Monday 27 April 1668

Up, and Captain Deane come to see me, and he and I toward Westminster together, and I set him down at White Hall, while I to Westminster Hall, and up to the Lords’ House, and there saw Sir W. Pen go into the House of Lords, where his impeachment was read to him, and he used mighty civilly, the Duke of York being there; and two days hence, at his desire, he is to bring in his answer, and a day then to be appointed for his being heard with Counsel. Thence down into the Hall, and with Creed and Godolphin walked; and do hear that to-morrow is appointed, upon a motion on Friday last, to discourse the business of my Lord Sandwich, moved by Sir R. Howard, that he should be sent for, home; and I fear it will be ordered. Certain news come, I hear, this day, that the Spanish Plenipotentiary in Flanders will not agree to the peace and terms we and the Dutch have made for him and the King of France; and by this means the face of things may be altered, and we forced to join with the French against Spain, which will be an odd thing. At noon with Creed to my Lord Crew’s, and there dined; and here was a very fine-skinned lady dined, the daughter of my Lord Roberts, and also a fine lady, Mr. John Parkhurst his wife, that was but a boy the other day. And after dinner there comes in my Lady Roberts herself, and with her Mr. Roberts’s daughter, that was Mrs. Boddevill, the great beauty, and a fine lady indeed, the first time I saw her. My Lord Crew, and Sir Thomas, and I, and Creed, all the afternoon debating of my Lord Sandwich’s business, against to-morrow, and thence I to the King’s playhouse, and there saw most of “The Cardinall,” a good play, and thence to several places to pay my debts, and then home, and there took a coach and to Mile End to take a little ayre, and thence home to Sir W. Pen’s, where I supped, and sat all the evening; and being lighted homeward by Mrs. Markham, I blew out the candle and kissed her, and so home to bed.

30 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"...to-morrow is appointed, upon a motion on Friday last, to discourse the business of my Lord Sandwich, moved by Sir R. Howard, ...."

Commons Journal - Friday 24 April
Earl of Sandwich.

Resolved, That the present Debate concerning the Earl of Sandwich be adjourned till Tuesday Morning next.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

***
Sir Robert Howard has been pursuing Penn and Sandwich

Grey's Debates - Tuesday, April 21.

Debate on Sir William Penn's Impeachment, reported by Sir Robert Howard. (fn. 9) ]

Mr Vaughan.] Would not have the Earl of Sandwich concluded in the Impeachment, without hearing him first.

Sir Robert Howard.] It may possibly be that Sir William Penn did conspire with Lord Sandwich, and Lord Sandwich not with him...[&c).
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Michael L  •  Link

"being lighted homeward by Mrs. Markham, I blew out the candle and kissed her"

This may be a clue as to how Pepys manages to grope women with others also in the carriage. Presumably, it is very dark when he makes these attempts.

Ronal B Morse  •  Link

Michael, I never met a woman who wasn't acutely aware of who was trying to give her a friendly little grope, no matter how dark it was. Or how many others were in the immediate vicinity.

What I didn't know for certain, and still don't, is whether her mental calculus at that moment runs along the line of, "do I make him pay now, or later?"

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...here was a very fine-skinned lady..." Sam, you're scaring me here.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...saw Sir W. Pen go into the House of Lords, where his impeachment was read to him, and he used mighty civilly..."

"My Lords, if I may say...One must in reviewing my impeachment, consider what the definition of "is" is, in the context of how "is" be used in the context of my impeachment..."

"My God...He's even better than that fellow Pepys!" cry from the floor. Sam, bridling...What the...?

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...the Spanish Plenipotentiary in Flanders will not agree to the peace and terms we and the Dutch have made for him and the King of France; and by this means the face of things may be altered, and we forced to join with the French against Spain, which will be an odd thing."

Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and at peace with Eastasia.

"Sirs, we might at least have been allowed to be consulted." the Spanish Plenipotentiary frowns.

"Tell it to the Czechs in 1938...haw, haw."

Michael L  •  Link

Ronal: What I meant was the dark might help Sam not because the one being felt did not know it was him, but because Sam might suppose that in the dark, other passengers would not notice what was going on. I thought that was what other diary readers wondered at.

Mary  •  Link

home to Sir W. Penn's

No coach travel, in the dark or otherwise, is involved in Mrs. Markham's lighting Sam home. The Penns also live in Navy Office quarters when not at their country seat in Walthamstow. Sam and Mrs. Markham (how young is she, I wonder?) are simply walking from one door to another in the yard.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Mrs. Markham is described as the niece of Lady Sandwich. Hmmn. Sam seems dangerously poised on the knife edge of that social line here. Bess had better get home soon.

"He did what to you, Cathy?!!" Charlie rises in consternation.

Anne next to Jamie saying nothing...Just a faint smile at the memory of the past evening at the playhouse. That wicked little man...Grin.

Australian Susan  •  Link

I had assumed that Mrs Markham was the Penn housekeeper or some such. It seems rather odd (and tempting fate - surely Sam's reputations is known??) for a respectable lady to escort our lad on what seems like a task a servant would undertake.

Don McCahill  •  Link

One thing we do not know is exactly how unusual Sam's behaviour is. Most other young men of this period (if we can still call Sam young) did not write diaries, and those who did probably didn't recount their conquests the way Pepys did.

It might well be that Sam's behaviour was quite normal for the period. You will notice he only approaches a certain class of woman. He remarks that Lady this or Lady That is 'fine' or 'beautiful' but never has to switch to another language to describe his relations with them.

We look at his actions through 21st century eyes (or 20th century eyes for a lot of us) and what we consider scandalous may be quite normal. After all, what would be said about the current Prince of Wales if, after becoming King, he acted like his namesake, Charles II had.

Mary  •  Link

L&M Companion notes that one Markham, a kinsman (possibly nephew William) of Penn's married Lady Penn's maid (or possibly companion) Nan Wright in 1666. If this is the Mrs. Markham in question, then perhaps Sam is not taking so much of a risk in stealing a quiet, after-dark kiss.

No mention is made of Lady Sandwich as a relation.

language hat  •  Link

A reminder that Mrs. is short for "Mistress" and does not imply that the woman is married.

"It might well be that Sam’s behaviour was quite normal for the period. ... We look at his actions through 21st century eyes (or 20th century eyes for a lot of us) and what we consider scandalous may be quite normal."

While this is true, and I've emphasized it myself in previous comments, we mustn't leap to the other extreme and practice an excessive moral tolerance. For one thing, we *don't* know whether it was "normal" (whatever that means -- it's certainly extremely common now, but does that mean it's normal?), so it would be silly to simply assume that; for another, we're perfectly entitled to deprecate behavior (slavery, to take an obvious example) that previous ages considered normal. I suspect that Sam is considerably above the norm even for his day in his dedication to molesting women (frankly, it's beginning to seem like an addiction), and in any case, I'm quite sure the women he groped (with perhaps the exception of a couple with whom he had long-term friendly relations, but we can't know) were unhappy about it and wished he wouldn't do it, and that's reason enough for me to condemn it, even if his buddies down at the Drones Club (to make an anachronistic reference) would just chuckle and wink.

Don McCahill  •  Link

In a biography from only a few years earlier, I find:
he "behaved as a young Tarquin who delighted in accosting decent women in the streets in order to perforce ravish a kiss, or some lewder satisfaction on them."

The subject here: none other than the puritan Oliver Cromwell, who apparently had a wild youth. This seems to support my thesis that this was not a great time to be born female.

(The biography is by Antonia Fraser, who is fairly well respected as a historian.)2

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I hear, this day, that the Spanish Plenipotentiary in Flanders will not agree to the peace and terms we and the Dutch have made for him and the King of France; and by this means the face of things may be altered, and we forced to join with the French against Spain, which will be an odd thing."

The War of Devolution (1667–68) [ now coming to an end ] saw Louis XIV's French armies overrun the Habsburg-controlled Spanish Netherlands and the Franche-Comté (Free County of Burgundy), but forced to give most of it back by a Triple Alliance of England, Sweden, and the Dutch Republic in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"At noon with Creed to my Lord Crew’s, and there dined; and here was a very fine-skinned lady dined, the daughter of my Lord Roberts, and also a fine lady, Mr. John Parkhurst his wife, that was but a boy the other day."

Strange phrase -- "that was but a boy the other day". I thought it might be a scanning error. L&M read the same and note nothing about it.

psw  •  Link

"that was but a boy the other day"

She was so young she being undeveloped physically...non of the loverly curves which be woman.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"saw Sir W. Pen go into the House of Lords, where his impeachment was read to him, and he used mighty civilly, the Duke of York being there; and two days hence, at his desire, he is to bring in his answer, and a day then to be appointed for his being heard with Counsel."

L&M: LJ, xii. 235.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Meanwhile, where exactly is the French fleet, and what are they doing?

April 27. 1668
Falmouth. [CORNWALL]
Thos. Halden to Hickes.

The Virgin from Rochelle met with 5 French men-of-war coming to St. Martin;
De Beaufort was one of them, and they were much torn in their masts and yards by foul weather;
this takes off the report that they were met by the Spanish fleet, which disabled and forced them into Rochelle.
Several vessels from Wales bring news that a Dutch ship sprang a leak and was forced ashore at the Land's End, but the men and part of the goods saved.
[S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No. 13.]

'Charles II: April 1668', in Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Charles II, 1667-8, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1893), pp. 320-369. British History Online
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

This day, judging from the datelines in the articles, is about when Gazette No. 253 should be hitting the streets. It contains the usual news of peace in Aix-la-Chapelle, carnage in the Med and ships leaving Hull, but also, at the end, an advertisement which must have held Sam's attention if he saw it, for Samuel Morland's "very useful Instrument (...) for addition and Substraction of any Number of Pounds, Shillings, Pence and Farthings". Interested buyers to inquire of Mr. Thomas Placknett at this Fathers House in the New Palace Westminster.

History doesn't say if the geeks of 1668 queued around the block. If they did Sam must have passed them on his rounds. In any case he has seen the device six weeks ago at the Society, and sniffed it was pretty but not very useful (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) 'Course he can do sums in his head, splendid bureaucratic animal that he is. He's also known Morland for years and they both work for HMG, so maybe he already has one on his desk.

But, if not, now they're for sale. He can have his very own. Not so useful but clever and pretty... At a time like this when he could use some shopping therapy... and it sells for just £3 10s (says https://history-computer.com/samu…) about the right amount for Sam's gifts to himself... and it's mechanicall... Hmmm.

Dorothy  •  Link

"that was but a boy the other day" I read this as referring to her husband, Mr. John Parkhurst, not to his wife. It seems much more likely.

JayW  •  Link

I agree with Dorothy. I also thought the ‘boy’ referred to was Mr John Parkhurst. A touch of ‘where did that time go?’

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

"Certain news come, I hear, this day, that the Spanish Plenipotentiary in Flanders will not agree to the peace"

Huh? Where does that come from? It goes against what the informed publick knows from recent Gazettes, at any rate, which is that Spain through its plenipotentiary and viceroy in the Netherlands, the Marquis of Castelo Rodrigo, has accepted the terms and has just received from the Queen regent the papers authorizing him to sign. Everyone seems to expect peace, and some of the largest troop movements, by the French toward Flanders and by the Dutch toward their own border, are being stayed or cancelled. Most of the grandees are already at Aix, Colbert, the prince archbishops, the bishop of Münster, the papal nucios, all throwing parties and making their Great Entries.

Castel Rodrigo is in Antwerp today. Don Juan of Austria has been on his way from Spain with considerable hoohah and his fleet is expected at any moment; his part in all this is a bit obscure, but apparently it's more about ferrying nobles than soldiers, so it's good too. So, Sam, your source knows something we don't?

Gerald Berg  •  Link

The reveal (for me) on Pepys sexual antics was his molestation of Bess' companion Deb. This undermines Bess in many critical ways and if he truly loved her he would have refrained from that particular conquest. Clearly, he doesn't really apply any sort of imaginative identification with Bess' mental health. This leads me to believe that he really doesn't love her. All exceptions that our annotators allow for Sam's behaviour because he really does 'love' Bess are misplaced. He doesn't.

Casanova was a lover (with many less lovely attributes), (and writer of a beautiful biography) our Sam is a molester (with many other becoming attributes).

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

And let us not forget that he molests children. (I make it plural as Miss Pegg Penn Lowther was a very long grooming process and only because a relative was smart enough to escort them one evening was Pepys stopped from closing in on her -- and suspect he would have called it consensual at that point.)

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"that was but a boy the other day"

John Parkhurst (1643 - 1731) ... so he's 25
Google references say Catherine Dormer Parkhurst lived from about 1647 until 1730, and married John when she was 20.

Ancestory says their first child is on the way:
Silence Parkhurst 1668 - 1698
https://www.ancestry.com/genealog…

So maybe the reason for some meat now being on Catherine's bones is because she's pregnant. (There was an occasion when Pepys didn't recognize Lady Sandwich being "in the family way" when she was six months gone, so this could be another occasion when he is being clueless.)

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