Sunday 5 August 1666
(Lord’s day). Up, and down to the Old Swan, and there called Betty Michell and her husband, and had two or three a long salutes from her out of sight of ‘su mari’, which pleased me mightily, and so carried them by water to West minster, and I to St. James’s, and there had a meeting before the Duke of Yorke, complaining of want of money, but nothing done to any purpose, for want we shall, so that now our advices to him signify nothing. Here Sir W. Coventry did acquaint the Duke of Yorke how the world do discourse of the ill method of our books, and that we would consider how to answer any enquiry which shall be made after our practice therein, which will I think concern the Controller most, but I shall make it a memento to myself.
Thence walked to the Parish Church to have one look upon Betty Michell, and so away homeward by water, and landed to go to the church, where, I believe, Mrs. Horsely goes, by Merchant-tailors’ Hall, and there I find in the pulpit Elborough, my old schoolfellow and a simple rogue, and yet I find him preaching a very good sermon, and in as right a parson-like manner, and in good manner too, as I have heard any body; and the church very full, which is a surprising consideration; but I did not see her.
So home, and had a good dinner, and after dinner with my wife, and Mercer, and Jane by water, all the afternoon up as high as Morclacke with great pleasure, and a fine day, reading over the second part of the, “Siege of Rhodes,” with great delight. We landed and walked at Barne-elmes, and then at the Neat Houses I landed and bought a millon, —[melon]— and we did also land and eat and drink at Wandsworth, and so to the Old Swan, and thence walked home. It being a mighty fine cool evening, and there being come, my wife and I spent an houre in the garden, talking of our living in the country, when I shall be turned out of the office, as I fear the Parliament may find faults enough with the office to remove us all, and I am joyed to think in how good a condition I am to retire thither, and have wherewith very well to subsist. Nan, at Sir W. Pen’s, lately married to one Markeham, a kinsman of Sir W. Pen’s, a pretty wench she is.
22 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"had two or three long salutes from her out of sight of su marido" transcribe L&M.
"salutes" of course are kisses.
"so marido" = her husband
Jesse • Link
"Parliament may find faults ... to remove us all"
I'd wondered what kind of job security Pepys had, thinking it was mostly tied to the King and court rather than Parliament. Given the current economic times it's not hard to empathize with getting "turned out of the office."
cgs • Link
Job security, you serve at the wishes of "me liege" or he that has the mace.
Not unlike California, one is employed at will or by contract.
FJA • Link
cgs, you never cease to surprise me. With all your knowledge of England, the English language and country life, up you pop as a scholar of employment law in the "golden" state of California. Sam would have benefited greatly had he a friend such as you with whom to confer from time to time. Or rather may I say that you would have fit his time wonderfully with your inquiring mind. You are a window into other ways of thinking and a precious resource to us all.
Robert Gertz • Link
Interesting about Nan...Maid marrying into the family Penn. And, no sarcastic comment by Sam... Of course, the fellow is likely low on the Penn totem pole, but it is interesting both as to social mobility and Sam's growing acceptance of Penn as a valuable colleague.
Robert Gertz • Link
Run, Betty, run!
***
Heaven...
"God knows I should have."
"Bess, the fellow means..."
"Yeah. Tell me again how I should be pleased so many of them were named Elisabeth."
cgs • Link
Remember cgs means with a pinch of salt, my other moniker is "writ in water".
I see things? fru a Norman tower slit, there is much more out there, we all us see through Tinted filters.
I "rit" hoping that all will check and question.
Wim van der Meij • Link
Sam, in his early thirties, is thinking of having to retire to the country, and realizing he is in a good condition for it. Remarkable.
JKM • Link
Sam had another experience today many of us can relate to: encountering an old schoolmate he didn't think was very bright, in a prominent job and doing well at it!
cgs • Link
Security is a myth fed by hope and Samuel has the best medicine, enough money , if necessary due to ill winds , to live better than Papa, for 5000l at 8 % yields better than 400 Quid per annum still enabling Sam to have his inhouse maydes and best of plonck, 24l silk suits but not as Baronette he would need 800l per annum. Only 14 thou would live better than he, based on income.
Glyn • Link
Sam is in his early 30s, but I don't think by retirement he means living a life of leisure. I think he means he would become a landowner in the country. The English ideal in the 17th century is to be a country gentleman, not an office worker.
At this point in time, an aristocrat looking after his country estate was doing his proper job. Becoming a member of parliament was a disagreeable necessity, not an end in itself.
After all, it won't be long before Coventry retires from Westminster to his country estates, and Pepys seems to model himself on Coventry.
Still, it's good to know that the Pepys family are financially secure based on what he's earned in the last 2 or 3 years.
Glyn • Link
"after dinner with my wife, and Mercer, and Jane by water, all the afternoon up as high as Morclaeke with great pleasure, and ... at Barne-elmes, and then at the Neat Houses I landed and bought a millon, —[melon]— and we did also land and eat and drink at Wandsworth, and so to the Old Swan, and thence walked home."
He's doing the equivalent of a Sunday drive in the country. Mortlake, Barn Elms, Wandsworth are all on the other side of town from the Tower of London.
cgs • Link
"a scholar of employment law"
neigh.
just a POV and having suffered the differing schemes of terms of employment; having enjoyed the tenure of hard fought life of a British civil servant of not losing "'is" job when Government changes benches, unlike many other sovereign organisations** and risked the insecurity of a California work when a new broom [CEO] brings in his darlings [princes] or New York and its schemes.
[Yes Mr Minister]
Tenure or security for the Educated or servants of the people, has evolved from the results of insecurity of being employed by an unstable leaders
like the Profs. faced at Magdalene, those that lost their living when Inter Regnum started and finished and Preachers wished not to spout the Gospel according to CII.
**Thatcher returned security of employment back to Middle ages to get productivity up as security is one of the 3 deadly diseases to society , that is my cognition.
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have their position terminated without just cause.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenu…
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"landed to go to the church, where, I believe, Mrs. Horsely goes, by Merchant-tailors’ Hall"
L&M: conjecture this might be St Martin Outwich.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... had a meeting before the Duke of Yorke, complaining of want of money, but nothing done to any purpose, for want we shall, so that now our advices to him signify nothing."
Everyone is out of money, except for Pepys, and he's not advertising.
Why didn't Charles organize serious lotteries? They had been held by Queen Elizabeth, James VI and I, and Charles I:
After the Restoration lotteries became popular. They were started under pretense of aiding poor royalists who had suffered in the civil wars. Gifts of plate, supposedly from the Crown, were disposed of 'on the behalf of the truly loyal indigent officers.' Lotteries became a patent monopoly, were farmed by speculators, with drawings held in theaters.
'The Royal Oak Lottery' caused the most comment. It continued to the end of the century, and met with lots of criticism. The organization was frequently the subject for the satirists.
In 1699, a lottery was proposed with a capital prize of 1,000l. pounds, which could be won for risking one penny.
Speculation characterized the English in the early 18th century, culminating in the South Sea Bubble, favored all kinds of lotteries. There were 'great goes' in whole tickets, and 'little goes' in their subdivisions; the lottery speculators took out insurance; fortune tellers sold 'lucky numbers.'
A writer in The Spectator reported, 'I know a well-meaning man that is very well pleased to risk his good-fortune upon the number 1711, because it is the year of our Lord. ... a certain zealous dissenter, who, being a great enemy to popery, and believing that bad men are the most fortunate in this world, will lay two to one on the number 666 against any other number ...'
The Guildhall was a scene of great excitement when the drawing were held there, and poor medical practitioners attended, ready to let blood when the sudden proclaiming of the winning tickets had an overpowering effect.
Lotteries were not confined to money prizes: Plate and jewels were favorites; books were common; but the strangest was for deer from Sion Park.
Henry Fielding wrote a farce produced at Drury Lane Theater in 1731, set in a lottery office, and the action ridiculed the office keepers and the credulity of their victims.
A whimsical pamphlet was published about the same time, purporting to be a prospectus of 'a lottery for ladies;' with the chief prize being a husband and coach and six, for 5 pounds (the price of each share). Husbands of inferior grade, in purse and person, were the second, third, and fourth rate prizes. A similar lottery for wives was soon advertised. This was legitimate satire, but despite reason and ridicule, they continued to be patronized by a gullible public.
Some legitimate lotteries were held. In 1736 an act was passed to build a bridge at Westminster by lottery, consisting of 125,000 tickets at £5 each.
More from
http://www.thebookofdays.com/mont…
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Sir W. Coventry did acquaint the Duke of Yorke how the world do discourse of the ill method of our books, and that we would consider how to answer any enquiry which shall be made after our practice therein, which will I think concern the Controller most, but I shall make it a memento to myself."
Pepys worked hard on his victualing accounts, but Rupert and Albemarle's complaint was that what he sent was substandard and inadequate. Pepys has worked with Carteret the Treasurer on improving his record keeping; he has never mentioned Mennes, the Controller, as not being on top of his affairs.
But when you are out of money, do bookkeeping practice matter that much? It sounds like Coventry is closing a stable door after the horses next door have bolted. Procedures are something they can work on which won't cost anything extra, and might save the Navy some money down the line. But they are no solution for the Crown's most immediate problem.
"I fear the Parliament may find faults enough with the office to remove us all, ..."
Perhaps this was a result of Controller Peter Pett's visit? He's a shipbuilder not a businessman ... and I presume Chatham's and the other shipyards' budgets would not be in Pepys' purview. But obviously a shake up is imminent if Pepys thinks they all could be fired.
The King and Parliament need an immediate fall guy, and Monck and Rupert are national treasures. They can't undermine the fleet's self-confidence any more than it has fallen already as they have to be ready to fight again soon.
I think Penn's comment yesterday about needing to teach the captains how to sail better is the solution, not bookkeeping.
Samuel Powrie • Link
Has anyone ever worked out how many times - on average & per diary entry - Pepys mentions a girl friend or makes reference to some other object of his lust? Better still, has anyone worked out how many women he was consorting with (or seeking to consort with) at any one time? And I wonder how exceptional (or otherwise) in this regard he might have been?
Terry Foreman • Link
Samuel Powrie, I'm not sure what number(s) you seek, but if you click on, say, Elizabeth Knepp https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
there are (I find now) 108 References
= entries in which her name appears in the text. He may just mention her in passing that day, or be discussing a part she plays. Ete.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Samuel - if you compile the numbers, please remember to share.
And as to "has anyone worked out how many women he was consorting with (or seeking to consort with) at any one time? And I wonder how exceptional (or otherwise) in this regard he might have been?" -- your guess is as good as ours.
Remember Ecclesiastes 2: "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die"? Gluttony, lust, greed, etc., are old problems, and Pepys was a flawed human like the rest of us. He dealt with his stressers as best he could.
Compared to the Court of Louis XIV, where they were holding black masses, and murder by poison implicated Louis' mistress, the Court of St. James behaved quite benignly.
This is 1666 --- for decades the millennialists had warned of the end of the world this year. Evidently Pepys didn't buy it, but as a population stressor, it was there. And those pesky comets in 1665 didn't help.
The Civil Wars killed 10 per cent of the population. Building it back up was essential. Then came the plague. Charles and James were role-modeling the necessary behavior to rebuild the country (consciously or unconsciously I have no idea). We have just seen the manpower shortage affect the Navy's ability to protect the nation.
Many of the older men, including Charles, had PTSD. Gambling, sex, drinking and reckless risk taking (like duels) are ways to self-medicate. The French were self-medicating the same ways at the same time.
Many of the younger men, including Rochester and Pepys, were fatherless children. They had abandonment issues, separation anxiety, and grew up with a lack of male role models. At Court, many inherited wealth, titles and responsibilities at unusually young ages. Young people away from home with money often live wildly.
I try to remember not to judge too harshly; I am very happy not to have walked a mile in their chopines. The Roaring 20's and the Swinging 60's and 70's show me we have not evolved very far.
San Diego Sarah • Link
I found out who Mr. Markham was -- who recently married Anne Nan Wright. He was Admiral Penn's nephew, and went on to become the first Governor of Pennsylvania. Anne died before 1684 when he married his second wife.
Terry Foreman • Link
List of colonial governors of Pennsylvania
The government of Colonial Pennsylvania (and the Lower Counties) was conducted by a set of administrators in the name of the proprietors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis…
#1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil…
William Markham (1635 – 12 June 1704) served as deputy governor of the Province of Pennsylvania. Markham was the acting governor of Pennsylvania from 1681 to 1682 and from 1693 to 1699. He was a member of the Church of England and tended to favor the interests of minority religious groups in the primarily Quaker colony.
On 10 April 1681, Markham was appointed by his first cousin, Governor William Penn, and served as acting governor while Penn was in England. Markham sailed for America soon after his appointment. He landed in Boston and made his way to New York where he showed his credentials and took official control of the Delaware territories which had also been given to Penn.
On 3 August 1681, Markham arrived in Upland (now Chester, Pennsylvania), the only town in the colony at that time. He assembled a governing council that included six Quakers and three other early colonists. As governor, Markham helped select the site for Philadelphia, bought land from the Indians along the Delaware River and Pennsbury Manor, and began the discourse with Lord Baltimore over the disputed boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Penn first arrived in Pennsylvania in October 1682 and relieved Markham of his duties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil…
San Diego Sarah • Link
Click through on Markeham anyways, folk -- I posted more about him and Nan in Diary times in our Encyclopedia.