Tuesday 30 July 1661

After my singing-master had done with me this morning, I went to White Hall and Westminster Hall, where I found the King expected to come and adjourn the Parliament.

I found the two Houses at a great difference, about the Lords challenging their privileges not to have their houses searched, which makes them deny to pass the House of Commons’ Bill for searching for pamphlets and seditious books.

Thence by water to the Wardrobe (meeting the King upon the water going in his barge to adjourn the House) where I dined with my Lady, and there met Dr. Thomas Pepys, who I found to be a silly talking fellow, but very good-natured.

So home to the office, where we met about the business of Tangier this afternoon. That done, at home I found Mr. Moore, and he and I walked into the City and there parted. To Fleet Street to find when the Assizes begin at Cambridge and Huntingdon, in order to my going to meet with Roger Pepys for counsel.

So in Fleet Street I met with Mr. Salisbury, who is now grown in less than two years’ time so great a limner1 that he is become excellent, and gets a great deal of money at it. I took him to Hercules Pillars to drink, and there came Mr. Whore (whom I formerly have known), a friend of his to him, who is a very ingenious fellow, and there I sat with them a good while, and so home and wrote letters late to my Lord and to my father, and then to bed.


20 Annotations

First Reading

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"searching for pamphlets and seditious books" Index Librorum Prohibitorum, I wonder which books were these and if any survived?

Katherine  •  Link

Because somebody has to make the joke ...

" and there came Mr. Whore (whom I formerly have known)"

But not in the biblical sense, I presume.

Josh  •  Link

Even given the flexibility of Restoration orthography, one has to wonder at Pepys's choice of spelling for "Mr. Whore." Is there a Mrs.? See Pauline's link on for interesting factoid.

vicente  •  Link

Possible headlines in the working press:
Lords protess [too much] to save their [bl**** ] privileges
There is neglect of those Highways and Sewers.
Clean the streets of Westminster.
clean the clinque
Church needs more money
The king says thanks and goodby come back when I'll tell ye.
Blaton Affaire:E of Lincolne hedge destroyed by one Thomas Blayton
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…
Busy day: 16 acts enacted.

vicente  •  Link

Quarterly Assizes: Marvelous system, they don't waste lots of money on Window dressing; will in a few days dispense justice swiftly, quickly,and without mercy, don't have time to ponder ye old guilt.[read Glyn's note at the other site 'tis nice or goe to the olde baily http://www.smartgroups.com/groups… ] fines to keep the judges in robes and a few hangings to entertain the local yokels. Read a fine account of Thomas Paines Bio about the Thetford session reported a hundred years later ;Luvely if into school basement punishments by prefects.
read J.Bunyon.
A RELATION OF MY IMPRISONMENT IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER 1660

http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.Joh…

Pedro.  •  Link

"wrote letters late to my Lord"

Considering that Montagu is on his way to Tangier, and his whereabouts are unknown, how long would we expect the letters to take to reach him and by what means?

A. De Araujoa  •  Link

Thanks Vicente and Pedro.
"after my singing master had done with me" not very enthusiastic is he?

Glyn  •  Link

To Fleet Street to find when the Assizes begin

Aha! This is ironic. To walk from Fleet Street into the Inns of Court to find out the dates of the Assizes he must have walked through the Tudor Gatehouse which survived the Great Fire and now houses a biographical collection of memorabilia of you know who (now known as "Prince Henry's Room").

As is often the case, he is walking back and forth in a straight line with little deviation to either side. He begins at the Navy Office near the Tower of London, walks along Fleet Street to Westminster Hall (today a part of the Houses of Parliament), then catches a boat to the Wardrobe and then home. In the afternoon he partially retraces his steps through the City to Fleet Street and the Strand and then returns back home.

vicente  •  Link

May be he did not wet his whistle this morn."..."...after my singing master had done with me" not very enthusiastic is he?…”…” Does not mention any thing slipping pass his lips.

cgs  •  Link

to limn T.F.
OED

[Altered form of LUMINER: see LIMN v. and -ER1.]
to limn
1. trans. To illuminate (letters, manuscripts, books). Also absol. Obs.
14..
...5. absol. or intr. To paint; esp. to paint in water-colour or distemper. Obs.
1665 PEPYS Diary 7 May, Yesterday begun my wife to learn to limn of one Browne.
limner
1. An illuminator of manuscripts. Hist.
1389
2. A painter, esp. a portrait painter. {dag}Sometimes spec., a water-colour artist.
1594...
1661-2 PEPYS Diary 2 Jan., Cooper, the great limner in little.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Commons Journal (less wordy and complete than Lords')

Adjonment. [sic] http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

And Mr. Speaker, at his Return, did acquaint the House, That his Majesty did return Thanks to this House for the good Bills they had passed: But, there being many more in Forwardness, his Majesty was pleased to direct both Houses to adjourn till the Twentieth of November.

Whereupon it was Resolved, That this House be adjourned till the Twentieth of November next.

Bill  •  Link

July 30 [1661].
The Parliament adjourn'd till November the 20th next. Passed
An Act declaring the Militia, his Majesty's.
An Act for the safety of his Majesty's Person, &c.
---A Chronological History of England. J. Pointer, 1714.

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

I'm sure that the spelling of "Mr Whore" is a running joke by Sam to himself for his own amusement, like describing his friend Mr Butler as "Mons. l’Impertinent"

Louise Hudson  •  Link

There are many people named Hoar in England and other English speaking countries. http://www.houseofnames.com/hoar-…

Sam probably misspelled it. We already know he had his own way of spelling words. Dictionaries as we know them did not appear until the 18th Century. Writers were pretty much on their own when it came to spelling in the 1600s.

He could have been making a point when he spelled the name "Whore" but more likely he wrote it without thinking much about it, because he didn't know how to spell it and possibly didn't realize that there was more than one way to spell the homophone.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Prince Henry's Room is situated on the first floor at the front of No. 17 Fleet Street, London. The house is one of the few surviving buildings in the City of London dating from before the Great Fire of London in 1666.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pri…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I found the two Houses at a great difference, about the Lords challenging their privileges not to have their houses searched, which makes them deny to pass the House of Commons’ Bill for searching for pamphlets and seditious books."

The Commons objected to a proviso inserted by the Lords which would have protected peers' houses from search. At a conference wiyj yjr Lordfs on the 29th, the Commons had asserted that the exemption would be too dangerous a loophole, and that, in any cases, 'all Houses, as well of Commons as of Peers, are equally the Castles and proprieties of the owners': http://www.british-history.ac.uk/… The b ill was now abandoned, and passed in May 1662 in a form which allowed search of peers' houses only under special license from the King: The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 is an Act of the Parliament of England (14 Car. II. c. 33), long title "An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lic…
(L&M note +)

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"we met about the business of Tangier this afternoon. "

Tangier had just been acquired as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, by the marriage treaty signed on 23 June. It was formally surrendered to Sandwich in January 1662. From October 1662 Pepys was a member of the committee of Council which controlled its government; in March 1665 he became Treasurer. (L&M note)

Log in to post an annotation.

If you don't have an account, then register here.