Friday 1 March 1660/61

Annotations

• N A. De Araujo on Mon 1 Mar 2004, 11:24pm

  “my great expense at the Coronacion,against which all provide” plus

• N Glyn on Mon 1 Mar 2004, 11:27pm

  I saw Betterton do the Bond man the best

  But most now think Brosnan is the best Bond

  The City of London’s motto is “Domine Dirige nos” - does anyone have a translation?

• N Peter on Mon 1 Mar 2004, 11:34pm

  Glyn : “O Lord, give us direction”

• N vincent on Mon 1 Mar 2004, 11:51pm

  “

• N vincent on Mon 1 Mar 2004, 11:55pm

  Anxiety: Best bib and tucker and Do I need Ermine? the cost? Where do I get the ever ready?
  “…I went home and sat up late, spending my thoughts how to get money to bear me out in my great expense at the Coronacion, against which all provide, and scaffolds setting up in every street. I had many designs in my head to get some, but know not which will take. To bed….”
  scheming to get the cash? Oh Dear, wot a to do?

• N dirk on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 04:06am

  “We fear he is to go to sea (…). But we wish that he could get his 4000

• N Susan on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 06:10am

  Sam was genuinely fond of “my lady” and knew the hardships she had gone through during the Civil War unrest. He is probably concerned that she should have some security and funds to draw on if her husband is going away in such uncertainty. Sam seems to be trying to keep to his Lenten fast, but surely going to plays is not a suitable Lenten pastime! It is very endearing that he should set down so honestly his schemings and ponderings after ready cash!

• N The Bishop on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 08:19am

  Massinger’s Bondman
  http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/massinger/massbio.htm

  “Massinger also wrote at least two independent plays at this time for the Queen of Bohemia’s Men at the Phoenix. The Bondman, which criticized the Duke of Buckingham, was acted before the court in December 1623, and won
  him a slight stipend from Sir Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery…”

  The play is about a slave revolt in ancient Syracuse. ‘Bondman’ was a term for an indentured servant.

• N bruce on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 08:34am

  “my great expense at the Coronacion”: at this time would the cost of the Coronation be borne by Parliament, or by the King himself, or by gifts from potential benefciaries such as Sam? Is Sam looking to cut a dash himself, so that he will be noticeable, or is he making a contribution to the general cost in the hope that it will be recognised by the King and the favour returned in terms of security of tenure etc at a later date?

• N Rich Merne on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 09:13am

  It seems that you had to set up your own scaffold or viewing platform and it would have been fairly elaborate and decorated. In Sam’s position he might well have had to make it sufficient to also hold a number of guests, family, or ‘hangers on’, hence his fretting about the expence which it would entail. A bit stingy really, and in the event he didn’t have his own personalised one anyway. Sam had the odd capacity to be stingy and yet surprisingly generous by times. At the occasions of his generosity he usually moaned to his diary about it anyway.

• N Sid C on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 09:21am

  Sam calls his mid-day meal, dinner. In the north most people still eat dinner in the afternoon and have their tea in the evening. Anyone got any ideas on when dinner became an evening meal in the south?

• N Pat F on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 09:51am

  I’ve been reading the entries for some time now and, well, does Sam ever do any work? Well, OK, perhaps he does mention work regularly, but he seems to be able to take time off in abundance!

  Wish I could wander off to a play mid-afternoon!

  Is it simply that day to day work is to dull to mention in a diary? Or has he risen so high that he is now effectively a man of leisure?

• N Kevin Sheerstone on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 10:15am

  Sid C: brunch/lunch/tea/supper/dinner

  Good luck in your quest for an explanation of these terms.

  At home, in England, I had lunch and tea. At boarding school I had dinner and supper. At university I had lunch and dinner. Here in Canada I have lunch and supper, although if I were to go out to supper I would probably call it dinner. As I said, good luck!

• N Matthew on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 10:50am

  Dinner:
  In “Pamela” by Samuel Richardson (1740) the husband says that he has an old fashioned habit of dining at two and implies that his fellow gentry are inclined to wait till 4,5 or 6 o’clock. Perhaps dinner turned from a midday meal to an evening one in some parts of the country by gradually getting later.

• N Barbara on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 11:23am

  Pepys certainly does work, sometimes very early in the morning and sometimes in the evening as well as during the day. He doesn’t go into detail unless something important occurred. There wasn’t the pattern of “working hours” - they arranged between themselves when to work at the Navy Office, and fitted everything else in where convenient. He would have put in considerable extra hours when visiting naval shipyards etc.

• N Kevin Sheerstone on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 11:41am

  Re. above, Sid C - I forgot to mention “tiffin” which, in “British India” was a refreshment taken at about 4 pm. - I was very young at the time, but I remember the term. I think it can be equated with “tea”.

• N Christo on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 12:44pm

  How dinner-time has changed down the centuries, and much else about the meal, are explained in ‘Much Depends on Dinner’ by Margaret Visser. www.margaretvisser.com/muchdepends.html

• N Rex Gordon on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 01:55pm

  Government working hours …
  probably weren’t onerous in Sam’s day. In our country (the USA), as recently as the 1930s not even the President had to put in a “full” day, as we understand it now. Coolidge and Hoover had a leisurely schedule, a custom revived in the 1980s by a fellow inexplicably nicknamed “The Great Communicator”. (The one we have now treats himself to extended vacations, even when contriving reasons for unnecessary wars or exporting the few good manufacturing jobs we have left.)

• N Sid C on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 02:25pm

  Dinner: thanks for the response guys. You’re right, Kevin, it is probably a stone best left unturned. It seems that Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, may have started the confusion by introducing afternoon tea in early nineteenth century which led to the introduction of high tea which became the main meal of the day for the working and farming communities, which led to…

  I think I’ll take the, ’ a rose by any other name…’ attitude and leave it there.

• N wyne on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 03:03pm

  I love reading Pepys each morning. Getting away from today’s conflicts and concerns. Starting off my day with a few moments in his world, 17th century London. Regarding “government working hours” above, I hope that we can keep modern political rants out of it.

• N Ann on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 05:05pm

  Is is my imagination, or is mama a bit of a hypochondriac? Seems every time ole Sammy goes to visit, she’s sick. What’s up?

• N Hic Retearius on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 05:49pm

  Kevin and Wyne

  Kevin, yes. Victoria, that Outpost of Empire in Canada, understood the same terms including tiffin.

  Further to Wyne

• N helena murphy on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 07:40pm

  I am surprised that “The Bondman” which criticises the Duke of Buckingham should be played before the Caroline court where the said duke held great sway as the king’s right hand man and favourite. It is true that Buckingham was highly unpopular in England due to the failure of his foreign policies in continental Europe and his ignominious defeat at La Rochelle. His unpopularity led to his assassination in 1628 by John Felton,a former officer of his to whom he had refused promotion!On the other hand the said performance indicates the acceptance of a certain level of intellectual and artistic freedom in court entertainment at this time as long as the king and queen were not themselves directly criticised.

• N David A. Smith on Tue 2 Mar 2004, 08:24pm

  “to go speedily into the country, but to what end we know not”
  Aside from the various mortal risks of ocean voyage, there’s the possibility of a war brewing, and Relations Are Unsettled Between the Restored but Improverished King and Chastened but Still Tax-Authorizing Parliament (sounds like the playbill for a 17th century whodunit, eh?). Sam’s apprehension is all of a piece for Sandwich, the household, and himself.

• N Peter on Thu 4 Mar 2004, 10:55am

  Pauline, I agree. I had visions of a gadget-filled ox cart, courtesy of “Little Llewellyn” (who obviously played a lower-case “q”).

• N corlu on Thu 4 Mar 2004, 08:27pm

  In Shanghai in the 1920’s and 1930’s, ‘tiffin’ meant what we now call lunch, eaten anywhere from 12 to 2 p.m.

• N E on Sat 6 Mar 2004, 01:26pm

  More information on “tiffin”…
  …can be found at the World Wide Words website.
  http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-tif1.htm