Friday 17 August 1666

Up and betimes with Captain Erwin down by water to Woolwich, I walking alone from Greenwich thither, making an end of the “Adventures of Five Hours,” which when all is done is the best play that ever I read in my life. Being come thither I did some business there and at the Rope Yarde, and had a piece of bride-cake sent me by Mrs. Barbary into the boate after me, she being here at her uncle’s, with her husband, Mr. Wood’s son, the mast-maker, and mighty nobly married, they say, she was, very fine, and he very rich, a strange fortune for so odd a looked mayde, though her hands and body be good, and nature very good, I think.

Back with Captain Erwin, discoursing about the East Indys, where he hath often been. And among other things he tells me how the King of Syam seldom goes out without thirty or forty thousand people with him, and not a word spoke, nor a hum or cough in the whole company to be heard. He tells me the punishment frequently there for malefactors is cutting off the crowne of their head, which they do very dexterously, leaving their brains bare, which kills them presently. He told me what I remember he hath once done heretofore: that every body is to lie flat down at the coming by of the King, and nobody to look upon him upon pain of death. And that he and his fellows, being strangers, were invited to see the sport of taking of a wild elephant, and they did only kneel, and look toward the King. Their druggerman did desire them to fall down, for otherwise he should suffer for their contempt of the King. The sport being ended, a messenger comes from the King, which the druggerman thought had been to have taken away his life; but it was to enquire how the strangers liked the sport. The druggerman answered that they did cry it up to be the best that ever they saw, and that they never heard of any Prince so great in every thing as this King. The messenger being gone back, Erwin and his company asked their druggerman what he had said, which he told them. “But why,” say they, “would you say that without our leave, it being not true?” — “It is no matter for that,” says he, “I must have said it, or have been hanged, for our King do not live by meat, nor drink, but by having great lyes told him.”

In our way back we come by a little vessel that come into the river this morning, and says he left the fleete in Sole Bay, and that he hath not heard (he belonging to Sir W. Jenings, in the fleete) of any such prizes taken as the ten or twelve I inquired about, and said by Sir W. Batten yesterday to be taken, so I fear it is not true.

So to Westminster, and there, to my great content, did receive my 2000l. of Mr. Spicer’s telling, which I was to receive of Colvill, and brought it home with me [to] my house by water, and there I find one of my new presses for my books brought home, which pleases me mightily. As, also, do my wife’s progresse upon her head that she is making.

So to dinner, and thence abroad with my wife, leaving her at Unthanke’s; I to White Hall, waiting at the Council door till it rose, and there spoke with Sir W. Coventry, who and I do much fear our Victuallers, they having missed the fleete in their going. But Sir W. Coventry says it is not our fault, but theirs, if they have not left ships to secure them. This he spoke in a chagrin sort of way, methought. After a little more discourse of several businesses, I away homeward, having in the gallery the good fortune to see Mrs. Stewart, who is grown a little too tall, but is a woman of most excellent features.

The narrative of the late expedition in burning the ships is in print, and makes it a great thing, and I hope it is so.

So took up my wife and home, there I to the office, and thence with Sympson the joyner home to put together the press he hath brought me for my books this day, which pleases me exceedingly. Then to Sir W. Batten’s, where Sir Richard Ford did very understandingly, methought, give us an account of the originall of the Hollands Bank, and the nature of it, and how they do never give any interest at all to any person that brings in their money, though what is brought in upon the public faith interest is given by the State for.

The unsafe condition of a Bank under a Monarch, and the little safety to a Monarch to have any; or Corporation alone (as London in answer to Amsterdam) to have so great a wealth or credit, it is, that makes it hard to have a Bank here. And as to the former, he did tell us how it sticks in the memory of most merchants how the late King (when by the war between Holland and France and Spayne all the bullion of Spayne was brought hither, one-third of it to be coyned; and indeed it was found advantageous to the merchant to coyne most of it), was persuaded in a strait by my Lord Cottington to seize upon the money in the Tower, which, though in a few days the merchants concerned did prevail to get it released, yet the thing will never be forgot.

So home to supper and to bed, understanding this evening, since I come home, that our Victuallers are all come in to the fleete, which is good newes.

Sir John Minnes come home tonight not well, from Chatham, where he hath been at a pay, holding it at Upnor Castle, because of the plague so much in the towne of Chatham. He hath, they say, got an ague, being so much on the water.


26 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Their druggerman did desire them to fall down...."

druggerman = dragoman (Select Glossary)

Dragoman designates the official title of a person who would function as an interpreter, translator and official guide between Turkish, Arabic, and Persian-speaking countries and polities of the Middle East and European embassies, consulates, vice-consulates and trading posts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag…

Michael Robinson  •  Link

"The narrative of the late expedition in burning the ships is in print, ..."

A true and perfect narrative of the great and signal success of a part of His Majesties fleet under His Highness Prince Rupert, and His Grace the Duke of Albemarle, burning one hundred and sixty Dutch ships within the Ulie: as also the town of Brandaris upon the island o Schelling, by some commanded men under the conduct of Sir Robert Holmes, the eighth and ninth of this instant August. Published by especial command.
London : printed by Tho. Newcomb living over against Baynard’s Castle in Thames-street, 1666.
7, [1] p.; 2 mo. Wing T2532

The pamphlet was re-printed by John Crook, the King's Printer, in Dublin. No copy of either in the PL.

Ben  •  Link

@ Michael Robinson

Brandaris is the lighthouse in what today is called West-Terschelling.

Ruben  •  Link

"burning one hundred and sixty Dutch ships"
And now, just wait for the Medway raid...
"I burn yours, you burn mine".

Mary  •  Link

"our victuallers are all come in to the fleete, which is good news"

Especially good news for the ships' companies.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"It is no matter for that,' says he, 'I must have said it, or have been hanged, for our King do not live by meat, nor drink, but by having great lyes told him.'

They may prostrate themselves but they don't have to like it. A man like that must have lived for the day he could assure his tyrant that he was "God on Earth, sire" even as the rebels or foreign army came down the unguarded hallway to kill him.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"The unsafe condition of a Bank under a Monarch, and the little safety to a Monarch to have any..."

Prophetic, if somewhat unsafe in the wrong audience, words...

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"The unsafe condition of a Bank under a Monarch"
Memories of the Templar Knights and Phillip the Handsome.

Mary  •  Link

Dutch banking practices.

An L&M footnote tells us that the Bank of Amsterdam was the most important in Europe at this time.

In the mid-17th century its activities were limited to exchange and deposit banking. It normally paid no interest to depositors, but they were offered full security for their money and the bank further guaranteed to offer full value for coins that had been clipped. Importantly the bank offered transferability of funds.

The bank was managed by the city of Amsterdam.

JKM  •  Link

What a colorful day for Sam! Bride-cake from the odd-looking but well-married Mrs. Barbary; a new bookcase; a lecture on banking; traveler's tales--with a moral--from Siam; exchanging confidences with Sir W.Coventry; a pleasant domestic moment with Bess over her artwork; a glimpse of the comely Mrs. Stewart; not to mention finishing up "the best play that ever I read in my life" AND taking home L2000 in a sack.
I bet this entry usually makes the cut when the Diary is abridged.

cgs  •  Link

OK it is not mine, tit for tat, still goes on
“I burn yours, you burn mine”.

Second Reading

Ivan  •  Link

"making an end of The Adventures of five houres, - which when all is done, is the best play that ever I read in my life."

Literary criticism is not Sam's forte, is it? His judgement of plays he reads and sees is often very eccentric to say the least.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"making an end of The Adventures of five houres, - which when all is done, is the best play that ever I read in my life."

And Pepys probably did not know its (probable co-)author, Sir Samuel Tuke was John Evelyn's cousin. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"he tells me how the King of Syam seldom goes out without thirty or forty thousand people with him, and not a word spoke, nor a hum or cough in the whole company to be heard."

L&M reference
A true description of the mighty kingdoms of Japan and Siam written originally in Dutch by Francis Caron and Joost Schorten ; and novv rendred into English by Capt. Roger Manley.
Caron, François, 1600-1673., Schouten, Joost., Manley, Roger, Sir, 1626?-1688.
London: Printed by Samuel Broun and John de l'Ecluse ..., 1663.

According to Schouten's 1663 account, on the King of Siam's usual progress by water, [Page 127] the whole train of [the court and its retainers] is twelve or fourteen hundred, and sometimes more. When he goes by land, he is mounted upon a gilded seat, and carried upon mens shoulders, the train being ordinarily the same, all marching in order and great silence; no body is seen in his way or sight, but upon their knees, with folded hands, and bowed heads and bodies; [Page 128] this reverence better becoming a celestial Deity, then an earthly Majesty.

Once every year, about the moneth of October, the King of Siam shews himself by water and land in state to his people, going to the principal Temple of the Gods, to offer there for the welfare of his Person and Kingdom....[Page 130] vvhole amounting to five or six and tvventy thousand persons. The River is bordered on both sides vvith Boats, and an infinite number of People, vvho reverence and adore their King in his passage, vvith bended heads and folded hands. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He told me what I remember he hath once done heretofore: that every body is to lie flat down at the coming by of the King, and nobody to look upon him upon pain of death."

He was held to be divine. For the same reason his subjects were forbidden to pronounce his name. L&M cite F.T. de Choisy Journal du voyage de Siam fait en 1685 et 1686 (1687). p. 339. https://archive.org/details/Chois…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"he hath not heard (he belonging to Sir W. Jenings, in the fleete) of any such prizes taken as the ten or twelve I inquired about, and said by Sir W. Batten yesterday to be taken, so I fear it is not true. "

L&M: Allin had anchored off Lowestoft on the 15th. His journal mentions the prizes only vaguely; one ship laden with hemp and flax was taken on the 9th: Allin, i. 282, 284.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

" Sir W. Coventry...and I do much fear our Victuallers, they having missed the fleete in their going."

Cf. Coventry yo Pepys, 15 August. The Marmaduke, for example, had had six weeks' dry provisions but only two days' beer.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the late King...was persuaded in a strait by my Lord Cottington to seize upon the money in the Tower, which, though in a few days the merchants concerned did prevail to get it released, yet the thing will never be forgot."

L&M: This occurred in July 1640 when Charles I was hard pressed for money for the Scottish war. For some time during the Thirty Years War , Spenish bullion had been coined in the English mint and shipped to Dubkirk for the use of the troops. Charles suddenly seized £130,000-worth of it late one Saturday afternoon, promising to pay it back in six months. The Merchant Adventurers and others trading to Spain, whose credit and trade abroad would have been ruined, successfully protested. (Ford, Pepys's informant, was a Spanish merchant.) S.R. Gardiner, on what appears to be slender evidence, attributed the inspiration to Hamilton (Hist. Engl, 1884, x. 170), and does not seem to have noticed this entry. Cottington was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Constable of the Tower. The bankers' distrust of the powers of the monarch was reinfoced by the Stop of the Exchequer (1672), and it was not until his powers had been somewhat limited, in the Glorious Revolution, that the Bank of England was founded in 1694.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

" Sir John Minnes come home tonight not well, from Chatham, where he hath been at a pay, holding it at Upnor Castle, because of the plague so much in the towne of Chatham. "

L&M: Mennes had also asked for the money to be sent by river, to avoid infection: see his letter of 11 August to the Navy Board: CSPD 1666-7, p. 31. He had then reported that 30 had died in Chatham in the previous week. The plague reached its height there at about this time: see J.F.D. Shrewbury, Hist. bubonic plahue in Brit. Isles, pp. 488-9.

Marquess  •  Link

In present day Thailand government ministers and those seeking an audience with the monarch must prostrate themselves. Foreigners can get away with just bowing, the tradition of no ones head being higher than the king was abolished in the 1932 revolution, but reintroduced in the 50's by a dictatorial field marshal.

Matt Newton  •  Link

In what form would the 2,000 be? Gold/ silver/ notes?
Heavy? Would a man or 2 carried it for him?

David G  •  Link

Bride cake. The link in today’s diary entry suggests that bride cake is a type of fruitcake, and after a bit of research into old British recipes, I found a recipe for bride cake from 1767 for what appears to be the same type of fruitcake/wedding cake that was served at my wedding lunch in Brighton in the 1970s. (Is it still the case that fruitcake is served at British weddings?)

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

No notes, Matt -- Bank of England the paper money arrive at the end of the century.

My guess is gold. Silver would be too bulky and heavy.

JayW  •  Link

David G. Traditional wedding cake is still very popular - made of heavy fruitcake with white icing, two or more tiers using pillars for the upper one(s). Modern alternatives are now available including piles of individual cupcakes, lighter sponge cake, chocolate cake and many others. Lots of options online.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

THE BRIDE-CAKE.

“THIS day, my Julia, thou must make
For Mistress Bride the wedding-cake:
Knead but the dough, and it will be
To paste of almonds turn’d by thee:
Or kiss it thou but once or twice,
And for the bride-cake there’ll be spice.” – Robert Herrick (1591 – 1671) -- from Hesperides, 1648

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