Sunday 17 January 1668/69
(Lord’s day). To church myself after seeing every thing fitted for dinner, and so, after church, home, and thither comes Mrs. Batelier and her two daughters to dinner to us; and W. Hewer and his mother, and Mr. Spong. We were very civilly merry, and Mrs. Batelier a very discreet woman, but mighty fond in the stories she tells of her son Will. After dinner, Mr. Spong and I to my closet, there to try my instrument Parallelogram, which do mighty well, to my full content; but only a little stiff, as being new. Thence, taking leave of my guests, he and I and W. Hewer to White Hall, and there parting with Spong, a man that I mightily love for his plainness and ingenuity, I into the Court, and there up and down and spoke with my Lords Bellassis and Peterborough about the business now in dispute, about my deputing a Treasurer to pay the garrison at Tangier, which I would avoid, and not be accountable, and they will serve me therein. Here I met Hugh May, and he brings me to the knowledge of Sir Henry Capell, a Member of Parliament, and brother of my Lord of Essex, who hath a great value, it seems, for me; and they appoint a day to come and dine with me, and see my books, and papers of the Office, which I shall be glad to shew them, and have opportunity to satisfy them therein. Here all the discourse is, that now the King is of opinion to have the Parliament called, notwithstanding his late resolutions for proroguing them; so unstable are his councils, and those about him. So staying late talking in the Queen’s side, I away, with W. Hewer home, and there to read and talk with my wife, and so to bed.
12 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"So staying late talking in the Queen’s side,...."
I presume "the Queen’s side" is not the side of the body of Queen Catherine, but an area of Whitehall Palace, to which Pepys has previously referred: https://www.google.com/search?num…
martinb • Link
Word "ingenuity" presumably here means something like artlessness, or lack of guile?
Terry Foreman • Link
"ingenuity"
The L&M Select Glossary has "wit, intelligence; freedom." Methinks not the last.
Terry Foreman • Link
"they appoint a day to come and dine with me"
The day Mr. Hugh May, Sir Henry Capell, et al., will visit Pepys is 20 April http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
pepfie • Link
"plainness and ingenuity"
OED plainness
The quality or condition of being plain, in various senses of the adj.
...
2 Openness, honesty, or straightforwardness of conduct; frankness or directness of language.
...
4 Absence of or freedom from ornament, ostentatious display, or luxury; simplicity.
...
OED ingenuity
The employment of the word as the abstract n. from ingenious (for ingeniosity or *ingeniety) appears to be confined to Eng. and is connected with the confusion of the two adjs. in the 17th c.: see ingenious II and ingenuous 6.]
I Senses connected with ingenuous.
...
†1.b The quality that befits a free-born person; high or liberal quality (of education); hence, Liberal education, intellectual culture (cf. II). Obs.
†2 Nobility of character or disposition; honourableness, highmindedness, generosity. Obs.
3 Freedom from dissimulation; honesty, straightforwardness, sincerity; honourable or fair dealing; freedom from reserve, openness, candour, frankness. (Now rare, the current word being ingenuousness.)
II Senses connected with ingenious.
†4 High or distinguished intellectual capacity; genius, talent, quickness of wit. Obs. in general sense: see 6.
†5 Intellectual capacity; intelligence, sense, good judgement; normal condition of the mental faculties; (one's) senses or wits. Obs.
6 Capacity for invention or construction; skill or cleverness in contriving or making something (material or immaterial). Also as attribute of the thing, action, etc.: Skilfulness of contrivance or design. (The current sense.)
...
I'll bet my penny with martinb on plainness 2 and ingenuity 3.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"Mr Spong....and I and W. Hewer to White Hall, and there parting with Spong, a man that I mightily love for his plainness and ingenuity, I into the Court, and there up and down....So staying late talking in the Queen’s side,"
This plan of the Royal Palace of Whitehall [1680] shows a Court below the Palace Gate, to the left of the viewer, above the quarters of the Queen and her maids. http://www.londonancestor.com/map…
Terry Foreman • Link
"Here I met Hugh May, and he brings me to the knowledge of Sir Henry Capell, a Member of Parliament, and brother of my Lord of Essex, who hath a great value, it seems, for me; and they appoint a day to come and dine with me, and see my books, and papers of the Office, which I shall be glad to shew them, and have opportunity to satisfy them therein."
L&M: For the visit, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Capel seems to have been curious about Pepys since hearing his speech to th Commons in March 1668.
Stephane Chenard • Link
What a fascinating document is this plan of Whitehall which Terry helpfully posted in 2020. We shall never follow Sam into that anthill without this map in hand, and in truth almost got lost even with the map, until helped by an old servant who had it in his head.
And yet, it cannot show more than a single floor, and just a fraction of the monster palace's famous 1,500 rooms. The Royal Collection Trust, which holds the original (at https://www.rct.uk/collection/703…) sheds no further light, on this or on the "John Fisher" who drew it.
Notice the oddities: the "lodgings belonging to His Majesty" (rooms marked with a 1, and this is not France, where everything belongs to His Majestie) amount to a single largish room - perhaps Mr. Fisher wasn't trusted with disclosing too much on the others. Her Majesty (rooms No. 2) has a tiny closet, surrounded by men's larger suites. The duke has a veritable warren, all on the riverside so he can breath in the stench in the morning (if, however, the Thames already does stink as of 1669; if so, Sam is too used to it to comment).
Division and subdivision reign; it looks like a map of the great bazaar of Cairo. All in all we imagine the peril, of all these stuffy little rooms full of open flames, all these servants stumbling in dark twisting corridors with their candles.
No sign of the painted gallery, but there is the stone gallery, both major Sam-stomping grounds. And there, marked with tiny 18s, are the tiny rooms assigned to the Treasury. They seem barely large enough for a few chairs, but they do have refreshing views of the Privy Gardens, where the promenading ladies may turn their heads toward those windows, whence issue those disputes about victualling budgets.
But - how extraordinarie. The large room marked 19, immediately adjacent to the Treasury rooms so familiar to Sam, is "The King's Laboratory & Bath".
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Tennis Court is top left ... there's a row of houses #35 which might have been M'Lord Sandwich's, but this map was made in 1680, so he was long gone.
The 12-room apartments are listed as being used by "Mr. Murray" on the index. That isn't our Sir Robert Moray, as he also died in 1672, joining his beloved wife, Sophia Lindsay, late sister of the Earl of Balcarres, who had died in childbirth many decades before.
But it might be Sir William Moray of Dreghorn, younger brother of Sir Robert? William was the Master of Works (i.e. builder) for Charles II (and, unsurprisingly, like his brother, a connected and active Freemason). A Master Builder would need 12 rooms for his activities.
This book says he married a Miss Fowlis, and had three sons who seem to have died without issue.
https://www.google.com/books/edit…
(Back in 1645 the Moray Brothers had framed an escape plan for King Charles from Newcastle which failed at the last moment because Charles was more worried about being recaught disguised as a woman than he was about remaining a captive. Charles II did not forget useful people.)
But the Murray/Moray clan was/is large and influential, so don't quote me on this speculation about who #35 was. I am sure about who it wasn't.
San Diego Sarah • Link
I just checked my work, and find I clearly lost my mind.
A Capt. Cook lived in the Tennis Court apartments in 1680. I do apologize. He is #35.
But yes, the index does list Sir Robert Murray being in number 21, which I have yet to find so it must be small. Since Sir Robert Moray FRS died in 1673, who knows who this is. No sign of William the Master Builder being in residence. Sorry.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"So staying late talking in the Queen’s side, I away, with W. Hewer home"
John Gadbury’s London Diary
Cold thaw, hail & rain at night
Pepys got his chariot in the nick of time. And his jailor is back.
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
In January 1669, Cosmo tells us that Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, PC (1608 – 1694) was working for the absent Queen Mother Henrietta Maria at Somerset House SEE https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl… .
My Popish Plot investigations find that Henry, Lord Arundell was summoned by Charles II with some other Roman Catholic peers to a secret council meeting in January 1669, and was commissioned to go to France to inform Louis XIV of his desire to be reconciled to the Roman Catholic church, and of his want of ready money.
I haven’t nailed an exact date for this secret meeting, so I’m dropping the detail in here as a rough guess.
https://archive.org/stream/popish…