Wednesday 30 January 1660/61

Annotations

• N Emilio on Fri 30 Jan 2004, 11:14pm

  Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw

  As dirk mentioned yesterday, the heads of these three, minus their ‘loathsome trunks’, will be displayed on pikes above Westminster Hall for years to come.

  Evelyn has another interesting account of the events today:

  30 Was the first Solemn Fast & day of humiliation to deplore the sinns which so long had provoked God against this Afflicted Church & people: orderd by Parliament to be annualy celebrated, to expiate the Gilt of the Execrable Murder of the late King Char: I … This day (

• N dirk on Fri 30 Jan 2004, 11:25pm

  “punishing men for the sins of their ancestors”

  If you come to think of it, it’s quite a curious notion that you should be punished for something you haven’t done. If my Biblical knowledge is worth anything, there’s a passage somewhere in the Old Testament which states that the father’s sins will be visited on their children up to the seventh generation!
  

• N dirk on Fri 30 Jan 2004, 11:29pm

  “a letter from my brother John, a very ingenious one”

  ingenious - Clearly the word must have a meaning different from today’s usage. What would be the modern equivalent?
  

• N Emilio on Fri 30 Jan 2004, 11:32pm

  Some quite different readings from L&M today, & a clarification

  ‘Sir W. Pen and I into Moorfields and had a brave talk’: this is actually a “rare walk”, which makes more sense in connection with the fine day.

  ‘I did most often see them at play together’: “see them at PLAYS together”, which does rather change Sam’s meaning. Perhaps they were among the ones who spotted Sam a week ago.

  ‘Sir W. Batten and Sir Wm. Rider met him’: “He” is Penn, who according to the L&M footnote “with Rider was an elder brother of Trinity House; Batten was Deputy-Master”.
  

• N Glyn on Fri 30 Jan 2004, 11:43pm

  Ingenious, I imagine, in being written in very good Latin rather than English - isn’t he at College? As for sins of the fathers, isn’t that the whole basis for the Christian belief in “Original Sin” i.e. even new-born babies aren’t totally innocent.

• N The Bishop on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 12:22am

  So were there three or four corpses hanged? Only one of the accounts has mentioned Thomas Pride.

• N Emilio on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 01:06am

  Just three

  L&M had a footnote earlier that Thomas Pride’s body “seems to have escaped the fate of the others”, citing M. Noble, Lives of the English Regicides (1798). They didn’t have any further details, so I didn’t retype it.

  For the record, the exhumations began on the 26th, and the three bodies were moved to the Red Lion Inn on the 28th, which is the first day Sam mentions them.
  

• N language hat on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 03:59am

  ingenious:
  A difficult word, used often in “wrong” senses (pertaining to “ingenuous”); the OED divides the meanings up as follows (I give only a few quotes):

  I Senses proper to this word.

• N john lauer on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 04:07am

  “[Jack and Tom] take much pleasure together, and I did most often see them at play together” — I (almost) hesitate to inquire why this is noteworthy, or what is implied. Just buddies?

• N mary on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 08:25am

  … a very ingenious one…

  If this letter was, as surmised, written in Latin, then Pepys’ comment possibly indicates that not only was it written in good Latin, but also that it took a suitable (perhaps wittily chosen) classical author for the model of its style.

• N Roger Arbor on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 08:33am

  Cromwell et al… still, IMHO, ‘right’, where the Royalists ‘wrong’. Reminds me of a saying learnt at school about the Civil War and its aftermath: “Parliamentarians, repulsive but right… Royalists, attractive but wrong”. Is it a spoiler to say that, by the time of James II, it’ll all end in tears?

• N Xjy on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 09:03am

  sins of the fathers
  Nothing known of genetic inheritance or psychological formation, just observation that similar traits run in families, very brutally stated.

• N Ruben on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 12:07pm

  Jeremiah 31,32
  “…”I will watch over them to build and to plant”, declares the Lord.
  “In those days they will not say again, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children teeth are set on edge”
  “But every one will die for his own iniquity…” etc, etc.
  It means that at the end of time no one will be blamed for crimes that others commited.
  But in the meantime the idea was intended to threat people: if you commit a crime, you will pay and your children too.

• N Stan on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 02:11pm

  (Fast day). The first time that this day hath been yet observed…
  after dinner I did pay him 30L.
  So did Sam not observe the fast then?

• N Paul L on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 03:07pm

  “Royalists, attractive but wrong”

  I think this is from the utterly brilliant 1066 And All That

• N M.Stolzenbach on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 03:58pm

  Stan asks about Pepys eating dinner upon a fast day.

  Eating less, or eating fish instead of meat, might be looked upon as satisfying the requirement.

  There seems to be an error in the quote from Evelyn’s diary, either his own, or an error in transcription or scanning. It says “And God, & honor the King” where one would expect the Scriptural quote from I Peter 2:17: “Fear God, honor the King.”

• N mary on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 05:08pm

  1066 and all that.

  The Roundheads were right but repulsive, the Royalists wrong but wromantic, as I recall. Sellar and Yeatman.

• N David A. Smith on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 08:01pm

  “wrong but wromantic”
  Mary, you’re correct, to which Sellar and Yeatman add, “Charles I was a Cavalier King and therefore had a small pointed beard, long flowing curls, and a large, flat, flowing hat and *gay attire*. The Roundheads, on the other hand, were clean-shaven and wore tall, conical hats, and *sombre garments*. Under these circumstances a Civil War was inevitable.”

• N David A. Smith on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 08:04pm

  “1066 and Sam Pepys”
  While I have the volume open, here are Sellar and Yeatman on Sam (pp 72-73):
  “Among the famous characters of this period were Samuel Pepys, who is memorable for keeping a Dairy and going to bed a great deal, and his wife Evelyn, who kept another memorable Dairy, but did not go to bed in it.”
  And no, I didn’t make any typing mistakes in the preceding ….

• N dirk on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 08:14pm

  “sins of the fathers”

  Ruben, may I counter with Exodus 20:5

  ””…I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me” (sorry, not the seventh generation - my memory was wrong there).

  Calvin commented on this (no, I’m not a Calvinist - this is merely for the argument’s sake):
  “…if it be not agreeable to our judgment that God should repay every one according to his deserts, and yet that He at the same time requires the sins of their fathers of the children, we should remember that His judgments are a great depth; and, therefore, if anything in His dealings is incomprehensible to us, we must bow to it with sobriety and reverence.”
  [Commentary on Pentateuch]
  From:
  http://www.faithtacoma.org/sermons/Hosea/hosea5.htm
  

• N Ruben on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 09:34pm

• N Ruben on Sat 31 Jan 2004, 09:39pm

• N Hic retearius on Sun 1 Feb 2004, 06:25am

• N Harry on Sun 1 Feb 2004, 10:23am

• N Conrad Z. Risher on Sun 1 Feb 2004, 03:35pm

  //Midrash On
  Exodus 20:5, et al. Another interpretation of this is that it is designed to prevent or alleviate defeatism. If you are impoverished because your father was jailed for a crime, for example, you should not bemoan your lot or beseech the Lord for special help, for He has already said it might happen; you must, instead, endeavour to overcome your unfortunate situation in life. This adds the point that just because you are paying for a sin doesn’t mean you committed one, which idea has its own value.
  // end Midrash

• N Jylaen on Mon 2 Feb 2004, 02:43pm

  I was a child in the USA in the 1960’s and my mother was Roman Catholic. She would often refer to my brother and I as ‘Roundheads’ when we were being naughty. It wasn’t until college that I learned what the term meant: she had no idea why she used it.

• N Glyn on Tue 3 Feb 2004, 10:53pm

  where my wife and she are lately come back again from being abroad, and seeing of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw hanged and buried at Tyburn.

  Does this mean that the women had some spare time, and decided that this would be an enjoyable day out???

• N dirk on Wed 4 Feb 2004, 03:14am

  “where my wife and she are lately come back again from being”

  Not unlikely… A spectacle of this kind was bound to draw spectators - men and women alike.

• N vincent on Wed 4 Feb 2004, 03:16am

  Glyn: Not only was the boss of the house enjoying traipsing around the places of pleasure. There was no one to keep tabs on the mistress, as I’m sure he said leaving to whet his whistle, he may have told ‘herself’ that he was partaking of vitals at …. especialy now he has a few extra coppers in in his purse.
  There are many occasions in the past, she was else where, not waiting for the hungary man demanding a 3 course meal, he has mentioned just getting some moustrap and bread. [ Be nice if some one would tabulate the times he was out at other places imbibing and and indulging in some speciallity of the house.]

• N dirk on Wed 4 Feb 2004, 03:49am

  Glyn - “Be nice if some one would tabulate…”

  There exists a searchable “database of the meals of Samuel Pepys” on the web:
  http://www.astext.com/history/mealticket_sp.html

• N Michael Robinson on Mon 7 Apr 2008, 05:07am

  “(Fast day). The first time that this day hath been yet observed: …”

  A form of common prayer, to be used upon the thirtieth of January, being the anniversary-day appointed by act of Parliament for fasting and humiliation, to implore the mercy of God, that neither the guilt of that sacred, and innocent bloud, nor those other sinns by which God was provoked to deliver up both us, and our King, into the hands of cruel and unreasonable men, may at any time hereafter be visited upon us, or our posterity. Published by His Majestie’s direction.
  London : printed by John Bill, printer to the King’s most Excellent Majesty, 1661.

  [64] p. ; 4⁰. Wing (2nd ed., 1994), C4113