Tuesday 8 August 1665

Up and to the office, where all the morning we sat. At noon I home to dinner alone, and after dinner Bagwell’s wife waited at the door, and went with me to my office … [en lequel jo haze todo which I had a corasón a hazer con ella. – L&M] So parted, and I to Sir W. Batten’s, and there sat the most of the afternoon talking and drinking too much with my Lord Bruncker, Sir G. Smith, G. Cocke and others very merry. I drunk a little mixed, but yet more than I should do. So to my office a little, and then to the Duke of Albemarle’s about some business. The streets mighty empty all the way, now even in London, which is a sad sight. And to Westminster Hall, where talking, hearing very sad stories from Mrs. Mumford; among others, of Mrs. Michell’s son’s family. And poor Will, that used to sell us ale at the Hall-door, his wife and three children died, all, I think, in a day. So home through the City again, wishing I may have taken no ill in going; but I will go, I think, no more thither.

Late at the office, and then home to supper, having taken a pullet home with me, and then to bed.

The news of De Ruyter’s coming home is certain; and told to the great disadvantage of our fleete, and the praise of De Ruyter; but it cannot be helped, nor do I know what to say to it.

34 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Bagwell’s wife waited at the door, and went with me to my office, en lequel jo haze todo which I had a corazón a hazer con ella. (L&M)

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...drinking too much with my Lord Bruncker, Sir G. Smith, G. Cocke..."

Can one drink too much when one is in company of a Lord?

***
"...after dinner Bagwell’s wife waited at the door..."

My, what convient service.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Approx: Bagwell’s wife waited at the door, and went with me to my office, in which I did all which I had a mind to do with her.

(Corrections and improvements always welcome.)

The Mollusc  •  Link

Notably, our hero refrains from 'doing the business' with Mrs B inside the house that he usually shares with Mrs P...

CGS  •  Link

Not little merry today?
"...and there sat the most of the afternoon talking and drinking too much with my Lord Bruncker, Sir G. Smith, G. Cocke and others very merry. I drunk a little mixed, but yet more than I should do. So to my office a little,..."

dirk  •  Link

John Evelyn's diary:

"To Lond: where I waited on the D[uke]: of Albemarle, who was resolv’d to stay at the Cock- pit in St. James Parke: who had sent me a Letter about buisinesse for his Majesties service: There dying this Week in Lond: 4000:"

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"hearing very sad stories...of Mrs. Michell’s son's [Batten's ward's] family. And poor Will, that used to sell us ale at the Hall-door, his wife and three children died, all, I think, in a day."

This day Pepys hears that plague has struck very close-by.

dirk  •  Link

"poor Will, that used to sell us ale at the Hall-door, his wife and three children died, all, I think, in a day"

I wonder whether Will will survive? Obviously some people seem to have been less susceptible to the disease - I don't know what kind of natural defence mechanism may be at work here, because members of the same family would have been equally likely to be bitten by the fleas I suppose?

Ghalle  •  Link

Lord Bruckner's name, founder of the Royal Society, reminded me of my visit to the Octagon Room at Greenwich a few weeks ago. At this period the first large telescopes were put there by the Society for observation propped up on ladders. With SP's nose into everything he must have been there. Any evidence of this?

JWB  •  Link

"The news of De Ruyter’s coming home is certain; and told to the great disadvantage of our fleete, and the praise of De Ruyter; but it cannot be helped, nor do I know what to say to it."

Well, good to see Sam's meaty lower lip met by a stiff upper one.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...and the praise of De Ruyter..." presumbly from Sam's compatriots? Sort of like the old "gotta hand it to the b**d" they used to give Erwin Rommel?

Score Holland, go De R!

Pat Fogarty  •  Link

It seems inconceivable to me that Samuel could be fooling around so much without Bess having some inkling of it. Certainly some of these encounters would have to be witnessed by some of Bess' friends or acquaintances. Could it be that this behavior was simply the norm by married men of the time? He does seem to register some guilt about it occasionally Just notable that in a society with such clearly deliniated class structure, women of the "lower class" were open to being preyed on (lets call it molested) by "gentlemen" of the "higher class".

Nix  •  Link

Corazon literally means heart (not mind). In this context, I would translate Samuel's Spanglish as "all I desired to do with her".

dirk  •  Link

Corazón also means courage, daring.
That may also apply here.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Corazón

Thanks, Nix, for the idiom that makes sense of the usual translation of the word.

Pedro  •  Link

"Score Holland, go De R!"

Is this an american expression?

Ralph Berry  •  Link

"I wonder whether Will will survive? Obviously some people would have been less susceptible..."

I remember once reading a paper that suggested people with a certain blood group were less likely to be bitten by fleas and other bitey insects, I think this was group A. Does anyone have any information on this? If it is correct it would pose the question as to why then Group A has not become the predominant blood group!

The Mollusc  •  Link

While I have reason to agree that A is clearly the superior blood type, it is not through lack of appeal to fleas (in my experience).

Some thirty years ago, a friend and I walked through a house we were about to move into. It had been vacant for two weeks, previously inhabited by people and cats. My friend was irked to feel fleas biting him. He found 8 fleas to snap between his thumbnails when we stepped out the back door. Having been attractive to fleas all my life, I urgently put water in a bucket, and plucked 83 fleas off my legs, consigning them into the depths. Very itchy after!

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"Score Holland. Go De R!" would be an expression to root for one's favored team or side on scoring a point or winning some victory, Pedro. I've heard fairly close versions used round the world in various languages though the US/Canadian version is probably the most boiled down.

CGS  •  Link

What scare insects away.
If like some butterflies that eat certain leaves in the pupae stage, digest and provide built in poison to teach the eaters of said flitterbies a lesson which make them puke,thus saving first cousins and mimics from being molested by over active predators.

I am fairly sure that there be humans that enjoy certain foods that be giving of an odour from the pores to ward off beasties while others eat the same or other foods that make them attractive to unwanted attention.

Nature likes to preserve a percentage of the populace
by having differing results to the food human processing system, otherwise when things go wrong all the participants would have the equal results.
Thank goodness we are not cloned.
We may not like many of versions of the homo-sapiens, but variety be the .....

Ruben  •  Link

"en lequel jo haze todo which I had a corazón a hazer con ella."
I would like to know where and when did Pepys learn some Spanish, but surely I understand his intention.
"en lequel" wanted to be "en la cual" but may be here he was writing French, very similar.
One possibility is he learnt Ladino, the Spanish of the Sephardic refugees that lived not far away from Pepys. They incorporated some French and Italian words before coming to England in the 1650. Till today they use "en lequel" as part of Ladino. This, of course, is farfetched.

Corazon is heart, of course, but the word in this context speaks of "intention to do something in an impulsive way".

Michael Robinson  •  Link

where and when did Pepys learn some Spanish

According to Bryant, when Montague came home with treasure in 1656, captured from a returning Spanish galleon off Cadiz, he left in SP's care, till the ransom paid, the young and orphaned Marquis de Baides. Bryant assumes it must have been then that SP began his acquaintance with Spanish.
Bryant 'Man in the Making,' 1943 ed., p. 34-5.

Spoiler -- His interest in Spanish was such that he later collected books, plays and broadsides in the language. The collection of Spanish Plays is sufficiently distinguished that it was the subject of a monograph in 1980; Wilson, Edward M., and Don W. Cruickshank. Samuel Pepys's Spanish Plays. London: The Bibliographical Society, 1980.

Maurie Beck  •  Link

Regarding susceptibility to the plague, recent research has shown that some northern European populations there is a high frequency of a 32 base-pair deletion in the CCR5 gene that not only confers resistance to the plague, but to HIV as well. This mutation arose ~ 700 years ago, corresponding to the onset of the first epidemic in the late 13th to early 14th century. Mutations such as these occur randomly. Most are deleterious, but some are beneficial. This one was very beneficial, resulting in an increase in its frequency in the population because individuals with this mutation survived and had more offspring that were also resistant.

JWB  •  Link

Some of us mutants

While blood sucking insects can detect CO2 & lactic acid in human sweat some 100 ft. away, it turns out that some of us also secrete a masking agent rendering the "chosen " invisible to plague, malaria etc vectoring agents.

language hat  •  Link

“Score Holland. Go De R!”

"Go team" is perfectly good American, but I'm not even sure what "Score Holland" means -- it's certainly not U.S. usage.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"natural defence mechanism may be at work here"
Dirk there are some studies done recently concerning this; done at Eyam in England; even trying a correlation between a natural immunity to the Plague and to AIDS.

Michael Robinson  •  Link

"The news of De Ruyter’s coming home is certain; and told to the great disadvantage of our fleete, and the praise of De Ruyter; but it cannot be helped, nor do I know what to say to it."

End of the post Lowestoft exuberance and the belief in the short sharp shock theory, that the Dutch will see (English) sense about trade, that 'war will be over by Christmas ...' etc. And SP knows that with De Ruyter's return the Dutch are in good financial condition, with sufficient trade good for another year at least, while the English fleet have no serious funds for continuing operations ...

CGS  •  Link

Thanks for the factual data.

Australian Susan  •  Link

re Pat Fogarty's comment: yes, married men "playing away from home" was the norm and continued to be so for ages. So much so, that a maidservant would not stay in a room with a man if she could help it as, even if nothing occurred, it would be assumed that something had, men being what they were, and her reputation would be ruined. I was reading Lady Astor's memoirs in which she recalls how this assumption of a certain type of male behaviour (in the upper classes) had died away by the time of writing - the 1930s. Curiously, she put it down to the rise of vegetarianism.....

CGS  •  Link

Some men still have that mutant Gene [for playing around], 'tis natures way of making sure that the fittest still survive.
Marriage, faithfulness and loyalty is a wonderful concept but. [See H VIII C II E I ]
Monogamy is only for a segment of the human species, the trouble is we have not found out yet, prior to growing up,or when it is too late, which males and females have the monogamous and which have other types of gene.
Humans can [ sum times] control their instincts, usually it be an exception.
Stats: show that some be monogamous for ever, sum for short spell and sum never.

The lucky ones be those that have matching genes.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"And poor Will, that used to sell us ale at the Hall-door"

L&M: Will Griffith, who kept an alehouse in Old Palace Yard.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

I have found a well-written press release from 2005 explaining a then-new research paper: ‘Biologists discover why 10% of Europeans are safe from HIV infection’ (2005)
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_re…

Also a book: Professor Christopher Duncan and Dr Susan Scott: Return of the Black Death (2004, Wiley), which argues that the 1665 plague was viral not bacterial.

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