San Diego Sarah

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Third Reading

About Monday 6 May 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CONCLUSION:

Half the entries in the journal, which spans more than a decade, are after the death of Mary in late 1659 and before the birth of John in early 1662.

ODNB identifies the preceding marriage as that between Thomas Rugg and Elizabeth Cox at St. Clement Danes, in the City of Westminster, London, both of Covent Garden.

The will of the widow of Thomas Rugge, Elizabeth Rugge née Cox (d.1695) of St. Giles in the Fields, only mentions her nephew, John Rugge of Bugden in the County of Huntingdon. This was the John Rugge (d.1720) of the Inner Temple, London and Stirtloe, Buckden, Huntingdonshire, gentleman, who married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Robert Wright, Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

The Rugge coat of arms can be seen on the monument of Francis Rugge (1535–1607), Mayor of Norwich at St. Andrew's Church in Norwich.

The Rugge family owned property in Hoveton from at least 1533, when William Rugge, abbot of St. Bennet's, conveyed the manor of Greengate to Robert Rugge, his brother, alderman of Norwich.
The family held property there until at least 1618.

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tho…

Not much for a man of substance who confirms and elaborates on such times of upheaval. I can't even find that ODNB for him.

About Monday 6 May 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Since this is the last of Thomas Rugge's welcome comments, perhaps his bio is called for:

Thomas Rugge (died c. 1670/72) was a diarist and later compiler of 'Mercurius Politicus Redivivus'. The "Diurnall" of Thomas Rugge, preserved in the British Museum, corroborates Pepys in many ways.

Self-description for his diary:
MERCURIUS POLITICUS REDIVIVUS
or, A Collection of the most materiall occurrences and transactions
in Public Affairs since Anno Dni, 1659, until
28 March 1672,
serving as an annuall diurnall for future satisfaction and information,
BY THOMAS RUGGE.

Est natura hominum novitatis avida. — Plinius.

Thomas Rugge's Diurnall is preserved in the British Library. It belonged in 1693 to Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford, and was purchased by the British Museum at Heber's sale in February 1836. It was published as The diurnal of Thomas Rugg, 1659-1661 by William Lewis Sachse ed. in 1961.

Rugge was descended from an ancient Norfolk family: his ancestors are described as two Aldermen of Norwich, and William Rugge, Bishop of Norwich.

According to Rugge's Diurnall, in London: "And theire ware also att this time a Turkish drink to bee sould, almost every street, called coffee, and another kind of drink called tee, and also a drink called Chacolate, which was a very harty drink."

Thomas Rugge paid tax for 9 hearths when he lived in Covent Garden, Middlesex in 1666. Before that he lived in King Street 1651–c.1663.

His death seems to have occurred about 1672; in the Diary for 1671 he complains that on account of his declining health, his entries will be but few. Nothing has been traced of his circumstances beyond his living for 14 years in Covent Garden, then a fashionable locality.

He may have been the Thomas Rugge of St. Paul, Covent Garden whose will was probated on 31 March 1670, although this predates those journal entries. That would make him the Thomas Rugge who was buried on 16 March 1669/70 at St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

At St. Paul's, Covent Garden, we find the following parish registry entries:
Elizabeth, baptised 26 Oct. 1653, daughter to Thomas and Elizabeth Rugg, born on 26 Oct., the first entry of the registers of St. Paul's Church, Convent Garden, London.
Ann, baptised 11 Dec. 1654, daughter to Thomas and Elizabeth Rugg, born 11 Dec, 1654, buried 9 May 1657 at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, Anna, daughter of Tho: Rugg
Mary, baptised on 27 June 1659, daughter to Thomas and Eliza: Rugg, born on 26 June 1659, buried 12 Oct. 1659 at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, Mary, daughter of Tho: Rugg
John, baptised 16 April 1662, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Rugg, buried 17 Oct, 1673 at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, John, son of Thomas Rugg
(During the Commonwealth, date of birth had to be registered in the parish registers.)

About Thursday 2 May 1667

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CONCLUSION:

Wither's 'Furor-poeticus (i.e.) propheticus' (1660) seems dazed by the changing times.

He greeted the restoration with ‘Speculum speculativum, or, A Considering Glass’ (1660), a plea for reconciliation which went to 3 editions.

A reference to Venner's Rising in ‘Fides-Anglicana’ indicates it must have been written after Jan.1661.

George Wither may have then been under surveillance since he was discovered writing 'Vox vulgi', which accused the new parliament of ‘carnal policies’ towards those excluded from the Act of Oblivion.
He was arrested and sent to Newgate in spring 1661, then, owing to illness, moved to the house of a Mr. Northrop, one of Charles II's messengers, in Aug. 1661.

On 14 Aug. 1661 George Wither's trial was ordered by the council,
and on 22 Aug. 1661, he was returned to Newgate;
He remained in Newgate until 24 March 1662, when he was examined before the House of Commons on seditious libel charges, convicted, and sent to the Tower.

On 9 April 1663, Elizabeth Emerson Wither was sent to George Wither ‘to bring from him his Recantation and Submission’.

Despite being denied writing materials, he was able to publish 'An Improvement of Imprisonment' (1661),
Joco-Serio: Strange News, of a Discourse between Two Dead Giants (1661),
The Prisoners Plea (1661-2),
Paralellogrammaton (1662),
A Proclamation … to … Great Brittain (1662),
Verses Intended to the King's Majesty (1662), and
A Declaration of Major George Wither (1662).

Wither was released from the Tower, aged 75, on 27 July 1663.
Undeterred, he continued pamphleteering and published 'Tuba-pacifica' (1664), which warned England against a Dutch war.

A dissident pro-Dutch group led from prison by Col. Robert Lilburne was under investigation in March 1665. One of the books ‘much cried up amongst them’ was a ‘seditious book called “George Withers' New Years Gift”'.

In June 1665 Wither refers to being a prisoner at his house in the Savoy and a ‘private Poem’, books and writings being confiscated (‘An advertisement, Three Private Meditations,' 1665).

On 23 July 1666 a warrant was issued for the arrest of George Wither, Henry Eversden, Sarah Anderston, Elizabeth Goslin, and Margaret Hickes for distributing his 'Sigh for the Pitchers' (1666), a sequel to 'Tuba-pacifica'.

Wither collected his writings from 1662 to 1665 in his 'A Memorandum to London'.

Wither's last work appears to be 'Ecchoes from the Sixth Trumpet' (1666), a collection of extracts from his prophetic poems that was republished posthumously as 'Nil ultra, or, The Last Works of Captain George Wither' (1668)
and 'Fragmenta prophetica, or, The Remains of George Wither' (1669).

George Wither died on 2 May 1667, aged 78, and was buried in the Chapel Royal of the Savoy Hospital in the Strand.

Much more about this prolific author and public figure at
http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/l…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo…

About Thursday 2 May 1667

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

PART 3

Capt. Wither's 'Letters of Advice', published in November 1644, was the first printed response to discussions of the ‘recruiter’ elections and gave directions for the selection of candidates intended to replace those who had joined King Charles in Oxford. He was unsuccessfully standing for a seat in Guildford.

From the mid-1640s Capt. George Wither began to be identified with radicals, in particular with the Levellers.

A passage from 'Vox pacifica' was quoted at the end of a pamphlet put out in September 1645, ‘England's Miserie and Remedie’, which defended John Lilburne. George Wither had been imprisoned at the time as Lilburne and Richard Overton as part of the Presbyterians' attempt to reassert control.

Lilburne admired Wither's 'Vox pacifica;, and in his 'England's Birth-Right Justified' (1645) called on his readers to look to ‘that Gallant man, Major George Withers advice … in his late Book’.

In August 1647 the Presbyterians lost control of parliament when the army marched on London and purged the house of its Presbyterian leaders.
Its actions were justified by Wither in his 'Carmen expostulatorium' (1647).

George Wither was freed on 20 October 1647 and recommended for the position of chief searcher in the customs house at Dover.

Despite being a friend of Cromwell's, Wither's contemplation of Cromwell's death, 'Salt upon Salt' (1659) condemned the change in Cromwell that made him eager to accept the crown and criticized his funeral as an idolatrous show, ‘a very costly Puppet-play’

With the Restoration, Hambledon and the Surrey estates Wither had purchased in 1648 reverted to the bishop of Winchester. And sometime before 1665, he moved to the Savoy, which gave legal sanctuary to debtors.

About Thursday 2 May 1667

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

PART 2

On 8 September 1642, after the outbreak of the first civil war, George Wither received the commission of captain for a Surrey troop of horse, and he served in the parliamentary forces for a year.

On 14 October, 1642 Capt. Wither was appointed commander of Farnham Castle under the direction of Robert Devereaux, 3rd Earl of Essex, Sir Richard Onslow, and Nicholas Stoughton. He later complained that provisions and numbers were inadequate and he received little aid.

When the Royalist army entered Surrey, Capt. Wither received orders from London to abandon Farnham Castle. That night, with the Royalist army only a few miles away, he took his servants and wagons to the castle and rescued ammunition and men.

On the following day Royalist forces, commanded by Sir John Denham, took Farnham Castle and plundered Wither's nearby Wanborough estate, forcing out Elizabeth Wither and their children.

Capt. Wither's troop was ordered to Kingston-on-Thames, where Royalist forces had halted in their march on London, and then on to Turnham Green on 13 November 1642 where he joined a 24,000-man force.

Wither remained in Kent until March 1643, raising money from delinquents and possibly confiscating Royalist property as the king's forces withdrew.

In April 1643 Mary Hunt Wither died and he inherited Bentworth. Capt. Wither may have returned briefly to Bentworth, as in May 1643 he was appointed to a Hampshire committee responsible for raising funds to support the militia.

In August and September 1643 Capt. Wither fought at the siege of Gloucester under Col. John Middleton, one of Robert Devereaux, 3rd Earl of Essex's officers.

Capt. Wither gave his account of his war experiences in 'Campo-musae', dedicated to the Earl of Essex. This was published in December 1643 and went into 3 English editions and one Scottish.

In October 1643 Wither put out his own version of the newspaper Mercurius Rusticus, its title borrowed from a royalist newspaper, which drew on his war experience to offer advice on the defense of Hampshire, Surrey, and Kent.

On 9 July, 1644 Capt. Wither was made a Surrey justice of the peace, he published anonymously 'The Speech without Door'. He claimed this speech was delivered to a public meeting outside parliament and once more offered advice on war policy and defended the sequestration of Royalists' estates as a means of promoting the war effort and effecting social change in the countryside.

About Thursday 2 May 1667

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Unlamented by Pepys, today died George Withers, a poet and Parliamentarian. He had spent most of the 1660s in prison for writing an unpublished poem critical of the Cavalier Parliament.

George Wither (1588–1667) was born in June 1588 at Bentworth, near Alton, Hampshire, the eldest of 10 children of George Wither (1563–1629) of Bentworth and his wife, Mary Hunt (d. 1643), of nearby Theddon (or Fidding) Grange.

His long life spanned one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of England, during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, King James I and VI, King Charles, the Civil Wars, the Parliamentary period and the Restoration period of Charles II.

Between the ages of 15 and 17 George Wither studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. Despite his neighbors' advice that his father put him to some mechanic trade, he was sent to one of the Inns of Chancery, eventually obtaining an introduction at Court.

George Wither came into conflict with the Stationers' Company in the 1620s and 1630s over 2 main issues: his attempts to publish his psalms, and his royal patent of 1623. The monopoly on the English psalter was held by senior members of the company. Wither unsuccessfully tried to get his psalms published in 1625 in Cambridge as a way of circumventing this monopoly, and they were eventually published in the Netherlands.

In 1625, the plague struck London and provided the occasion for George Wither's ‘Historie of the pestilence’ -- a copy of which is found in Pepys' Library, but not mentioned in the Diary.

Late in 1629 there was an upturn in George Wither's fortunes when he inherited -- along with his mother -- his father's estate at Bentworth.

When George Wither was 42 he married Elizabeth Emerson of South Lambert in the early 1630s. They had 6 children but only 2, Robert, born in 1635, and Elizabeth, survived infancy. According to Aubrey, Elizabeth Emerson Wither was ‘a great wit, and would write in verse too’.

John Taylor, the Water Poet, in his vitriolic attack on George Wither, charged him with cheating Dr. Howson, bishop of Durham, out of £500 when he was his steward, possibly in the early 1630s. Wither does not refer to Dr. Howson or to time spent in Durham in any of his writings.

George Wither probably traveled in the Low Countries in the early 1630s. The dedication to 'The Psalmes of David', published in the Netherlands in 1632, speaks of an audience with the exiled Elizabeth of Bohemia/the Winter Queen, who may have given him at this time the presents of jewels and plate that he was later forced to sell.

About Sunday 7 February 1668/69

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"One wonders why on earth he bothered ..."

My theory is that writing the Diary had become increasingly burdensome, and Pepys was subconsciously inventing reasons to stop writing it. He might even have been bored by it. To amuse himself, in this case he even made the obscure even more obscure.

About Friday 3 May 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The Rev. Ralph tells us today that not everyone appreciated the grandure of Charles II's coronation (see the original for the layout which leaves me puzzled, and doesn't copy accurately here):

Diary of Ralph Josselin (Private Collection)
3.5.1661 (Friday 3 May 1661)
document 70013055

May. 3. rode into London and saw the triumphal arches. stately. vanity, no rich cost in the front of one besides Heathenism. there is this troubled me,

a statue of K. James -- in the middle above -- of K. Charles
prominent, a death
Divo Jacobo -- statue of Charles -- Divo Carolo
Imperium sine fine dedi.

divers sad particulars on the face of the arch. the High motto being En quodiscordia cives. etc. on the side of Charles. there was an effigy of stakes and faggots to burn people of the Heads of the regicides on poles. and warlike Instruments broken.

I had sad reflections on the vain flattery, the lord prevent villainous wickedness, but if surely it will not be sine fine.

reported the Portugal princess will become protestant and go to Chapel with the King: a Spaniard protestant.

@@@

"a Spaniard protestant." -- Portugal had been free of Spanish rule for about 30 years; I guess he was being ironic?

About Barbara Palmer (Countess of Castlemaine)

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

A new biography by Andrea Zuvich will be published in the fall of 2024 -- you can preorder at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1526769…

"Barbara Villiers was a woman so beautiful, so magnetic and so sexually attractive that she captured the hearts of many in Stuart-era Britain. Her beauty is legendary: she became the muse of artists such as Peter Lely, the inspiration of writers such as John Dryden and the lover of John Churchill, the future great military leader whom we also know as the 1st Duke of Marlborough. Her greatest amorous conquest was Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with whom she had a tempestuous and passionate relationship for the better part of a decade.

"But this loveliest of Stuart-era ladies had a dark side. She hurt and humiliated her husband, Roger Palmer, for decades with her unashamedly adulterous lifestyle, she plotted the ruin of her enemies, constantly gambled away vast sums of money, is remembered for the destruction of the Tudor-era Nonsuch Palace, and was known to unleash terrible rages when crossed. Crassly lampooned by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, and subjected to verbal and written assaults, she was physically abused by a later, violent spouse.

"Barbara lived through some of the most turbulent times in British history: civil war, the Great Plague of London, which saw the deaths of around 100,000 people, the Great Fire of London, which destroyed much of the medieval city, and foreign conflicts such as the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the Williamite wars, and the War of the Spanish Succession.

"An impoverished aristocrat who rose to become a wealthy countess and then a duchess, taking her lovers from all walks of life, Barbara laughed at the morals of her time and used her natural talents and her ruthless determination to the material benefit of herself and her numerous offspring.

"In great stately homes and castles such as Hampton Court Palace, her portraits are widely seen and appreciated today. She had an insatiable appetite for life, love, riches, amusement, and power. She was simply ‘ravenous’ …"

About Monday 29 April 1661

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

LKvM and Neville -- I have to assume you both missed the bit in the Encyclopedia which speculates:
"This gentleman might probably be a relation of the celebrated General Lambert's, and, possibly, be treated coldly in the service on that ground. This is only given as a conjectural reason for his having continued for such a number of years unemployed." -- Biographia navalis. J. Charnock, 1794.

I agree it must have been frustrating for Lt. Lambert as he clearly was in the Sandwich circle, and must have expected to be given recognition based on his proven ability, not that of his uncle's.
Possibly this is an early example of The Lord High Admiral James over-ruling his most senior admiral, signalling that Royalists be given the plumb jobs, not Commonwealth men.

About Thursday 12 February 1662/63

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Ancient Mesopotamians were the first to produce a kind of soap by cooking fatty acids – like the fat rendered from a slaughtered cow, sheep or goat – together with water and an alkaline like lye, a caustic substance derived from wood ashes. The result was a greasy and smelly goop that lifted away dirt.

An early mention of soap comes in Roman scholar Pliny the Elder’s book “Naturalis Historia” from A.D. 77. He described soap as a pomade made of tallow – typically derived from beef fat – and ashes that the Gauls applied to their hair to give it “a reddish tint.”

Ancient people used these early soaps to clean wool or cotton fibers before weaving them into cloth, rather than for human hygiene. Not even the Greeks and Romans, who pioneered running water and public baths, used soap to clean their bodies. Instead, men and women immersed themselves in water baths and then smeared their bodies with scented olive oils. They used a metal or reed scraper called a strigil to remove any remaining oil or grime.

By the Middle Ages, new vegetable-oil-based soaps, which were hailed for their mildness and purity and smelled good, had come into use as luxury items among Europe’s most privileged classes. The first of these, Aleppo soap, a green, olive-oil-based bar soap infused with aromatic laurel oil, was produced in Syria and brought to Europe by Christian crusaders and traders.

French, Italian, Spanish and eventually English versions soon followed. Of these, Jabon de Castilla, or Castile soap, named for the region of central Spain where it was produced, was the best known. The white, olive-oil-based bar soap was a wildly popular toiletry item among European royals. Castile soap became a generic term for any hard soap of this type.

The settlement of the American colonies coincided with an age (1500s-1700s) when most Europeans, whether privileged or poor, had turned away from regular bathing out of fear that water spread disease.

Colonists used soap primarily for domestic cleaning, and soap-making was part of the seasonal domestic routine overseen by women.
As one Connecticut woman described it in 1775, women stored fat from butchering, grease from cooking and wood ashes over the winter months. In the spring, they made lye from the ashes and then boiled it with fat and grease in a giant kettle. This produced a soft soap that women used to wash the linen shifts that colonists wore as undergarments.

In the new nation, the founding of soap manufactories like New York-based Colgate, founded in 1807, or the Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble, founded in 1837, increased the scale of soap production but did little to alter its ingredients or use. Middle-class Americans had resumed water bathing, but still shunned soap.
Soap-making remained an extension of the tallow trade that was closely allied with candle making. Soap was for laundry. ...

FROM https://theconversation.com/the-d…

About John Playford

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Gresham College has a fine archive of their past lectures.
One I found concerns "Early Science: Music from the Samuel Pepys Collection".

At the start the point is made that 17th century people considered music as a "science", and its close relationship to mathematics is well documented.

Enjoy!
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-n….

About Friday 29 May 1663

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Art isn't always the truth.

For instance, on the UK Parliament website is a page
"Coronation Procession of Charles II
"This is a ‘circumstantial account' of Charles II' s 1661 coronation, published in 1820. The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, John Ayton, is pictured alongside the Lord Mayor of London and the Lord Great Chamberlain. They are part of a great procession that included the King and Queen, the King's herb woman, and the gentleman and lady of the bedchamber, as well as various Dukes and Viscounts. Charles II was the last sovereign to make the traditional procession from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey the day before the coronation.

"Title: A Circumstantial Account of the Preparations for the Coronation of Charles II, by Sir Edward Walker
"Catalogue number: Parliamentary Archives, LGC/8/1/2"

WAIT, I said to myself, there was no Queen in Charles II's procession. The House of Commons website has it wrong.

Today I got the following explanation:

"Dear Sally,

"Thank you very much for writing to us. Once you have read our response, please let us know how we did by completing our short survey: http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/XT…

"I have contacted colleagues in the Parliamentary Archives for advice regarding the text on the “Coronation Procession of Charles II” at this link:
https://www.parliament.uk/about/l…

"They have confirmed that the text is a caption is describing the object, and in particular the people that are portrayed in the print, not the event itself or the attendees. The King and Queen are pictured in the print.

"I hope this is helpful.

"Yours sincerely,

"Ciara
"House of Commons Enquiry Service"

About Wednesday 11 June 1662

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CONCLUSION:

I smeared the ink on many of my early efforts by trying to move or stack the paper too soon. Blotting paper was (and still is) a popular way of preventing ink from smearing, but my attempts to use a clean piece of paper on top of my iron gall ink still resulted in smudges.
I had good luck with a technique that predates blotting paper: sand.
I used sterile terrarium sand from the craft store and sprinkled it over my still-wet ink. The sand absorbed the wet ink in a matter of minutes and, once I shook off the sand, my quill ink writing was dry and (relatively) smudge-free. (More than I can say for my hands and shirtsleeves.)

Successfully writing with a quill pen took more practice and patience than I expected. Once I got the hang of it, there was something soothing about the rhythm of the old-fashioned process.

Excerpted from https://historyfacts.com/science-…

About Wednesday 11 June 1662

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"You had to know how to make a quill from a goose feather, mix ink ..."

A traditional quill pen consists of a feather that has been trimmed to around 9 ins. long, had its shaft stripped of barbs, and had the inside and outside of the hollow barrel cleaned of membrane and wax. The quill is then dried, typically by curing it in sand, and the tip is shaped into a nib with a channel split (cut) to hold the ink.

The earliest fluid inks were carbon-based black inks twhich probably originated in China around 2700 BCE. Iron gallotannate (iron gall) ink eventually replaced carbon and became the primary ink used with quill pens from the Middle Ages until the beginning of the 20th century. Iron gall ink is a permanent, deep purple-black or blue-black ink that darkens as it oxidizes, and is made from iron salts and gallotannic acids from organic sources (such as trees and vegetables).

[The author] was eager to start writing once I acquired my pen and ink, but I hadn’t considered what type of paper to use. Watercolor paper was too absorbent, printer paper and a coated writing tablet weren’t absorbent enough (although the pen glided across both beautifully), but a good-quality sketchbook offered the right amount of absorbency.

At first I dipped the pen in the jar of ink and then removed the excess by rubbing the barrel of the feather along the rim of the ink jar. This didn’t remove enough ink to prevent drips, so I used a paper towel to blot the excess. Once that was done, using the quill pen was no different from using my favorite metal-tipped ink pen. I held the quill the same way and applied about the same amount of pressure to the paper to write.

Once I found the right paper, I practiced loading the tip with ink and writing the alphabet and short sentences. This was challenging because using a quill pen requires frequently dipping the pen tip back into the jar for more ink, which affected the quality and consistency of the letters. In trying to finish a word or sentence before replenishing the ink, I would find myself pressing too hard on the quill tip, which quickly dulled the point and resulted in me cracking my first pen.

With only one quill remaining, I sought the advice of more experienced quill users. They recommend using a felt cushion underneath the writing paper to preserve the quill’s point; I didn’t have any felt, so I used an old linen napkin. I expected it to be more difficult to write with a soft backing rather than a solid tabletop, but I was amazed at how much easier and smoother it was to write. And I didn’t crack my pen!

About Godalming

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

There is a 14th century inn in Godalming, the King's Arms and Royal Hotel:
"There has been a building on our site since the 1300s although
the first mention of the Kings itself is not until 1639. It wasn’t until
1936 that the Kings left private ownership and was bought by the
Friary Brewery of Guildford which later became part of Allied Breweries.
The Georgian frontage was added in 1753 although the size of the
building was reduced in the 1890s when a decline in trade resulted
in part of the front being turned into a shop.
"We’ve had a few famous guests over the years including Tsar Peter
the Great (who left without paying his bill!) as well as some European
“royalty” who met here in 1814 to discuss post war Europe after
the Battle of Trafalgar. Tsar Peter the Great’s visit is commemorated
by a plaque on the front of the building which was unveiled in 1998
by the Russian Ambassador to commemorate the tricentenary of
the visit."
https://kingsarmsandroyal.co.uk/t…

The artwork shows Peter the Great's dinner and breakfast menus -- all liquor and meat, until you see the last line which mentions salad.

About Water

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

More on the New River:

The design and construction of the New River is often attributed solely to Sir Hugh Myddelton. In 1602, Edmund Colthurst first proposed digging an artificial waterway to supply London from Chadwell and Amwell springs near Ware in Hertfordshire, and obtained a charter from King James I in 1604 to carry it out. However, much of the water was obtained from streams tapped along its route, including the Hackney Brook.

After surveying the route and digging the first 2-mile stretch, Colthurst encountered financial difficulties and it fell to Myddelton to complete the work between 1609 and its official opening on 29 September, 1613.

The project was rescued by the King, whose house and lands at Theobalds Park were crossed by the river. James took half of the shares in 1612 for a half of the profits.

The expense and engineering challenges of the project — it relied on gravity to allow the water to flow, carefully following the contours of the terrain from Ware into London, and dropping around 5 inches per mile — were not Myddelton's only worries. He also faced opposition from landowners who feared that the New River would reduce the value of their farmland (they argued that floods or overflowing might create quagmires that could trap livestock); others were concerned at the possible disruption to road transport networks between Hertfordshire and the capital. The project nearly foundered when a few landowners flatly refused to agree to allow the river across their land.

When it was originally constructed, long sections, for example around Forty Hall and in Hornsey, wound around the heads of small tributary valleys of the Lea.

Other sections of the river, including the one in Harringay, were carried across valleys in wooden aqueducts lined with lead and supported by strong timbers and brick piers.
In at least one section the locals referred to the river as "the boarded river".

Improvements in canal construction in the 18th century led to these sections being replaced by clay-banked canals.

In 1620, the New River Company found the springs were not sufficient to supply their customers, and dug a half-mile extension to feed the New River from the nearby River Lea to supplement the water from the springs. A mechanical gauge regulates the amount taken.

On 9 January, 1622, King James rode from Theobalds after dinner to see the ice on the New River and fell in head first so that his companions could only see his boots. He was rescued by Sir Richard Young and returned to a warm bed at Theobalds.

Originally the New River's course was above ground throughout, but in the second half of the 19th century some sections were put underground, enabling the course to be straightened.
FROM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New…