Louise Hudson

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Louise Hudson has posted 491 annotations/comments since 9 November 2013.

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Third Reading

About Monday 19 November 1660

Louise Hudson  •  Link

I suspect that Elizabeth didn’t trust the maid to handle boiling water right. Imagine what would happen if it boiled over. She was probably too anxious to sleep.

About Thursday 1 November 1660

Louise Hudson  •  Link

Footnote: “Pepys might well be anxious on this point, for in October of this year Phineas Pett, assistant master shipwright at Chatham, was dismissed from his post for having when a Child spoken disrespectfully of the King. See ante, August 23rd.”

I can’t make head or tail out of this footnote. Dismissed from his post for having what?

About Monday 15 October 1660

Louise Hudson  •  Link

For those unclear on what “hanged, drawn and quartered” consisted of:
“In one the victim was drawn by a horse to a gallows, hanged, and then cut into four pieces and scattered; in the other the victim was hanged, disemboweled while still alive (drawn), and then beheaded and dismembered. In both the victim was said to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.”Dictionary.com

Gruesome in either case. It’s good to know we’ve gotten past those particular practices.

About Sunday 30 September 1660

Louise Hudson  •  Link

“Foul” could have meant very messy with lumber everywhere.

If he really wanted to have prayers the household could have gathered in the nice kitchen. I suspect he welcomed the excuse.

About Tuesday 25 September 1660

Louise Hudson  •  Link

From what’s been discussed here regarding “brush” on the foot, it sounds to me like blisters one would get from a badly fitting shoe. “Brush” would fit the description.

About Monday 17 September 1660

Louise Hudson  •  Link

I remember when was a child nuns wore voluminous black habits. They had something inside that they often stuck their hand into. It fascinated me at the time. I suspect they wore some kind of detached pocket inside their habits like those described here.

About Sunday 2 September 1660

Louise Hudson  •  Link

Larry B wrote:
“I think Sam is worried he’ll get a venereal disease if daughter Crisp is as friendly to other men as she is to him.”

I can only wonder why. He didn’t seem to worry about venereal disease with the many other women he had sexual contact with.

I wonder if Diana Crisp is just very young and naive and like young girls have always done, being friendly with men visiting her home, without realizing the negative implications. Not sure her age was given.

About Friday 3 February 1659/60

Louise Hudson  •  Link

I read “took her down” as taking her down on the bed. Knowing Pepys’ proclivities with women, this is not out of the question.

About Friday 6 January 1659/60

Louise Hudson  •  Link

I am an American and was raised Roman Catholic. I don’t remember any mention of 12th night in my neighborhood or in my church. I heard about it from my husband, who is British. When I was a child we took down the Christmas decorations on New Year’s Day or the day after, at the latest. It was supposed to be “bad luck” to leave them up any longer. We did hear and sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, but I thought it was a throwback to an earlier time.

Second Reading

About Tuesday 14 January 1667/68

Louise Hudson  •  Link

The poor old man who went back for his blanket. Who could blame him? Blankets weren't easy to get back then. It might have been his only comfort.

About Sunday 15 September 1667

Louise Hudson  •  Link

Robert Gertz: "For a man whose pastimes include maid fondling on a large scale as well as sexual stalking of neighbors and forced sex for employee promotions, it's interesting to see Sam throwing maid/whore accusations about."

The myth of male superiority and the double standard go hand in hand.

About Wednesday 11 September 1667

Louise Hudson  •  Link

"Mrs. Lowther, who is grown, either through pride or want of manners, a fool, having not a word to say almost all dinner; and, as a further mark of a beggarly, proud fool, hath a bracelet of diamonds and rubies about her wrist, and a sixpenny necklace about her neck, and not one good rag of clothes upon her back;"

MEOW!

About Wednesday 21 August 1667

Louise Hudson  •  Link

"Up, and my wife and I fell out about the pair of cuffs, which she hath a mind to have to go to see the ladies dancing to-morrow at Betty Turner’s school; and do vex me so that I am resolved to deny them her. However, by-and-by a way was found that she had them, and I well satisfied, being unwilling to let our difference grow higher upon so small an occasion and frowardness of mine."

I suspect Sam doesn't have anywhere near the control over Elizabeth he thinks he has or should have.

He makes a lot of noise but wields no power. It's all sturm und drang, possibly for his ego and the ears of the help.

About Thursday 8 August 1667

Louise Hudson  •  Link

Larry Bunce on 9 August 2010

Pepys: ...and he tells me that wise men do prepare to remove abroad what they have, for that we must be ruined, our case being past relief, the kingdom so much in debt...

"I have seen websites with this very assessment of the current world situation. Maybe this time it will really happen that way."

Now, 20 years after Larry Bunce's comment and 563 years after Pepys' we've got similar assessments of the world--and to make things even worse, in 2020 we are in the midst of a worldwide plague.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose