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Thursday 17 October 1661

At the office all the morning, at noon my wife being gone to my coz Snow’s with Dr. Thomas Pepys and my brother Tom to a venison pasty (which proved a pasty of salted pork); by appointment I went with Captain David Lambert to the Exchequer, and from thence by appointment he and I were to meet at a cook’s shop to dine. But before I went to him Captain Cock, a merchant I had not long known, took me to the Sun tavern and gave me a glass of sack, and being a man of great observation and repute, did tell me that he was confident that the Parliament, when it comes the next month to sit again, would bring trouble with it, and enquire how the King had disposed of offices and money, before they will raise more; which, I fear, will bring all things to ruin again. Thence to the Cook’s and there dined with Captain Lambert and his father-in-law, and had much talk of Portugall; from whence he is lately come, and he tells me it is a very poor dirty place; I mean the City and Court of Lisbon; that the King is a very rude and simple fellow; and, for reviling of somebody a little while ago, and calling of him cuckold, was run into … . with a sword and had been killed, had he not told them that he was their king. That there are there no glass windows, nor will they have any; which makes sport among our merchants there to talk of an English factor that, being newly come thither, writ into England that glass would be a good commodity to send thither, &c. That the King has his meat sent up by a dozen of lazy guards and in pipkins, sometimes, to his own table; and sometimes nothing but fruits, and, now and then, half a hen. And now that the Infanta is become our Queen, she is come to have a whole hen or goose to her table, which is not ordinary. So home and to look over my papers that concern the difference between Mrs. Goldsborough and us; which cost me much pains, but contented me much after it was done. So at home all the evening and to supper and to bed.

Friday 18 October 1661Wednesday 16 October 1661

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Temperature: 11°C / 52°F

  • (Average for October 1661)

In Earls Colne, Essex

Annotations

  • “that the king is a very rude and simple fellow”
    acording to my research he is talking about Dom Afonso IV although his mother Dona Luisa de Gusm

  • The king is a very rude and simple fellow…

    Sam is referring to Afonso VI, the brother of Catherine, who had become heir when his father and his elder brother, D.Jo

  • “Venison” pasty #27! Deer, dressed as pork (akin to mutton dressed as lamb).

  • I MEANT pork dressed as deer.
    Moral: Never annotate when you are hungry.

    Only two words missing in that ellipsis:
    “and calling of him cuckold, was run into the cods with a sword and had been killed,”—-“Shorter Pepys”
    “cods” = testicle, or a small bag. OK.

  • Bullus, the relevance is absolutely clear. It’s codswallop!

  • Ah, Captain Cock…er Cocke…The hard-drinking, clever merchant of “great observation and repute…”, thus enters one of my favorite Diary characters.

  • Venison dressed with garlic butter, isn’t that what you meant?

    AJ

  • Robert G: then why don’t you be the first to write a biography of him for the rest of us? (by the way, interesting hyperlink via your name).

  • That there are there no glass windows,
    Sams’ house at brampton had no glass in the windows…only translucent mica

  • Cods:
    Still widely used in the north of England. The strangest (and most blasphemous) oath I have heard is “Odd’s cods” (God’s testicles). As Odd’s Bodikins is used in Shakespeare, I would assume this has some antiquity.

  • Graham — yes indeed I remember that use of “cods” very well from when I grew up in Manchester in the 60s and 70s.

    The references to “codswallop” bring to mind one of my favourite websites that explains some of the differences between British and American slang and the difficulties that can arise therefrom. I know it’s off-topic but it is too funny not to post the link: http://www.suslik.org/Humour/National/ukus.html

  • Cods.

  • Catherine’s lack of resources

    “And now that the Infanta is become our Queen, she is come to have a whole hen or goose to her table, which is not ordinary”

    Lacking the military muscle to protect Tangier, or a sufficiently robust economy to put a chicken in even her pot? Hadn’t the Portuguese succeeded in their scheme to rip off the Indians for their New World wealth? Or were they just eccentric and impractical?

  • Or perhaps they were, if not vegetarians, at least not so reliant on meat-based meals and we are seeing this through British prejudices? I imagine a lot of Mediterranean cuisine would seem eccentric to the English.

    Coincidentally, on November 23, 2004 the National Portrait Gallery, London is holding a 3pm gallery talk (free) entitled “A little woman - no breeder” - Catharine of Braganza, wife to Charles II: http://www.npg.org.uk/live/november.asp

  • David- Actually, the lack of resources on the part of the Portuguese comes from the fact that the Spanish had ruled Portugal from 1580 to 1640, all the while raping the Portuguese treasury and colonies, and losing some of the Portuguese empire in the process. Then, the Portuguese had to spend more of their money trying to defend themselves from the attempts of the Spanish to take back Portugal after 1656.
    Also, in the New World, Portugal stayed only with Brazil, and their native peoples didn’t have any kind of wealth like the Aztecs. The gold and diamond rushes would only be found in the 1700s, and were mined by the Portuguese, not the natives of the Amazon.

  • “not the natives of the Amazon”
    Actually the gold from Brazil was mined by African slaves,mostly from the Guinea Coast;they were expert miners and commanded a high price;the British (Saint John d’El Rey Mining Company)until the end of the XIX century also used slave labor in Brazil but to circumvent British law they did not own slaves,they rented somebody elses slaves.

  • “That there are there no glass windows, nor will they have any; which makes sport among our merchants”

    Lady Fanshawe’s view of Lisbon on her return to England in 1663…

    “Lisbon with the river is the goodliest situation that ever I saw; the city old and decayed; but they are making new walls of stone, which will contain six times their city. Their churches and chapels are the best built, the finest adorned, and the cleanliest kept, of any churches in the world. The people delight much in quintas, which are a sort of country houses, of which there are abundance within a few leagues of the city, and those that belong to the nobility are very fine, both houses and gardens. The nation is generally very civil and obliging. In religion divided, between Papists and Jews. The people generally not handsome. They have many religious houses, and bishopricks of great revenue; and the religious of both sexes are for the most part very strict. “

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