Sunday 9 July 1665

(Lord’s day). Very pleasant with her and among my people, while she made her ready, and, about 10 o’clock, by water to Sir G. Carteret, and there find my Lady [Sandwich] in her chamber, not very well, but looks the worst almost that ever I did see her in my life. It seems her drinking of the water at Tunbridge did almost kill her before she could with most violent physique get it out of her body again. We are received with most extraordinary kindnesse by my Lady Carteret and her children, and dined most nobly. Sir G. Carteret went to Court this morning. After dinner I took occasion to have much discourse with Mr. Ph. Carteret, and find him a very modest man; and I think verily of mighty good nature, and pretty understanding. He did give me a good account of the fight with the Dutch. My Lady Sandwich dined in her chamber.

About three o’clock I, leaving my wife there, took boat and home, and there shifted myself into my black silke suit, and having promised Harman yesterday, I to his house, which I find very mean, and mean company. His wife very ill; I could not see her. Here I, with her father and Kate Joyce, who was also very ill, were godfathers and godmother to his boy, and was christened Will. Mr. Meriton christened him. The most observable thing I found there to my content, was to hear him and his clerk tell me that in this parish of Michell’s, Cornhill, one of the middlemost parishes and a great one of the towne, there hath, notwithstanding this sickliness, been buried of any disease, man, woman, or child, not one for thirteen months last past; which [is] very strange. And the like in a good degree in most other parishes, I hear, saving only of the plague in them, but in this neither the plague nor any other disease.

So back again home and reshifted myself, and so down to my Lady Carteret’s, where mighty merry and great pleasantnesse between my Lady Sandwich and the young ladies and me, and all of us mighty merry, there never having been in the world sure a greater business of general content than this match proposed between Mr. Carteret and my Lady Jemimah. But withal it is mighty pretty to think how my poor Lady Sandwich, between her and me, is doubtfull whether her daughter will like of it or no, and how troubled she is for fear of it, which I do not fear at all, and desire her not to do it, but her fear is the most discreet and pretty that ever I did see.

Late here, and then my wife and I, with most hearty kindnesse from my Lady Carteret by boat to Woolwich, come thither about 12 at night, and so to bed.

21 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"It seems her drinking of the water at Tunbridge did almost kill her before she could with most violent physique get it out of her body again."

O, dear! Reminiscent of Pepys's visit with Creed to the less tony Epsom Wells 26 July 1663, but the drinking of that water was itself dramatically purgative.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

A. Hamilton  •  Link

And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

Lady Sandwich not very well, Harman's wife very ill, Kate Joyce very ill; "not withstanding this sickliness" a parish minister brags his parish has had no deaths from disease for 13 months, and except for the plague(!) adjacent parishes appear healthy...

Keeping a close eye on mortality.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I think you may be missing the point Sam in your eagerness to MC the wedding of the [plague] season. My Lady surely knows Jem's unhappiness will not prevent the match but sweet lady that she is, is naturally concerned for her daughter's happiness while the rest are busily patting themselves on the back for a brilliant alliance and Sam airily waves off such silliness as whether the poor girl will be pleased with young Carteret for a mate.

Try to imagine Sandwich's answer to "Father, I don't want to marry that fellow."

"Oh well, then...Carteret? Jem doesn't like the boy, the match is off."

"Well, of course. A pity, but if the dear child isn't happy, we certainly can't force her to it."

Sam staring, wondering if the plague affects mental state...

Well, that was...Jem thinks, relieved.

"Bwar...Bah, ha, ha!!!" Carteret and Sandwich, howling...

"That's a very good one, my girl." Carteret pats her. "My boy appreciates a sense of humor. Guards! The wedding chains and stock for a reluctant bride."

Patricia  •  Link

But surely girls of Jem's station in life don't expect to marry for love? More than half the world has been contracting marriages in this way since ancient times, and they don't do any worse than the marriages here in the West, where people marry (and divorce) for love.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Curative waters

The hot springs at Bath have, in the recent past, been found to be infected with amoebic dysentery. (see http://www.innvista.com/health/mi… ) I wonder if the TW ones likewise were carrying disease?

Ruben  •  Link

What does it mean they marry for love? (in the West).
Most choose a partner that is convenient for their place in society, etc., although they are mostly not aware of it or prefer to ignore it, and they call it love.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"We are received with most extraordinary kindnesse by my Lady Carteret and her children, and dined most nobly....I took occasion to have much discourse with Mr. Ph. Carteret....About three o’clock I...took boat and home, and there shifted myself into my black silke suit, and having promised Harman yesterday, I to his house, which I find very mean, and mean company."

The 'discourse' SP had in the course of these hours was surely most bathotic!
L&M note that in one of the city's most wealthy wards (Cornhill), the house of Philip Harman -- upholsterer, whose wife was a cousin of the Joyces -- "had only four hearths, Thomas Harman, next door, having only three." And SP is dressed to the nines (though the phrase apparently won't be in use for 50 years). http://www.phrases.org.uk/meaning…

How humbling, in all.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I'm not talking so much 'love' as having some choice or at least a voice in the maatter...

I think there were degrees even then...Tom's prospective bride for example had some choice in the matter, Bess likewise, and we have indications as with poor Jane the barber's assistant that a woman could have some say in whom she married, particularly if her social rank did not make her a valuable family asset. It's an indication that Lady Sandwich still has not fully absorbed the notions of her new rank that she feels Jem's desires should play a role, just as years earlier she had suggested a wealthy merchant would be a fine match for Jem, to the new Lord Sandwich's horror. I think it's precisely that Jem really has no choice that Lady Sandwich's attitude is so touching. It wouldn't surprise me if this is her unconscious bridling at her husband's callousness in the matter and a mild protest for their daughter's happiness to be considered...After all, their match was in some ways a love match made in the heat of the start of the Civil War.

And it's interesting she turns to someone else who made a love match for support, even if he unfortunately seems an insensitive clod too swelled with a sense of his own importance in the affair to even consider the feelings of a young girl he's known and at times been a sort of guardian of for years.

dirk  •  Link

The Rev. Josselin's diary today: the plague cont'd

"God good in our preservation, the plague fears the London they fly before it and the country fears all trade with London. died. 1006. of the plague. 470 the Lord stay his heavy hand. heard from my wives sister Worrall out of Ireland which overjoyed us(,) returned her letters, the season tickle for hay time, the lord good in his word, god in mercy render it a blessing to my people and soul."

dirk  •  Link

John Evelyn's diary

"I went to Hampton Court where now the whole Court was: my buisinesse was to solicite for mony, to carry letters intercepted, to conferr againe with Sir W: Coventrie, the Dukes Secretary, & so home, having dined at Mr. Sec: Morice."

CGS  •  Link

RG: Thanks, POV's are POV'S, not angles of a love triangle, that can not be computed, they be too convoluted with too many variables to the Nth degree to be programed correctly.

Each merger of two 'umans has a differing set of problems and logic.

One answer or solution cannot fit similar problem , as each problem appears to be identical but there be always hidden variables,just like a pill will not solve any given problem for every person.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

1655...

"Balty, you will not believe this. That little bug-eyed freak of a clerk I met at the bookseller's last week says he's crazy in love with me and asked me to marry him."

"Oh, Lord...The one who works for Montagu? Does he have a salary?"

"Balty? Him? What would our father, the one-day-to-be-restored Sieur say?"

"Sister...He would say 'Thank God my daughter will have a square meal at times and a roof over her head'. Marry this fellow before he finds some other pretty book reader."

"But..."

"Hurry, girl. You know your duty."

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I suppose it's the fact that Sam shows so little regard for the feelings of Jemina, a girl he's been close to for many years and who probably is at least more comfortable with him than her increasingly awesome and grand father. But perhaps his very mention of Lady Sandwich's concerns suggests somewhere buried in that self-satisfied maitre'd of the Sandwich-Carteret wedding is the man who looked out for nervous little Jem during the pre-Restoration days, took her to the Tower zoo, was glum when she and her sibs went home after a stay...And maybe feels a little of the nervousness Lady Jem is feeling.

CGS  •  Link

The union of 2 'umans reminds me of the junction of two atoms, they beget a new problem , example "H" and two "O's " together they can put out the H fire, as "H" burns because "O" be near by feeding it, and was not joined in harmony.

dirk  •  Link

"The union of 2 ‘umans reminds me of the junction of two atoms" (CGS)

In more ways than one! Often the "nucleus" of one is attracted by the outward appearance of the other, even when the two "nuclei" repel each other...

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"The most observable thing I found there to my content, was to hear him and his clerk tell me that in this parish of Michell’s, Cornhill, one of the middlemost parishes and a great one of the towne, there hath, notwithstanding this sickliness, been buried of any disease, man, woman, or child, not one for thirteen months last past; which [is] very strange."

There had been several burials, presumably from natural causes: GL, a.1.5. no. 96. The clerk in 1662 was Daniel Hinson: GL, MS.10942/1. (L&M note)

StanB  •  Link

How does Sam guesstimate the time throughout the day, I understand that in certain areas urban and built up the time was called on the hour but how does he call it in say rural areas his he guessing?

Sjoerd22  •  Link

He's been using his new watch, the one he got himself last May ?

" I cannot forbear carrying my watch in my hand in the coach all this afternoon, and seeing what o’clock it is one hundred times; and am apt to think with myself, how could I be so long without one"

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

StanB  •  Link

Ahhh thank you Sjoerd I missed that entry, Do we have any diagrams of Sams timepiece?

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