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徽柔 has posted 58 annotations/comments since 30 January 2024.

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Third Reading

About George Villiers (2nd Duke of Buckingham)

徽柔  •  Link

For those interested in Buckingham II, I highly recommend reading his works to understand his eccentricity.
About George's humor and attitude towards life:《The Rehearsal 》.
About his attitude towards marriage:《The militant couple》
About his political view:《An Essay upon Reason, and Religion; A Short Discourse upon the Reasonableness of Men's having a Religion, or Worship of God》

About Tuesday 23 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

Thanks for your interest, dear San Diego Sarah~
I think Buck was not a monster. He was just extremely capricious.

About Tuesday 23 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

Dear Stephane Chenard, thanks for your interest.It was from 《George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham, 1628-1687; a study in the history of the restoration》.The author quoted from a letter in Duke of Sunderland 's MSS.
When I went back to check the source, I found out Buckingham didn't spent £20,000 .It was £30,000.

About Tuesday 23 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

I think the reason might be Buckingham's overly extravagant clothes.(I am half joking
There was a rumor that Buckingham spent more than 20000 pounds on his clothes on Charles' coronation.
Maybe Charles hated to have people mistake Buckingham for the king.

About Tuesday 23 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

“and my Lord of Albemarle’s going to the kitchin and eat a bit of the first dish that was to go to the King’s table.”
So Albemarle was testing poison for the king.Strange they used such a high-ranked nobleman to do the task.

About Monday 22 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

“laid our wager about my Lady Faulconbridge’s name, which he says not to be Mary, and so I won above 20s.”
Well , I wonder what Cromwell's daughters were doing these days. Possibly having a tough time considering they were once called "princesses".I know the Faulconbridges were honored and respected after the restoration but it surprises me that Mary Cromwell did not attempt to shelter her mother or bury her father properly.

About Monday 8 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

I've never figured out how the Christian faith is compatible with the fear of ghosts. can't the SP just read the Bible over him?

About Wednesday 3 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

“This day I hear that the Dutch have sent the King a great present of money, which we think will stop the match with Portugal; and judge this to be the reason that our so great haste in sending the two ships to the East Indys is also stayed.”
Spoiler:Charles married a Portuguese princess anyway.LOL

About Tuesday 2 April 1661

徽柔  •  Link

"I found my mother alone weeping upon my last night’s quarrel and so left her"
Pepys being such a model of filial piety.

About Sunday 31 March 1661

徽柔  •  Link

"1st April, 1661. I dined with that great mathematician and virtuoso, Monsieur Zulichem, inventor of the pendule clock, and discoverer of the phenomenon of Saturn's annulus: he was elected into our Society"
Evelyn had better company.
It's good to see early scientists from different countries communicating.So at this point, Pepys wasn't in the Society.

About Tuesday 26 March 1661

徽柔  •  Link

"cut of the stone" means Sam's surgery to remove bladder stones? No anesthetics.Worth celebrating.

About Monday 25 March 1661

徽柔  •  Link

"So homewards and took up a boy that had a lanthorn, that was picking up of rags, and got him to light me home, and had great discourse with him how he could get sometimes three or four bushells of rags in a day, and got 3d. a bushell for them, and many other discourses, what and how many ways there are for poor children to get their livings honestly."
I wonder did Sam even pity them and do something for them.Or he was being merely curious?
Actually I found people in SP's age lacked sympathy for the lower class and were horribly violent? Like two days ago they just cheered when a young actor was mistreated on stage.

About Saturday 23 March 1660/61

徽柔  •  Link

How Presbyterians sunk since the Restoration! Last year they were still promising.
“In February 1660, it seemed that the presbyterian moment had finally arrived, after nearly two decades of reversals, frustrations and compromise. Addressing the re-assembled Long Parliament on 21 February, General Monck, de facto head of state, endorsed ‘moderate Presbyterian government, with a sufficient liberty for tender consciences’ as the most acceptable settlement of the church.”

About Friday 22 March 1660/61

徽柔  •  Link

Yes, and he can hire a carriage when he needs it. Later on, he would buy a carriage as his status improved.
I think walking on foot those days must have been unpleasant. Most parts of the city were dirty and messy.

About Friday 22 March 1660/61

徽柔  •  Link

By the way, keeping horses was so expensive that I wondered whether Pepys owned a horse at this point. I've read that the earl of Bedford spends more than one pound on his six horses' provisions once a week.

About Friday 22 March 1660/61

徽柔  •  Link

Studies concerning James I and IV's homosexual tendencies often quote from his letter to the first Duke of Buckingham , which wrote about their experience sharing a bed. I wondered if it is possible that they merely shared a bed instead of ... well, doing that thing... like so many others in their time. After all to the best of my knowledge James hated sodomite.