Thursday 21 November 1667

Up, and to the office, where all the morning, and at noon home, where my wife not very well, but is to go to Mr. Mills’s child’s christening, where she is godmother, Sir J. Minnes and Sir R. Brookes her companions. I left her after dinner (my clerks dining with me) to go with Sir J. Minnes, and I to the office, where did much business till after candlelight, and then my eyes beginning to fail me, I out and took coach to Arundell House, where the meeting of Gresham College was broke up; but there meeting Creed, I with him to the taverne in St. Clement’s Churchyard, where was Deane Wilkins, Dr. Whistler, Dr. Floyd, a divine admitted, I perceive, this day, and other brave men; and there, among other things of news, I do hear, that upon the reading of the House of Commons’s Reasons of the manner of their proceedings in the business of my Lord Chancellor, the Reasons were so bad, that my Lord Bristoll himself did declare that he would not stand to what he had, and did still, advise the Lords to concur to, upon any of the Reasons of the House of Commons; but if it was put to the question whether it should be done on their Reasons, he would be against them; and indeed it seems the Reasons — however they come to escape the House of Commons, which shews how slightly the greatest matters are done in this world, and even in Parliaments were none of them of strength, but the principle of them untrue; they saying, that where any man is brought before a judge, accused of Treason in general, without specifying the particular, the judge do there constantly and is obliged to commit him. Whereas the question being put by the Lords to my Lord Keeper, he said that quite the contrary was true: and then, in the Sixth Article (I will get a copy of them if I can) there are two or three things strangely asserted to the diminishing of the King’s power, as is said, at least things that heretofore would not have been heard of. But then the question being put among the Lords, as my Lord Bristoll advised, whether, upon the whole matter and Reasons that had been laid before them, they would commit my Lord Clarendon, it was carried five to one against it; there being but three Bishops against him, of whom Cosens and Dr. Reynolds were two, and I know not the third. This made the opposite Lords, as Bristoll and Buckingham, so mad, that they declared and protested against it, speaking very broad that there was mutiny and rebellion in the hearts of the Lords, and that they desired they might enter their dissents, which they did do, in great fury. So that upon the Lords sending to the Commons, as I am told, to have a conference for them to give their answer to the Commons’s Reasons, the Commons did desire a free conference: but the Lords do deny it; and the reason is, that they hold not the Commons any Court, but that themselves only are a Court, and the Chief Court of judicature, and therefore are not to dispute the laws and method of their own Court with them that are none, and so will not submit so much as to have their power disputed. And it is conceived that much of this eagerness among the Lords do arise from the fear some of them have, that they may be dealt with in the same manner themselves, and therefore do stand upon it now. It seems my Lord Clarendon hath, as is said and believed, had his horses several times in his coach, ready to carry him to the Tower, expecting a message to that purpose; but by this means his case is like to be laid by. From this we fell to other discourse, and very good; among the rest they discourse of a man that is a little frantic, that hath been a kind of minister, Dr. Wilkins saying that he hath read for him in his church, that is poor and a debauched man, that the College have hired for 20s. to have some of the blood of a sheep let into his body; and it is to be done on Saturday next. They purpose to let in about twelve ounces; which, they compute, is what will be let in in a minute’s time by a watch. They differ in the opinion they have of the effects of it; some think it may have a good effect upon him as a frantic man by cooling his blood, others that it will not have any effect at all. But the man is a healthy man, and by this means will be able to give an account what alteration, if any, he do find in himself, and so may be usefull. On this occasion, Dr. Whistler told a pretty story related by Muffet, a good author, of Dr. Caius, that built Keys College; that, being very old, and living only at that time upon woman’s milk, he, while he fed upon the milk of an angry, fretful woman, was so himself; and then, being advised to take it of a good-natured, patient woman, he did become so, beyond the common temper of his age. Thus much nutriment, they observed, might do. Their discourse was very fine; and if I should be put out of my office, I do take great content in the liberty I shall be at of frequenting these gentlemen’s company. Broke up thence and home, and there to my wife in her chamber, who is not well (of those), and there she tells me great stories of the gossiping women of the parish — what this, and what that woman was; and, among the rest, how Mrs. Hollworthy is the veriest confident bragging gossip of them all, which I should not have believed; but that Sir R. Brookes, her partner, was mighty civil to her, and taken with her, and what not. My eyes being bad I spent the evening with her in her chamber talking and inventing a cypher to put on a piece of plate, which I must give, better than ordinary, to the Parson’s child, and so to bed, and through my wife’s illness had a bad night of it, and she a worse, poor wretch!

37 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"they discourse of a man that...the College have hired for 20s. to have some of the blood of a sheep let into his body; and it is to be done on Saturday next. "

This was Arthur Coga, who had studied at Cambridge, and was said to be a bachelor of divinity. He was indigent, and "looked upon as a very freakish and extravagant man." Dr. King, in a letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle, remarks "that Mr. Coga was about thirty-two years of age; that he spoke Latin well, when he was in company, which he liked, but that his brain was sometimes a little too warm." The experiment was performed on November 23rd, 1667, by Dr. King, at Arundel House, in the presence of many spectators of quality, and four or five physicians. Coga wrote a description of his own case in Latin, and when asked why he had not the blood of some other creature, instead of that of a sheep, transfused into him, answered, "Sanguis ovis symbolicam quandam facultatem habet cum sanguine Christi, quia Christus est agnus Dei" (Birch's "History of the Royal Society," vol. ii., pp. 214-16). Coga was the first person in England to be experimented upon; previous experiments were made by the transfusion of the blood of one dog into another. See November 14th, 1666 (vol. vi., p. 64). http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dia…

Carl in Boston  •  Link

the House of Commons’s Reasons of the manner of their proceedings in the business of my Lord Chancellor, the Reasons were so bad,....But then the question being put among the Lords,...it was carried five to one against it;
This is an important precedent for the USA Congress, wherein the House is elected for two years that they will be responsive to the heat of the peoples' passions, and the Senate is elected for 6 years, to be deliberative and act as a brake on the House. This was all scientifically worked out in The Federalist Papers, where each part of the legislature is a check on the other.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

So though they may not have sex for periods, Sam and Bess apparently always sleep together unless Sam specifies them being apart. It seemed a bit uncertain earlier when Sam was mentioning they hadn't had relations for a while and his entries could have been taken to suggest they slept apart. To me, at least, a important point that they connect every night, regardless of passion.

Nice to see Sam clearly enjoying his time with Bess discussing local gossip and so on. She clearly has her own considerable degree of charm in conversation.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"to Arundell House, where the meeting of Gresham College was broke up;"

So when Pepys wrote last Monday "here was Gresham College coming about getting a grant of Chelsey College for their Society" he was referring to the Royal Society as the Society of "Gresham College." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

But 'tis still true that Pepys wasn't inside the Chelsea College property chase.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"But then the question being put among the Lords, as my Lord Bristoll advised, whether, upon the whole matter and Reasons that had been laid before them, they would commit my Lord Clarendon, it was carried five to one against it;....This made the opposite Lords, as Bristoll and Buckingham, so mad, that they declared and protested against it...and that they desired they might enter their dissents, which they did do, in great fury."

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

JWB  •  Link

Muffet, spiders...?
(You can’t make this stuff up.)

And what's with Puritans and spiders? Here Muffet and most Americans, somewhere along academic line, have had to read Johnathan Edwards' essay on flying spiders.

Kate Bunting  •  Link

Yes, the rhyme "Little Miss Muffet" is said to refer to a hypothetical daughter of the real Dr. Muffet.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"...they discourse of a man that is a little frantic..."

"frantic"

Might we say manic or merely nervous or 'tightly-wound'?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

frantic
mid-14c., "insane," unexplained variant of M.E. frentik (see frenetic). Transferred meaning "affected by wild excitement" is from late 15c. Of the adv. forms, frantically (1749) is later than franticly (1540s).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…

Paul Chapin  •  Link

Which supports Ruben's suggestion that transfusion may have been thought a beneficial treatment for insanity - but sheep's blood??

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Does jibe with the strange history of Dr. Caius...A little mild sheep's blood to pacify the frantic.

arby  •  Link

Yep, sheep are famously mellow, in popular culture at least.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The spur for the transfusion experiment was a publication in the Philosophical Transactions of Monday, February 11, 1666: "Tryals proposed by Mr. Boyle to Dr. Lower, be made by him, for the Improvement of Transfusing of Blood out of one live Animal into another."

http://rstl.royalsocietypublishin…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

If You Prick Us... [ WNYC podcast of a kind of vindication of Boyle ]
http://www.radiolab.org/2013/jul/…

Shakespeare was really into blood. It saturated his work and literally soaked the floorboards in many of his productions. James Shapiro explains what blood meant to The Bard, in a time when the world was just on the cusp of understanding how the powerful, perplexing liquid really worked.

Then, Edward Dolnick describes a set of experiments aimed at unlocking blood's mysteries. Though they were designed by one of the greatest scientific minds of Shakespeare's day, the experiments sound utterly ridiculous to us today. That is until producer Lynn Levy introduces us to some startling new research that suggests those 17th Century folks might have been onto something big.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"But then the question being put among the Lords, as my Lord Bristoll advised, whether, upon the whole matter and Reasons that had been laid before them, they would commit my Lord Clarendon, it was carried five to one against it;...."

L&M also note the debate of the 16th instant:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"but there meeting Creed, I with him to the taverne in St. Clement’s Churchyard, where was Deane Wilkins, Dr. Whistler, Dr. Floyd, a divine admitted, I perceive, this day"

L&M: This was presumably William Loyd (Bishop of st Asaph, 1680; later of Lichfield and of Worcester). a friend of Wilkins, whom he helped with his linguistic studies (see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… ; Burnet, i. 339).
But he was never made a fellow of the Royal Society. The tavern has not been identified.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I do hear, that upon the reading of the House of Commons’s Reasons of the manner of their proceedings in the business of my Lord Chancellor,"

L&M: The Commons had presented to the Lords a statement of of their case arguing 'Reasons' why the upper House should concur in committing anyone impeached by the Commons.
See https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
------------
Conference with Lords- Non-commitment of Lord Clarendon.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"they saying, that where any man is brought before a judge, accused of Treason in general, without specifying the particular, the judge do there constantly and is obliged to commit him."

L&M: The argument rested on the contention that in treason trials speed was essential.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"and then, in the Sixth Article (I will get a copy of them if I can) there are two or three things strangely asserted to the diminishing of the King’s power, as is said, at least things that heretofore would not have been heard of."

L&M: In the sixth article it was asserted that the proceedings of inferior courts were 'bounded and limited' by the discretion of Parliament bewcause Parliament is 'the whole Publick, comprehending the King, Lords and Commons (for the King's Presence is supposed in the Lords House)': CJ, ix. 22.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"But then the question being put among the Lords, as my Lord Bristoll advised, whether, upon the whole matter and Reasons that had been laid before them, they would commit my Lord Clarendon, it was carried five to one against it; there being but three Bishops against him, of whom Cosens and Dr. Reynolds were two, and I know not the third."

L&M: Pepys is probably wrong about Reynolds: the three anti-Clarendonian bishop who signed the minority protest which followed were Cosin (Durham), Croft (Hereford), and Lucy (St David's). LJ, xii. 142. The voting appears to have been 102 to 28: among the pro-Clarendon majority were the two archbishops and seventeen bishops.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"This made the opposite Lords, as Bristoll and Buckingham, so mad, that they declared and protested against it...and that they desired they might enter their dissents, which they did do, in great fury."

L&M: LJ, XII. 141-2; a protest signed by 28 peers, including Buckingham and Bristol: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
The right of a minority to enter and sign in the House's journal a dissenting opinion was one of the peers' privileges.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the Commons did desire a free conference: but the Lords do deny it; and the reason is, that they hold not the Commons any Court, but that themselves only are a Court, and the Chief Court of judicature, and therefore are not to dispute the laws and method of their own Court with them that are none, and so will not submit so much as to have their power disputed."

L&M: A free conference -- i.e. one at which any subject could be raised -- would have given the Commons the chance of raising this constitutional issue. The Lords had their way: a conference was held on the 25th in which they replied to the Commons' 'Reasons'; on the 28th a conference was held on the question of committing Clarendon on a general charge of treason.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"On this occasion, Dr. Whistler told a pretty story related by Muffet, a good author, of Dr. Caius...."

L&M: John Caius was a scholar and physician, and co-founder of Gonville and Caius [pronounced KEYS] College, Cambridge; he died in 1573 at the age of 63. The story appears in Dr Thomas Moffett's Health Improvement (1655), p. 123; 'What made Dr Caius in his last sickness so peevish and so full of frets at Cambridge, when he suckt one woman (whon I spare to name) froward of conditions and bad diet; and contrariwise so quiet and well, when he suckt another of contrary disposition?' Similarly, 'what made Iupiter and Aegystus so lecherous, but that they were chiefly fed with goats milk?'

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Healths improvement: or, Rules comprizing and discovering the nature, method, and manner of preparing all sorts of food used in this nation. Written by that ever famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and fellow of the Colledg of Physitians in London.
Moffett, Thomas, 1553-1604., Bennet, Christopher, 1617-1655.
London,: Printed by Tho: Newcomb for Samuel Thomson, at the sign of the white Horse in Pauls Churchyard, 1655.
Early English Books Online [full text]
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

My wife "tells me great stories of the gossiping women of the parish — what this, and what that woman was; and, among the rest, how Mrs. Hollworthy is the veriest confident bragging gossip of them all, which I should not have believed; but that Sir R. Brookes, her partner"

L&M: At the christening.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Dr. Thomas Muffet's handsomely illustrated folio of 326 pages, the Theatrum Insectorum (1634; tr., 1658). His anachrophobic daughter, Patience Muffet, is the "Little Miss Muffet" in the famous English childhood rhyme, which mentions insects.
In contemporary materials, variants of "Muffet" are "Mouffet" and "Moufet."
http://www.ephelia.com/textual_li…

Ricadus  •  Link

The probable location of the taverne in St. Clement’s Churchyard, as well as interesting information on the use of tokens for low denomination coinage.

https://c17thlondontokens.com/201…

Apparently there was an acute shortage of base metal coins for use in everyday transaction (such as paying for a drink) so local tradesmen resorted to issuing their own coins

This problem is described in the front page of the blog — the 1660s were the peak period for this — and helped me understand more why the Navy office might have resorted to tickets to pay their wages to sailors and boatyard men:

https://c17thlondontokens.com/

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Mrs. Hollworthy is the veriest confident bragging gossip of them all, which I should not have believed; but that Sir R. Brookes, her partner, was mighty civil to her, and taken with her, and what not."

In 1667 Sir Robert Brooke MP was a widower:

m. 26 Apr. 1659, Ann Mildmay (d. 7 Jan. 1666) daughter of the Regicide, Henry Mildmay, which is why Brooke now lives at Mildmay's old home, Old Wanstead House.
http://www.historyofparliamentonl…

It doesn't sound as if Pepys judges either of them badly for his relationship with the widow Mary Hollworthy. So not every committed relationship is judged like Brouncker and Mrs. Williams. I wonder where he draws the line.

@@@

Finally we have some gossip from Elizabeth. Perhaps it was Diary-worthy because it was about Pepys' new adversary, Sir Robert Brooke MP, Chair of the investigating committee?
I wonder again, why is there never any gossip from Unthanks?

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

That's a great blog, Ricadus. And a lovely picture of London Bridge ... I'm going to spend some time there.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"Their discourse was very fine; and if I should be put out of my office, I do take great content in the liberty I shall be at of frequenting these gentlemen’s company."

It's a long commute from Brampton, Pepys. Just stay out of the Tower for starters.

Ellie  •  Link

Hi San Diego Sarah. Just wondering whether we’ve flipped into a parallel universe here: ‘’His anachrophobic daughter.... ‘’ ? Or am I missing something ?

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

It is a splendid word, isn't it? Follow the link and you'll find speculation about Miss Muffet and her tuffet, and the unwelcome arachnid. As Terry keeps telling us, you can't make this stuff up.

Gerald Berg  •  Link

Spiders do fly on gossammer wings.

Ellie  •  Link

Anachrophobia - a fear of temporal displacement.
Or is there another definition? I wonder if you mean arachnophobia - an irrational fear of spiders?
Both splendid words.

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