Tuesday 28 May 1667
Up, and by coach to St. James’s, where I find Sir W. Coventry, and he desirous to have spoke with me. It was to read over a draught of a letter which he hath made for his brother Commissioners and him to sign to us, demanding an account of the whole business of the Navy accounts; and I perceive, by the way he goes about it, that they will do admirable things. He tells me they have chosen Sir G. Downing their Secretary, who will be as fit a man as any in the world; and said, by the by, speaking of the bankers being fearful of Sir G. Downing’s being Secretary, he being their enemy, that they did not intend to be ruled by their Secretary, but do the business themselves. My heart is glad to see so great hopes of good to the nation as will be by these men; and it do me good to see Sir W. Coventry so cheerfull as he now is on the same score. Thence home, and there fell to seeing my office and closet there made soundly clean, and the windows cleaned. At which all the morning, and so at noon to dinner. After dinner my wife away down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to lie there to-night, and so to gather May-dew to-morrow morning,1 which Mrs. Turner hath taught her as the only thing in the world to wash her face with; and I am contented with it. Presently comes Creed, and he and I by water to Fox-hall, and there walked in Spring Garden. A great deal of company, and the weather and garden pleasant: that it is very pleasant and cheap going thither, for a man may go to spend what he will, or nothing, all is one. But to hear the nightingale and other birds, and here fiddles, and there a harp, and here a Jew’s trump, and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is mighty divertising. Among others, there were two pretty women alone, that walked a great while, which being discovered by some idle gentlemen, they would needs take them up; but to see the poor ladies how they were put to it to run from them, and they after them, and sometimes the ladies put themselves along with other company, then the other drew back; at last, the last did get off out of the house, and took boat and away. I was troubled to see them abused so; and could have found in my heart, as little desire of fighting as I have, to have protected the ladies.
So by water, set Creed down at White Hall, and I to the Old Swan, and so home. My father gone to bed, and wife abroad at Woolwich, I to Sir W. Pen, where he and his Lady and Pegg and pretty Mrs. Lowther her sister-in-law at supper, where I sat and talked, and Sir W. Pen, half drunk, did talk like a fool and vex his wife, that I was half pleased and half vexed to see so much folly and rudeness from him, and so late home to bed.
20 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
St Alban to Ormond
Written from: Colombe
Date: 28 May 1667
Thanks the Lord Lieutenant for care of certain of the writer's concernments in Ireland.
The King [ of France] is marched from Peronne to besiege Charleroi ... "Our friend Colonel Murphy ... is ... Governor" there. ..."Normentiers & La Basse are slighted, and the French already possessed of them". ...
Asks his correspondent to tell him something of his mind concerning "the politics of the neighbours, among whom we are not the least concerned. ... we must grow bold enough to speak plainly & to the point". "I have been", adds the writer, "long very frank in that part of this matter which hath been of late the question:- That was to be rid of the fetters that tied us, hand & foot. These are [ now ], as it were taken off. But how the liberty we have obtained is to be used, is a nicer point. And yet, within a little while, I will be as frank forward as I have been hitherto. It would be a great fault that the suspicion that lies upon me of being 'such a Monsieur', should keep me from being as good an Englishman, as I am in Duty bound to be". ..
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/s…
JWB • Link
Jew's harp
I recall taking a twang or two in my youth and found its playing very annoying. Not only does it vibrate the front teeth, but the metal taste is offensive & the sound of teeth on metal is cringing.
language hat • Link
"I was troubled to see them abused so"
Hahahaha! Excuse me, I meant to say:
"Divertise" was an infrequent variant of "divert"; the OED cites this entry:
Hence divertising ppl. a., entertaining, amusing.
1655 Theophania 84 His humour [was] so divertising. 1667 PEPYS Diary 28 May, To hear the nightingale and other birds, and here fiddles, and there a harp, and here a Jew's trump, and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is mighty divertising. 1694 CROWNE Married Beau I. 5 The compliment is not divertising.
Robert Gertz • Link
"Among others, there were two pretty women alone, that walked a great while, which being discovered by some idle gentlemen, they would needs take them up; but to see the poor ladies how they were put to it to run from them, and they after them, and sometimes the ladies put themselves along with other company, then the other drew back; at last, the last did get off out of the house, and took boat and away. I was troubled to see them abused so..."
Hmmn...Last time I remember Sam referring to a damsel in distress at the hands of cads she was alone, being carried off, ahd he rather wished he'd could've joined in what one could've presumed would be gang rape. Of course these ladies were probably of the correct social class to "deserve" the protection of our hero whereas the other girl was perhaps not (in fairness, one could guess Sam was talking about an unlucky streetwalker that time) Still, I can't help wondering if today's sudden return of the possibility of virtue or at least the attempt of it to Charles' administration in the form of Coventry's latest try at reform is having a subtle effect on all Sam's behavior? Will, should Sir Will C succeed, we see a reformed Sam, rededicated to his work and casting aside the more sordid aspects of his nature?
Nah...
eric • Link
To hear the nightingale and other birds
I wonder how long that stopped happening?
cum salis grano • Link
"...did talk like a fool and vex his wife, that I was half pleased and half vexed to see so much folly and rudeness from him,..."
So few see the hidden man behind the mask of respectability, never talk while there is a "mike" left on or let thyself be in ones cups in a semi publick place.
Terry Foreman • Link
"the bankers being fearful of Sir G. Downing’s being Secretary, he being their enemy"
Can someone explain? Thanks.
A. De Araujo • Link
"the banks being fearful"
Banking is too important to be left to the bankers themselves,the present crisis proves it.
Fern • Link
"at last, the last did get off out of the house,"
To get off out of the house - does this mean to decide to leave?
Robert Gertz • Link
Of course banker or no, there's good reason to fear the somewhat sinister Downing, once Sam's boss. His betrayal and kidnapping of old Commonwealth government associates in hiding in Holland back in the early Restoration days left little room to wonder about the extent of his ruthlessness.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"Sir W. Coventry, and...his brother Commissioners...demand...an account of the whole business of the Navy accounts; and I perceive, by the way he goes about it, that they will do admirable things."
L&M note they founded the modern [British] Treasury system by making their office something other than a department of the Exchequer. Henceforth the Navy Board presented its accounts to them instead of to the Privy Council. The Council, until about Anne's reign, still made decisions of policy.
Terry Foreman • Link
"speaking of the bankers being fearful of Sir G. Downing’s being Secretary, he being their enemy, that they did not intend to be ruled by their Secretary, but do the business themselves."
Nevertheless, note L&M, Downing came to dominate [the] business [of the Treasury Commissioners]. His enmity to the bankers derived from his 1665 scheme for government credit: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1… but good relations were soon established with them.
Terry Foreman • Link
" my wife away down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to lie there to-night, and so to gather May-dew to-morrow morning,1 which Mrs. Turner hath taught her as the only thing in the world to wash her face with"
May-dew--dew gathered before sunrise on the morning of the first of May, with which to wash the face, originally as a protection against fairies, the representatives of the powers of darkness, who are still striving to avert their overthrow, but more recently because it was thought to improve the complexion.
The fair maid who, the first of May,
Goes to the fields at break of day,
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree,
Will ever after handsome be.
Today's entry suggests Elizabeth Pepys' circle -- or Jane Turner's -- believe the saw true of any day in May. https://goo.gl/OUzxED
See also Jenny Doughty's post of Robert Herrick's Corinna's Going A-Maying
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
See also jeannine's post From Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
The belief was such that the Royal Society thought it worth study. The report of the experimental investigation of May-Dew was published in the Philosophical Transactions 3, Munday [sic], May 8, 1665 http://www.jstor.org/stable/10141…
Terry Foreman • Link
"Sir W. Coventry...[was] desirous.... to read over a draught of a letter which he hath made for his brother Commissioners and him to sign to us, demanding an account of the whole business of the Navy accounts"
L&M: Similar letters were to be sent to all the principal spending departments, asking for an account what they had spent and what they still owed for the wholr period from the Restoration to 25 May 1667, when Coventry and his fellow Commissioners of the Treasury had taken office: CTB, ii. 2. For the letter to the Navy Board (30 May), see the abstract (in Gibson's hand) in NMM, LBK/8, p. 489; printed in Further Corr., pp. 173-4. On 17 June the Commissioners wrote to complain that the Board had not replied: BM, Add. 36782, f. 45.
Louise Hudson • Link
“If we are to credit the following paragraph, extracted from the “Morning Post” of May 2nd, 1791, the virtues of May dew were then still held in some estimation; for it records that “on the day preceding, according to annual and superstitious custom, a number of persons went into the fields, and bathed their faces with the dew on the grass, under the idea that it would render them beautiful” (Hone’s “Every Day Book,” vol. ii., p. 611). Aubrey speaks of May dew as “a great dissolvent” (“Miscellanies,” p. 183).—B.”
Nothing has changed in 363 years! The fountain of youth just costs more. Results are about the same.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Etymology Unclear; see Jew's harp and trump.
Noun: Jew's-trump (plural Jew's-trumps)
(dated, music) Synonym of Jew's harp
References:
1949, John Dover Wilson (compiler), Life in Shakespeare's England. A Book of Elizabethan Prose, Cambridge at the University Press. 1st ed. 1911, 2nd ed. 1913, 8th reprint. In Glossary and Notes.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Je…
San Diego Sarah • Link
It's interesting that there were bankers before there were banks.
I understood the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths acted as the money changers and a funding source for royalty and the city, and Pepys certainly had no intention of depositing his hoard in their vaults. So what and who were these evil bankers to Pepys? Certainly his friend, Mr. Vyner the goldsmith, couldn't be a banker?
Pepys refers to "bankers" several times during 1667. Not before, and not afterwards. So this must be a new concept.
San Diego Sarah • Link
Let me get this right: Hewer, Elizabeth and Jane spent the night in Woolwich? Why did Hewer get this assignment?
I'm going to guess they stayed at William Sheldon's home at Woolwich. After all, Elizabeth and the Pepys' household lived there during the Plague, but Jane and Hewer were not part of that party. I can't imagine Samuel leaving them at an Inn. I wonder why John Pepys Snr. wasn't included?
Speaking of John Snr., what if he has another prolapse and Hewer isn't around?
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... at last, the last did get off out of the house, and took boat and away."
"To get off out of the house - does this mean to decide to leave?"
To get off out of the house is not a phrase I know to mean to leave in this context. In other contexts, yes.
I read this sentence as possibly meaning: ... at last the two young ladies got out of the boathouse, and took a boat and were safely away. Maybe it was a teahouse? Maybe it was a bandstand? Maybe it was a rain shelter? Only Pepys knows.
San Diego Sarah • Link
'"Asks his correspondent to tell him something of his mind concerning "the politics of the neighbors, among whom we are not the least concerned. ... we must grow bold enough to speak plainly & to the point". "I have been", adds the writer, "long very frank in that part of this matter which hath been of late the question: That was to be rid of the fetters that tied us, hand & foot. These are [now], as it were taken off. But how the liberty we have obtained is to be used, is a nicer point. And yet, within a little while, I will be as frank forward as I have been hitherto. It would be a great fault that the suspicion that lies upon me of being 'such a Monsieur', should keep me from being as good an Englishman, as I am in Duty bound to be." ...'
This needs to be dissected.
'Asks his correspondent to tell him something of his mind concerning "the politics of the neighbors, among whom we are not the least concerned. ... '
Ormonde travelled and visited with many of the Continental rulers during the Interregnum. St. Albans had stayed in Paris with Queen Henrietta Maria, so it makes sense that he would ask Ormonde for background material on the other players, presumably to do with the Peace Conference ... but St. Albans is in Paris, not The Hague, so why does he want this?
''we must grow bold enough to speak plainly & to the point". "I have been", adds the writer, "long very frank in that part of this matter which hath been of late the question: That was to be rid of the fetters that tied us, hand & foot. These are [now], as it were taken off.'
In the context that St. Albans has just told Ormonde that the French have invaded Flanders, my guess is that this means he does not think the French will be in a position to give any trouble to England for a while.
'But how the liberty we have obtained is to be used, is a nicer point.
St. Albans is worried Charles II will waste this opportunity while the French are engaged on land attacking the Spanish Flemings while approaching the Orange Dutch southern front. What can Ormonde do about that? He's in Dublin.
'And yet, within a little while, I will be as frank forward as I have been hitherto. It would be a great fault that the suspicion that lies upon me of being 'such a Monsieur', should keep me from being as good an Englishman, as I am in Duty bound to be." ...'
He's going to continue to speak his mind, and wants Ormonde to know he's not turned pro-French, despite the rumors. He is duty bound to be a good Englishman.
Seems to be a long song and dance about not much in particular. Or is it code for something?