Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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1893 text
A yacht which was greatly admired, and was imitated and improved by Commissioner Pett, who built a yacht for the King in 1661, which was called the “Jenny.” Queen Elizabeth had a yacht, and one was built by Phineas Pett in 1604.
Annotations
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The site of the “Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam” had this to report on the building of the yacht “Mary”.
“While decorating ships for rich or influential people no costs or trouble were too much. In 1660 Amsterdam ordered a yacht as a present for the English king Charles II. For the gilding alone 983 ‘booklets’ of gold foil were used, which would have cost the equivalent of 15 years salary for a VOC-ships captain!.”
You can’t help wondering if all this gold was still in place when the little ship was sent out in the Irish Sea in search of privateers, with 6 extra guns.
http://www.generali.nl/scheepvaartmuseum/actueel/kunst_op_het_water4.htm#jacht -
Gift to Charles from arch trade Rivals VOC: after Charles had a English version made; this poor Ship was then used by the Navy to transport the Bemedalled ones ashore ??.
Mary [named for his[Charles] Sister ]
Yacht (1m) L/B/D: 52 (keel) -
Model of Mary
National Maritime Museum: http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=SLR0369 -
The list of Navy vessels for December 1695 (House of Commons Journal) contains the following Yachts (still) in use
Name Men Guns
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Charlotte 30 8
Cleaveland
Fubbs 40 12
Henrietta 30 28
Isabella 45 8
Isle of Wight 6 4
Jemmy 4 4
Catharine 30 8
Merlin 30 8
Monmouth 40 8
Mary 30 8
Navy 35 8
Queenbrough 4 4
Soesdyke 35 8. Fal.
Squirrel 4
William&Mary 40 12 -
The Mary yacht.
On the 13th June 1661 Sandwich left to take over Tangier and bring over the Queen. He wrote…
“I took a barge at Privy Stairs at Whitehall and boarded the Mary yacht at Deptford about 12 o’clock and so sailed for the Downs, where I arrived on board the Royal James on Friday in the evening.”
Sandwich Journal (Anderson)
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Van de Velde, the younger
Drawing: “The Royal yacht ‘Mary’, from the Port Quarter; …”
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=751077&partid=1&searchText=van+de+Velde&fromDate=1664&fromADBC=ad&toDate=1670&toADBC=ad&numpages=10&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx¤tPage=7
(click on image to enlarge) -
The Mary yacht.
Not to be confused the the Mary warship that appears in the Fleet list of April 1665 as 3rd rate with 58 guns and 300 men. The warship was sunk by Dutch shot on the 3rd September 1665.
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The Mary yacht.
Thanks for the note, Pedro: the BM drawing I referenced above is definitely of the yacht, note the Dutch construction, the sideboard to cope with the shallow draft and absence of a keel.
[I think the BM cataloger has got himself confused by following a note in Croft-Murray rather than looking up more recent publications specifically on the van de Velde drawings]
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from http://londongazette.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/1666-07-12-current-intelligence-_2.png
there was a frigate Mary of 12 guns
