San Diego Sarah

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San Diego Sarah has posted 8,753 annotations/comments since 6 August 2015.

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Third Reading

About Tuesday 23 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

GEORGE VILLIERS
SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
1628-1687

A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION

BY WINIFRED, LADY BURGHCLERE

WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W,

1903

Available free on line:
https://archive.org/stream/cu3192…

I'm going to study this as George 2 is a puzzle to me! Thanks, 徽柔 .

About Tuesday 23 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Well, Alter Kacker, the ceremony was essentially the same.
But the Pomp and Circumstances surrounding the coronation are up to the Palace and Prime Minister to agree on these days, since it is a State occasion, unlike the late Queen's funeral which was a family expense.

Charles II was out to WOW the crowd and impress them with his regime's divine duty/right/ability to rule.
Charles III and Rishi Sunak were more conscious of the mood of the British people, and while everything was splendid and appropriate, with nods to tradition, history, diversity, family, the Commonwealth, the environment, community participation, poetry, school children, etc., etc., the day was more restrained than I remember at the 1953 coronation.
Good crowd turnout, despite the rain. Lovely horses, and the fabulous but uncomfortable golden coach took the new King and Queen home from the Abbey. Great music with the combined choirs of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. The Royal School of Embroidery at Hampton Court had evidentally been very busy all year.

I suspect the banquet at Buck House that followed was excellent, with the best of everything -- but not to the excess of Charles II's, who was not environmentally-sensative in any way. He thought excess was good -- it fed the poor.

In 2023 there was no fighting in the Cathedral over the spoils that I could see. And the service was quite short, so I don't think anyone had to leave early, presumably to piss in the churchyard.

It's worth watching -- and hearing -- even now.

About Monday 22 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"So home, where Will and the boy staid and saw the show upon Towre Hill, and Jane at T. Pepys’s, the Turner, and my wife at Charles Glassecocke’s, ..."

So everyone except his sister got to see the parade? Pall is indeed on the lowest rung of the stepladder in the household.

About Saturday 20 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"East Indy Company of Holland" -- amazing how long the British have had this [lazy?] habit of calling The Netherlands "Holland". This is like calling the USA "Texas", or referring to the UK of GB "England", "Wales", "Scotland" or "Ireland".

The "United East India Company", or "United East Indies Company" (also known by the abbreviation "VOC" in Dutch) was the brainchild of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the leading statesman of the independent Dutch Republic (AKA The United Providences).

Note; this did not include the Dutch people living under Spanish occupation in the other half of the country.

About Sunday 21 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

A later thought: Last month we assumed Pepys' fund-raising was for costumes and parties for the Coronation. Now we find the Navy/victualers paying for part of the event at least, and him wearing a coat he bought 6 months ago.
The fund-raising could have been for the staircase????!!!!

About Monday 22 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

If I were writing my above annotations today, I'd be less sure that Penn's son was William Jr.

According to Adm. Sir William Penn MP's website
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
he has 2 sons. The younger one is never mentioned by name in Pepys' Diary, so we have no Encyclopedia page for him.
We have no independent corroberation that William Jr. came to the Coronation.

Has anyone read a biography of either Penns with more info???

About Sunday 21 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

This foreigner word is a puzzle.

The building belongs to the Navy. The recently-departed plasterers and painters were Navy employees, and someone had found the official accounting entry which covered the payment. So I had assumed these carpenters were also Navy employees, and the work approved by Treasurer Slingsby.

If this was correct, I would think all the carpenters were technically "foreigners" and not members of the City of London guild, but obviously that's not the case. I am kerfuffled.

I recently broke my right arm, and find typing really hard. If someone can find those account's link, maybe we can find out who paid for the staircase? That might give us some clues.

About Thursday 18 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Brits have a problem with American plain speaking. Saying YES when you really mean NO doesn't work on a continent where people speak over 50 languages at home. Keeping it simple and clear in unequivical English is essential.

Meghan probably hadn't "lost her temper" -- she didn't know how to phrase her instructions to a lady-in-waiting in such a way that they didn't sound like instructions, couched with please, maybe, whenever, if, possibly, please.
I can testify that we do speak different dialects, and what's 'normal' and polite is frequently different. Being an immigrant on top of joining the RF would be a lot for the strongest ego to endure. It took over 5 years for me to feel any level of comfort -- and I didn't have any of Meghan's learning curve requirements.
The Queen would have been more effective by taking Meghan aside and telling her quietly how to phrase whatever, rather than telling her not to do something.
And then leaking unkind apocryphal stories like this finally broke the poor woman, and the result was Britain lost their Harry.

Sorry, Phil, I know you hate it when we go off on tangents like this. Feel free to delete.

About Sunday 14 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... Presbyterian clergy in Samuel Pepys's day were typically well-educated individuals who had undergone formal theological training and held university degrees ... and that the preacher did not do the hard work ..."

My theory is that Pepys wanted to know what this new-fangled State religion was all about, and was frustrated when the same old rant he'd lived with for 15-plus years was delivered. Charles II opted to unravel the Universities before tackling the parishes.

About Thursday 18 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... in our way met with two country fellows upon one horse, which I did, without much ado, give the way to, but Sir W. Pen would not, but struck them and they him, and so passed away, but they giving him some high words, he went back again and struck them off their horse, in a simple fury, and without much honour, in my mind, and so came away."

One way the Upper Classes kept control was by never turning a blind eye to any breach of privilege. Pepys hasn't adjusted to that yet, and doesn't find it alarming to share the road. But Adm. Penn knows these country bumpkins need a lesson in civility -- and he probably thinks Pepys needs to smarten up and learn how it's done -- so he acts as an Admiral of the Realm would.

When thinking about slavery in the 17th century, remember how they were accustomed to treating their British servants -- it wasn't pretty.

About Newcastle Upon Tyne

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Number of voters: c 1,250 in 1710

Date Candidate
11 Apr. 1660 ROBERT ELLISON
WILLIAM CALVERLEY
29 Aug. 1660 SIR FRANCIS ANDERSON vice Calverley, deceased
10 Apr. 1661 SIR FRANCIS ANDERSON
SIR JOHN MARLAY
Sir Robert Slingsby, Bt.
3 Dec. 1673 WILLIAM BLACKETT vice Marlay, deceased

The corporation of Newcastle consisted of the mayor, the recorder and the sheriff, who acted as returning officer, 10 aldermen and a common council of 24.
Both the corporation and the Members of Parliament were elected by the freemen, although the indirect method used in municipal elections favored control by the merchant oligarchy. All the successful candidates at this time came from this class, and all except William Calverley were in trade.

Newcastle’s Members were active in defending the interests of the local merchant adventurers and the hostmen, or coal exporters, on whose trade the prosperity of the town depended. Consequently the payment of parliamentary wages continued until 1685.

At the 1660 general election, Robert Ellison, a Presbyterian, was returned with Calverley, an obscure lawyer who took out his freedom on the occasion.

The Restoration was greeted with a loyal address expressing the hope that Charles II might prove ‘the instrument to unite a divided church, compose a distracted kingdom, and ease an oppressed people’.

A new writ was ordered on 23 July after Calverley’s death; but the by-election was not held until the franchise had been restored to Sir John Marlay, hero of the Scottish siege in 1644, and 9 other Royalists.
The new Member was a Cavalier officer, Sir Francis Anderson, whose election set the political tone for the rest of the period.
A further royalist success followed at the municipal elections on 1 Oct., when they wrested control from the close-knit group that had governed Newcastle during the Interregnum.

Anderson stood for reelection in 1661 with Marlay, although the latter had been compromised during the Protectorate.
The Duke of York recommended another Cavalier, Sir Robert Slingsby, the comptroller of the navy, who was connected with the Northumberland gentry by marriage, and considered it both easy and proper for the principal officers ‘to labour to get into the Parliament’.
The labor had to be performed by deputy, as Slingsby was in London on election day and never even took out his freedom.
Anderson and Marlay were returned by ‘the greater part of the burgesses’, and when George Liddell, a royalist conspirator, petitioned on 15 May, he alleged no electoral irregularities but only Marlay’s betrayal in 1658. The Commons spent the whole morning on the affair, then rejected the petition, and Liddell took no further action.

On Marlay’s death in 1673 he was succeeded by William Blackett, a prominent coal-owner, who was re-elected with Anderson at the first election of 1679. ...

FROM https://www.historyofparliamenton…

About Shooter's Hill, Kent

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

L&M: “A highwayman: it was common to erect gallows at the scene of the crime. The body of the malefactor would sometimes be soaked in tar to preserve it. Shooter’s Hill, about eight miles out of London, was one of the most dangerous points on the Dover Road; the way was steep, narrow and fringed by woods. Many robberies were committed there until, under an act of 1739, a new road was built up the hill.”

About Monday 8 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

For an organization with a Holy Ghost, that sounds reasonable to us post-Enlightenment spirits. But they were a superstitious lot, with an incomplete understanding of cause-and-effect -- besides which, although I profess not to believe in ghosts, I have experienced one event that defies logical explanation.

There are situations which defy all understanding. Where is your Bible when you need it? On a shelf somewhere. Which passage do you read?

About Tuesday 9 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... I put my Lady, Mrs. Turner, Mrs. Hempson, and the two Mrs. Allens into the lanthorn and I went in and kissed them, demanding it as a fee due to a principall officer, ..."

Attaboy! Pepys is getting the hang of how to behave in his new role in life.

About Vincent Delabarr

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

L&M: Vincent Delabarr (a merchant) had been the collector of customs at Sandwich -- an office from which he had been dismissed for alleged disloyalty to the Commonwealth.