Monday 18 February 1660/61

Annotations

• N vincent on Wed 18 Feb 2004, 11:40pm

  The good? dinner or home alone?”…with a very good dinner, only my wife and I, which is not yet very usual…” wot is one to think?

• N shelley on Wed 18 Feb 2004, 11:49pm

  Speaking of Cardinal Mazarin: he’ll be dead inside a fortnight. I wonder if Pepys will mention it?

• N vincent on Wed 18 Feb 2004, 11:51pm

  The fear of power ending up in a far away land and the money following or was this just plain prejudice based, yet Elizabeth seems to have leanings to RC,she being brainwashed in a Convent? “…he being a professed friend to the Catholiques…”

• N vincent on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 12:00am

  Interesting character is Mazarin while England had Cromwell; France had Mazarin [he had a nice front man {power, 5-year-old Louis XIV who became king in 1643}[1642 1661]} to blame the failures on].
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Mazarin
  

• N Joshua Reynolds on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 12:00am

  Lustring, the note hastily assures is, is the more common spelling of the glossy silken fabric Pepys calls “lutestring.” No 17th-century thong, this!

  Wish someone would lay out 40s. (in 2004 equivalent with decimalization) on me, even if in white gloves more befitting the White Rabbit.
  

• N vincent on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 12:25am

  40 s was 2 quid and young maid got 3 quid a year, so in terms of work it would be 8 months work for a modern chamber maid [income about 5000? pound or so ] but in terms of gold; then about 150 quid [$300 an oz., US of ‘oro’ being 410 Dollars an oz pure.]. It[silk] was not for the Vulga mob, ye could get gibbeted for robbing goods worth 5 shillings or at least if yer were preety branded T.

• N Eric Walla on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 01:32am

  I can’t remember the rules here …

  … can we censure Sam for giving away the plot here? I almost hear ominous mood music behind that crack about the Duke of York .

• N daniel on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 01:33am

  it is a bit interesting to hear Sam’s opinion about the prince of York considering that later in life he would end up in the Tower on account to his fealty to the then recently ousted king.

• N dirk on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 02:35am

  Hortense Mancini

  In 1660/1661 this girl was 15 years old! Later - between 1664 and 1685 - she was to become one of Charles’s best known mistresses…

  On Hortense:
  “Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin (born circa 1645). Briefly the chief rival of both Nell Gwyn and Louise de K

• N Andrew Hamilton on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 02:40am

  Forty shillings for seven pairs of gloves, and later a purchase of lutestring

  A high end shopping trip. As Vincent points out, the gloves alone were worth 8 months of maid service — or, I note, worth slightly more than one nice hat (35 shillings from some weeks ago). Here again we see the anomaly between the economy of Pepys and ours. Some luxury goods cost about the same as today, but were accessible to a far smaller clientele, due to the wage structure.In some ways this is surprising, since today millions have the purchasing power only available to thousands in Pepys’s day. I note that in my adult lifetime truly limited luxury goods — a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem for example — have risen in price a hundredfold while all other goods have gone up only ten times.

• N vincent on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 02:43am

  Eric : “[if]should come”: I do think that there was plenty of speculation of, and rumours of, on whom should be running the country, I do not think SP had clairvoiyance but was following the rules of succession on whom could and under what particular conditions the
  Divine rights could be imposed for leading the country.

• N Susan on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 05:02am

  We all know that Catherine of Braganza proved infertile and Charles had no legit. heir, but at this time ,with Charles still unmarried, the presumption for most people was he would have heirs before he died and James would not be King. Charles had illegitimate offspring, so poeple would have expected him to have legitimate ones once he was wed. I think it is very interesting that Pepys at this time is expressing the wish that the Catholic leaning James should not be King, when surely it would have been thought by most people that this was a remote possibility. It seems it was such a strongly felt view that people expressed their fears, even for an unlikely situation.

• N vincent on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 05:14am

  re: silk : the weather down in Essex was not conducive to the wearing of silk : From Josselyn country”…15[feb]. a winters day. for cold winds snow, sleet, hail, rain, bad weather(.) formerly heard of the welfare of our friends. ….”
  “…Feb: 17. Snow, cold wintery weather, a nip for our pleasant warm winter before. …”
  http://linux02.lib.cam.ac.uk/earlscolne/diary/70012920.htm
  

• N Xjy on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 08:27am

  Sam’s expenses and lifestyle
  Less and less a man of the people, if he ever was. No everyman, our Sammy. The humanity he has is obviously despite the conscious workings of his mind.

• N mary on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 11:00am

  Valentine’s Day gifts.

  I don’t know who the ‘lutestring’ is for, but the gloves are most likely to be a Valentine’s gift for Mrs. Martha. At this rate, no wonder people were careful in their choice of Valentine.

• N mary on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 11:02am

  Careless reading

  Mrs. Martha appears to have bought the fabric for herself … sorry.

• N Alan Bedford on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 01:42pm

  “…I did give them Rhenish wine and sugar…”

  Rhine wine - sweetened? Of course, the seventeenth-century palate was not quite the same as ours. I think of that apres-ski classic, gluhwein, but made with white wine, and without the cinnamon and cloves.

• N Scott on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 02:43pm

  Are we sure the gloves were for Sam’s Valentine or were they for his wife. I can read it either way. Doesn’t the gift seem late and excessive for a Valentine? It has been my experience that Valentine gifts are expected on the 14th not the 18th. Maybe the title of Valentine last more than a day.

• N Barbara on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 03:02pm

  Pepys’ Valentine would be the first woman he set his eyes on (often by arrangement) on Valentine’s day. He would later buy her the customary present of gloves, in this case several pairs. His wife would expect her gloves to come from her own Valentine. Our Valentine traditions (card from admirer, known or unknown, flowers, dinner out on 14th Feb) can’t really be compared.

• N M.Stolzenbach on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 03:05pm

  A Biting Louse

  Following the link for Mlle Mancini, I linked further to
  http://www.okima.com/cast/fashion.html
  on Restoration fashions. Here several quotes from Pepys, and the salutary reminder that be the fashions as fine as they may, even the upper crust of the day put up with conditions which we today would never endure.

• N Ruben on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 04:08pm

  Suzan:
  “it is very interesting that Pepys at this time is expressing the wish that the Catholic leaning James should not be King, when surely it would have been thought by most people that this was a remote possibility.”

  SP had his own infertility problem at home.
  “we are married a few years,…no, no children yet…”
  His personal problem reflected in his thinking.
  

• N Glyn on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 04:21pm

  Not that remote a possibility, at least in the short term. Charles was as likely as anyone else to die in the next year or so, from disease, accident or illness in which case James would be king. I doubt anyone seriously thought that he would still be first in line 25 years later.

  By the way, it’s interesting how many British kings since that date were originally 2nd or third brothers, for example Georges 3 and 4, William 4, and the most recent being the Queen’s father George 6. Monarchically speaking, it’s always useful to have a spare - Prince Harry becoming king is still a possibility.

• N mary on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 04:28pm

  Gloves as tokens of ‘love’

  There was another custom according to which a woman might acquire gloves as a token of love, or at least of respect. It may now have died out, but was being practised in England until the 1960s. On 29th February (i.e. once every four years) a woman might propose marriage to a man and, if the proposal was declined, could demand a pair of gloves as consolation for her disappointment.

• N Emilio on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 04:34pm

  “the niece of the Prince de Ligne”

  An L&M footnote reveals that the lady everyone in Sam’s time is talking about is the Prince’s sister rather than his niece. Envoys from Venice and Florence also wrote about the rumor, and the Venetian had already figured out it wasn’t true. “It was the departure of the Earl of Bristol to the continent on a supposedly secret matrimonial mission—in fact to Parma—which seems to have given rise to these rumors.”

  The prince is Claude Lamoral I, 3rd Prince de Ligne, 1618-1679. Information about him on the Web is pretty scarce, but fortunately he’s shown up here before -
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/09/01/index.php

  Here’s a picture of him:
  http://www.portrait-hille.de/kap07/Bild.asp?catnr1=1125&seqnr=1782
  

• N Grahamt on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 04:39pm

  Not wanting James as King:
  Remember that the life of kings could be “cut short”, literally in Charles 1st’s case. Pepys witnessed this, so it must colour his opinions. Just in the 14 months of the diary we have seen huge changes in the way the country is run. Who is to say it couldn’t change again?

• N Emilio on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 05:12pm

  Catholics in charge

  If everyone is concerned now about James’s Catholic leanings, it’s easy to see why a crisis will come when James marries a Catholic wife and actually becomes Catholic around 1669. What with Queen Mary, Guy Fawkes, and the rest, there are certain reasons for worry, and I think the general fear is that the Pope would ‘really’ be in charge of the country with a Catholic in the top seat.

  After all that effort to break away from Rome last century, not many want to go back.
  

• N David A. Smith on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 06:34pm

  “but yet am gladder that it should be so”
  Even at this early stage in Charles II’s reign, Sam knows what everyone at court knows:
  Everything that the King is — witty, shrewd, tolerant, politically deft, level-headed, charming — the Duke of York is not. And though Charles *could* yet have a male heir, it’s a long way from a heir to a throne, and Regencies are notoriously uncertain times ….

• N vincent on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 07:14pm

  It is rumoured even now, that some years that this [Rhine] wine is doctored with Sugar “…I did give them Rhenish wine and sugar,…”

• N StewartMcI on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 07:25pm

  [It is rumoured even now, that some years that this [Rhine] wine is doctored with Sugar

• N vincent on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 07:41pm

  Dining, dinner : here is a mid-day meal {is not called lunch by the moderns?} wonder what the they called the meal at night ?

• N Susanna on Thu 19 Feb 2004, 08:23pm

  What did they call the meal at night?

  Probably supper.
  

• N The Bishop on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 12:00am

  At this point, the real concern over a Catholic king is that it would almost certainly plunge the country back into civil war. Most Englishmen are not ill-disposed towards monarchy - which is why the restoration was possiblet - but popery is another matter entirely. They would certainly take up arms to prevent it.

• N Josh on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 01:47am

  Somewheres way back The Naming of Meals was hashed over, and in the U.S. backwoods (both hill country and flatland) dinner is still eaten in the middle of the day and supper at night. And probably other places.

• N dirk on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 02:27am

  dinner & supper

  If my French is still worth anything, in that language both terms (diner & souper) still exist and both refer to an evening meal - “diner” being the usual meal, and “souper” a late evening meal usually taken after staying out later than usual.

  But as I said, my French has been a little rusty lately…
  

• N roberto on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 02:45am

  Another picture of Hortense Mancini

  http://www.houseofwaterdancer.com/images/royalty/mancini-hortense.JPG

  PWC.
  

• N dirk on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 02:58am

  Hortense Mancini

  A “hot babe” apparently…

• N vincent on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 03:27am

  What they call the meal at night? Probably supper. Susanna you are right; on 5th of Feb 60/61 he did say :
  “…to supper, being very hungry for want of dinner, and so to bed….”
  Search of the diary and annos ;turns up so much information.

• N Kevin Sheerstone on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 08:54am

  Valentine’s Day gifts

  On the 14th. I commented that Sam was fortunate that he didn’t feel compelled to waste money on a stupid card. He should have been so lucky.

• N Jim on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 10:36am

  Re: Dirk’s posting of a link to a picture of Hortense Mancini as a “hot babe” — *sigh* — I just have to say this: that picture brings to mind the recent U.S. Super Bowl halftime exhibition. Yet another connection between our world and Sam’s.

• N Jim on Fri 20 Feb 2004, 10:38am

  Uh, I meant Roberto’s link (see above) and Dirk’s comment.

• N AnferTuto on Fri 27 Jul 2007, 04:26pm

  Hola faretaste
  mekodinosad