Wednesday 1 May 1667

Up, it being a fine day, and after doing a little business in my chamber I left my wife to go abroad with W. Hewer and his mother in a Hackney coach incognito to the Park, while I abroad to the Excise Office first, and there met the Cofferer and Sir Stephen Fox about our money matters there, wherein we agreed, and so to discourse of my Lord Treasurer, who is a little better than he was of the stone, having rested a little this night. I there did acquaint them of my knowledge of that disease, which I believe will be told my Lord Treasurer. Thence to Westminster; in the way meeting many milk-maids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them;1 and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings’ door in Drury-lane in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty creature. To the Hall and there walked a while, it being term. I thence home to the Rose, and then had Doll Lane venir para me … [but it was in a lugar mighty ouvert, so as we no poda hazer algo; so parted and then met again at the Swan, where for la misma reason we no pode hazer, but put off to recontrar anon, which I only used as a put-off; and so parted and – L&M] to my Lord Crew’s, where I found them at dinner, and among others. Mrs. Bocket, which I have not seen a long time, and two little dirty children, and she as idle a prating and impertinent woman as ever she was. After dinner my Lord took me alone and walked with me, giving me an account of the meeting of the Commissioners for Accounts, whereof he is one. How some of the gentlemen, Garraway, Littleton, and others, did scruple at their first coming there, being called thither to act, as Members of Parliament, which they could not do by any authority but that of Parliament, and therefore desired the King’s direction in it, which was sent for by my Lord Bridgewater, who brought answer, very short, that the King expected they should obey his Commission. Then they went on, and observed a power to be given them of administering and framing an oath, which they thought they could not do by any power but Act of Parliament; and the whole Commission did think fit to have the judges’ opinion in it; and so, drawing up their scruples in writing, they all attended the King, who told them he would send to the judges to be answered, and did so; who have, my Lord tells me, met three times about it, not knowing what answer to give to it; and they have met this week, doing nothing but expecting the solution of the judges in this point. My Lord tells me he do believe this Commission will do more hurt than good; it may undo some accounts, if these men shall think fit; but it can never clear an account, for he must come into the Exchequer for all this. Besides, it is a kind of inquisition that hath seldom ever been granted in England; and he believes it will never, besides, give any satisfaction to the People or Parliament, but be looked upon as a forced, packed business of the King, especially if these Parliament-men that are of it shall not concur with them: which he doubts they will not, and, therefore, wishes much that the King would lay hold of this fit occasion, and let the Commission fall. Then to talk of my Lord Sandwich, whom my Lord Crew hath a great desire might get to be Lord Treasurer if the present Lord should die, as it is believed he will, in a little time; and thinks he can have no competitor but my Lord Arlington, who, it is given out, desires it: but my Lord thinks it is not so, for that the being Secretary do keep him a greater interest with the King than the other would do at least, do believe, that if my Lord would surrender him his Wardrobe place, it would be a temptation to Arlington to assist my Lord in getting the Treasurer’s. I did object to my Lord [Crew] that it would be no place of content, nor safety, nor honour for my Lord, the State being so indigent as it is, and the [King] so irregular, and those about him, that my Lord must be forced to part with anything to answer his warrants; and that, therefore, I do believe the King had rather have a man that may be one of his vicious caball, than a sober man that will mind the publick, that so they may sit at cards and dispose of the revenue of the kingdom. This my Lord was moved at, and said he did not indeed know how to answer it, and bid me think of it; and so said he himself would also do. He do mightily cry out of the bad management of our monies, the King having had so much given him; and yet, when the Parliament do find that the King should have 900,000l. in his purse by the best account of issues they have yet seen, yet we should report in the Navy a debt due from the King of 900,000l.; which, I did confess, I doubted was true in the first, and knew to be true in the last, and did believe that there was some great miscarriages in it: which he owned to believe also, saying, that at this rate it is not in the power of the kingdom to make a war, nor answer the King’s wants. Thence away to the King’s playhouse, by agreement met Sir W. Pen, and saw “Love in a Maze” but a sorry play: only Lacy’s clowne’s part, which he did most admirably indeed; and I am glad to find the rogue at liberty again. Here was but little, and that ordinary, company. We sat at the upper bench next the boxes; and I find it do pretty well, and have the advantage of seeing and hearing the great people, which may be pleasant when there is good store. Now was only Prince Rupert and my Lord Lauderdale, and my Lord, the naming of whom puts me in mind of my seeing, at Sir Robert Viner’s, two or three great silver flagons, made with inscriptions as gifts of the King to such and such persons of quality as did stay in town the late great plague, for the keeping things in order in the town, which is a handsome thing. But here was neither Hart, Nell, nor Knipp; therefore, the play was not likely to please me. Thence Sir W. Pen and I in his coach, Tiburne way, into the Park, where a horrid dust, and number of coaches, without pleasure or order. That which we, and almost all went for, was to see my Lady Newcastle; which we could not, she being followed and crowded upon by coaches all the way she went, that nobody could come near her; only I could see she was in a large black coach, adorned with silver instead of gold, and so white curtains, and every thing black and white, and herself in her cap, but other parts I could not make [out]. But that which I did see, and wonder at with reason, was to find Pegg Pen in a new coach, with only her husband’s pretty sister with her, both patched and very fine, and in much the finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see one or other, for neatness and richness in gold, and everything that is noble. My Lady Castlemayne, the King, my Lord St. Albans, nor Mr. Jermyn, have so neat a coach, that ever I saw. And, Lord! to have them have this, and nothing else that is correspondent, is to me one of the most ridiculous sights that ever I did see, though her present dress was well enough; but to live in the condition they do at home, and be abroad in this coach, astonishes me. When we had spent half an hour in the Park, we went out again, weary of the dust, and despairing of seeing my Lady Newcastle; and so back the same way, and to St. James’s [L&M say “St. Jones’s“. P.G.], thinking to have met my Lady Newcastle before she got home, but we staying by the way to drink, she got home a little before us: so we lost our labours, and then home; where we find the two young ladies come home, and their patches off, I suppose Sir W. Pen do not allow of them in his sight, and going out of town to-night, though late, to Walthamstow. So to talk a little at Sir W. Batten’s, and then home to supper, where I find Mrs. Hewer and her son, who have been abroad with my wife in the Park, and so after supper to read and then to bed. Sir W. Pen did give me an account this afternoon of his design of buying Sir Robert Brooke’s fine house at Wansted; which I so wondered at, and did give him reasons against it, which he allowed of: and told me that he did intend to pull down the house and build a less, and that he should get 1500l. by the old house, and I know not what fooleries. But I will never believe he ever intended to buy it, for my part; though he troubled Mr. Gawden to go and look upon it, and advise him in it.

34 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"…. Thence to Westminster, in the way meeting many milk-maids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings door in Drury-lane in her smock-sleeves and bodice, looking upon one ­ she seemed a mighty pretty creature. To the Hall and there walked a while, it being term; and thence home to the Rose and there had Doll Lane vener para me; but it was in a lugar mighty ouvert, so as we no poda hazer algo; so parted and then met again at the Swan, where for la misma reason we no pode hazer, but put off to recontrar anon, which I only used as a put-off; and so parted and to my Lord Crew’s, where I found them at dinner; and among others, Mrs. Bocket, which I have not seen in a long time, and two little dirty children, and she as idle a prating, impertinent woman as ever she was."

http://www.pepys.info/bits5.html

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"After dinner my Lord [Crew] took me alone and walked with me, giving me an account of the meeting of the Commissioners for Accounts, whereof he is one....the King expected they should obey his Commission. Then they went on, and observed a power to be given them of administering and framing an oath, which they thought they could not do by any power but Act of Parliament; and the whole Commission did think fit to have the judges' opinion in it;....My Lord tells me he do believe this Commission will do more hurt than good; it may undo some accounts, if these men shall think fit; but it can never clear an account, for he must come into the Exchequer for all this. Besides, it is a kind of inquisition that hath seldom ever been granted in England;...."

"In this [ 1667-1668 ] volume of the Calendar [ of Treasury Books ]...financial difficulties are gathering quickly round Charles's head, and we can now see a little more clearly the straits he was in, the shifts his officials in every department were driven to, as gradually and inevitably the country drifted to bankruptcy—the first acknowledged national bankruptcy in our history. The Treasury itself was abjectly in the hands of the bankers and tax farmers, of whom it was incessantly begging loans, and with all its importunity it could not raise ready cash sufficient for the services. It was reduced to working departmental expenditure on a credit basis of its own invention by issuing batches of orders (so much paper merely) to the Lieutenant of the Ordnance, the Treasurer of the Navy, the Paymaster of the Forces, and so on. These orders were simply assignations on distantly accruing funds. They represent a development of the idea of the tally of assignation and foreshadow in a clumsy, unscientific way, the later system of Exchequer bills. If the departmental Treasurer to whom a batch of such orders was issued as an imprest could not induce his creditors to accept the orders as payment, then he was left to raise a loan on them by pledging his own personal credit in addition. In this way, for instance, during the Dutch war, Sir George Carteret kept the British fleet at sea by raising yearly a quarter of a million on his own credit at a time when the Treasury Lords were unable to assist him and when the fleet would otherwise have had to be laid up in harbour. The working of the system at one end of it is succinctly explained in a passage of Pepys's diary. (fn. 1)
(fn. 1 -- Pepys VI., 133. 16 January 1666/67)
"Walking a good while with Sir Stephen Fox [Paymaster of the Guards], who among other things told me his whole mystery in the business of the interest he pays as Treasurer for the Army. They gave him 12d. per £ quite through the army with condition to be paid weekly. This he undertakes upon his own private credit and to be paid by the King at the end of every 4 months: then for all the time he stays longer [for his money in repayment] the Lord Treasurer [Southampton] allows him 8 per cent. per annum for the forbearance. So that in fine he hath about 12 per cent. from the king and the army [i.e. 5 per cent. from the army and 8 per cent. from the Treasury] for 15 or 16 months' interest, out of which he gains soundly, his expense [the total money so raised by him on credit] being about 130,000l. per an."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

[...]
"The conclusion which I draw from [ ( these ) Tabular Statement(s) of such portions of the National Expenditure as were provided for by actual cash out of the Exchequer ] is, broadly speaking, that the money which the Parliament voted for the Dutch war would have been about sufficient to provide for the growing debt on the ordinary or peace establishment of the country. That is to say, that averaged out over the whole period—1660­8—it would have sufficed to bring up the income of the administration to that 1,200,000l. per an. which the Parliament had pledged itself to provide. In this sense therefore it may be said that the Parliament left Charles to fight the Dutch without any aid whatever; although they had themselves promoted the war.
[...]
"In the following month, March, 1667, whilst the Parliament still lay prorogued and whilst the management of the Dutch war was bringing deeper and deeper shame upon the country Charles issued out his Commission for the taking and examining the accounts of the moneys voted for the war, viz. the Royal Aid and the Additional Aid, the three months' tax of 70,000l. a month, and the prizes taken in the war.
[...]
"Such proceeding on the part of the Lords helps us to measure the distance which separates the constitutional practice of the Seventeenth century from that of our own time. And at the same time it helps us to an understanding of the extraordinary action of the Upper House with regard to the proposed Joint Committee of Accounts. The key to its action was its sensitiveness as to the royal prerogative. An enquiry into public accounts might be held, and even upon oath, but it was not for the Parliament to do it—it was for the King himself of his own free will to do it. This is quite manifestly the underlying thought. On the 22nd Nov. 1666, the Lords considered the report from their committee of privileges, and resolved to have a conference with the Commons, and on the following day, the 23rd Nov., the heads to be propounded at the conference were reported to the Lords by the Lord Privy Seal as follows: (fn. 15) "As to the matter [the Lords] are willing to agree to examining of accounts on oath, but as to the manner do not find it warranted by course of Parliament that any Committee of Lords and Commons upon any occasion have had the power given them to examine on oath.
[...]
As to the commission itself, its history is brief. Under the date 1 May, 1667, Pepys gives an account of the first meetings of the Commissioners which had taken place evidently in the course of the preceding few weeks."

"Pepys' account is substantially confirmed by a State paper which undoubtedly belongs to the same period, March­May, 1667; and also by two other incidental references in the State Papers Domestic. (fn. 30) In April there was a report that they were to sit shortly, (fn. 31) and in the following month there is a more circumstantial statement to the effect that the Committee had requested the King to appoint judges to satisfy them how far they may legally proceed in their Commission. (fn. 32) ...."

'Introduction', Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 2: 1667-1668 (1905), pp. VII-LXXXVII. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/… which is a history of British state finance, 1660-68, William A. Shaw (editor).

Andrew Hamilton  •  Link

A Restoration Comedy in at least 3 Acts.

" There will be a great show of the court at the Park today, Bess. Why don't you go?"

"Oh, Sam, you know we have no coach."

"Just run along with Will and his mother. I'll pay for the hackney. Oh, but be sure to wear a mask. Don't want the gentry to see my wife in a rental, you know."

"But what about you, Sam, aren't you coming?"

"Alas, business calls, my dear."

Off to The Rose...

At the end of the day Sir William stops by The Rose for a glass and a chat with Doll Lane.

"You should have seen his eyes pop when he saw my Peg in her coach. Naked envy! Then I brought up the house at Wansted he considers so fine. Said I planned to buy it, tear it down, and put up something truly handsome. He literally sputtered with objections. Thought I'd teach the young upstart a lesson."

"My thought too," says Doll.

Apologies to R Gertz.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"I left my wife to go abroad with W. Hewer and his mother in a Hackney coach incognito to the Park..."

"Before we go anywhere...'Mother' wants 'er five shillings." the stand-in 'Mrs. Hewer' frowns at the couple across from her.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...met the Cofferer and Sir Stephen Fox about our money matters there, wherein we agreed..."

"Broke, gentlemen?"

"Ruined, Pepys. Sir Stephen?"

"Agreed, we're done for. I recommend we practice our French."

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings’ door in Drury-lane in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty creature..."

"You, there! Bug-eyes!! Yes, you with the papers!"

"Miss Gwyn...I...?"

"You were staring at me like a starvin' man. Do I know you? Wait, I met you at the house...The bug-eyed one with the bad wig full of nits and the pretty wife?"

"Pepys, ma'am."

"Yes, you were...But it's not for free you know." grin.

"I mean... Miss Nelly, I am Samuel Pepys, of the Naval Office."

"Oh..." smile, cocked head. "You're that fellow...I've heard of you, Mr. Pepys who enjoys his name so much. Betty Knipp goes on about you all the time, poor lamb. You naughtly little...And you with such a sweet little wife."

Cough...Gurgle...Ummn...

"Oh? And how is dear Mrs. Knipp?"

"Not as dear as I, Samuel. Unless of course...I rather fancy a fellow. And of course, my tastes don't always run to the tall, strong, and stupid."

Choke at her grin...Gasp...

"Breathe, Sammy." pats back.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"Then to talk of my Lord Sandwich, whom my Lord Crew hath a great desire might get to be Lord Treasurer..."

Who, ummn...More fit for the job of managing the Nation's finances?

We can only pray he lets Creed, Sam, Jemina and his dad-in-law do the real work.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"I do believe the King had rather have a man that may be one of his vicious caball, than a sober man that will mind the publick, that so they may sit at cards and dispose of the revenue of the kingdom. This my Lord was moved at, and said he did not indeed know how to answer it, and bid me think of it; and so said he himself would also do."

Whoa...Dangerous talk, Samuel. Revolutions have begun with less.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Sam doesn't seem to have enjoyed his play today very much. Wonder if it would have seemed less ordinary if he was not so worried about finances.

The milk maids collecting gratuities is like other trades/services collecting Christmas Boxes.

No mention of Bess washing her face in May Day dew or collecting may blossom (flowering hawthorn) to decorate the house. Pleasanter pastimes one would have thought than riding round the dusty Park to see and be seen (unless RG's fantasy has a nugget of truth!)

Andrew Hamilton  •  Link

"As to the commission itself, its history is brief."

It is tempting to see a parallel between Charles's desire to deflect criticism for his handling of accounts and President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility as a device to relieve him of his promise not to raise certain taxes AFTER he has signed into law two large new entitlements (for health care and student loans).

cum salis grano  •  Link

what dothe he mean :? "...with W. Hewer and his mother in a Hackney coach incognito to the Park,..."
no trumpets or strumpets to announce his "presents".

Mary  •  Link

"in a Hackney coach incognito"

In a closed coach, according to L&M footnote.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"We sat at the upper bench next the boxes"

L&M explain this was the back row of this pit, which was just in front of the boxes [which were?] at the rear of the auditorium.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Thence to Westminster, in the way meeting many milk-maids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings door in Drury-lane [opposite Wych St] in her smock-sleeves and bodice, looking upon one ­ she seemed a mighty pretty creature."

L&M: They collected tips from their customers. This May-day custom lasted in varied forms into the 19th century: W. Hone, Every-day Book (1838), i. 570. The milkmaids, probably from nearby farms, may have been on their way to the Maypole in the Strand. For descriptions of country milkmaids and their music, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Households used milk mainly for cooking; to drink it was dangerous.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Then to talk of my Lord Sandwich, whom my Lord Crew hath a great desire might get to be Lord Treasurer if the present Lord should die, as it is believed he will, in a little time; and thinks he can have no competitor but my Lord Arlington, who, it is given out, desires it."

L&M: Southampton, the Lord Treasurer, died on 16 May; a commission was appointed to succeed him. For Arlington's hope of attaining the office, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"saw “Love in a Maze” but a sorry play: only Lacy’s clowne’s part, which he did most admirably indeed; and I am glad to find the rogue at liberty again. "

L&M: The play was Shirley's comedy. John Lacey played the part of Johnny Thump. For his arrest, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Now was only Prince Rupert and my Lord Lauderdale, and my Lord ______"

L&M: Probably Lord Craven, soldier and courlier, is meant. For his services during the Plague, when he acted as Allbemarle's principal assistant, see T. Skinner, Life of Monck (1721), p. 365.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"puts me in mind of my seeing, at Sir Robert Viner’s, two or three great silver flagons, made with inscriptions as gifts of the King to such and such persons of quality as did stay in town the late great plague, for the keeping things in order in the town, which is a handsome thing."

L&M: Vyner was the King's goldsmith. Tankards -- smaller ones -- were also presented to J.P.'s, physicians and apothecaries for their services: PRO, PC2/59, ff. 16v-17r; N. & Q., 13 December 1873, p. 471.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"When we had spent half an hour in the Park, we went out again, weary of the dust, and despairing of seeing my Lady Newcastle; and so back the same way, and to St. Jones"

L&M: St John's, Clerkenwell. The London house of the Duke and Duchess was in Clerkenwell Close.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"We can only pray he lets Creed, Sam, Jemina and his dad-in-law do the real work."

This sounds very familiar. But Sandwich would have to also use a fleet of racing pigeons.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Thence Sir W. Pen and I in his coach, Tiburne way, into the Park, where a horrid dust, and number of coaches, without pleasure or order."

On May Day Pepys frequently makes his way to Hyde Park to see or participate in this turn out of the gentry in their coaches. L&M only gave us a general description, but it sounds to me as if May Day marked the first -- or most important -- day with the most participation:

L&M note: It was the custom in spring and summer for members of the fashionable world of London to drive in coaches in the 'Ring' -- an internal road within Hyde Park. .... The habit had begun as soon as the park was thrown open to the public in the 1620s, and was to continue throughout the 18th and 19th centuries -- as long in fact as the horse-drawn carriage remained modish. -- J. Ashton, Hyde Park, pp. 50+.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"But that which I did see, and wonder at with reason, was to find Pegg Pen in a new coach, with only her husband’s pretty sister with her, both patched and very fine, and in much the finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see one or other, for neatness and richness in gold, and everything that is noble."

Pepys obviously isn't aware that Anthony Lowther MP is a wealthy young man, and none of the articles about him mention his being a Quaker. The weaning process to groom Mrs. Pegg for her new role as a rich landowner's wife is in process.

Maybe that's why the Admiral wants a country house, and has been going about in a coach and to the theater and wearing good clothes. Can't be shown up by his son-in-law, even if his wife and son insist on a modest home life.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"In this [ 1667-1668 ] volume of the Calendar [ of Treasury Books ] ... financial difficulties are gathering quickly round Charles II's head, and we can now see a little more clearly the straits he was in, the shifts his officials in every department were driven to, as gradually and inevitably the country drifted to bankruptcy — the first acknowledged national bankruptcy in our history. ... In this way, for instance, during the Dutch war, Sir George Carteret kept the British fleet at sea by raising yearly a quarter of a million on his own credit at a time when the Treasury Lords were unable to assist him and when the fleet would otherwise have had to be laid up in harbor. The working of the system at one end of it is succinctly explained in a passage of Pepys' diary. (fn. 1)
(fn. 1 -- Pepys VI., 133. 16 January 1667)"

Presumably this paragraph is about the Second Anglo-Dutch War, which we are in the middle of.

Assuming this information to be correct, as Carteret could raise that much money to keep the fleet afloat, why was he so disliked?
Perhaps the "vicious caball" needed Carteret to be discredited so Charles II would not need to repay him, and so his work for the nation would not make them look impoverished and unpatriotic?
Perhaps Carteret didn't want the information to become public, or it would expose how much more money Charles had squandered?

No wonder Lady Carteret was in tears when Pepys stopped by last week. They must have been in a perilous financial position.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Coaches ... at least in the USA it is difficult to live without a car. Our Covid-19 rules say we must drive to the food distribution center and open the truck/boot remotely so our free box of food can be put in there by the volunteers at the food bank. You can't be poor without a car.

Not so in Pepys' time. I was reading about the significance of coaches in "The attack on Lord Chandos: Popular politics in Cirencester in 1642" by Nicholas Poyntz and found this nugget which explains how they were used in more ways than transportation.
https://www.academia.edu/545381/T…

(lightly edited for clarity):
The nobility and gentry defined themselves in opposition to the rest of society: they were men of honor, whose status derived from powerful symbols of identity such as what they wore and the houses they lived in.85 [see citations below]

Coaches were part of how the gentry constructed their identity in contrast to everyone else. They were introduced to England around the middle of the 16th century, and quickly became popular amongst the rich. They were often decorated with rich coats of arms, furnished with lavishly embroidered cushions, and driven by liveried coachmen.86

Their role in delineating social status was not lost on contemporaries: Henry Peacham thought that they marked ‘a publique difference, between Nobilitie, and the Multitude’.87

A crowd in Cirencester in August 1642 destroyed George Brydges, 6th Baron Chandos’ coach, but not as an act of random violence. It was the targeted destruction of the symbol of Chandos’ gentility after he broke his word and lost his honour, appropriation of which allowed the citizens to exercise significant personal and political agency.
###
So at a time of national hardship, while under investigation by a Parliamentary Committee for being in charge of a department suspected of losing a war by graft, Pepys has decided to show himself a gentleman by having his coat of arms on a river taxi, and acquiring a private coach.

Usually I think Pepys is shrewd and a good politician -- not to be seen at the theater when he's on the hot seat, etc., keeping his mouth shut and his ears open at all times -- but on this he is wrong.
###
85 John Adamson,
‘The aristocracy and their mental world’, in John Morrill (ed.),
The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain
(Oxford, 2001), 173-190;
Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England
(Stanford, 1993), 161-198;
Mervyn James,
Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England
(Cambridge, 1988), 308-415.

86 J. F. Merritt,
The Social World of Early Modern Westminster: Abbey, Court and Community, 1525-1640
(Manchester, 2005), 169-173.

87 Henry Peacham,
Coach and sedan, pleasantly disputing for place and precedence (1636),
STC / 1111:09, sig. Dr

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

And with the above in mind, "But that which I did see, and wonder at with reason, was to find Pegg Pen in a new coach, ... and in much the finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see one or other, for neatness and richness in gold, and everything that is noble."

I'm not surprised Pepys is wondering at that sight. Pegg Penn Lowther didn't have a lavish wedding. Lady Penn borrowed his pots and pans to serve a mean wedding reception. Yes, her father goes to the theater, wears fine clothes, has a coach, and is talking about land speculations, but everything at home indicates the Penns are experiencing financial hardship. The young Lowther's splurge must have been quite a shock.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

i take it the issue about coaches that beset both Pepys and his young neighbor Pegg Pemm,is to avoid ostentation -- "pretentious and vulgar display, especially of wealth and luxury, intended to impress or attract notice." (Google Dictionary) = seeing yourself as socially significant others see you (tricky).

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Pepys says the Lowther's coach was "the finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see one or other, for neatness and richness in gold, and everything that is noble."

They were doing a Trump. No attempt to avoid ostentation.

Since Pepys has paid to have his coat of arms on the riverboat, I ASSUME he intended to put it on his coach as well. (Take that, Sandwich. And Penn. And Batton. And Brouncher. And Povy. You can't patronize the CoA any more.)

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"I thence home to the Rose, and then had Doll Lane venir para me … [but it was in a lugar mighty ouvert, so as we no poda hazer algo; so parted and then met again at the Swan, where for la misma reason we no pode hazer, but put off to recontrar anon, which I only used as a put-off; ..."

Pepys is doing his best to celebrate May Day in the old traditional way:

In Henry VIII’s times, May Day was often called Robin Hood Day in order to excuse the people going out into the countryside for rural sports. The main sport might be archery competitions, but morris dances were also the rule, the dancers leading Maid Marion to the May Pole beneath which she might sit with a doll on her lap.
The more wily celebrants said the young maid who played the part was the Virgin Mary, but no one was fooled.
In many places it was said the festivities continued through the night into morning. In his 'Anatomie of Abuses' (1583), Phillipe Stubbes informs his Puritan readership that he has “… heard it credibly reported, ... by men of great gravitie, credite, and reputation, that of fourtie, three score, or a hundred maides goyng to the woode ouer night, there have scarcely the thirde parte of them returned home againe undefiled.”

In England, the Puritans especially rejected the Catholic Church as the devil's church for its willingness to allow their parishioners to engage in such festivities as harmless traditions.

Under Queen 'Bloody' Mary I, the Catholic Church largely looked the other way in such matters. Robin Hood / May Day continued to be celebrated when the Church of England Protestants came permanently back into power under Queen Elizabeth.

Adapted from https://vgs-pbr-reviews.blogspot.…

Log in to post an annotation.

If you don't have an account, then register here.