Saturday 22 July 1665

As soon as up I among my goldsmiths, Sir Robert Viner and Colvill, and there got 10,000l. of my new tallys accepted, and so I made it my work to find out Mr. Mervin and sent for others to come with their bills of Exchange, as Captain Hewett, &c., and sent for Mr. Jackson, but he was not in town. So all the morning at the office, and after dinner, which was very late, I to Sir R. Viner’s, by his invitation in the morning, and got near 5000l. more accepted, and so from this day the whole, or near, 15,000l., lies upon interest. Thence I by water to Westminster, and the Duke of Albemarle being gone to dinner to my Lord of Canterbury’s, I thither, and there walked and viewed the new hall, a new old-fashion hall as much as possible. Begun, and means left for the ending of it, by Bishop Juxon. Not coming proper to speak with him, I to Fox-hall, where to the Spring garden; but I do not see one guest there, the town being so empty of any body to come thither. Only, while I was there, a poor woman come to scold with the master of the house that a kinswoman, I think, of hers, that was newly dead of the plague, might be buried in the church-yard; for, for her part, she should not be buried in the commons, as they said she should.

Back to White Hall, and by and by comes the Duke of Albemarle, and there, after a little discourse, I by coach home, not meeting with but two coaches, and but two carts from White Hall to my own house, that I could observe; and the streets mighty thin of people.

I met this noon with Dr. Burnett, who told me, and I find in the newsbook this week that he posted upon the ’Change, that whoever did spread the report that, instead of the plague, his servant was by him killed, it was forgery, and shewed me the acknowledgment of the master of the pest-house, that his servant died of a bubo on his right groine, and two spots on his right thigh, which is the plague.

To my office, where late writing letters, and getting myself prepared with business for Hampton Court to-morrow, and so having caused a good pullet to be got for my supper, all alone, I very late to bed.

All the news is great: that we must of necessity fall out with France, for He will side with the Dutch against us. That Alderman Backewell is gone over (which indeed he is) with money, and that Ostend is in our present possession. But it is strange to see how poor Alderman Backewell is like to be put to it in his absence, Mr. Shaw his right hand being ill. And the Alderman’s absence gives doubts to people, and I perceive they are in great straits for money, besides what Sir G. Carteret told me about fourteen days ago.

Our fleet under my Lord Sandwich being about the latitude 55 (which is a great secret) to the Northward of the Texell.

So to bed very late. In my way I called upon Sir W. Turner, and at Mr. Shelcrosse’s (but he was not at home, having left his bill with Sir W. Turner), that so I may prove I did what I could as soon as I had money to answer all bills.

24 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I thither, and there walked and viewed the new hall, a new old-fashion hall as much as possible. Begun, and means left for the ending of it, by Bishop Juxon."

"We turn right now across the courtyard to the Great Hall. It is possible that Archbishop Boniface built the original with the grant from Pope Urban IV: the 'Comptus Ballivorum' , the earliest record, shows that repairs were carried out by Archbishop Reynolds in 1321 to a 'Grate Halle' some 168 feet long, 64 feet wide and 40 feet high, with a leaden roof supported by a double row of columns. During the Civil War, damage was so serious that when Archbishop Juxon was reinstated in 1660 he found ' a heap of ruins' and spent £10,000 on rebuilding it. So anxious was he to retain its "ancient fome" its character is more reminiscent of the Plantagenet than the restoration period. Built of sturdy red brick with stone quoins, above its battlements high on the roof sits a lantern weathervane bearing the Ams of the See of Canterbury and Juxon entwined, surmounted by a Mitre and the date, 1663." http://www.vauxhallsociety.org.uk…

"The old Hall, as shown on the 1648 plan, had a buttery and pantry at the west end and the kitchen and offices jutting out at right angles on the north side.

"In 1660 William Juxon, who had ministered to Charles I on the scaffold, was appointed to the See of Canterbury. He found the archiepiscopal residence at Lambeth in a sorry state and the Great Hall demolished. (ref. 196) The latter he rebuilt on the old site and as far as possible in the “ancient Form.” (ref. 196) The walls appear from the plan to have been in the same positions as the old, and it is possible that some of the old foundations were re-used. The site of the buttery and pantry was covered by the gateway to the inner courtyard and the entry and staircase to the room over the gate." http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"a kinswoman, I think, of hers, that was newly dead of the plague, might be buried in the church-yard; for, for her part, she should not be buried in the commons, as they said she should."

" the commons" or common burial ground or "plague pits"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plag…

***
The site of a 17th century plague pit.

"Location: Vinegar Alley, Walthamstow
"Description: The graveyard to the North of Vinegar Alley, away from St Mary's Church and beyond the Almshouses was where the survivors of the Great Plague of London dumped the bodies of the dead.

"Vinegar Alley is so named because they lined the surrounding paths with the only plentiful thing they had that warded off the disease.

"At the start of the plague outbreak, parishes did the best they could to provide proper burials for their parishoners [sic], but soon ran out of space and began to dig mass graves within the city. However, the plague was so devastating that soon, in late 1665, the group graves began to be dug outside the city.
http://www.shadyoldlady.com/locat…

***
"London boomed and bulged on the eve of the epidemic. There were about 500,000 people living there, mostly over the old walls by now. As many as 200,000 of them sprinted to the countryside as news of the growing body-count spread like wildfire. They were the lucky ones with enough money and clout to get out. Back in London bodies piled up in crammed plague pits."
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/show…

***
Burial of the plague dead in early modern London
Vanessa Harding

''Tis certain they died by heaps and were buried by heaps; that is to say, without account'.1

"Disposal of the bodies of those who died in the major plague epidemics of the early modern period undoubtedly presented huge problems for the responsible authorities; but did it descend into chaos, as Defoe suggests it did in 1665? And if it did, how and when did normal patterns of burial and funerary observance break down?...."

*Epidemic Disease in London*, ed. J.A.I. Champion (Centre for Metropolitan History Working Papers Series, No. 1, 1993): pp. 53-64 (Copyright © Vanessa Harding, 1993)
http://www.history.ac.uk/cmh/epih…

***
See A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR by Daniel Defoe for a detailed description of pit burial practices
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I met this noon with Dr. Burnett, who told me, and I find in the newsbook this week that he posted upon the 'Change, that whoever did spread the report that, instead of the plague, his servant was by him killed, it was forgery, and shewed me the acknowledgment of the master of the pest-house, that his servant died of a bubo on his right groine, and two spots on his right thigh, which is the plague."

The servant, William Passon, was he of whom Pepys wrote on 10 June 1665:
"[I] hear that the plague is come into the City (though it hath these three or four weeks since its beginning been wholly out of the City); but where should it begin but in my good friend and neighbour’s, Dr. Burnett, in Fanchurch Street." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Robert Gertz  •  Link

On the 11th of June, 1665, Sam mentions the goodwill Burnett gained by causing his home to be shut up on discovering the plague had broken out there. Apparently this didn't mean the inhabitants were locked in? Or had a proper time passed without further outbreak? Unless of course a doctor was granted privilege to travel if he seemed healthy. In any case, interesting that Sam seems unworried by the encounter.

***

Hmmn...Murder under the cover of plague. Interesting idea and probably not that uncommon. I've read reports in which cannabalism owing to starvation during the siege of Leningrad went hand-in-hand with robbery, both covering the crime and keeping the thief alive to enjoy the booty.

Beware, Aunt Wight.

For that matter, beware Uncle.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

London…August 1665…The plague has devastated the city…Tens of thousands dead…

But those surviving the disease are even worse off…

For true to 20-21st sci fi, they have been left mutants…Hideously deformed mutants…

“Bad enough…Though even worse…” Sam Pepys, sole human survivor in the City owing to flea aversion…

“Anti-materialist Quakers in their theology…”

“Pepys…” A hollow cry from below in the courtyard of Seething Lane… “We must properly supply the wants of our seamen.”

“My God…Plague-marred Batten back again?” rush to the window.

“Take heed of the suffering, Pepys…Arrggg!” cry as mutant Batten is killed by booby-trap pit.

“Take heed of that suffering, fellow!”

“Pepys…Join your fellow Englishmen in making peace and reforming this land. I have renounced all vice, returned to my dear queen’s side, and will now lead the nation with the help of Parliament as a good English king should.” Mutant Charles calls. “We need your naval expertise to negotiate peace with Holland, Pepys.”

“Right after I negotiate with the Pope, you thing from Hell!” Sam fires crossbow.

Arggh…

Yikes! Sam ducks as mutant Queen Catherine tosses diseased arm of dead Charles his way. Nice throwing arm…

A crash below…

“Mr. Pepys! Where are you?” Hewer’s voice, distorted by plague mutation.

The fiends…To bring in my own clerk.

“I have the receipts from the last Tangier committee meeting.”

Now that is just too low…Bad enough when they sent Mother and Bess to lure me out…

But they haven’t counted on the vow-developed self-control of one Samuel Pepys…

He arrives, sword in hand…

“Hewer, your services are no longer required.” Arggh!

“You’ve danced your last two-step, Pembleton…” wicked sword thrust nearly avoided…But the deformed dancing master is no longer quite so nimble, Sam notes with sneer.

Arggh…

“Pepys!”

“Oh, this must be a happy dream…” Sam beams at a heavily muffled in cloth wrappings but unmistakable Admiral Sir William Penn calling to him from the hallway…

“But Pepys…I’m not one of them!” Penn reveals unmarked face. Arggghhh…

“Seems the sword is mightier than the Penn…” Sam exults…

“What was that, Sir Will? I don’t think I heard ye.”


***

Carl in Boston  •  Link

causing his home to be shut up on discovering the plague had broken out there.
I remember from reading A Journal Of The Plague Year (DeFoe?) that people who were shut up in their house were shut up indeed, where the locks were I don't know. Getting food to them required great pity on the part of the neighbors. There was a village that shut itself up and bought food from another village by placing their money in a stone basin filled with vinegar, and so they got their food. Half the village died, the others lived, and eventually they went on with life. It was a pitiful life, tempered by a stoicism or something that people didn't give a d,,n if they lived or died, the Lord and Ruler of All being there to make all right. We see it in modern day USA Marines, who are crazy whether they live or die. Semper Fi.

dirk  •  Link

"and that Ostend is in our present possession"

??? I don't get this. The city of Ostend was part of the Spanish Low Countries (Flanders), not Dutch, and was never occupied by the British - they simply weren't at war with Flanders or Spain at the time, so this "possession" can't be military occupation. In what way does Britain "possess" Ostend then?

Unless this doesn't refer to the city of Ostend in present day Belgium at all (and the encyclopedia reference is wrong)? Maybe it's a strange spelling of some other town in Holland? Or a ship? Something else still???

dirk  •  Link

Ostend

I should have checked L&M first: L&M note that this was a "canard". As Terry noted on 6 July, Blackwell was in Flanders financing the King’s allies. So in theory he could have bribed Flanders/Spain to allow the British to use Ostend as a war port, but this would have been unlikely given the geopolitical circumsatnces at the time. But apparently this was a false rumour...

Michael Robinson  •  Link

Ostend, Flanders, Blackwell etc.

Though SP may not know the reasons for Blackwell’s going abroad, he was headed off to Brussels to make the initial payments to the Bishop of Munster, Christopher Bernard von Galen, to secure his invasion of Holland by land and begin provide ‘cement’ for the English diplomatic attempt to create an Anglo-Hapsburg alliance, with Sweden and north-German states, against both French and Dutch, the Hapsburg interest being Flanders; the treaty with Munster had been signed by his representatives in London on June 3rd.

For the whole episode, the diplomatic offensive, its unraveling and subsequent unintended adverse consequences for British interests, see Kenneth Feiling ‘British Foreign Policy 1660 - 1672’ 1930, rpr. 1968, pp. 145, 150+

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"In what way does Britain 'possess' Ostend then?"

In Blackwell’s imagination; his journals contained some canards, so L&M.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Sorry dirk; you already posted what L&M say about Blackwell.

tyndale  •  Link

From the previous issues of both the Intelligencer and the Newes:

"Before I leave this subject, I think it but an honest and necessary office to make some mention of Dr. Burnet, M.D. whose house it pleased Almighty God to visit with the Plague: and of the Disease one of his Servants dyed: whereupon a most unchristian and scandalous report was raised, that the said Dr. had murthered his man, without any other ground in the world then the malice of the first contriver. But I finde that yesterday this unhappy Gentleman caused to be fixed upon the Royal Exchange, London, his own Vindication, in these very words following.

Whereas some person or persons have maliciously forged and published this abominable falsehood, viz.: That I Alexander Burnet of St. Gabriel Fen-Church, London, Doctor in Physick, did kill my Servant William Passon, and was committed to New-Gate for it, I do by these presents upon the Royal Exchange, London, post him or them for Forgery, who have invented and vented that wicked Report: It being declared under the Hand and Seal of Mr. Nathaniel Upton, Master of the Pesthouse, London, who searched the Body of the said William Passon, that he dyed of the Plague, and had a Pestilent Bubo in this Right Groin, and two Blanes in his Right Thigh. Alex. Burnet, M.D."

JWB  •  Link

"As soon as up I among my goldsmiths,"

As provocative as "Up and down to the ships..."

Ruben  •  Link

After reading the pathognomonic findings discovered on the body of William Passon, I see no reason to doubt the epidemic was the Bubonic Plague.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Kudos to the brave (whether forced to the job or no) Nathaniel Upton, Master of the Pesthouse.

"And as you take the keys and swear the oath remember our motto, Mr. Upton."

Reads... "A short life..."

"Sir, isn't there more?"

Frown and shake of head "Not usually..."

CGS  •  Link

OED has no blane it skips the last letter e.
goes from bland to blank
blain OED
[OE. ble{asg}en str. fem., = MDu. bleine, Du. blein, LG. bleien, Da. blegn; OTeut. form possibly *bleganâ-: cf. OHG. blehin-ougi ‘lippus.’] 1. An inflammatory swelling or sore on the surface of the body, often accompanied by ulceration; a blister, botch, pustule; applied also to the eruptions in some pestilential diseases.

Cf. CHILBLAIN.
c1000

1612 WOODALL Surg. Mate Wks. (1653) 332 The third manifest and demonstrative sign of [the Plague]..is the Pestilential Blain.

1667 MILTON P.L. XII. 180 Botches and blaines must all his flesh imboss.
2. ‘A distemper incident to beasts, consisting in a bladder growing on the root of the tongue against the wind-pipe, which at length swelling, stops the breath’ (Chambers Cycl. 1727-51).

to blain
trans. To affect with blains; to blister. Hence blained ppl. a., {sm}blaining vbl. n.

Paul Dyson  •  Link

"There was a village that shut itself up ..."

Carl in Boston

The plague village was Eyam (pronounced "eam", as in steam, beam etc) in Derbyshire, England, which is about 150 miles north of London. Eyam and the area around are well worth a visit for anyone who is near enough. If the Pond is an obstacle, the following links tell the story quite well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyam
http://www.beautifulbritain.co.uk…

Bradford  •  Link

Pepys views the Great Hall re-built. Lisa Jardine provides the background to this entry in a ten-minute Radio 4 talk:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b…

"Thence I by water to Westminster, and the Duke of Albemarle being gone to dinner to my Lord of Canterbury’s, I thither, and there walked and viewed the new hall, a new old-fashion hall as much as possible."

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"to my Lord of Canterbury’s, I thither, and there walked and viewed the new hall, a new old-fashion hall as much as possible. Begun, and means left for the ending of it, by Bishop Juxon. "

Lambeth Palace had suffered much during the Interregnum: the house being divided into tenements, the High Commission Court made into a dancing-school, and part of the chapel into a dining hall. The Great Hall itself (dating largely from the 13th century) had been destroyed. It was now rebuilt at a cost of over £10,000 by money provided by Archbishop Juxon (d. 1661), on the original site and in the original style -- Pepys's 'new old-fashion' -- 'nor could all the Persuasions of Men versed in Architecture and his Friends, induce him to rebuild it in the modern way, and unite it to the Library, though it would have cost less money': Aubrey, Nat. hist. and antiq. Surrey (1719, 1718), v. 273. In his will Juxon required his heirs to complete it. See CSPD 1970, p. 685; D. Gardner, Story of Lambeth Palace, pp. 174-5. (L&M Note)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"a poor woman come to scold with the master of the house that a kinswoman, I think, of hers, that was newly dead of the plague, might be buried in the church- yard; for, for her part, she should not be buried in the commons"

For burials in common ground ('plague pits') see Walter G. Bell, The Great Plague in London in 1665 (London, 1924), pp. 36, 39. (L&M note)

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