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San Diego Sarah has posted 8,662 annotations/comments since 6 August 2015.

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Third Reading

About Sir Thomas Willis

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Sir Thomas Willis / Willys (1612 - 1701) was elected through a technicality as an MP for the city of Cambridge for the Cavalier Parliament at the start of the Diary.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

Willys’ ancestors had lived in Cambridgeshire in Elizabethan times, but it was not until the reign of King James I that they had a grant of the crown manor of Fen Ditton, 2 miles from Cambridge.

Unlike his brother Richard, who fought with distinction for King Charles, Thomas Willys, created 1st Bart. in 1641, took no known part in the Civil Wars, and held local office throughout the Interregnum, which may have facilitated his brother’s notorious betrayal of the Sealed Knot to the Protectorate Government.

In 1659 Sir Thomas Willys became the first of the family to sit in Parliament, representing Cambridgeshire.

Willys expected to be re-elected for the county in 1660, but his refusal to commit himself to an unconditional Restoration led to his defeat. Nevertheless, he was returned for Cambridge.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

An inactive Member of the Convention, Sir Richard made no recorded speeches and was appointed to 5 committees, including the committee of elections and privileges, and those to settle the establishment of Dunkirk and to draw up instructions for disbanding the army.

Although doubtless in opposition, he was proposed as a knight of the Royal Oak with an income of £1,000 p.a.

He is unlikely to have stood in 1661, although 2 years later Samuel Pepys thought it worth his while to ‘confute and disabuse’ his allegations of ‘errors and corruption’ in the navy and the ‘great expense thereof’.

Willys stood for Cambridge again as a country candidate at the first general election of 1679. Although he was defeated and his petition never reported, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury marked him ‘honest’.

As an exclusionist, Sir Thomas Willys was removed from the commission of the peace in 1680, and thenceforth seems to have withdrawn from public life.

Sir Thomas Willys MP died on 17 Nov. 1701, aged 89, and was buried at Fen Ditton.

FROM https://www.historyofparliamenton…

About Cambridge

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Cambridge was an open constituency. The only borough in Cambridgeshire, it chose its Members exclusively from the local gentry. The influence of the university was probably indirect, but helps to account for the failure of the country candidates during the exclusion crisis. It was at this time that manipulation of the freeman roll for electoral purposes began, and control of the corporation, consisting of the mayor, 12 aldermen and 24 common councilmen, became essential.

In April 1660 Sir Dudley North and Sir Thomas Willys, whose lukewarm attitude to the Restoration had led to defeat in the county election, were hastily granted the freedom of Cambridge to qualify them to represent the borough in the Convention.
They did not stand again, and in 1661 Sir William Compton, a much respected Cavalier, was returned "with all the ceremonies as could be, and more, a great deal of joy ... he was brought back with all the town music, and [the] mayor with his maces, and all the gownmen in great order."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

But his colleague, Roger Pepys, the city recorder, was clearly no friend to the Court, and in 1662 the Puritan corporation was drastically purged. The mayor, 7 aldermen, and 13 of the common council were removed.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

When Compton died in 1663, he was replaced by William, 3rd Baron Alington, his step-son, who was equally loyal to the Court.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

We now move beyond the Diary, but this tells us a lot about how elections were manipulated in Pepys' lifetime:

At the first general election of 1679 Willys and Pepys stood as country candidates. They were opposed by Alington and Sir Thomas Chicheley (high steward of the borough, who had stepped down from the county seat). Great pressure was applied to ensure his return. The mayor went from house to house ‘to awe the electors’, and some freemen were warned that they would lose university custom and would be debarred from the charitable loans administered by the corporation if they voted the wrong way. Open house was kept at various inns owned by freemen, and the mayor was reported to have made ‘all the neighbour gentlemen free of the town’.

Pepys defied the corporation and lost both election and recordership, to which office Alington was appointed.
Pepys and Willys petitioned, alleging abuses at the election, but no report was made before the first Exclusion Parliament was dissolved.
Alington and Chicheley were again returned in August 1679. On the day of the election, the freedom was granted to 7 non-residents, including Sir Levinus Bennet, 2nd Bt., shortly to be returned for the county.

The sitting Members were re-elected in 1681.
Neither of these elections was contested.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…

About Sunday 17 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"So much for following Lenten observances!"

Pepys and the rest of England have lived as Puritans for at least the last 15 years; Pepys' mother is thought to have been of that persuasion, so he probably had lived that way for his whole life. Puritans did not consider Lent or Easter as seasons -- plus there was famine in the land caused by war and weather, and they ate what they could without too many questions.

Today's sermon might have given Pepys some ideas about the traditions you refer to, Christopher; since Pepys doesn't share what that content was, we cannot guess.
Plus he's the Batten's guest; it's the Battens who are not observing the traditions. And Sir William at least was known as a good Presbyterian. No mention has been made of Lady Elizabeth's beliefs.

About Monday 18 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... to Westminster, where I had business with the Commissioners for paying the seamen about my Lord’s pay ..."

Why would Pepys go to Westminster to talk to the Commissioners, who could be found in his Navy Board Office, as linked?

Because, again, I believe these were the Parliamentary Commissioners involved in paying off the Navy, and were currently figuring out where to find a surprise 4,000/., as recently claimed by Sandwich:
Those Commissioner included
William Prynne MP
Col. John Birch MP
Sir Richard Browne MP, the Lord Mayor of London
and Col. Edward King, MP.
And William Jessop was their clerk,

About Saturday 16 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

If you would like to read "Leaving Home and Entering Service: The Age of Apprenticeship in Early Modern London" please copy

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2009/WP125.pdf

and post it in your search -- it works fine. I can't believe this is the first .pdf I've posted, but possibly ---? In other words, I have no idea why you can't click through.

About Saturday 16 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

It's a recent development, 徽柔, that childhood lasts to 26 in the USA. As recently as WWI, cabin boys in the Royal Navy were 13.
In Pepys' day, 13-year-old brides were common -- being a mother at 15 was pretty standard.

"Leaving home and entering service was a key transition in early modern England. This paper presents evidence on the age of apprenticeship in London. Using a new sample of 22,156 apprentices bound between 1575 and 1810, we find that apprentices became younger (from 17.4 to 14.7 years) and more homogenous, [regardless] of background." ...
"In French cities, apprenticeship began at age 12 in the 16th century, and rose over the 17th century, with youths becoming journeymen in their mid-to-late teens; by the 18th century, Parisian apprentices were bound at an average age of 15.2 years."
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2009/WP125.pdf

However, we must factor in here the bloodshed and death caused by the Civil Wars and resulting famine because the men were not available to tend the land. That means many children, widows and orphans had to leave home in order to survive. And the city job applicants were increasingly female and children.

If the Hewer family had wanted to "home school" young Will, it would be easy for them to do -- and that home schooling would not necessarily have been in Latin, Greek and Hebrew -- it could have been in accounting, French, German, law, dancing, shorthand, astronomy and geography (i.e. practical skills for a future merchant).

About Sunday 17 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

I should have added to the above annotation about Tip-cat that playing this game in the street can be dangerous/expensive -- balls, pucks, and cats, can go through windows, which could be why Rev. Ralph is unhappy about it.

(My cousin used to bet his son, who was an outstanding batsman by the age of 13, 50l. that he wouldn't break a school window that day. Only at away games, of course. I don't know how many of those bets he had to make good on, but it certainly motivated the boy. He ended up playing for Surrey.)

About Sunday 17 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... they play in the streets openly at cat ..."

Tip-cat, an outdoor game dating back at least to the 17th century and introduced to North America and elsewhere by English colonists. ...

Although there are many varieties of the game, all involve a stick about 3 ft. (1 m) long, used as a bat, and a piece of wood (the cat) about 4 in. (10 cm) long, 1 to 2 in. (2.5 to 5 cm) thick, and tapered at the ends.
The cat is placed on the ground, struck at one end to propel it upward (tipping the cat), and then slammed with the stick as far as possible.

In one version, the batter tries to round the bases, as in rounders, before the fielder retrieves the cat and throws it back to home base.
If a batter misses the cat 3 times, or if a fielder catches it on a fly, the batter is out.
Earlier versions of the game are based on guessing the distance that the cat is hit, scoring points according to the number that comes up on a 4-sided cat, and running from base to base on a large circle while the cat is being retrieved.

Some authorities consider tip-cat a forerunner of rounders and cricket.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/…

About Saturday 16 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

As pointed out, Will Hewer is 18 -- and sadly none of his bios that I've seen mention his education. But he's old enough to have gone to University and done a couple of years at the Inns of Court. Since he goes on to be Judge Advocate General of the Navy in 1677, he must have had some schooling in the law.
Or perhaps he just spent his youth in his family's counting house, talking to sea captains and asking dumb questions of the clerks.

About Friday 15 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

I think the merchants were selling tar, not farming taxes.
To justify three Commissioners going out for lunch and spending an entire afternoon schmoozing, they must have been tar merchants.

Pepys is being educated about the business, and getting to know the players, as a day may come when the Sir Williams are away -- indisposed, dead, or at sea -- and as the youngest member and the only one not an experienced seadog needed for other services, he will be left to do it all.

About Thursday 14 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Ameeican Google insists that when I type "Petty Provisions" I want to know about "Petty Offenses". Does anyone have any idea what a Petty Provision is?

About Thursday 14 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"With Sir W. Batten and Pen to Mr. Coventry’s, and there had a dispute about my claim to the place of Purveyor of Petty-provisions, and at last to my content did conclude to have my hand to all the bills for these provisions and Mr. Turner to purvey them, because I would not have him to lose the place."

It sounds to me as if Pepys was under the impression he had last year paid Mr. Turner for his entire position with the Navy Board. But now he has discovered that Mr. Turner was holding back on this one duty, which probably carried some financial rewards.
It sounds as if Pepys now insisted on processing the paperwork so that by the time Turner retires, he would know who provides what, and how to seeminglessly pick up those duties. Transparency is the point.

If Pepys had pushed this further, the Sir Williams would probably have supported Mr. Turner, and Pepys would have made 3 enemies in the office.

About Wednesday 13 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

'That sense of insecurity must quite often have kept Sam awake at night and been lurking below his cheerfulness and good companionship during the day."

Imagine a whole country feeling like that!
All those evenings in the pubs with his old friends was done for good reason.

On the whole, I think Charles II did a pretty good job of playing off interest groups against each other, and avoiding being held responsible for very much. That leaves him open to being thought lazy, but he did play a pretty good game of 3-dimensional political tic-tac-toe. As Pepys must have done also.

About Anon's 'The Seaman's Grammar and Dictionary'

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

L&M suggest this may be John Smith's "The sea-man's grammar" first published in 1627, or Sir Henry Manwayring's [sic] "The sea-man's dictionary" first published in 1644. Pepys kept both -- the Smith in the edition of 1655, and the Manwayring in that of 1667 -- bound together in one volume. PL 1142.

About Wednesday 13 March 1660/61

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CONCLUSION:

Ordered to transport Prince Charles to the Isles of Scilly early in 1646, his ship was instead detained to help defend Pendennis Castle against the advancing parliamentarians.
He later accompanied Prince Charles to Jersey, where he was said to have been ‘as poor as the rest’, and served with the royalist fleet in 1648.

He petitioned to compound in November 1651, when his entire property consisted of ‘a horse and wearing apparel to the value of £8’.

Adm. Sir Henry Mainwaring MP was buried, having died intestate, at Camberwell on 15 May, 1653.

Excerpted from his Parliamentary bio:
https://historyofparliamentonline…

@@@

I posted this not only because Sir Henry Mainwaring lived a great life, wrote a helpful book, and was an early sailing master to Charles II (on their trip from the Isles of Scilly to Jersey), but because it shows how impoverished competent men could be in service to their country and to the Navy.
Patrimony did not work for anyone's good in naval affairs. This was the sort of story Pepys was hearing and would inform his decisions in later days.