Thursday 2 May 1661

Annotations

• N dirk on Mon 3 May 2004, 01:19am. Flag this

  “the room where the Duke of Buckingham was killed by Felton”

  This story is also (very romantically) retold in “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas. It’s actually a vital part of the plot…
  

• N dirk on Mon 3 May 2004, 01:20am. Flag this

  “there we made the sale of the old provisions”

  So that’s the business that brought Sam to Portsmouth…
  

• N dirk on Mon 3 May 2004, 01:50am. Flag this

  the murder of the Duke of Buckingham

  House & memorial in Portsmouth:
  http://www.memorials.inportsmouth.co.uk/old-portsmouth/buckingham.htm
  http://www.hants.gov.uk/hampshiretreasures/vol11/page222.html

  More info on the Duke:
  http://www.thevickerage.worldonline.co.uk/ecivil/george_villiers.htm
  http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/jamesi.htm

  Eyewitness account:
  

• N Vicente on Mon 3 May 2004, 03:07am. Flag this

  Long watery history doth Ports mouth have, it were called Magnus Portus by the Latins.
  Don’t forget the trip is to sack some sailors, to pay off ships. ‘Tis a common problem, redundacy,layoff,sacking, get rid of the layabouts, then when we need them,we know where to find them {besotted no doubt}, don’t we, I wonder how many, get chits in lieu of cash?
  Re: Felton was he a villian or hero?
  I mean to say, A Duke did not deserve his cumuppence now, or doth he ?
  Are thee now, all Royalists that be reading this, no whigs listening to affluence talking.
  Sam, doling out the Goodies,[no dole for letgoes], who is really paying for this largess.

• N JBailey on Mon 3 May 2004, 04:22am. Flag this

  And I wonder who is buying these old provisions and what shape they are in?

  Surely they must be old, stale, and rotten if they were not adequate even for poorly paid sailors.

• N Australian Susan on Mon 3 May 2004, 08:36am. Flag this

  “old provisions”
  I took this to mean naval provisons especially for onboard ship (ship’s biscuit and salted pork in barrels)which were no longer needed as the ships were being laid off.
  They could be old, but this type of ration is made to last. Here in Australia, isolated early settlements used to be given naval supplies of salt pork and biscuit to last three years and were then expected to live off the land for the rest. No wonder scurvy became rife!

• N George on Mon 3 May 2004, 08:38am. Flag this

  Long watery history doth Ports mouth have, it were called Magnus Portus by the Latins
  Now known as “Pompey” Where does that come from?

• N Pedro. on Mon 3 May 2004, 10:12am. Flag this

  Pompey

  I have always thought it came from the naval jargon, short for Portsmouth Point (Pom.P), as many terms from the forces are commonly used, for example “Blighty” for Britain.
  If not convinced take your pick from;

  http://www.royalnavalmuseum.org/library/factsheets/origins_of_the_nicknames.htm

• N AlanB on Mon 3 May 2004, 11:19am. Flag this

  Pehaps Our Sam should heed Charlie’s ‘Great Uncle Bucks’, who prior to the stabbing pain experienced in his heart whilst in Pompey, had been in port to ‘try to pacify mutinous sailors who were clamouring for their pay ….’ Sam needs somewhere secure to sleep else he might be ‘much troubled’

• N JWB on Mon 3 May 2004, 04:46pm. Flag this

  Sale of provisions…
  Note Sam and Creed are Sandwich men and Sandwich to shortly sail to Port. and Tangiers. Sale of the stale provisions, I surmise, to partially provide for pruchase fresh stores. The money kept safely under Sandwich’s thumb, no leeking, with reliable Sam (& Creed).

• N tc on Mon 3 May 2004, 08:07pm. Flag this

  Then we and our wives all to see…

  A little business trip with the wives- take care of the business first (and how Sam is coming to appreciate the deference shown him by the Naval rank and file!) with a nice dinner for the officers; and then collect the ladies for some sightseeing…not all that different from today.

  As for the old provisions…well, maybe someone very very hungry would want to eat from a three year old barrel of salt pork or salt beef (or salt horse, as it rightfully came to be known)…but not me! Or how about a couple of barrels of biscuits long past their prime? In such a case, always choose between the lesser of two weevils…(O’Brian’s pun from the mouth of Maturin)

• N tc on Mon 3 May 2004, 08:20pm. Flag this

  Old provisions (continued…)

  Of course as I think about it, a three-year old barrel of salt meat might actually be considered pretty fresh. How about a thirteen year old barrel? Or a thirty year old barrel? What was the “Best if used by…” date on a barrel of salt meat in Sam’s day, or today for that matter? (Calling Spam fans for info here)

  One shudders to contemplate how long some barrels must have banged around in the holds of ships if the ship’s purser didn’t “rotate the stock”.

  In addition, there are many stories about unscrupulous operators who deceived, who did exploit the scene and situation by buying old provisions and then either putting the old meat in new barrels, or relabelling the old barrels themselves, and selling them back to the Navy. They could be myths of the provisioning yard, but I doubt it..

• N helena murphy on Mon 3 May 2004, 08:30pm. Flag this

  A duke deserve his “cumuppence”? Let history speak for itself. John Felton was an unemployed naval officer when he assassinated Buckingham.The previous year he had begged the duke for the command of a company.
  “Without such a position I cannot live!”he claimed.
  “In that case,you had better go hang,” the duke coolly replied, words which of course came back to haunt him when he recognised his assassin in Portsmouth.
  Buckingham was handsome,cultivated,cunning and intelligent ,but he lacked great intellect. He was not on a par with the great European statesmen of the day such as the Spanish Count de Olivares, Cardinal Richelieu,and later Cardinal Mazarin. Both the latter could evoke and be guided by the virtue of humility when confronted with the lower orders,or as Kipling put it centuries later ,to walk with kings and never lose the common touch.

• N Pedro. on Mon 3 May 2004, 10:15pm. Flag this

  Cardinal Richelieu,and later Cardinal Mazarin.

  For extensive discussion on their characters, from History Today see;

  http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1373/n4_v46/18183097/p1/article.jhtml

• N A. Hamilton on Tue 4 May 2004, 12:37am. Flag this

  Worm-eaten biscuits and mouldy salt porkk — were these not the sparks of mutiny on some Navy missions?

• N Australian Susan on Tue 4 May 2004, 02:38am. Flag this

  Old provisons cont.
  Following on from what tc said: Naval ratings became notorious for their (usually well-founded) suspicions about their rations. In the 19th century, tinned meat was introduced to the Navy.The sailors were unhappy about this: they wanted to know exactly what was in the cans. Soon a rumour spread that it was human meat. This arose from a then popular press story about a young girl who had disappeared, but whose corpse was never found. The sailors soon decided they knew what had happened to the body - it was in their cans of meat! The press referred to the girl as “Sweet Fanny Addams”, so the Naval ratings took to saying tehir rations were “Sweet Fanny Addams” or “Sweet F.A.” Thus a cliche was born. I think…!
  The sailors wwere quite right to be suspicious of cans. The first expedition to be so provisioned was the one to discover the NW Passage led by Franklin (ex-Gov. of Tasmania). The entire expedition perished of lead poisoning from the solder sealing the cans. Sweet F.A. indeed.

• N Linda Camidge on Tue 3 May 2011, 12:28am. Flag this

  Or possible from botulism (the Navy having taken a ridiculously low tender for the tinned food). Again, take your pick.