellectual forays." Sam, expansive beam.

"God protect her. Now, take your hand off my shoulder or I will take your arm off your shoulder, you pop-eyed little freak."

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Among the Carte Papers' letters calendered is this hopeful one

Petition of Sir Nicholas Armorer and of Gabriel de Sylvius, to the King

Date: [February] 1665

Shelfmark: MS. Carte 145, fol(s). 154
Document type: Copy

His Majesty, by his grant under the broad seal of Ireland gave to petitioners all the forfeitures due [to his Majesty] for unlawful transportation of wool out of Ireland ...

The ship 'Bishop of Flushing', taken by Lord Sandwich, was forfeited for such unlawful act and the one half of its value being £600, was given to his Lordship.

Pray for the grant of the other half of said value or of so much thereof as to his Majesty shall seem befitting.

http://www.rsl.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwm…

REALLY? Who are Sir Nicholas Armorer and of Gabriel de Sylvius and why should THEY fall heir to any of the spoils?

-----
The law that was violated: 'January 1648: Ordinance to prevent the Exportation of Wool from Ireland, except to England and Wales.', Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660 (1911), pp. 1061. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…. Date accessed: 01 March 2008.

Pedro  •  Link

Armorer, Sir Nicholas (c.1620–1686), royalist army officer, conspirator, and courtier.

Not yet mentioned in the Diary, but L&M say Sir Nicholas Armorer was equerry to Charles II.

Pedro  •  Link

The ship ‘Bishop of Flushing’, taken by Lord Sandwich

Maybe this one?

From Jeannine’s entry for Sandwich on the 6th August 1664…

Capt. Nixon in the Elizabeth sent in a pink laden with wool from Ireland that was going for Holland on the back of the Goodwin.

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Pedro  •  Link

Gabriel de Sylvius

Memoirs of Count de Grammont NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

NOTE 129...Mr. Silvius,

Afterwards Sir Gabriel Silvius. In Chamberlayne's Angliæ Notitia, 1669, Gabriel de Sylvus is put down as one of the carvers to the queen, and Mrs. de Sylvus, one of the six chambriers or dressers to the queen. He was afterwards knighted, and, 30th February, 1680, was sent ambassador to the Dukes of Brunswick and Lunenburgh. Lord Orford says, he was a native of Orange, and was attached to the princess-royal, afterwards to the Duke of York. He also says, he was sent ambassador to Denmark.

Carl in Boston  •  Link

I to the taking my wife’s kitchen accounts at the latter end of the month, and there find 7s. wanting, which did occasion a very high falling out between us, I indeed too angrily insisting upon so poor a thing
What a Scrooge, to tear up the place over 7 shillings. At least he knows today, at least, he's a jerk, and he ain't nothin but a prick louse.

Nate  •  Link

"The social revolution was slowly evolving. "

Oh, my, CGS.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Armorer and de Silvius

The king knows these loyal men well: cf. the Carte Calendar of 4 1/2 years ago:

An Order of Reference, by the Duke of Ormond, to the Attorney General of Ireland, of a certain letter of his Majesty dated 8th September, on behalf of Sir Nicholas Armorer and Gabriel Silvius
Written from: Dublin Castle

Date: 9 October 1662

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…

At t the Restoration, in Ireland "The King's company was given to Sir Nicholas Armorer, who had acted as equerry to the King in exile, and was a close friend of the Duke of Ormond, by whose influence he was returned to Parliament as member for the county Wicklow, and appointed Governor of Cork. http://books.google.com/books?id=…

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Mary Beale (née Cradock; 26 March 1633 – 1699) was an English portrait painter. She became one of the most important portrait painters of 17th-century England, and has been described as the first professional female English painter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar…

Marquess  •  Link

Ebenezer Pepys, that is what this, story smacks of, or "Rage Over a Lost Penny."

arby  •  Link

JWB of 2008: There was a small 4.4 earthquake near Swansea Feb 17 this year. Similar ones every 2-3 years says the BGS.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

Re: ' . . I had a mind in part to take away the strangenesse . . '

' . . 2.  a. Absence of friendly feeling or relations; discouraging or uncomplying attitude towards others; coldness, aloofness. Obs.
. . 1669   R. Montagu in Buccleuch MSS (Hist. MSS Comm.) (1899) I. 452   The King here lives at so much distance and strangeness with me . . '
................
Re: ' . . she took very stomachfully . . '
† ˈstomachfully adv. Obs. < stomach, n. < Latin < Greek στόμαχος . .
. . 8. In various senses relating to disposition or state of feeling.
. . †c. Anger, irritation; malice, ill-will, spite; vexation, pique. Obs.
1641   Milton Reason Church-govt. 35   Not suddenly to condemn all things that are sharply spoken, or vehemently written, as proceeding out of stomach, virulence and ill nature . . '
..............
Re: ' . . she is very cunning . . '
' . . 2.  a. Possessing practical knowledge or skill; able, skilful, expert, dexterous, clever. (Formerly the prevailing sense; now only a literary archaism.)
. . 1690   J. Locke Two Treat. Govt. ii. xix   The tools of Cunninger workmen.
. . 5. a. In bad sense: Skilful in compassing one's ends by covert means; clever in circumventing; crafty, artful, guileful, sly. (The prevailing modern sense.)
. . 1653   H. Cogan tr. F. M. Pinto Voy. & Adventures xvi. 54   Like cunning thieves, desiring that the prey..should not escape out of their hands. . . '
............
Re: 'my being over-solicitous and jealous and forward . . '
'solicitous, adj. < Latin . .

. . 5. Marked or characterized by anxiety, care, or concern:
 a. Of actions, study, etc.
. .. 1678   R. Cudworth True Intellect. Syst. Universe i. iv. 443   The Government of some of them is toilsom and sollicitous.'

(OED)

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

I've got an answer for Terry: "Who are ... Gabriel de Sylvius and why should THEY fall heir to any of the spoils?"

In THE TRAVELS OF THE KING Charles II in Germany and Flanders 1654-1660
BY EVA SCOTT -- http://archive.org/stream/travels…

On August 6, 1654 Charles II wrote to his aunt, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, 'I am just now beginning this letter in my sister's chamber, where there is such a noise that I never hope to end it, and much less write sense. ... I shall only tell your Majesty that we are now thinking how to pass our time, and in the first place of dancing, in which we find to (sic) difficulties, the one for want of fiddlers, the other for somebody both to teach and to assist at the new dances. I have got my sister to send for Gabriel Silvius as one that is able to perform both. For the fideldedies my Theobald, 2nd Viscount Taaffe of Corren does promise to be their convoy, and in the meantime we must content ourselves with those that make no difference between a himme [a HYMN?] and a coranto.' [A DANCE] The Index says he was "a dance master".

After Mary Stuart, the Princess Royal and of Orange, died, Sylvius moved to London and became an under-Secretary to Secretary of State Arlington, and acted as his Dutch liaison with the court of young William of Orange.

He wrote the ill-fated letter to Henri Buat after the St. James Day fight. I suspect he's a very busy man behind the scenes, and has been exiled from his homeland.

As one who supported the Stuarts during their exile, Charles is probably predisposed to help him.

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