Wednesday 5 February 1661/62

Annotations

• N daniel on Sat 5 Feb 2005, 11:04pm

  ” putting some cataplasm to my … . which begins to swell again.”

  uh, oh. Is this the same unmentionable afliction from some months back?

• N Pedro. on Sat 5 Feb 2005, 11:48pm

• N JWB on Sat 5 Feb 2005, 11:58pm

  Cataplasm de jure
  http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/kings/ulmus_cata.html

• N Todd Bernhardt on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 12:22am

  re: “Rule a Wife and Have a Wife”

  By (who else?) John Fletcher (of “Beaumont and …” fame), who wrote it in 1624. Here’s what the Cambridge History of English and American Literature ( http://www.bartleby.com/216/0514.html ) has to say about it:

  “Of all Fletcher

• N JWB on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 01:21am

  Song of Rhine Wine

  “Then let us laugh & quaff right joyously
  This gift of Father Rhine!
  And give to all that sick or sorry be
  A cup of this same wine!”
  Claudius-“A poet(wrote Longfellow) who never drank Rhenish w/out sugar”

• N john lauer on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 01:36am

  “…went in, but being very early we went out again,”
  — just a peril of going through life without clocks or a watch?

• N vicenzo on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 03:09am

  job descriptions: I doth guess. “…myself all alone reading of the Duke

• N Robert Gertz on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 01:54pm

  I notice Lady Penn doesn’t seem to fit in much on these Sir Will P and Sam theater jaunts. Be interesting to know if Admiral Sir Will suggested Elisabeth’s coming…

• N gerry on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 02:47pm

  L&M say that institutions is normally known as Instructions. My …. should read my testicle.

• N Clement on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 08:10pm

  “the Duke

• N Australian Susan on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 10:16pm

  “failed later as a monarch”
  Largely over his inability to see how unacceptable his religous policy was: otherwise he seems to have been intelligent, certainly over Navy matters. He was always respected by Sam, but was deeply unpopular to the masses who only saw his intransigence over religious practices. There is a contemporary anecdote (from the 1680’s) that Charles and James were walking in a public place despite a rumour of an assassination attempt against Charles. James expressed concern over his brother’s seeming disregard for his personal safety. Charles is supposed to have replied to the effect that he wasn’t worried, no-one was going to assassinate him as that would have meant having James as a King and no-one wanted that!

• N Australian Susan on Sun 6 Feb 2005, 10:18pm

  Sam’s swelling “…..”
  Might this have been a hydrocele? See http://www.surgerydoor.co.uk/medical_conditions/Indices/H/hydrocele.htm

• N Pauline on Mon 7 Feb 2005, 05:15am

  “I did move several things for my purpose, and did ease my mind.”
  Is Sam saying that they were reading a draft and allowed to suggest amendments?

  “…notwithstanding her late sickness…”
  Lady Castlemaine is pregnant with the first of the children she will bear Charles, a son to be born in June. Wonder if Sam is referring to this “sickness”?

• N Australian Susan on Mon 7 Feb 2005, 05:45am

  “I did move….”
  I read that as Pauline suggests: these instructions were open to amendment and Sam is very pleased that amendments he suggests, which are to do with his duties, are all agreed to by the others.

• N Mary on Mon 7 Feb 2005, 10:23am

  The duke’s Institucions.

  There’s a long note here by L&M. These instructions (largely stereotyped) were issued by every High Admiral at the start of his term of office. The Instructions of 1662 (based largely on those of 1640) remained substantially in force until Nelson’s day. Pepys preseved two Mss copies of them .

  Officially the Navy Board could only act within the terms so established or by obtaining a special warrant for additional powers, but in practice there tended to be more flexibility than this.