Monday 17 September 1660

Annotations

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 12:41am. Flag this

  which we are to present to the Comittee of parliament tomorrow.
  L&M add the word “tomorrow” and the following footnote: “The committee continued to sit during the parliamentary adjournment (13 September - 6 November).”

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 12:50am. Flag this

  which was done in very great State
  L&M add the footnote: “The audience was in the Banqueting House, Whitehall, and the procession consisted of 50 coaches. … The cavalcade consisted of ‘16 ritch coaches, one especially comparable to His Majesties, drawne with sixteen faire blacke horses’ (Mundy). This was the only audience de Ligne was given and it was said the he went away sad to think he was not to be allowed to repeat the splendid occasion.” L&M don’t explain the difference in the count of coaches.
  

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 12:55am. Flag this

  Wheatley is certainly busy with his grammatical corrections in this entry
  Per L&M:
  “to buy mourning things for her and I”
  “so all is even between him and I”
  “where my Lord and the Princesse is”

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 01:07am. Flag this

  Nothing yet from sea, where my Lord and the Princess is.
  L&M: “They did not set sail from Holland until the 20/30th.” I was unfamiliar with the 20/30th notation until I remembered that Holland had accepted the Gregorian changes ahead of England and thus the 10 day difference. I guess they sailed from Holland three days from now on the 20th (in England) or 30th (in Holland) and arrived before they left. I don’t think the Concorde could rival this form of time travel.
  

• N Pauline on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 02:00am. Flag this

  “Home by link with my money under my arm.”
  I like this—a certain jauntiness; but I suppose it means he clinched his money under his arm against pickpockets.

• N Glyn on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 02:07am. Flag this

  Did they have pickpockets at this time - I think they were “cutpurses”. Did they have pockets even?

• N Bullus Hutton on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 07:41am. Flag this

  to buy mourning things for her and me,
  Ok, who is it we’re buying these funereal weeds for? Henry the King’s bro, or Sam’s sainted mum, or am I missing some body?
  Is the reason he sups twice in the same cellar instead of usual upscale venues somehow guilt-related?
  As for going home with money under arm, that’s as good as anything - when walking around New York I used to put my money in my shoe, until my chum told me that’s the first place muggers look.

• N helena murphy on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 08:22am. Flag this

  Pepys and his wife now have new standards to adhere to and it is necessary to have appropriate attire as the occasion demands, therefore the mourning clothes form part of their general wardrobe along with the more elegant garments. The mortality rate is high and as an up and coming bureaucrat living in London one is expected to conform to the correct dress code. It is to be noted that Pepys goes to Whitehall Garden , probably rigged out in black where hopefully he caught the eye of the king in his purple. The practical Pepys is right to comment on the cost as it is the appropriate shade which matters.

• N Pauline on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 02:19pm. Flag this

  mourning things
  I wonder what these “things” are. Sam has visited his father Saturday and “bespoke mourning.” I thought he had ordered a suit then. What now? Wonder what the specific trappings are.

• N Paul Brewster on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 02:50pm

  afterwards to White-hall … and drank in the Seller …then to the Wine Seller again
  I’m not sure that the wine cellar wasn’t “upscale” or anything of the kind. My guess is that SP may be referring to a place that the L&M Companion identifies as a Wine Cellar in the entry on Whitehall Palace. They describe it as “part of Woolsey’s original palace; under the Guard Chamber. It was not wholly destroyed by the fire of 1698 and still survives. The King’s or Privy cellar was separate.” I believe this may be one and the same as Wine Cellar in the Old War Office Building which according to a web site on the history of the building was once used as “a luncheon club for Ministry of Transport staff”. On the web site the Wine Cellar is labelled as “King Henry VIII’s Wine Cellar” and is described as “the only substantial part of the old “Whitehall Palace” that remained after the disastrous fire of 1698 and a fine example of a Tudor brick-vaulted roof some 70 feet long and 30 feet wide.” http://www.mod.uk/aboutus/history/mainbldg.htm

• N Nix on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 04:50pm. Flag this

  “with my money under my arm” —

  I don’t think he was worried about pickpockets — home “by link” means it was nighttime, when there would not have been crowds to facilitate pickpockets. He’s concerned about robbers holding him up in a dark, empty street. I’d guess that “Under my arm” probably means stuffed as far as he could get it up the sleeve of his coat.

• N martha wishart on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 05:44pm. Flag this

  Pockets were not sewn into garments. Rather, they were worn on a string around the waist. Clothes had slits in them through which you could reach to put your hand into your pocket.

• N Jenny Doughty on Thu 18 Sep 2003, 08:58pm. Flag this

  Re pockets being worn on a string around the waist - hence the children’s nursery rhyme, which makes no sense if you think of modern pockets:

  Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
  Kitty Fisher found it.
  Not a penny was there in it
  But a ribbon round it.

• N Mary on Fri 19 Sep 2003, 07:47am. Flag this

  Pockets on strings

  I’ve also heard it stated that women often wore these pockets beneath their skirts, which must have meant that they would have accessed them through a placket in one of the skirt’s seams.

• N Glyn on Fri 19 Sep 2003, 11:07pm. Flag this

  Has this anything to do with the phrase “holding the purse strings”?

• N tamara on Mon 22 Sep 2003, 03:47pm. Flag this

  purse strings

  yes, that’s exactly where it comes from

• N vincent on Mon 6 Oct 2003, 06:48pm. Flag this

  “pockets” were not attached, they were what we call a purse today. A story I read recently about a couple that went by coach at this period of time . When they got home, the husband asked for some money, because she kept the money in her pocket under her skirts. She says the pocket has gone, He says “how come”?. Well she says “I felt this hand and took no notice because I thought it was after my honor not my money”. He says yer should have known better, Yer too old for that”. Enough said.