Thursday 19 July 1660

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• N vincent on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 12:45am

  “…landed her at Whitefriars with her boy with an iron of our new range which is already broke and my wife will have changed, and many other things she has to buy with the help of my father to-day…”
  a) New range very interesting ” guaranteed ?”
  b) No talk of of introduction to the Wardrobe Group.
  c) His commission to administer oathes More Power, his words very illuminating.
  d) Ah! His 4 days worth of entries

• N martha wishart on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 01:32am

  The presbyterian clergy was by far the more conservative, and something of this tension between the conservative interpretation of protestantism, and the more liberal episcopalian interpretation had been troublesome during the reign of Charles I. Is this the same issue rearing its ugly head again?

• N language hat on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 02:56am

  “an iron of our new range”
  I don’t fully understand this. “Range” is ‘A form of fire-grate, fire-place, or cooking apparatus’ (OED), with this quote among the citations, but the only definition of “iron” that seems to fit is ‘An instrument, appliance, tool, utensil, or particular part of one, made of the metal,’ which is pretty vague. Anybody know what exactly was broken?

  Also, is there something missing from the first part of this sentence? ” I and my wife by water, landed her at Whitefriars…”

• N Paul Brewster on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 04:19am

  Nothing seems to be missing or problematic in the entry for L&M
  Here’s what constitutes the first paragraph in their edition.
  “I did lie late a-bed. I and my wife by water. Landed her at White-friars with her boy, with an Iron of our new range which is already broke and my wife will have changed, and many other things she hath to buy with the help of my father today.”

• N Paul Brewster on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 04:24am

  Great talk of the difference between the Episcopal and Presbyterian Clergy, but I believe it will come to nothing.
  From an L&M footnote: “Throughout the country, disputes were occurring over the possession of livings between the puritan incumbents put in during the revolution and the extruded Anglicans, and a pamphlet war between the two sides on more general issues was now reaching a climax. On 16 July the Commons had had a long debate on ecclesiastical policy, lasting until 10 p.m.”

• N Paul Brewster on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 04:31am

  I received my commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy
  L&M: “By a parliamentary resolution of 11 June… these commissions were to be issued to all persons nominated by the Lord General and the Lord Admiral, the government being anxious to have the oaths taken by all members of the armed forces.”

• N vincent on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 05:00am

  Oaths were once a great test for Loyalty and Fielty. They do not appear to have the power to make a person tremble if it is not meant? But my impression is that many people do not truly take them to heart anymore, it just a custom, similarly the singing of the National Anthem. There being no fear of the After life, only a prison sentence if proven it was a lie:

• N vincent on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 05:07am

  The brevity of phrase, it is possible due to the slight rush to put Four days of entries down to paper. So not using the usual diligence to the choice of thought.

• N Mary on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 08:23am

  … an iron of our new range….
  The ranges, admittedly 19th Century ones, that I have seen comprised a fire, held within bars, flanked by one or two closed ovens, hotplates above and a water-heating facility (back boiler) behind. I take the iron that is broken to be one of, or part of, the heavy-duty, vertical gratings that encloses the fire itself. Alternatively it could be one of the removable hotplates located directly above the fire. Either being broken would have rendered the fire in the range either dangerous or impossible to use safely.

  Now that Elizabeth seems to have an oven in her new kitchen, perhaps she won’t need to send out to the cook-shop for ready-roasted joints, though she is unlikely to be able to cook anything of more than modest size in the oven. She’s clearly anxious to try out her new kitchen equipment and is wasting no time in getting the faulty component replaced.
  

• N maureen on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 08:28am

  Kitchen range: the most impressive ancient ones I’ve seen are at Hampton Court, apparently from the reign of Elizabeth I but the best pictures are at http://www.bricksandbrass.co.uk/deselem/range/range.htm

  The “iron” could be any of the following - bar or hook to hang food or utensils, shelf which was either pull-out or on a pivot to position a pot at the right distance from the flame or most likely from my use of slightly later ones, the riddle - a device both built-in and moveable to shake the excess ash out of the fire and introduce more air.

  Remember the range would arrive in parts to be assembled on site and iron then was easier to break or distort than it is now.

• N Arbor on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 08:49am

  “Iron range”… We have an ‘Aga’ range cooker in our kitchen. Around a ton on metal with four ovens and two hot plates. Can be viewed on the Aga web site. SO… very much still in use.

• N Paul Michell on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 12:26pm

  As a proud Michell (there aren’t many of us around) I’ve spent my life pointing out that it is not Mitchell. Imagine my delight when Sam meets Mr Michell. Click on the link and horror it becomes Mr Mitchell. Which is correct? I’d always thought of Michell as being of Huguenot origin. Can I claim Sam’s wife as a Michell?

• N Paul Brewster on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 03:08pm

  Michell/Mitchell
  SP seems to have often used long-hand for people’s names so the spelling should tend to vary as his does. In fact the L&M makes it explict that they use the longhand spelling with only minor modifications to remove archaic usages (i.e., “v” for “u”).

  In the case of the booksellers, Mr and Mrs. Mi[t]chell: A scan of the complete Gutenberg found mutiple instances of Michell but only a single use of the spelling, “Mitchell”. To muddy the waters a bit, it is used describe the shop of this same fellow. The Wheatley Index (not in the online copy) indicates that they prefer, “Michell”, by pointing the instance of “Mitchell” back to “Michell”.

  The L&M Diary entries seem to use the “Michell” spelling as well. An admittedly incomplete look at the L&M for 1660 shows that most entries used the spelling, “Michell”, though I have in fact found one spelled, “Michalls”. The L&M Companion has no entry for “Michell”. It uses the spelling “Mitchell” when dealing with the Booksellers. The entry describes the Mitchell’s as Miles Mitchell and his wife is Ann.

  As far as Sam’s wife is concerned, both L&M Companion and the Wheatley index agree that the name is, St. Michel. I’m not sure we can find any diary support for the spelling since SP doesn’t seem to use the family name in the diary.

• N Laura Brown on Sun 20 Jul 2003, 05:36pm

  The word ‘range’ is still used in West Virginia, where I grew up, to mean the object that most Americans would call a stove and the British would call a cooker (just an ordinary one, not the Aga type). Because the people were geographically isolated for so long, Appalachian English retained many usages after they had become obsolete elsewhere. You hear ‘range’ mainly from older people these days, though.

• N Kenneth on Mon 21 Jul 2003, 08:09pm

  “received my commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy”
  It certainly gives a start to read how “our” Sam receives his “commission to swear people the oath of allegiance and supremacy.” Members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) refuse to take oaths, and tendering this oath was used to send many to prison.

• N Glyn on Wed 6 Aug 2003, 11:19pm

  Regarding Ranges

  “Originally, cooking was done over a wood fire built on the floor of an open hearth. When coal was adopted as a fuel in the 1500s, however, the wrought-iron fire basket was developed, called in the 1600s the “grate” or “range”. By 1700 the usual form of range was a large oblong basket on four legs, fastened to the chimney with tie bars, ideal for roasting large joints of meat. The spits were rested on hooks on the two front legs and were usually turned mechanically by clockwork. The fire could be made smaller by winding adjustable sides inwards by a rack-and-pinion mechanism. Supports for pans, called trivets, fastened to the cheek tops, could swing our from the fire, sometimes the top front bar let down into a further ledge for pans.

  Roasting was the most important facility, as it was the most favoured method of cooking meat. Boiling came second, done in large pots hung over the fire. Stewing and sauce-making, where a gentle heat was required, had been done over little chafing dishes of charcoal on the floor of the hearth. From the late 1600s fashionable houses had a brick stove built into a corner of the kitchen, under a window for ventilation. Let into the top were small round fire baskets, about the size of chafing dishes, in which charcoal was burnt. This arrangement was much more convenient and comfortable for the cook than having to bend down to the hearth, though fumes were more of a problem than they had been in the draught of a chimney.” Author = Jennifer Stead “Food and Cooking in 18th Century Britain”.

  So there were a lot of things that Pepys could have meant when he referred to an “iron” such as tie bars, trivets, cheeks etc. etc. and as a man he probably didn’t know or care what the correct technical term was. But if Elizabeth had only just got this range maybe it was the equivalent of still being under guarantee, and you can’t blame her for wanting to get it right after only just buying it. And like Maureen says, depending on how the iron was made it could have been fairly brittle.