Tuesday 7 January 1667/68
Up, weary, about 9 o’clock, and then out by coach to White Hall to attend the Lords of the Treasury about Tangier with Sir Stephen Fox, and having done with them I away back again home by coach time enough to dispatch some business, and after dinner with Sir W. Pen’s coach (he being gone before with Sir D. Gawden) to White Hall to wait on the Duke of York, but I finding him not there, nor the Duke of York within, I away by coach to the Nursery, where I never was yet, and there to meet my wife and Mercer and Willet as they promised; but the house did not act to-day; and so I was at a loss for them, and therefore to the other two playhouses into the pit, to gaze up and down, to look for them, and there did by this means, for nothing, see an act in “The Schoole of Compliments” at the Duke of York’s house, and “Henry the Fourth” at the King’s house; but, not finding them, nor liking either of the plays, I took my coach again, and home, and there to my office to do business, and by and by they come home, and had been at the King’s House, and saw me, but I could [not] see them, and there I walked with them in the garden awhile, and to sing with Mercer there a little, and so home with her, and taught her a little of my “It is decreed,” which I have a mind to have her learn to sing, and she will do it well, and so after supper she went away, and we to bed, and there made amends by sleep for what I wanted last night.
7 Annotations
First Reading
Robert Gertz • Link
The theater system fully functional again with training theaters, one the Nursery, churning out young actors and presumably, actresses. Of course actor/managers like Killigrew must have quietly kept things going during the Puritan years but still quite impressive after only seven years' restoration.
Terry Foreman • Link
"actor/managers like Killigrew must have quietly kept things going during the Puritan years"
Indeed! And an under-appreciated figure is George Jolly, who, in the Puritan years, "organized a company of fourteen actors, his English Comedian Players, and led them around Europe from 1648 to 1659....After 1667, [ the theatre "duopoly" of ] Davenant and Killigrew were able to mollify Jolly somewhat by putting him in charge of "the Nursery," a school for the training of young actors."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geor…
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"Up, weary, about 9 o’clock, and then out by coach to White Hall to attend the Lords of the Treasury about Tangier with Sir Stephen Fox, "
L&M: Sir Stephen Fox was Paymaster-General to the army. He and Pepys were called in about the assignments on the country excise for the garrisons. 'Mr. Pepys will return answer as soon as may be': CTB, ii. 218.
Terry Foreman • Link
"therefore to the other two playhouses into the pit, to gaze up and down, to look for them, and there did by this means, for nothing, see an act in “The Schoole of Compliments” at the Duke of York’s house, and “Henry the Fourth” at the King’s house;"
L&M: Theatregoers could see one act free if they undertook to leave after it or to pay if they stayed.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Of course actor/managers like Killigrew must have quietly kept things going during the Puritan years but still quite impressive after only seven years' restoration."
No, Robert, both Killigrew and Davenant were ardent Royalists and suffered alongside Charles II for the most part.
Thomas Killigrew (1612-1683) came from a enormous Royalist Cornish family. As a boy he was page to Charles I, and followed Prince Charles into exile as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. He wrote eleven mediocre plays as they roamed the Continent.
William Davenant also had a rocky Royalist time during the Civil Wars and Interregnum, with two exiles in France, time in the Tower, etc. Milton saved him, and in 1656 Davenant introduced an opera at a private house (the Cromwellians did not think professional singing at a house was theater, apparently -- the English didn't know what opera was at the time, as it was a French innovation) and he supported himself with these presentations until the Restoration.
In 1660 Sir Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant were granted letters patent by Charles II to establish theatres, and the two acting troupes almost started from scratch on a converted tennis court and at the CockPitt at Whitehall, with the help of George Jolly's troupe and some trained singers.
Stephane Chenard • Link
Two letters are written for Sam this day, which he should receive shortly:
-- by Captain J. Perriman, to report on his "proceedings in visiting ships in the river from 3 to 7 Jan." No details, but let us hope it doesn't paint the same picture of chaotic demobilization as the report sent "to the Commissioners" by Captain Wm. Hannam from Woolwich, of ships left with "none but the boatswain and some inconsiderable servants", and drifting on the tide or left for locals to pilfer ("the Delph had her fasts stolen", apparently this chronic problem with rope theft again). State Papers (shorturl.at/ayAB6), page 159.
-- by John Tinker from Portsmouth, the sort of letter which could make a lesser man than Sam rush to the theaters indeed: "There is more ironwork to be loaded than the Emser will carry. There is here 100 lasts of tar; you can have 50 now the war is ended, as it will not be spent till great part of it be leaked out". State Papers (shorturl.at/ayAB6), page 160. Wikipedia says a last of pitch is 12 or 14 barrels, so maybe 40 cubic meters and 45 tons of tar in total. The Swallow, a larger ship, is suggested to take all this stuff away, using the Emser's crew. Would that be fine, Mr. Pepys?
David Stapleton • Link
The inn that Samuel refers to in Parson Drove near Wisbech, is The Swan Inn situated on the Village Green. We were the Licensees of the Pub from September 1995 to September 1999. It was built in the early 1500s, more information can be got from The current Owners, Elgoods Brewery, North Brink, Wisbech https://www.elgoods-brewery.co.uk