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Friday 9 November 1660

Lay long in bed this morning though an office day, because of our going to bed late last night. Before I went to my office Mr. Creed came to me about business, and also Mr. Carter, my old Cambridge friend, came to give me a visit, and I did give them a morning draught in my study. So to the office, and from thence to dinner with Mr. Wivell at the Hoop Tavern, where we had Mr. Shepley, Talbot, Adams, Mr. Chaplin and Osborne, and our dinner given us by Mr. Ady and another, Mr. Wine, the King’s fishmonger. Good sport with Mr. Talbot, who eats no sort of fish, and there was nothing else till we sent for a neat’s tongue. From thence to Whitehall where I found my Lord, who had an organ set up to-day in his dining-room, but it seems an ugly one in the form of Bridewell. Thence I went to Sir Harry Wright’s, where my Lord was busy at cards, and so I staid below with Mrs. Carter and Evans (who did give me a lesson upon the lute), till he came down, and having talked with him at the door about his late business of money, I went to my father’s and staid late talking with my father about my sister Pall’s coming to live with me if she would come and be as a servant (which my wife did seem to be pretty willing to do to-day), and he seems to take it very well, and intends to consider of it. Home and to bed.

Saturday 10 November 1660Thursday 8 November 1660

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Parliament on this day

Annotations

  • My Lord has a portative organ in the shape of a prison?!?!? I can see why Pepys found it ugly.

  • Why is Pall coming to live with Sam as a servant? Is she in the “poor relation” category?

  • “A neat’s tongue”: similarly, more information about this can be found at http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/01/26/index.php#c846

  • Sister Pall: No money no eaty: ‘tis the way of life then for most and now for some. There was always the poor house. Still had to work:
    Read up on the Bridewell system and other “reforming ” way schemes. You want to eat, then you must earn it, anyway you know how, even in the nick. There were no hand outs except for those branded beggar.
    At least if you went to work for a relative for minimum,You had a roof and a pallias and some hand me downs.See Liza Lizard Pages 250-257 Restoration London (50 % of the population lived 3L 5. 0 per head/year or 2-1/2 p per day [1 new pe]) So living with a rich relative who live in a spacious dwelling was better than finding quarters in a Rookery even if one had to empty the slops.

  • Evans and that lute

    Evans gave a lute lesson to Pepys in very similar circumstances on 25 January (the first two annotations are about that episode):

    http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/01/25/index.php

    For the lute page of this website:
    http://www.pepysdiary.com/540.php

  • Bridewell Organ

    … captive audience …

  • Paulina the servant —

    It is a sign of Samuel’s rising status that relatives are looking to join his household. The term “servant” takes in a lot of territory — remember that Samuel is Montague’s “servant”, and is by no means a menial. As the master’s sister, Pall could be more a companion and assistant to Elizabeth in the running of the household — a “lady-in-waiting” type — than a menial.

  • There would be advantages to both Samuel and Pall in this new domestic arrangement.Socially Pepys would be demoting himself were he to treat his sister as a menial, but inevitably women in such circumstances are the butt of subtle if not cruel innuendo from in -laws due to their financial dependence on them.Pall can keep Elizabeth company when Pepys is absent,such socialization is healthy and necessary if we consider the peculiar behaviour of Lady Davies next door who comes across as rather neurotic, perhaps due to lonliness.Pall may well hope to meet a suitable husband in London through Pepys’ very wide social network.Women in her circumstances are to be both admired and pitied ,but one cannot help from wondering if racy adventurous girls are more suited to and successful in Restoration London than a genteel girl like her.

  • Pall is 20 years of age, beside Sam, has 2 brothers Thomas aged 26 and baby John 18.. and no prospects.

  • Sam is being helpful to his sister here… she is being put in a comfortable situation where she will be exposed to a lot of relatively rich contacts of SPs, one of whom may take a liking to her and propose. Even if that doesn’t happen, she gets to live well and safely, and she is not giving up her old friends either as it seems easy enough to visit her and Sams’s parents, so she is not moving far.

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