Sunday 3 November 1667

(Lord’s day). Up, and with my wife to church, and thither comes Roger Pepys to our pew, and thence home to dinner, whither comes by invitation Mr. Turner, the minister, and my cozen Roger brought with him Jeffrys, the apothecary at Westminster, who is our kinsman, and we had much discourse of Cottenhamshire, and other things with great pleasure. My cozen Roger did tell me of a bargain which I may now have in Norfolke, that my she-cozen, Nan Pepys, is going to sell, the title whereof is very good, and the pennyworth is also good enough; but it is out of the way so of my life, that I shall never enjoy it, nor, it may be, see it, and so I shall have nothing to do with it. After dinner to talk, and I find by discourse Mr. Turner to be a man mighty well read in the Roman history, which is very pleasant. By and by Roger went, and Mr. Turner spent an hour talking over my Lord Sandwich’s condition as to this Parliament, which we fear may be bad, and the condition of his family, which can be no better, and then having little to comfort ourselves but that this humour will not last always in the Parliament, and that [it] may well have a great many more as great men as he enquired into, and so we parted, and I to my chamber, and there busy all the evening, and then my wife and I to supper, and so to bed, with much discourse and pleasure one with another.

18 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Orrery [ http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… ] to the Archbishop of Dublin
Written from: [Charleville?]
Date: 3 November 1667

Document type: Copy; partly in cypher

The Archbishop ought not to wrangle with the writer for conditions of secrecy. ... The writer will not break that promise, when he has the Archbishop's engagement that what is so written to him no man living but himself shall be acquainted with, by or from him. ... "I send you", he continues, "the words of my letter from an excellent hand." [ What immediately follows is partly in cypher, with an interlinear decypher, initials being used, in the latter, for the names intended. ]

"The King made it his elaborate work to make the Parliament give him thanks that he had laid aside C[larendon]. C[larendon] must die, and die by a law, for having made [ the ] K[ing ] marry the Q[ueen] whom he knew would be barren, and could not be otherwise. To all which the King is to be the chief witness. In this Act [so in MS.], there is a clause to null the said marriage, and it is not yet resolved whether in the same law, or another, there should be a clause to affirm that [ the ] K[ing] was married to the Duke of Monmouth's mother."

"It is certain O[rmond] will be suddenly recalled, and impeached ... whose case I much lament. ... And [I] have sent for the 'Heads of the Articles' that I may the better let him know what he has to provide against."

"327 [ the writer himself? ] has been much pressed to appear against him but he scorns to do it."

Proposes certain cyphers to be used, in future correspondence for Sir Henry Bennet (adding "we may have other occasion to use that name"), the Duke of Buckingham, and Sir Robert Howard. ...

Adds also an account of the wreck of a Dutch ship, near to Capel Island. ...

http://www.rsl.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwm…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"C[larendon] must die, and die by a law, for having made [ the ] K[ing ] marry the Q[ueen] whom he knew would be barren,"

In the 2003 BBC TV miniseries Charles II: The Power and The Passion, Clarendon was played by actor Ian McDiarmid. The series portrayed Clarendon (referred to as 'Sir Edward Hyde' throughout) as acting in a paternalistic fashion towards Charles II, something the King comes to dislike. It is also intimated that he had arranged the marriage of Charles and Catherine of Braganza already knowing that she was infertile so that his granddaughters through his daughter Anne Hyde (who had married the future James II) would eventually inherit the throne of England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwa…

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...then my wife and I to supper, and so to bed, with much discourse and pleasure one with another."

Just keeps getting better and better...And as long as young Michell is showing signs of jealousy over his Betty.

Paul Chapin  •  Link

"My cozen Roger did tell me of a bargain which I may now have in Norfolke, that my she-cozen, Nan Pepys, is going to sell, the title whereof is very good, and the pennyworth is also good enough; but it is out of the way so of my life, that I shall never enjoy it, nor, it may be, see it, and so I shall have nothing to do with it."

Good thinking, Sam. Blind real estate investments are usually more trouble than they're worth.

Nate  •  Link

How could Clarendon have possibly known that Catherine was infertile? She was presented as a virgin was she not? Did she not have menses?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"How could Clarendon have possibly known that Catherine was infertile? "

Good question, Nate, of course. There are the Ladies of the Bedchamber. As well as presumably benefiting from a (Romanist) plot to seize the crown for his family, Clarendon was was known to be the Queen's advocate and counselor in "Bedchamber" matters. http://www.pepysdiary.com/indepth…

(I'm not as good at unraveling such schemes as is Jeannine.)

classicist  •  Link

According to Antonia Fraser's adulatory biography, Catherine actually conceived (and miscarried) at least once, probably twice. She certainly did have menses, as Charles is quoted referring to her missing them (using Sam's phrase, 'those'). Clarendon certainly couldn't have known she was infertile: nobody did.

Mary  •  Link

The tale that Catherine was incapable of bearing children first appeared in Spain well before the marriage with Charles took place but once it became clear that the English king intended to marry this Portuguese princess rather than to establish an alliance through marriage with either Spain or France. It suited Clarendon's enemies to allege that he had 'known' about this maliciously rumoured infertility when promoting the marriage.

Geoff Hallett  •  Link

Annotators keep referring to what is to come. What are the biographical recommendations for Sam's life post diary?

jeannine  •  Link

Catherine, Infertility & Clarendon,

In the biographies about Queen Catherine, she conceived and miscarried anywhere from 2-4 times. During one of those miscarriages, the doctor who examined the fetus noted that it was a baby boy.

There were many people working to get rid of Clarendon and they consistently worked to discredit him to the King. Lord Buckingham, Lady Castlemaine & Lord Arlington were among those who targeted him throughout his appointment.

In addition to the Court backbiting, Charles seems to have been doing his usual ‘stealth’ moves to lay the foundation to get rid of Clarendon. From” A Profane With” by James Johnson, prior to the October session, Charles appeared to be reconstituting the Lords by adding peers to the process who would vote in his favor to oust Clarendon. Lord Rochester, who was about 7 months shy of the eligibility requirements to attend Parliament, and whose family owed a huge debt of gratitude to the Counselor, was pulled into the process and actually executed documents against Clarendon. Rochester realized that ‘whatever favors Clarendon’s has in his power to do; the King was the final dispenser of benefits” (p.98). Rochester realized that the quickest way to get ahead in this Court was to do whatever the King desired.

Another incident, which ‘nailed Clarendon’s coffin” was Frances Stewart’s run away marriage, which also somehow got unfairly blamed on Clarendon. Charles’ loss of his beloved Frances (‘the one who got away”) had to be blamed on someone, and somehow, the King attributed this fault to Clarendon. Charles probably could never fathom that Frances left to save whatever was left of her reputation after the King’s non-stop advances.

Publically, the power shifting and the Frances incident wouldn’t be the fodder of open gossip as it could reflect badly on the King himself. It was much easier to target Queen Catherine’s ‘infertility’ as a fault of Clarendon. This would have been supported by the likes of Buckingham, Castlemaine, etc. who were always out to discredit her, and would be something that didn’t make Charles look bad.

jeannine  •  Link

Geoff- “Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self” by Claire Tomilin covers Sam’s entire life and is great to read along with the Diary. Another read that covers the later part of his life during the Popish Plots is “the Plot Against Pepys” by James Long & Ben Long.

Australian Susan  •  Link

If you are reading The Plot book, do check out Jeannine's excellent article on this book - elsewhere on this website.

Also, the 3 vol Arthur Bryant biog of SP is still worth a read : you could probably get it on Abebooks. I find it fascinating as his Sam is very different from Claire Tomalin's. AB had rather unsavoury politics, but you can put that aside. CT's biog is very well written, as is her biog of Jane Austen.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Thanks, TF - was posting in a hurry before work!

Second Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"C[larendon] must die, and die by a law, for having made [the] K[ing] marry the Q[ueen] whom he knew would be barren,"

The Spanish, through their spokesmaN, Ambassador George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, started this rumor about Catherine back in 1662/63 before she and Charles were married.
Clarendon easily survived the first attempt to impeach him.

Just to review the charges against Clarenden then and now:
The charges made against him by Bristol in 1663 were considered so ludicrous that even Clarendon's worst enemies could not take them seriously, and Bristol greatly damaged his career and had to go into hiding for 3 years to avoid his own prosecution.

In 1663 Clarendon was accused of arranging Charles II's marriage to a woman he knew to be barren to secure the throne for the children of his daughter Anne, while the building of his palatial new mansion, Clarendon House in Piccadilly, was regarded as evidence of corruption. He was also blamed for the sale of Dunkirk, and for the fact that the Queen's dowry, Tangiers, proved to be nothing but a drain on the English finances.

Although exonerated, Clarendon began to fall out of favour with the King, whom he lectured frequently on his shortcomings, and he also became increasingly unpopular with the public because of things like the Clarendon Code which actually had nothing to do with him.

Clarendon's open contempt for Charles' beloved, Barbara Villiers Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland (a niece of his great friend from their Paris exile days, Lady Morton - and his second cousin three times removed) earned him her enmity, and she worked with the future members of the CABAL to destroy him. Another of Clarendon's distant nephews was George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and although the Villiers cousins agreed on little, they did agree about Clarendon.

As we know from Pepys, his authority was weakened by increasing ill-health, specifically gout and back pain, which became so severe that he was often incapacitated for months on end.

While I find it curious that no one seems to remember that Clarendon had been exonerated of this already, he had been advising Charles since 1644. It was time for a change, and Clarendon was too blind to see it. Knowing when to quit is important.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"BBC TV miniseries Charles II: The Power and The Passion, Clarendon was played by actor Ian McDiarmid."

Thanks for the warning ... I'd be throwing things at the TV if I watched that.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Ormonde should be worried ...

Brodrick to Ormond
Written from: [London]
Date: 3 September 1667
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 215, fol(s). 369

Mentions the "continued firmness of mind", shewn by the Lord Chancellor Hyde, "superior", adds the writer, "to my own expectation, amidst all his misfortunes". Notices some rumours as to the legal changes of office likely to ensue upon the Chancellor's dismissal.

@@@

Anglesey to Ormond
Written from: London
Date: 3 September 1667
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 217, fol(s). 407

Out of the same fault-finding humour which prevails in English affairs, aspersions in matters relating to Ireland get free currency. Aspersions have been cast, for example, on Sir John Stephens for alleged hastiness of treatment towards one Mr Randal Beckett (now in London), in the matter of billet-money imposed on householders in Dublin.

@@@

Ossory to Ormond
Written from: [London]
Date: 3 September 1667
Shelfmark: MS. Carte 220, fol(s). 280-281

The Duke's letter of the 26th, and that addressed to the King, came yesterday; and the last-named letter was delivered to his Majesty after dinner. The writer believes that the King was about to speak to him upon his contents but the purpose was interrupted by the approach of Lord Lauderdale whose discourse proved tedious, and made the writer withdraw.

Sir W. Coventry has assured Lord Arlington that certain discourses of his at the [Council] Board [upon affairs of Ireland] proceeded from no ill intentions towards the Duke, but merely from a sense of duty.

https://wayback.archive-it.org/or…

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