Tuesday 25 September 1660

Annotations

• N Paul Miller on Thu 25 Sep 2003, 11:38pm

  “did knock six times upon the Kentish Knock”
  The Battle of Kentish Knock took place
  26th September 1652 in the mouth of the Thames, near the Kentish Knock sandbank. Dutch fleet of about seventy ships under De Witt defeated by British fleet of about the same size under Blake. The Dutch picked the fight as retaliation for a British attack made shortly before on the Dutch herring fleet which was poaching in British waters.
  

• N Eric Walla on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 03:49am

  Oh oh, the tee craze has begun …

  As a confirmed tea drinker, but American, I wasn’t aware of the history behind the introduction into England. But Stash lends its aid:

  http://www.stashtea.com/facts.htm#Tea_Europe

  Should’ve known—tea and Restoration go together.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 05:27am

  only, had got some brush upon his foot which was not well yet.
  L&M substitute “brush” for “corns”. They should be distunguishable from the shorthand. I suspect that Wheatley didn’t understand a “brush upon his foot” and substituted a known ailment of the foot.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 05:30am

  for her and I
  Wheatley does seem obsessed with correcting SP’s grammar.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 05:37am

  how the King hath knighted Vice-Admirall Lawson and Sir Rich. Stayner
  L&M say that this was done on the 24th. They go on to say that “Stayner had previously been knighted by Cromwell in 1657.”

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 05:42am

  And afterwards did send for a Cupp of Tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before) and went away
  L&M reproduce this well-known passage as above leaving out the first “I”. They note that the unbalanced parentheses are Pepys’s own. The footnote goes on to say that the Tee was “imported via Holland from c. 1658, but cost c.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 05:46am

  to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland - where Sir R. Ford talked like a man of great reason and experience
  In the interest of “full disclosure”, L&M add the following footnote: “This new policy satisfied the major mercantile interests. Ford was one of the greatest of the merchants trading with Spain.”

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 05:51am

  to pay off the ship Successe
  L&M Footnote: The “Old Success” in harbour since November 1658 and now paid off at a cost of

• N helena murphy on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 07:23am

  Ale would have been the national beverage in England at this time, but when Catherine of Braganza, the future wife of Charles II, arrived in Portsmouth on May 13th 1662 she asked for a cup of tea , thus popularising it immensely. She would probably have been familiar with Indian tea as Bombay had been a Portuguese possession but now formed part of her dowry to Charles.She also brought him Tangiers on the Mediterranean and two million crowns.Incidentally she was escorted to England by Lord Sandwich on board the Royal Charles.

• N Grahamt on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 08:52am

  India tea:
  I understand that the tea plant was introduced to India at the end of the 17th century and China had a monopoly on it before then.

• N Roger Arbor on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 09:05am

  Isn’t it wonderful to be lifting a cup of tea to ones lips [in a bone china cup of course] as Samuel ‘loads’ on my machine. I nearly dropped it… wonder what he made of it?

• N helena murphy on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 09:24am

  Thank you Graham for your comment. I look forward to taking up the matter tomorrow with those who probably know best,namely my friends from India and China and I can guarantee you a very lively discussion. In matters such as this, in spite of our knowledge native sources can be invaluable

• N mattatt on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 10:23am

  “at The Globe” - I wonder if this the by-then closed Globe Theatre? Prolly not - such names are much re-used in the UK :-)

• N David Cooper on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 12:33pm

  Tea first came to Europe about 1559 from Japan to Holland. The first English record of tea was as late as 1657. Imported tea came primarily from China until the development of Assam in the eighteenth century. See “Green Gold” by Alan Macfarlane and Iris Macfarlane.

• N Andrew Hamilton on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 01:17pm

  “and I from our office with Col. Slingsby by coach to Westminster”

  I keep waiting for the appearance of Violet, Guy and Lionel. On another topic, for an excellent supply of tea, try the Pelikan in Zutphen.

• N Chris Wedgwood on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 01:41pm

  So what is “a brush upon his foot”?

• N A. De Araujo on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 02:07pm

  “Chinese Tea” Macau was a portuguese colony at the time also. Incidently those 2 million crowns came from the Gold mines in Brazil and probably the Gold coast of Africa; no wonder when recently a statue of Catarina de Braganza was to be erected at the Borough of Queens in New York (named after her)it was scuttled because of the objection of the Black people;it is in storage now.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 02:39pm

  brush
  Here’s some possible entries from the OED:
  Brush, n [3]
  3. ? A slight attack of illness. (Cf. brash.)
  1733 Swift’s Corr. … [Dr. Sheridan] hope nothing ails her but a brush.

  Brush, n[2]
  9. A graze, esp. on a horse’s leg. [see below] 1710 Lond. Gaz. … A Grey Gelding having a Brush in the right Hip.

  brush, v [2]
  6. To injure or hurt by grazing; said esp. of a horse grazing his fetlock with the shoe or hoof of the fellow foot. Also absol.
  1691 Lond. Gaz. … A grey Gelding about 15 hands his Knees brush’d. 1868 Bp. Fraser in Life … I hope he [a horse] does not

• N Jenny Doughty on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 03:02pm

  I also happened to be drinking a cup of tea (my ‘morning draft’) as I read this. Cheers.

• N Glyn on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 03:16pm

  Ladies and gentlemen - this is an historic occasion: the precise moment when an English adult drank his first cup of tea - frankly I’m a little touched by it. In importance, it ranks right up there with the day when some prehistoric traders landed their boats in Scotland and said to the natives “We’ve got this brown-coloured drink - we call it ‘whisky’ maybe you Scots will get a taste for it?”

  But at this time, the English didn’t really know how to serve tea. It was brewed up in big barrels and allowed to cool down, then drawn off (like beer) and warmed up - which sounds vile.

  Just out of interest, does anyone know how many tons of the stuff we drink nowadays and the average consumption? All I know is that we still drink much more tea than coffee.

• N J A Gioia on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 03:54pm

  brush

  maybe sandwich bruised his foot during the trouble on the kentish knocks.

• N Nix on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 04:01pm

  The Globe —

  From context, most likely a tavern in Deptford. A fitting name for a seaport tavern.

• N Nix on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 04:06pm

  “brush” vs. “corns” —

  OED gives as one (very obscure) usage of brush:

  “3. ? A slight attack of illness. (Cf. BRASH.)
  
  “1733 Swift’s Corr. II. 717, I [Dr. Sheridan] hope nothing ails her but a brush.”

• N Nix on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 04:10pm

  The Kentish Knock —

  In 1660 would they initial “k” of “Knock” have been vocalized?

• N Glyn on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 04:36pm

  The Tredagh

  This is another Irish name for Drogheda (the site of Cromwell’s infamous alleged massacre), so I wonder if it was named after that particular battle. Here are some recent Irish discussions about that event:

  http://www.sluggerotoole.com/home/archives/001563.asp

  Are those builders Ever going to finish their work - the dust must be getting everywhere.

• N Roger Arbor on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 04:57pm

  The History of Tea in England… or why England became a global power on the back of a ‘drink made with dried leaves in boiling water’ (Douglas Adams)… Very much worth a visit:

  www.geocities.com/lgol27/HistoryTeaEngland.htm

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 06:07pm

  The Tredagh
  per Wheatley “‘The Tredagh’, a third-rate of fifty guns, had its name changed to ‘Resolution’”.

• N Glyn on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 07:41pm

  We often say something is “second rate” or “third rate” with the meaning that it is quite poor or substandard. In fact a second-rate or even third-rate ship was pretty dam powerful.

  Re Nix’s query - I know the K of Knight was definitely pronounced in Chaucers day, 300 years earlier, as in his “Knight’s Tale” and am fairly sure it would have been pronounced in Pepys day in the North of England (Northumbria etc). But in London?

• N tamara on Fri 26 Sep 2003, 07:58pm

  re how to make tea:

  I wonder if the cooled down tea was made strong on purpose and then served by diluting with boiling water? this is essentially the Russian method of making tea (and it isn’t nasty at all): make a small pot of extremely strong tea which sits on top of the samovar all day. Pour a little in your glass (in a posh silver holder if you’re lucky) and dilute it with hot water from the samovar. doesn’t lend itself to tea-with-milk though.

• N Ernst Dinkla on Sat 27 Sep 2003, 12:56pm

• N language hat on Sun 28 Sep 2003, 02:30pm

  “those who probably know best,namely my friends from India and China”:
  Helena, I’m afraid historians (from any land) are the ones who “know best”; inhabitants of a country are likely to believe all sorts of nonsense about its history (usually, of course, nonsense that favors their own country).

  Glyn: Surely the Scots brought the fine art of distillation with them when they came over from Ireland 1,500 years ago, and it was they who introduced the traders to the seductive tipple.

• N Phil on Tue 30 Sep 2003, 09:24pm

  Regarding all the tea links and info… that’s what the tea Background Info page is for. Or we’ll be saying the same things with every cup Sam drinks!
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/360.php
  Sorry to nag.

• N Jean Spencer on Thu 30 Oct 2003, 05:14pm

  For no reason, I prefer to think it was the Globe theatre, where they went for dinner and a PLAY, not pay.

• N Jenny Doughty on Thu 30 Oct 2003, 09:34pm

  Sadly, Jean, it can’t have been. It was burned down in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and was destroyed by the Puritans in 1644, although a working reconstruction opened in 1997.

• N in Aqua Scripto on Thu 6 Apr 2006, 10:18pm

  ‘Twas the newly named Resolution named at best guess for the infamous battle of the Boyne, living on in the memories of many.”…My Lord told me how the ship that brought the Princess and him (The Tredagh) did knock six times upon the Kentish Knock,2…”
  see the Notes by Paul Brewster.