Saturday 7 December 1661

This morning comes Captain Ferrers and the German, Emanuel Luffe, who goes as one of my Lord’s footmen, though he deserves a much better preferment, to take their leave of me, and here I got the German to play upon my theorbo, which he did both below and in my wife’s chamber, who was in bed. He plays bravely. I find by him that my lute is a most excellent lute. I did give them a mince pie and a collar of brawn and some wine for their breakfast, and were very merry, and sent for Mr. Adams our neighbour to drink Mr. Shepley’s health. At last we all parted, but within a quarter of an hour after they were gone, and my wife and I were talking about buying of a fine scallop which is brought her this morning by a woman to be sold, which is to cost her 45s., in comes the German back again, all in a goare of blood, which I wondered at, and tells me that he is afeard that the Captain is killed by the watermen at Towre Stayres; so I presently went thither, and found that upon some rude pressing of the watermen to ply the Captain, he struck one of them with his cane, which they would not take, but struck him again, and then the German drew his sword and ran at one of them, but they were both soundly beaten.1 The Captain is, however, got to the hoy that carries him and the pages to the Downs, and I went into the alehouse at the Stayres and got them to deliver the Captain’s feathers, which one from the Captain was come to demand, and went home again, and there found my wife dressing of the German’s head, and so did [give] him a cravett for his neck, and a crown in his purse, and sent him away again. Then came Mr. Moore, and he and I to Westminster and to Worcester House to see Mr. Montagu before he goes away (this night), but could not see him, nor do I think he has a mind to see us for fear of our demanding of money of him for anything. So back to Whitehall, and eat a bit of meat at Wilkinson’s, and then to the Privy Seal, and sealed there the first time this month; and, among other things that passed, there was a patent for Roger Palmer (Madam Palmer’s husband) to be Earl of Castlemaine and Baron of Limbricke in Ireland; but the honour is tied up to the males got of the body of this wife, the Lady Barbary: the reason whereof every body knows. That done, by water to the office, when I found Sir W. Pen had been alone all the night and was just rose, and so I to him, and with him I found Captain Holmes, who had wrote his case, and gives me a copy, as he hath many among his friends, and presented the same to the King and Council. Which I shall make use of in my attempt of writing something concerning the business of striking sail, which I am now about. But he do cry out against Sir John Minnes, as the veriest knave and rogue and coward in the world, which I was glad to hear, because he has given out bad words concerning my Lord, though I am sorry it is so. Here Captain Cox then came in, and he and I staid a good while and so good night. Home and wrote by the post to my father, and so to bed.

40 Annotations

First Reading

Glyn  •  Link

I think that Pepys behaves quite bravely and diplomatically here in going to confront the watermen in the alehouse although he seems to treat the incident very unemotionally. Note the contrast in that he persuades the men to return the feathers whereas one of the Captain’s entourage was sent there to “demand” them.

It’s never dull when Ferrers makes an appearance in the Diary, but I think I’m beginning to understand why his superiors recently passed him over for the captaincy of a ship.

Eric Walla  •  Link

Yes, Captain Ferrers seems to be some larger-than-life figure, suited for a swashbuckler, except the fact that he never seems to come out on the winning side of things. And Mr. Luffe, charging with his sword, defending their honor, not mention their feathers--What a vision!

vicenzo  •  Link

money to burn. A years keep for a mollusk, It must be for the mother of pearl insides, not the din din . Only other idea is that it could be a nice scallopped 'dress' that has a very engaging neckline {like the one that Eliza was painted later date}.
"...about buying of a fine scallop ....which is to cost her 45s...."
Scallops are the family Pectinidae of bivalve molluscs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scal…
or http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/…

Bradford  •  Link

"scallop: scalloped lace collar"

"feathers: worn as ornaments in hatbands" (in case you were thinking boa).

---L&M Companion, Large Glossary

daniel  •  Link

What a vision!

indeed the whole entry could be a scene from a screenplay.

DrCari  •  Link

Cuckolded Roger Palmer aims to get his share of the goodies (the Earldom of Castlemaine) as compensation for tolerating his wife's frolics with Charles. I think Sam is making a sly reference to "the honor being attached to the son's of his wife's body" because everybody knows that Barbara Palmer is bearing royal bastards rather than the legitimate issue of Palmer.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Scallops and feathers
Perhaps the lady with the 45 shilling scallop has heard from fellow needlesmiths that Mrs P is in the market for fancy adornments (c.f. the lace of some time ago). Although I understood the feathers to be some type of cockade in his hat which the watermen had taken off Ferrers, the picture conjured up by Bradford of Ferrers in a feather boa is naughtily funny. Nice one!

Ruben  •  Link

from Google:

"Bobbin, June, 2000 TMA Sales Inc. has introduced the new DS332 decorative scallop attachment, which is mounted on new Juki FS and CS series sewing machines. The unit, which can produce at speeds of up to 5,000 spin, is available in two- and three needle versions that can produce four to six scallops per inch and four to five stitches per scallop.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Miller Freeman, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group"

andy  •  Link

a patent for Roger Palmer (Madam Palmer’s husband) to be Earl of Castlemaine and Baron of Limbricke in Ireland; but the honour is tied up to the males got of the body of this wife, the Lady Barbary: the reason whereof every body knows

there's an obvious contemporary reference in UK politcs at the moment.

BradW  •  Link

there’s an obvious contemporary reference in UK politics at the moment

Andy--how about a hint for us West-of-the-Pond types?

Mary  •  Link

The Captain ... is got to the boy..

This should read "The Captain ... is got to the Hoy" (per L&M) which mkaes much better sense.

Mary  •  Link

makes, of course. Apologies.

Grahamt  •  Link

Roger Palmer. Baron of Limbricke/Limerick
I assume "Limbricke in Ireland" is what is now known as Limerick.
Too good a chance to miss-
Roger Palmer he would be a lord,
'Cause his wife was the king's favourite bawd,
But all of his boys,
Where really Fitzroys,
And an Earldom's his only reward.

Pauline  •  Link

bawd/reward
excellent, Grahamt!

vicenzo  •  Link

"...The Captain … is got to the boy ..." great catch, a hoy, Mary.

JWB  •  Link

Brave & diplomatic & duty-bound?

"...we were sworn justices of peace for Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Southampton; with which honour I did find myself mightily pleased,..." Sept 24,'60.

Kevin Peter  •  Link

It appears than Penn is no longer upset at Pepys for talking about the maid yesterday: at least Penn was acting normally today. It's apparently a small thing already forgiven and forgotten.

As for the poor Earl, it's got to be humiliating to have everyone know that you're a cuckold and that you're only getting your current titles because of who your sons' real fathers are. He must be the laughingstock of society.

Mary  •  Link

Castlemaine a laughingstock?

Not necessarily. Sisters, daughters and indeed wives have been regarded as tradeable commodities in many societies and pragmatic views of the value of a marriage have often prevailed. At least Castlemaine has got an earldom out of his wife's 'profession' and he will be saved the expense of much of her high maintenance costs as long as she remains the Royal favourite. The complaisant husband on the fringe of royal society is a well-attested character. Had Castlemaine made a tremendous fuss about the situation, then he could have become a laughingstock

Australian Susan  •  Link

Royalty and mistresses
This kind of thing (keep quiet, husband, and we'll make it worth your while) was still going on with Edward VII.

Glyn  •  Link

Anthony Parker Bowles was married to Camilla Parker Bowles for 20 years or more throughout which period she was Prince Charles' mistress, and known to be so in the circles in which they moved. Whether he was a laughing-stock or whether he profited from the situation I do not know.

Glyn  •  Link

"...Captain Holmes, who had wrote his case, and gives me a copy"

Pepys is still conscientiously researching his paper on British naval rights and practices. Just a reminder that this is Holmes's defence against a formal accusation of letting a foreign ship not show proper deference.

Holmes and Pepys appear to be on good terms but Pepys is a little wary of him because Elizabeth always finds him attractive (or at least makes Sam think that she does).

dirk  •  Link

Evelyn's diary for today:

"I din’d at Arundell house, the day when the greate contest in Parliament was concerning the restoring of the Duke of Norfolck; however ’twas carried for him. I also now presented my little trifle of Sumptuary Laws intitled Tyrannus:"

Note:
One of E’s more curious pieces "Tyrannus, or the mode" is a would-be humorously xenophobic invective against the slavish pursuit of French fashions in Restoration England. Evelyn’s own, annotated, copy survives at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and has been issued in facsimile form, edited by J.L. Nevinson in 1951.

Source:
http://www.reocities.com/Paris/Le…

[Link changed from the no-longer-existing geocities.com to the reocities.com archive, 8 May 2014. P.G.]

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"Evelyn's diary"
Nice site Dirk,thanks.

vicenzo  •  Link

great find merci

TerryF  •  Link

Captain Ferrers is hardly dashing in the "outrage" referred to in the note by Lord Braybrooke (B).

12 September, 1662 Pepys hears that Captain Ferrers, "being provoked to strike one of my Lord’s footmen, the footman drew his sword, and hath almost cut the fingers of one of his hands off; which I am sorry for: but this is the vanity of being apt to command and strike." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

As SP has it, Captain Ferrers, quite full of himself, is volatile and dangerous; methinks what's "similar" between today's outrage and the one yet to come is the "vanity" Pepys identies then.

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

"See May 4th, 1662, host."

This should read: See May 4th, 1662, post.

Bill  •  Link

"concerning the business of striking sail, which I am now about"

Pepys seems not to have been aware at the time that Sir John Burroughs, Keeper of the Records, temp. Car. I., had written a Treatise on the Sovereignty of the British Seas, copies of which, both in Latin and English, are common, and one of which is in the Pepysian Library; neither had he discovered that William Ryley, the Herald, Deputy Keeper of the Records, whom he knew personally, had also written on the subject, and had made extracts from the Records. Ryley's collections appear to have belonged to James II., and were probably made for him at this time. The Duke of Newcastle afterwards possessed them, and they are now in the British Museum.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Pepys describes the altercation between Ferrers and the watermen in a very matter-of-fact manner, without overt partisanship, except perhaps indicated by the words "soundly beaten". He was generous to his patron's footman though for attempting Ferrers' defence. A crown, 5 shillings (20 shillings to the pound), was a not insignificant tip.

Sam, would have been well known by the watermen as a local and a regular customer, and probably in the tavern too. I expect he will have been able to sort things out diplomatically, without needing to appeal to his authority as a magistrate (Justice of the Peace), which in any case did not run in the City itself.

Tonyel  •  Link

" the reason whereof every body knows"
Can't remember who said around the time of Edward VII: "No greater loyalty than a man should lay down his wife for his king"

john  •  Link

The sword clearly more ceremonial than lethal.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

OED lets Pepys explain:

‘scallop . . 2.c. Lace or edging of a scalloped pattern; a scalloped lace band or collar. Obs.
. . 1661 S. Pepys Diary 7 Dec. (1970) II. 228 My wife and I were talking about buying of a fine Scallop..which is to cost her 45s.’

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

DNB has:

‘Palmer, Roger, earl of Castlemaine, diplomatist and Roman Catholic apologist, . . married . . the beautiful Barbara Villiers . . In marrying above himself he espoused a woman whose beauty was as famous as her conduct was already scandalous . . At the Restoration Palmer's wife became Charles II's mistress. [In] 1661 she bore a daughter, Anne, whose paternity was disputed between her husband and the king. On 11 December Charles created Palmer . . earl of Castlemaine in the Irish peerage merely to give his wife a title and rank to her children. The patent added insult to injury by confining the remainder to the heirs of her, not his, body. . The recipient showed his contempt by never taking his seat in the Irish parliament.

The arrival of . . Catherine of Braganza, in May 1662, did not terminate the liaison . . Humiliated beyond endurance Castlemaine left the country, unable to bear the reproach of being thought a complaisant husband.

. . The accession of James II in 1685 transformed Castlemaine's fortunes. No longer an outcast, he was welcomed into royal favour . . [he] died [in] 1705 . . A devout Catholic, he remained staunchly loyal to James II and his son. Though much maligned in his day, and persistently underrated by historians, the scholar Elias Ashmole thought him both learned and honourable. His writings reveal an alert mind, unafraid to express itself in the defence of an unpopular cause.’

Just who Andy was alluding to 10 years ago, I have no idea.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

'This morning comes Captain Ferrers and the German, Emanuel Luffe, who goes as one of my Lord’s footmen, though he deserves a much better preferment, to take their leave of me,'

L&M: They went with the fleet which was to meet Sandwich at Lisbon and escort the new Queen.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"and...there was a patent for Roger Palmer (Madam Palmer’s husband) to be Earl of Castlemaine and Baron of Limbricke in Ireland; but the honour is tied up to the males got of the body of this wife, the Lady Barbary: the reason whereof every body knows."

L&M: The new Earl and his wife (The King's mistress) were not living together, and the intention was that the title should becpme extrinct, as it did on the death of the Earl in 1705. The patent which Pepys here refers was sealed on 11 December. Pepys briefly mentioned the grant in a letter to Sandwich of 9 December: Carte 73, f. 64ir. Three sons born later to Lady Castlemaine were all acknowledged as the King's bastards.

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