Friday 30 August 1661

Annotations

• N RexLeo on Mon 30 Aug 2004, 11:47pm

  ”.. a pretty man; I showed him no great countenance, to avoyd further acquaintance.”

  Jealous, aren’t we Sam?

• N daniel on Mon 30 Aug 2004, 11:50pm

  Lord Somersett
  indeed, it would seem so. It might simply be that this shows that Liz has social contacts outside her hubbie’s circle.

• N Bob T on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 12:53am

  to avoyd further aquaintance.
  Jealousy, maybe. It also shows that Sam feels a lot more secure about himself, and doesn’t have to bother with people that he doesn’t like. Would he have done this three years ealier?

• N Australian Susan on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 12:56am

  “up to my Lady

• N Eric Walla on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 03:17am

  With no explanation offered (as he has done in previous entries) I would think that Sam and Elizabeth have gone to the Wardrobe with the idea in mind of eating with the children—they may both miss them.

  As far as the son of Lord Somersett: is Sam perhaps projecting his own behavior on Elizabeth and what her thoughts might be about “pretty men?”

• N vicente on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 03:59am

  ‘my wife end I to’
  ‘end’ trust just a scan problem

  ————
  “…French comedy, which was so ill done, and the scenes and company and every thing else so nasty and out of order and poor, that I was sick all the while in my mind to be there…”

  I wonder what he doth mean, I am fairly sure it is not the language[may be wifey complained ?] Maybe be bad acting? doubt it. The In crowd not back at court and showing off at the thertar [darlin’][teatro] from the Estates and not yet season for showing off the latest available daughters with Dowries and fashions, to be shown around for improving bloodlines and cash flow. I do think he was veddy upset by this preety boy, [never made his mark?] laying on the french savoire faire too thick.
  He does seem,that he is no longer fooled by titils or fake aires and Fake graces. Just the other day, he no longer he shrivels up by bad comments of his betters.

• N Mary on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 06:21am

  “the French comedy … so ill done”

  According to L&M footnote, this was played at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, probably a performance of ‘The Marriage of Orpheus and Eurydice’ presented by a French company under Jean Channoveau. The first performance by a company of foreign actors recorded after the Restoration.

  The farce would have been a humorous little playlet, given after the main drama.

  We could, of course, take Pepys at his word; it was a thoroughly bad performance, poorly presented. However, he seems to have stuck it out, presumably for Elizabeth’s sake. She, poor soul, will have had a wretched afternoon, either because the play was really bad, or because Sam has ruined what enjoyment she had of it by his adverse criticism.

• N PHE on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 08:33am

  “I showed him no great countenance, to avoyd further acquaintance”
  I presume the reason for this was that he didn’t like the idea of his wife developing an acquaintance with another man - for various possible reasons such as jealousy and Sam’s own pride in that a ‘wife’ (in those times) should not have male friends however innocent the relationship. This is an example of the unique nature of Sam’s diaries. As a relatively minor personal thought, you wonder why he bothered mentioning it in the diary. However, it is of interest to us for two main reasons. First, it tells us something of Sam’s character, and second, it is the sort of thought that many of us have in our heads, but which we would never normally mention to anyone else - and often not even admit to ourselves. In this case, Sam has told ‘us’ - his diary readers - a thought that he would not have discussed with any one in his own life. There are, of course, many other similar examples throughout the diary.

• N Wim van der Meij on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 10:58am

  That is just how one’s day can go: you’re having a good time and then something happens and your mood changes.
  Sam is exactly pointing out what is triggering this: a rotten play and his wife is meeting an acquaintance she knew before him and whom he dislikes (because of jealousy?).
  How human.

• N E on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 11:53am

  What a wife should do
  I imagine the ideas of how a proper wife should behave had changed fairly drastically during the Civil War and Commonwealth years with husbands charging off to the war, or getting arrested, or suddenly going into hiding or even years of exile. No doubt other male relatives usually got involved in runing the household etc (particularly if there were valuable assets, but to be fair also if a family was left destitute), but surely there was an increase in the degree to which many women had to deal directly with the outside world.

  I wonder to what extent the laxer morality of the Restoration period was a consequence of fractured family life in the previous years?

• N Rex Gordon on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 02:00pm

  “I showed him no great countenance …”

  How rare a diarist it is who will readily admit that he was deliberately rude and unsociable! (All the more remarkable if you think, as I do, that Sam intended his diary to be read by future generations.) Jealousy, no doubt. But probably envy, too, as this “pretty man” must have been far more pleasing to look upon than our friend Sam.

• N Ann on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 02:11pm

  I’m glad to see that Elizabeth gets to go to the theatre so often now, when she never went the first 18 months or so of the diary. I’m trying to account for this. At first, I thought it was because Sam is moving up in the world, so Liz doesn’t have as many drudging household chores. But, since in the last week, they lost both Pall and Jane, this hardly makes sense. Is Sam simply enjoying her company more now?

• N Stolzi on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 04:06pm

  Australian Susan,
  they didn’t know about the blood clots then, of course.

  In fact, the common name for this period, at the time, was “lying-in.”

• N Glyn on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 04:33pm

  Ann’s raised an interesting point: Sam has taken Elizabeth to the theatre three times in the past eight days, which must be more frequently than he ever has done before.

  (Small Spoiler) I thought that Pall had been given a day’s notice to leave with her parents for Brampton, but apparently she is still living with Sam and Elizabeth at present.

• N Jenny Doughty on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 05:18pm

  Health Note: Shouldn

• N BradW on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 06:10pm

  There’s “confined” and then there’s “abed”.

  Maybe Lady Sandwich got the same advice that my wife did from our pediatrician: “Might as well plan to be on the baby’s sleep schedule for the first few weeks, and don’t try to have a normal life, even if you feel healthy enough. They sleep enough you can still get some things done around the house, and get 8 hours sleep out of every 24, if you just don’t insist on your pre-baby time schedules.” It also helps the mom be there to nurse on demand. Sam didn’t mention any wet nurse, (although I suppose the Montagu’s could afford one.)

• N A. De Araujo on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 08:17pm

  “my Lady’s bedside”
  I don’t think they knew about post partum depression either,although it existed since there is a physiological cause; it was probably considered normal,although some infanticides could have been explained by it.

• N Kevin Peter on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 11:10pm

  “I showed him no great countenance, to avoyd further acquaintance.”

  I took this to mean that Sam himself wasn’t interested in making further aquaintance with the man, rather than not wanting his wife to know him. Perhaps he found the man uninteresting and didn’t wanted to be overly familiar with him, which could mean future periods of boredom and unpleasantness. After all, I’m sure he wished he weren’t so well acquainted with the Joyces or Balty, whose presence he clearly does not enjoy.

• N Lawrence on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 11:34pm

  Myself being a fairly young man and married. I would find any good looking fellow that I don’t know that stops and enjoys a light hearted chat with my wife, would makes me a little jealous, “wouldn’t it?”

• N Australian Susan on Tue 31 Aug 2004, 11:43pm

  “lying in”
  Yes, my Lady Montagu is enjoying what could be afforded by ladies of leisure, but it “is” longer than the usual time of a couple of weeks, which is why I was expressing concern. She almost certainly would have had a wet nurse. When Lucy Hutchinson took to feeding her own children (slightly earlier than this) this was taken to be *most* eccentric behaviour. She also had to be an independent lady as “E” refers to during these “fractured times” and is to be muich admired, I think.
  [personal peeve: I would have *loved* 2 weeks in bed with each of mine! Women are expected to be superwomen even more these days and get back to work when babe is 6 weeks lest they lose their place on the career ladder]

• N dirk on Wed 1 Sep 2004, 02:07am

  “Elizabeth gets to go to the theatre so often now” - re Ann

  Maybe that’s because she’s feeling better now. Untill recently the diary entries frequently referred to Liz not feeling well or having medical problems to cope with.
  

• N vicente on Wed 1 Sep 2004, 02:48am

  ‘Elizabeth gets to go to the theatre so often now’
  I doth think it could be a touch of “‘wot’s’ good for the Gander maybe good for goose too”, and she is making herself heard, or just may be Sam is having a touch of conscience see tomorrows long entry.

• N Pauline on Wed 1 Sep 2004, 04:31am

• N Pedro on Wed 6 Feb 2008, 11:02pm

  On the 30th August 1661…

  Allin nears the Goodwin after his voyage from Constantinople…

  “The wind was WSW. A stiff gale, and in the narrow we sunk our longboat and overwelmed before we could get our topsails down and broke both her fasts and one poor man in her, and by great chance the boatswain’s yawl was made fast astern the longboat with one in her, so the man got into the yawl and our ketch took her up with the two men in her, but lost our longboat, grap-iron and hawser and all her oars, windlass and davit. Before we brought St. Peter’s Church upon Broadstairs, which is the mark that you are clear of the north head of the Goodwin, the wind was WNW, and stood a mile further and wended.”

  “The marks to come through the Gulls between the Goodwin and Brake is the lighthouse upon South Foreland upon a broad valley and a church upon the third valley and you have St. Peter’s steeple or Church upon Ramsgate, then you are clear of the north head of the Brake, and St. Peter’s church upon Broadstairs, then you are clear of the north end of the Goodwin and may run to sea what you please…”

  (The Journals of Sir Thomas Allin edited by RC Anderson)