Thank you Terry for the link you posted in 2017 and 2020 to "The Life of Edward Montagu, K.G., First Earl of Sandwich", a massive biography published in 1912 by F. R. Harris. Harris opines that My Lord should really have asked cousin Sam to write his speech, because "his [Sandwich's] extant letters show him to have been the most prolix of writers, and he was evidently a poor speaker. He was crushed by the weight of his material".
But, speaking of being crushed, and before we shed tears on how My Lord's want of eloquence hurt his legacy and reputation, let's note that, among his suggestions for the improvement of Tangiers, Harris writes (at page 165) that "He would have had all Barbary Jews banished, for they spied, they betrayed the prices of our commodities, and 'they are beggars, and sucke the monye out of the inhabitants' purses'". By 1839 the Barbary Jews accounted for one-quarter of the population of Tangiers (see https://bible-in-spain-annotated.…). We join them in thanking whatever power made Lord Montagu fumble his speech today, and as a side benefit for not dragging Sam Pepys into it.
Meanwhile, mylord Sandwich, and indirectly our Sam, cannot but be interested in this here State Paper, which closes the "Accounts of the Earl of Sandwich's expenses and receipts as Ambassador Extraordinary to Spain and Portugal, 1666-1668", after they were "examined by the Committee for Foreign Affairs, and allowed with certain reductions".
Earlier this year we had our own debates on what the damage might be, given the eye-popping cost of Court life on the one hand, and the gratuities which (if he behaves) an Ambassador can expect, on the other. Our friend the Venetian ambassador in London, for instance, has bemoaned the rapacious rent he has to pay for his rooms and the extravagant cost of everything in England, and from reports on him and other ambassadors of the time it seems a staff (or entourage) of about 40 people, including a bunch of other nobles used to the good life, is typical of a big Embassy (that would still be a mid-size European embassy as of 2021). On the happy side, recall the 4,000 doublons which Her Catholic majestie of Spain had granted Sandwich "for his maintenance" (see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…), and perhaps also the humongous wine licenses more recently signed off to French ambassador Colbert in London. All in all, we had opined that a warrant for £5,000 issued in February "for the entertainment of the Earl of Sandwich (...) and for other expenses in that embassy" (noted at https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) was quite enough.
Well, oopsie. The final numbers (at https://books.google.fr/books?id=…, "Entry Book 30, f. 100" of Nov. 6) are "total receipts, 18,395L. 2s. 0d.; total expenses for ordinaries, 29,965L. 3s. 0d.; for extraordinaries, 7,574L. 18s. 3d", to a total negative balance of £19,144. No wonder cousin Sam was kindly asked for help make ends meet, but, oy nobles, did you think your titles were a free gift just because the king likes you?
But what about the Queen Regent's doublons then? We thought they converted into over £40k. Or were they totally off the books?
By coincidence, this afternoon the Treasury also went (at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) over the budget for the Ambassador to Sweden, currently the coat-turning Earl of Carlisle, and warranted him £10 a day for ordinary (coffee, pencils, horsefeed, &c.), about the same per diem as Sandwich burned in Spain and so perhaps a standard rate (and about what most commoners make in a year, but that's for another day). The council, however, put off a request for wardrobe and jewels; presumably those would be the timid start of "extraordinaries".
Aye, so what did happen on November 6 then? Were the entries just swapped and should we turn to that for November 5? Snap to it, man! We do know that on this Friday morning you were at the Treasury Board, where a minute [found at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…] records that "Mr. Pepys [was asked] to show how his business stands as to the 10,000L. he is to have of the Customs out of the Exchequer". And where was your mind while the question was asked, and maybe had to be asked again?
Why, something is distracting Mr. Pepys, who is now, uncharacteristically, fumbling with his papers. Old Albermarle, squirming from the dropsy in his Lord High Treasurer's chair at the head of the table, nods and thinks, "so you are now truly one of us, brother Pepys. Already senile".
For the record, an article has just appeared in PLoS One: "Batavia shipwreck timbers reveal a key to Dutch success in 17th-century world trade" (open access at https://journals.plos.org/plosone…). The timber in VOC shipwrecks is dated and analyzed with all the skill of this Age. It is found to have been sourced in Northern Europe from rather more diverse locations than England has access to (no big surprise there) and to have been selected with "Masterly" and "profound knowledge about the soft and perishable nature of sapwood (the outermost part of the wood, just beneath the bark), and its susceptibility to insect attack". All this, together with "Innovative ship design" of the sort Charles presently hopes to be buying from Laurens van Heemskerck, was "key to Dutch success in world-wide trade". The ships thus put under the microscope were all built decades ago in the 1620s but we think Sam would still find the article quite relevant given the hard time he has sourcing good timber from England's dwindling forests.
Indeed, and Straus' choice of illustrations make the matter easy to comment upon, but in fairness we don't know that it's all the choice Sam was offer'd. In 1668 there are quite a few coach-makers, and they may all have their catalogs and conventions exist, but since Mr. Ford's black Model T is still far in the future and everything is made to order, the variety could be infinite.
It could, but was it? There aren't a lot of extant coaches, or contemporary street views showing enough of them, that are precisely dated, clear and not about stage-coaches or royal carriages. Mr Google has shown us "Hackney coaches in London, 1637" (https://cartographicperspectives.…), where they do look all the same and are indeed boxy four-wheelers, as well as a post-Fire engraving of "the second Royal Exchange, Cornhill" (https://www.british-history.ac.uk…), which has 4-5 that look like the nimbler Charles II chariots and also kinda all look the same. Other examples would be nice to find. What Mr Google had to show when we queried his image collection on "Sam Pepys coach" was quite a surprise, but didn't help resolve the issue.
Lying in bed next to becalmed Mrs Pepys, Sam in the quiet of the night listens to the whispers in his head, of what he secretly thinks as the "People from the Future". Tonight they seem to phant'sy choosing his coach... How droll, and they seem to agree with Povy. But he can't decide. How difficult to navigate are the currents of the aristocracy! You look too austere and you're a Roundhead, too flash and you're above your station. You have to find just the right balance. Consider Sir Joseph Williamson, all subdued elegance and discreet professionalism in his portrait at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…, contrast him with his boss Arlington and all his ribbons at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…. Flash and young and you're a rake they'll try to drag into their games...
He knows how dear Knepp would react. "Why Sammy, is that your coach? How a-do-ra-ble, it's so vintage, I just a-do-re it, it reminds me of when I was a little girl". Hmm. But it's cheap, at £50. But it's heavy, and the extra horses would eat the price difference with the lighter one. And turning into narrow Seething Lane with that wagon... Hmm. But the newer coach would scream "new money". Hmm... gotta choose soon... Zzzz.
Sam thanks to brother Thomas has narrowly averted the most dreadfull disaster. Pray imagine, if you can, arriving at these temples of fashion where our CoA likes to see and be seen by the Quality - the theaters, Unthanke's, the Pell-Mell, glittering French dinners in Islington, the Duke's - in something "out of fashion and heavy"? The disdainful doormen directing him to the trade entrance, the impatient catcalls from other drivers ("move it, grandpa, you're taking all the street"), the cruel jests at the Society - whose chief interests include improving coaches and their suspension ("a most interesting presentation by Mr. Pepys on the Historie of Ox-cartes"), the ladies unwilling to clamber aboard ("my physician is definite that I should walk in the rain once a week"). Why not go about in a frill and pilgrim hat, too, maybe with a sign saying "I'm a dull accountant and have no ambition"? Why not move right away to Brampton?
The faux-pas would be all the worse for the late 1660s being, as for pocket-watches and calculators, an epoch of fairly sudden and rapid innovation in coach design, an art in which England had stood still for some time and was now catching up to France. For a terrifying comparison between a modern, streamlined Charles II coach and a dinosaurian Charles I design, turn to page 112 of Ralph Straus' stunningly comprehensive "Carriages & Coaches: Their History & Their Evolution" (London, 1912), which our book-seller Mr. Google displays at https://gutenberg.org/files/46216…
Could Sam, who had done quite a bit of research and knew his steel-rimmed wheels and his thoroughbrace suspensions, have really fallen for a Charles I? Today's Diary entry is all Straus found on the matter. He comments, at page 128: "It was felt, no doubt, that fashion in carriages as in everything else would speedily change. Mr. Pepys must have found considerable difficulty in making up his mind. The new chariots were small, light and, so far as he knew, most fashionable; but possibly they were not quite to his taste, and equally possibly they might not be fashionable in ten years’ time." And Sam, with his wall-hangings &c., is more conservative bourgeois than rake, after all. "Also they perhaps lacked the solid dignity of the older carriages, and were less likely to attract public attention—two important considerations." And in the rutted, rubble-strewn London streets, solid dignity may indeed be more advisable than flimsy elegance. "In the end, however, he seems to have chosen a large coach of the old style. Mr. Povey saw it, and poor Pepys knew at once that a dreadful mistake had been made."
"Understand", Sam tells the new girl, "you are to stay only till I get that coach, then we'll get a boy. For what could such a delightful maiden as you understand of mechanicks, eh? Urgh, urgh, urgh".
New Girl duly blushes, pretty hands entwined and eyes downcast. "Of course, Sir. 'Twouldn't be proper, Sir". New Girl also thinks, *No way I'd wanna be around that cheapo clunker you're gonna buy anyway, you miser. Now, if you'd gone for a Bellingham with Mr. Hooke's thoroughbrace suspension, I'd have stuck for that and maybe even brought my toolbag...*
Three alternative Pepyses, each sitting in his parallel universe, have arrayed their notes and prepare to fill out those 13 blank pages in their Journall. -------------------------------------------------------- "Up, and..." Pepys I's quill stops indecisively in mid-air. *And what? I sat all morning and did my business? How many hours is it gonna take to write up two weeks? And what's the point of wasting my eyesight on this tripe anyway, nobody will ever read this damn diary. Time I could spend answering the mail, buying a coach, hanging pictures with Bess, tocando cosas... Arrh.* A fat drop of ink falls on the desk and makes a stain. Sam ruins a lace cuff in wiping it, then one of the cardboard tubes from his spectacles falls off. Hewer cracks the door open: "Mr. Pepys? They're starting the staff meeting". -------------------------------------------------------- "Up and..." Pepys II's quill stops indecisively in mid-air. *What can I possibly write of those events that won't get me into the Thames? My lord Sandwich was covertly made a Grand Inquisitor by his Catholick Majestie of Spain. King Charles' secret Jesuit guard took us to Saxham, where at a Sabbath we kissed the arse of the great archdevil Astaroth and pledged to deliver England to the Pope and the French. I saw the King get drunk on the blood of little children.* Hewer cracks the door open: "Mr. Pepys? My lord lieutenant of the Tower is here to get 'those notes', he says. Said you'd understand." -------------------------------------------------------- "Up and..." Pepys III's quill stops indecisively in mid-air. *What was that? Voices again?* He turns around - no one else is there. *What? It sounds like distant laughter.* He can almost make words: "Very funny, Robert"; "I agree, Susan". *Aaaah! It's those people from the future again! Always peeking, reading over his shoulder, commenting!* Is he going madd? Are those the voice of daemons, warming his place in Hell already? Sam flings quill and notebook across the room. "Away!! Leave me alone!" Hewer cracks the door open: "Mr. Pepys? Is everything all right?"
Ooh, we forgot. Our baroquepunk Dymo of course has either a charcoal or (more expensive) a tiny ink brush to caress the embossed paper as it wends out. Ink and glue sold separately.
The Dymo Corporation (not Dynamo) is alive and well, and seems truly a Behemoth of Labell-making. Alongside a range of Optickal printers it still churns out "embossing label makers" (the "Rhino M1011" displayed at https://www.dymo.com/label-makers… is quite fearsome), which bring tears of nostalgia and lyrical reviews from aficionados who, indeed, seem old enough to foist them on their kids and vinyl records.
Sam, who back in February (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) had enrolled Bess and Deb. in a whole day of messy label-making for his books, would certainly have jumped at a Dymo Labelmaker. Let us imagine a pre-steampunk model (baroquepunk, then), an ornate instrument in bronze where a thin paper tape is embossed then gets a thin coating of glue. The mechanism is a trifle, making sufficiently fluid glue is surely within the reach of 17C chymists, and embossing was well in hand, at least for textiles (see https://refashioningrenaissance.e…).
Or would Sam-the-puritan have dismissed it as a vain toy, as he recently did calculating machines, and prevailed over Sam-the-technophile and his alarum watches?
On Saturday last we had left Capt. Silas Taylor (in https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) frantically searching for a boat that his Majestie could use to cross from Harwich to Landguard Fort, on his inspection of the eastern provinces. Today he has a happier report to Sam (now State Paper No. 127 at https://books.google.fr/books?id=…), in which he tells at length how the royal visit went. "Not having any boat or barge fit to receive him, I made a stage to run into the water, upon which he landed"; that's a bit puzzling, given that today it's a 2-kilometer crossing (see a map at https://www.bing.com/maps/?mkt=en…), but perhaps in 1668 the river Stour was narrower.
Anyway. The color we get on Charles' expedition is that it's pretty big, also involving York, Monmouth, Buckingham, Richmond, three other bigwigs big enough to be named, "&c." and their army of servants and hangers-on. Charles didn't sleep at the captain's house after all, he stayed aboard the yacht Henrietta (profile at https://threedecks.org/index.php?…). Along the way, discussing the house, yard property which Silas had amiably told him was really the king's and the object of much admiration, Charles is quoted as proudly telling York, "brother, this house is my house". Or maybe Charles calls Jamie "bro" but Silas doesn't say.
Then the king gets to visiting the fort. "He landed alone the next day, Sunday, at 6 o'clock", and walks 5 miles (8 km). Then we catch him "[e]xamining some drafts [plans of the fortifications] offered by Sir Bernard [de Gomme, a top military engineer, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ber…], which he rectified in the field at 2 or 3 stations, with his own hand, by a black lead pen and ruler".
That's pretty hands-on. Charles the popinjay king, criticized for being all pleasure, whips out his black lead pen (let's hope he didn't chew on it) and corrects De Gomme's blueprints, a bit like Kim Jong-un giving "on-the-spot guidance" at a missile factory (for anyone unfamiliar with North Korea, he does that a lot, also correcting blueprints in his own hand while sycophants around him nod in approval and take notes). Maybe De Gomme winced, enthusing, "ooh, an excellent improvement your Majestie, how did we miss that?" while giving a kick to his fellow Dutch aide-de-camp (yea, de Gomme was Dutch) who whispered "nu gaat het instorten [now it's gonna collapse], imbeciel".
Charles & Co. also had a few drinks. The king declined wine "because it was supper time", a show of temperance that shows how he's not debauched everyday; later he had chocolate while "his Royal Highness and others drank Canary".
As for the Tuesday of the secret audience, this would have been October 2 (Gregorian, or Sept. 25 Julian). The public entry must have been such an exhausting event that there's no way the secret meet could happen "at the same time", and Piero despite his "impatience" took a leisurely three days to compose his long report. On the other hand, it's not like he had a lot of really usefull news to send home, and he may have twisted his quill this way and that quite a bit to find how to put being fobbed off again in the best light.
On Piero's amazingly detailed report "BEG[ging] THE QUESTION" of what calendar he uses: Venice is this ultra-modern land whence all invention comes - opera, glassware, mirrors such as the northern barbarians can only drool about, while rummaging for a few of their misshapen coins to buy a square yard. Of course it has adopted the newfangled popish invention, the Gregorian calendar. We too were shocked to find out; it makes time as shaky for our Society as a ship's bridge in a storm!
John Evelyn on "17th September", a Thursday, had offered breakfast to the Venetian ambassador, "this being the day of making his public entry" (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…). Piero himself sent Venice a detailed report dated September 28 on the spectacular event, which happened "yesterday [so, Sept. 27], a Thursday". Our learned book-seller Mr. Google supplied us with a clever devyce to convert calendars (at https://www.fourmilab.ch/document…), which confirms that the 17th (Julian) is indeed the 27th (Gregorian), and both a Thursday. Argh!
This begs another distressing question, which others more erudite than us have doubtelessly already answered: Which calendar does the Gazette use when it reports foreign dispatches? Now we suspect a patchwork of domestic reports dated in Julian, and foreign news (usually written from the foreigners' standpoint) in Gregorian. To complicate it all, in No. 298 the damn Gazette had a report on Mocenigo's grand entry dated "Sept. 23" and placing it "on Monday last", i.e. 9/21 (Julian).
It supplies the useful detail that the 40 coaches in the ambassador's cavalcade were "Coaches and six Horses" no less. We estimate that the 240 horses, the big coaches and the various escorts on foot and on horse would have made a convoy over 800 meters long. Try to manoeuver that along the ~2 kilometers of twisting streets they navigated from Piero's hourse to the king's barge on dockside. But how could the Gazette print the wrong date for an event so memorable? Or is everyone in England bumbling about and asking "pray, what day are we? I say, I thought we were Monday".
A bleep from the Pepys tracker: It has now seen a letter from Ludkin to Williamson, State Paper No. 116 dated October 6, which says the King passed through Ipswich "on Saturday", October 3, "on his way from Lord Croft's house". If so, this Friday is the latest when he must have been at Croft's, whose digs in Bury St. Edmunds are, like the rest of the King's wanderings in the next few days, northeast of London and nowhere near Guildford or the road from Portsmouth to London, which are far to the south and southwest. So we don't see how Sam can have been with "at Saxham [a village near Bury] (...) during the king's visit", and overnighting in Guildford with Sandwich within less than a couple days at least. If October 1 is when he met My Lord in Southwick, he would have had to turn back immediately after handing over the £500 to be in Bury by October 3.
Maybe all will become clear on October 23? We understand that Sam will leave no doubt on his having been in the king's party. Maybe Charles also stopped at Bury on his way back to London? A bio of the baron (at http://www.clement-jones.com/ps19…) says "Charles visited Baron Crofts at Saxham at least four times, in March 1666, October 1668, April 1670 and October 1676. The main purpose of his visits appears to be to have a good time!"
Another beep on the Pepys tracker: Sir George Downing wrote him from the Treasury, "Do not fail to meet me at Sir Robert Long's house to-morrow, about the money employed for the Fleet, on which we should have met the week before" (State Paper No. 107). His wiki entry says Robert Long MP has a house in Nonsuch, southwest of London and a possible stopover on Sam's way from Portsmouth. Probably there's also a pied-à-terre in London but, if not, either Sir George as he wrote his letter thought Sam was at his desk in the Office, and Sam won't get much rest tonight before he jumps onto another coach (Nonsuch is just far enough to be a pain to get to), or he knew Sam was on the road and a system has been arranged for him to check on the mail.
If the king attended Robert Gertz's resurrected Star Chamber, then he must have did so by magic mirror, as on this day Captain Silas Taylor, our man in Harwich, writes to Sam that "The King and his Royal Highness supped this night at my house, and will lodge here till Monday" (State Paper No. 96, found in the usual place).
The poor captain evidently took time out of a busy day to scratch a whiny letter asking for Sam's help at just the wrong time, when he was on the road on Sandwich duty. First, "Last night", he writes, "the King's Harbingers [his advance party] came and took up all the houses and lodgings". Nice that Silas has a house fit for a king's weekend, though if not his Majestie could do his close-to-the-common-man thing. But he doesn't travel alone, and we rather picture the Court descending like locusts on the good burghers of Harwich, to giggle at their funny accent and outmoded dress; families sent to camp out ("and far, pray, to trouble not his Highness with their noisome smells"); this room hastily repainted in bright pink ("my Lady's favorite color"); the cat drowned in the well ("his Grace is allergic"); pantries stripped bare ("why, look at all this ham and cheese (chomp) why are those beoble alwaych gomblaining? (gulp) And was the tax paid on that wine?") Not to mention those stains in the chapel, that will take weeks to remove ("my, is that catholicism?")
Then the captain is, he writes, "troubled that none of the Navy Commissioners are here, to speak to his Majesty and his Royal Highness about encroachments made upon the yard by the town". Left unsaid is why H.M. can't see that for himself but, aye, the commissioners - they answer his messages with standard letters starting with "Your call is very important to us".
"[A]lso for the want of a boat, when his Majesty comes to Landguard Fort. I am utterly ignorant how to get one supplied. I have stopped all the wherries here and at Ipswich, but not one is fit for them to come into; it is too late now to complain, I must shift as well as I can".
Alas, poor Silas! If he, who represents the Office at Harwich, can't find a simple wherry (a small river boat), who can? Imagine him, running along the wharves in his king-is-here finery, increasingly desperate, while a lieutenant on the beach tries to gain time by showing seashells to the king and duke: "You here! Your boat is requisitioned - pfew! What a foul smell of rotten fish! You can go! You! Argh, the crew's full of buboes! This one? No, they're Dutch. This one, maybe, if we scrub them hard enough? Rats, it just sank. Those are drunk. Those are Dissenters. The 'Glorious Oliver'? I don't think so. Jack? I still owe him ten pounds. Ah, if only Mr. Pepys had been there! Mr. Pepys would know! Mr. Pepys knows everything. Now I will end my days in the Barbadoes, for sure..."
And so concludes the month of September, anno 1668, God save the king. In what vortex has our hero disappeared? Here is a mysterie for our Society to tease, but, to Entertain us in these 13 days, be advised that our book-seller Mr. Google offers volume IX of the State Papers (Domestic) of the reign of Charles II, covering October 1668 to December 1669 in the 1894 edition printed by Eyre & Spottiswood on Fleet Street, at
Aye, in this volume we get all of 14 months, of ships arriving laden with pilchards, passes granted for horses to France and complaints about unpaid bills, clear through December 1669. Why, this should be more than enough for our Purpose, judging by certain prophecie we heard. As we emerged from Mr. Google's, our boy struggling to carry our 800-page tome, this crazy Astrologer was marching by, shouting "the world will end on May 31st, 1669!" Not for nothing does His Majestie wisely forbid such horoscopes. Who will rid us of these phanatickes and charlatans? We promptly had the Watch bundle away the old fool to Newgate.
Everyone seems very relaxed about the incident at the Burlingtons', but we feel it deserves a thorough investigation. This is Sam's beautiful periwigg, the pride of his shaven pate, that we're talkin' about. First, the mechanicks of the event: We were under the impression that said wig reached to shoulder-length, so Sam would have had to sit with his back directly over the flame; how can anyone so used to sealing-candles and to periwiggs, and as alert to open flames as anyone living in 1668, be so negligent? Tut-tut, says Smokey Bear. The alternative is that Sam wasn't sitting but standing, but the candle would then have to be a good 30 centimeters tall, which seems a bit much for sealing letters even in a lordly house.
In this case the fire had to be intense enough for the hair to crackle audibly! We're not talking about some vague smoldering here. Cue Sam yanking off the flaming wig and setting fire to the curtains, the tocsin rung, Londoners throwing their clocks into the river and burying their cheese again, jews and Catholicks killed just in case 'twas them, Louis XIV seizing his chance to invade.
The Curator of Expts. should be directed to stop torturing doggs for a moment and to procure some wigs, to ascertain from what Distance, depending e.g. on the Dryness and Nature of the Hair, would a significant Fire Risk arise, and how ardent the combustion must be for an Audible noise to issue. All periwigged heads in attendance nod approval; it seems more urgent than all this tedious tinkering with air pressure; also, it's not like it never happens. Consider, for instance, the Hogarthian illustration at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik…, which postdates today's entry by over a century but could well be what today's scene looked like? Or this one, more recent still, at https://www.1st-art-gallery.com/T…, which we find hilarious and a proof that Wigs On Fire tend to be considered funny, even though they're likely to hurt a lot?
Wigs on Fire in fact might be as commonplace as inkstains, in a city full of offices full of wigs and sealing candles, since Sam then casually proceeds to Westminster and the Exchequer, fearless of giggles about "liar, liar, wig on fire". Hey, every other bureaucrat or official he meets there also has a few singed locks, it shows how hard you work for His Majestie.
We expect that Sam, swinging by home, picked a fresh wig before heading for the theater, where the working-man look wouldn't do. (If not - Knepp, offstage, twirling a hairlock: "My Sammy-boy needs a patch for his wiggy? Why sir, would you peruse our catalog?") But while buying more ribbons rates a mention, fixing the wig doesn't.
Comments
Second Reading
About Monday 9 November 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Thank you Terry for the link you posted in 2017 and 2020 to "The Life of Edward Montagu, K.G., First Earl of Sandwich", a massive biography published in 1912 by F. R. Harris. Harris opines that My Lord should really have asked cousin Sam to write his speech, because "his [Sandwich's] extant letters show him to have been the most prolix of writers, and he was evidently a poor speaker. He was crushed by the weight of his material".
But, speaking of being crushed, and before we shed tears on how My Lord's want of eloquence hurt his legacy and reputation, let's note that, among his suggestions for the improvement of Tangiers, Harris writes (at page 165) that "He would have had all Barbary Jews banished, for they spied, they betrayed the prices of our commodities, and 'they are beggars, and sucke the monye out of the inhabitants' purses'". By 1839 the Barbary Jews accounted for one-quarter of the population of Tangiers (see https://bible-in-spain-annotated.…). We join them in thanking whatever power made Lord Montagu fumble his speech today, and as a side benefit for not dragging Sam Pepys into it.
About Friday 6 November 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Meanwhile, mylord Sandwich, and indirectly our Sam, cannot but be interested in this here State Paper, which closes the "Accounts of the Earl of Sandwich's expenses and receipts as Ambassador Extraordinary to Spain and Portugal, 1666-1668", after they were "examined by the Committee for Foreign Affairs, and allowed with certain reductions".
Earlier this year we had our own debates on what the damage might be, given the eye-popping cost of Court life on the one hand, and the gratuities which (if he behaves) an Ambassador can expect, on the other. Our friend the Venetian ambassador in London, for instance, has bemoaned the rapacious rent he has to pay for his rooms and the extravagant cost of everything in England, and from reports on him and other ambassadors of the time it seems a staff (or entourage) of about 40 people, including a bunch of other nobles used to the good life, is typical of a big Embassy (that would still be a mid-size European embassy as of 2021). On the happy side, recall the 4,000 doublons which Her Catholic majestie of Spain had granted Sandwich "for his maintenance" (see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…), and perhaps also the humongous wine licenses more recently signed off to French ambassador Colbert in London. All in all, we had opined that a warrant for £5,000 issued in February "for the entertainment of the Earl of Sandwich (...) and for other expenses in that embassy" (noted at https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) was quite enough.
Well, oopsie. The final numbers (at https://books.google.fr/books?id=…, "Entry Book 30, f. 100" of Nov. 6) are "total receipts, 18,395L. 2s. 0d.; total expenses for ordinaries, 29,965L. 3s. 0d.; for extraordinaries, 7,574L. 18s. 3d", to a total negative balance of £19,144. No wonder cousin Sam was kindly asked for help make ends meet, but, oy nobles, did you think your titles were a free gift just because the king likes you?
But what about the Queen Regent's doublons then? We thought they converted into over £40k. Or were they totally off the books?
By coincidence, this afternoon the Treasury also went (at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…) over the budget for the Ambassador to Sweden, currently the coat-turning Earl of Carlisle, and warranted him £10 a day for ordinary (coffee, pencils, horsefeed, &c.), about the same per diem as Sandwich burned in Spain and so perhaps a standard rate (and about what most commoners make in a year, but that's for another day). The council, however, put off a request for wardrobe and jewels; presumably those would be the timid start of "extraordinaries".
About Friday 6 November 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Aye, so what did happen on November 6 then? Were the entries just swapped and should we turn to that for November 5? Snap to it, man! We do know that on this Friday morning you were at the Treasury Board, where a minute [found at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…] records that "Mr. Pepys [was asked] to show how his business stands as to the 10,000L. he is to have of the Customs out of the Exchequer". And where was your mind while the question was asked, and maybe had to be asked again?
Why, something is distracting Mr. Pepys, who is now, uncharacteristically, fumbling with his papers. Old Albermarle, squirming from the dropsy in his Lord High Treasurer's chair at the head of the table, nods and thinks, "so you are now truly one of us, brother Pepys. Already senile".
About Sunday 1 November 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
For the record, an article has just appeared in PLoS One: "Batavia shipwreck timbers reveal a key to Dutch success in 17th-century world trade" (open access at https://journals.plos.org/plosone…). The timber in VOC shipwrecks is dated and analyzed with all the skill of this Age. It is found to have been sourced in Northern Europe from rather more diverse locations than England has access to (no big surprise there) and to have been selected with "Masterly" and "profound knowledge about the soft and perishable nature of sapwood (the outermost part of the wood, just beneath the bark), and its susceptibility to insect attack". All this, together with "Innovative ship design" of the sort Charles presently hopes to be buying from Laurens van Heemskerck, was "key to Dutch success in world-wide trade". The ships thus put under the microscope were all built decades ago in the 1620s but we think Sam would still find the article quite relevant given the hard time he has sourcing good timber from England's dwindling forests.
About Friday 30 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Indeed, and Straus' choice of illustrations make the matter easy to comment upon, but in fairness we don't know that it's all the choice Sam was offer'd. In 1668 there are quite a few coach-makers, and they may all have their catalogs and conventions exist, but since Mr. Ford's black Model T is still far in the future and everything is made to order, the variety could be infinite.
It could, but was it? There aren't a lot of extant coaches, or contemporary street views showing enough of them, that are precisely dated, clear and not about stage-coaches or royal carriages. Mr Google has shown us "Hackney coaches in London, 1637" (https://cartographicperspectives.…), where they do look all the same and are indeed boxy four-wheelers, as well as a post-Fire engraving of "the second Royal Exchange, Cornhill" (https://www.british-history.ac.uk…), which has 4-5 that look like the nimbler Charles II chariots and also kinda all look the same. Other examples would be nice to find. What Mr Google had to show when we queried his image collection on "Sam Pepys coach" was quite a surprise, but didn't help resolve the issue.
About Friday 30 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Lying in bed next to becalmed Mrs Pepys, Sam in the quiet of the night listens to the whispers in his head, of what he secretly thinks as the "People from the Future". Tonight they seem to phant'sy choosing his coach... How droll, and they seem to agree with Povy. But he can't decide. How difficult to navigate are the currents of the aristocracy! You look too austere and you're a Roundhead, too flash and you're above your station. You have to find just the right balance. Consider Sir Joseph Williamson, all subdued elegance and discreet professionalism in his portrait at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…, contrast him with his boss Arlington and all his ribbons at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…. Flash and young and you're a rake they'll try to drag into their games...
He knows how dear Knepp would react. "Why Sammy, is that your coach? How a-do-ra-ble, it's so vintage, I just a-do-re it, it reminds me of when I was a little girl". Hmm. But it's cheap, at £50. But it's heavy, and the extra horses would eat the price difference with the lighter one. And turning into narrow Seething Lane with that wagon... Hmm. But the newer coach would scream "new money". Hmm... gotta choose soon... Zzzz.
About Friday 30 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam thanks to brother Thomas has narrowly averted the most dreadfull disaster. Pray imagine, if you can, arriving at these temples of fashion where our CoA likes to see and be seen by the Quality - the theaters, Unthanke's, the Pell-Mell, glittering French dinners in Islington, the Duke's - in something "out of fashion and heavy"? The disdainful doormen directing him to the trade entrance, the impatient catcalls from other drivers ("move it, grandpa, you're taking all the street"), the cruel jests at the Society - whose chief interests include improving coaches and their suspension ("a most interesting presentation by Mr. Pepys on the Historie of Ox-cartes"), the ladies unwilling to clamber aboard ("my physician is definite that I should walk in the rain once a week"). Why not go about in a frill and pilgrim hat, too, maybe with a sign saying "I'm a dull accountant and have no ambition"? Why not move right away to Brampton?
The faux-pas would be all the worse for the late 1660s being, as for pocket-watches and calculators, an epoch of fairly sudden and rapid innovation in coach design, an art in which England had stood still for some time and was now catching up to France. For a terrifying comparison between a modern, streamlined Charles II coach and a dinosaurian Charles I design, turn to page 112 of Ralph Straus' stunningly comprehensive "Carriages & Coaches: Their History & Their Evolution" (London, 1912), which our book-seller Mr. Google displays at https://gutenberg.org/files/46216…
Could Sam, who had done quite a bit of research and knew his steel-rimmed wheels and his thoroughbrace suspensions, have really fallen for a Charles I? Today's Diary entry is all Straus found on the matter. He comments, at page 128: "It was felt, no doubt, that fashion in carriages as in everything else would speedily change. Mr. Pepys must have found considerable difficulty in making up his mind. The new chariots were small, light and, so far as he knew, most fashionable; but possibly they were not quite to his taste, and equally possibly they might not be fashionable in ten years’ time." And Sam, with his wall-hangings &c., is more conservative bourgeois than rake, after all. "Also they perhaps lacked the solid dignity of the older carriages, and were less likely to attract public attention—two important considerations." And in the rutted, rubble-strewn London streets, solid dignity may indeed be more advisable than flimsy elegance. "In the end, however, he seems to have chosen a large coach of the old style. Mr. Povey saw it, and poor Pepys knew at once that a dreadful mistake had been made."
About Tuesday 20 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"Understand", Sam tells the new girl, "you are to stay only till I get that coach, then we'll get a boy. For what could such a delightful maiden as you understand of mechanicks, eh? Urgh, urgh, urgh".
New Girl duly blushes, pretty hands entwined and eyes downcast. "Of course, Sir. 'Twouldn't be proper, Sir". New Girl also thinks, *No way I'd wanna be around that cheapo clunker you're gonna buy anyway, you miser. Now, if you'd gone for a Bellingham with Mr. Hooke's thoroughbrace suspension, I'd have stuck for that and maybe even brought my toolbag...*
About Monday 19 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Three alternative Pepyses, each sitting in his parallel universe, have arrayed their notes and prepare to fill out those 13 blank pages in their Journall.
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"Up, and..." Pepys I's quill stops indecisively in mid-air. *And what? I sat all morning and did my business? How many hours is it gonna take to write up two weeks? And what's the point of wasting my eyesight on this tripe anyway, nobody will ever read this damn diary. Time I could spend answering the mail, buying a coach, hanging pictures with Bess, tocando cosas... Arrh.* A fat drop of ink falls on the desk and makes a stain. Sam ruins a lace cuff in wiping it, then one of the cardboard tubes from his spectacles falls off. Hewer cracks the door open: "Mr. Pepys? They're starting the staff meeting".
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"Up and..." Pepys II's quill stops indecisively in mid-air. *What can I possibly write of those events that won't get me into the Thames? My lord Sandwich was covertly made a Grand Inquisitor by his Catholick Majestie of Spain. King Charles' secret Jesuit guard took us to Saxham, where at a Sabbath we kissed the arse of the great archdevil Astaroth and pledged to deliver England to the Pope and the French. I saw the King get drunk on the blood of little children.* Hewer cracks the door open: "Mr. Pepys? My lord lieutenant of the Tower is here to get 'those notes', he says. Said you'd understand."
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"Up and..." Pepys III's quill stops indecisively in mid-air. *What was that? Voices again?* He turns around - no one else is there. *What? It sounds like distant laughter.* He can almost make words: "Very funny, Robert"; "I agree, Susan". *Aaaah! It's those people from the future again! Always peeking, reading over his shoulder, commenting!* Is he going madd? Are those the voice of daemons, warming his place in Hell already? Sam flings quill and notebook across the room. "Away!! Leave me alone!" Hewer cracks the door open: "Mr. Pepys? Is everything all right?"
About Saturday 17 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Ooh, we forgot. Our baroquepunk Dymo of course has either a charcoal or (more expensive) a tiny ink brush to caress the embossed paper as it wends out. Ink and glue sold separately.
About Saturday 17 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
The Dymo Corporation (not Dynamo) is alive and well, and seems truly a Behemoth of Labell-making. Alongside a range of Optickal printers it still churns out "embossing label makers" (the "Rhino M1011" displayed at https://www.dymo.com/label-makers… is quite fearsome), which bring tears of nostalgia and lyrical reviews from aficionados who, indeed, seem old enough to foist them on their kids and vinyl records.
Sam, who back in February (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) had enrolled Bess and Deb. in a whole day of messy label-making for his books, would certainly have jumped at a Dymo Labelmaker. Let us imagine a pre-steampunk model (baroquepunk, then), an ornate instrument in bronze where a thin paper tape is embossed then gets a thin coating of glue. The mechanism is a trifle, making sufficiently fluid glue is surely within the reach of 17C chymists, and embossing was well in hand, at least for textiles (see https://refashioningrenaissance.e…).
Or would Sam-the-puritan have dismissed it as a vain toy, as he recently did calculating machines, and prevailed over Sam-the-technophile and his alarum watches?
About Thursday 8 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
On Saturday last we had left Capt. Silas Taylor (in https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) frantically searching for a boat that his Majestie could use to cross from Harwich to Landguard Fort, on his inspection of the eastern provinces. Today he has a happier report to Sam (now State Paper No. 127 at https://books.google.fr/books?id=…), in which he tells at length how the royal visit went. "Not having any boat or barge fit to receive him, I made a stage to run into the water, upon which he landed"; that's a bit puzzling, given that today it's a 2-kilometer crossing (see a map at https://www.bing.com/maps/?mkt=en…), but perhaps in 1668 the river Stour was narrower.
Anyway. The color we get on Charles' expedition is that it's pretty big, also involving York, Monmouth, Buckingham, Richmond, three other bigwigs big enough to be named, "&c." and their army of servants and hangers-on. Charles didn't sleep at the captain's house after all, he stayed aboard the yacht Henrietta (profile at https://threedecks.org/index.php?…). Along the way, discussing the house, yard property which Silas had amiably told him was really the king's and the object of much admiration, Charles is quoted as proudly telling York, "brother, this house is my house". Or maybe Charles calls Jamie "bro" but Silas doesn't say.
Then the king gets to visiting the fort. "He landed alone the next day, Sunday, at 6 o'clock", and walks 5 miles (8 km). Then we catch him "[e]xamining some drafts [plans of the fortifications] offered by Sir Bernard [de Gomme, a top military engineer, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ber…], which he rectified in the field at 2 or 3 stations, with his own hand, by a black lead pen and ruler".
That's pretty hands-on. Charles the popinjay king, criticized for being all pleasure, whips out his black lead pen (let's hope he didn't chew on it) and corrects De Gomme's blueprints, a bit like Kim Jong-un giving "on-the-spot guidance" at a missile factory (for anyone unfamiliar with North Korea, he does that a lot, also correcting blueprints in his own hand while sycophants around him nod in approval and take notes). Maybe De Gomme winced, enthusing, "ooh, an excellent improvement your Majestie, how did we miss that?" while giving a kick to his fellow Dutch aide-de-camp (yea, de Gomme was Dutch) who whispered "nu gaat het instorten [now it's gonna collapse], imbeciel".
Charles & Co. also had a few drinks. The king declined wine "because it was supper time", a show of temperance that shows how he's not debauched everyday; later he had chocolate while "his Royal Highness and others drank Canary".
About Monday 5 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
As for the Tuesday of the secret audience, this would have been October 2 (Gregorian, or Sept. 25 Julian). The public entry must have been such an exhausting event that there's no way the secret meet could happen "at the same time", and Piero despite his "impatience" took a leisurely three days to compose his long report. On the other hand, it's not like he had a lot of really usefull news to send home, and he may have twisted his quill this way and that quite a bit to find how to put being fobbed off again in the best light.
About Monday 5 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
On Piero's amazingly detailed report "BEG[ging] THE QUESTION" of what calendar he uses: Venice is this ultra-modern land whence all invention comes - opera, glassware, mirrors such as the northern barbarians can only drool about, while rummaging for a few of their misshapen coins to buy a square yard. Of course it has adopted the newfangled popish invention, the Gregorian calendar. We too were shocked to find out; it makes time as shaky for our Society as a ship's bridge in a storm!
John Evelyn on "17th September", a Thursday, had offered breakfast to the Venetian ambassador, "this being the day of making his public entry" (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…). Piero himself sent Venice a detailed report dated September 28 on the spectacular event, which happened "yesterday [so, Sept. 27], a Thursday". Our learned book-seller Mr. Google supplied us with a clever devyce to convert calendars (at https://www.fourmilab.ch/document…), which confirms that the 17th (Julian) is indeed the 27th (Gregorian), and both a Thursday. Argh!
This begs another distressing question, which others more erudite than us have doubtelessly already answered: Which calendar does the Gazette use when it reports foreign dispatches? Now we suspect a patchwork of domestic reports dated in Julian, and foreign news (usually written from the foreigners' standpoint) in Gregorian. To complicate it all, in No. 298 the damn Gazette had a report on Mocenigo's grand entry dated "Sept. 23" and placing it "on Monday last", i.e. 9/21 (Julian).
It supplies the useful detail that the 40 coaches in the ambassador's cavalcade were "Coaches and six Horses" no less. We estimate that the 240 horses, the big coaches and the various escorts on foot and on horse would have made a convoy over 800 meters long. Try to manoeuver that along the ~2 kilometers of twisting streets they navigated from Piero's hourse to the king's barge on dockside. But how could the Gazette print the wrong date for an event so memorable? Or is everyone in England bumbling about and asking "pray, what day are we? I say, I thought we were Monday".
About Friday 2 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
A bleep from the Pepys tracker: It has now seen a letter from Ludkin to Williamson, State Paper No. 116 dated October 6, which says the King passed through Ipswich "on Saturday", October 3, "on his way from Lord Croft's house". If so, this Friday is the latest when he must have been at Croft's, whose digs in Bury St. Edmunds are, like the rest of the King's wanderings in the next few days, northeast of London and nowhere near Guildford or the road from Portsmouth to London, which are far to the south and southwest. So we don't see how Sam can have been with "at Saxham [a village near Bury] (...) during the king's visit", and overnighting in Guildford with Sandwich within less than a couple days at least. If October 1 is when he met My Lord in Southwick, he would have had to turn back immediately after handing over the £500 to be in Bury by October 3.
Maybe all will become clear on October 23? We understand that Sam will leave no doubt on his having been in the king's party. Maybe Charles also stopped at Bury on his way back to London? A bio of the baron (at http://www.clement-jones.com/ps19…) says "Charles visited Baron Crofts at Saxham at least four times, in March 1666, October 1668, April 1670 and October 1676. The main purpose of his visits appears to be to have a good time!"
About Monday 5 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Another beep on the Pepys tracker: Sir George Downing wrote him from the Treasury, "Do not fail to meet me at Sir Robert Long's house to-morrow, about the money employed for the Fleet, on which we should have met the week before" (State Paper No. 107). His wiki entry says Robert Long MP has a house in Nonsuch, southwest of London and a possible stopover on Sam's way from Portsmouth. Probably there's also a pied-à-terre in London but, if not, either Sir George as he wrote his letter thought Sam was at his desk in the Office, and Sam won't get much rest tonight before he jumps onto another coach (Nonsuch is just far enough to be a pain to get to), or he knew Sam was on the road and a system has been arranged for him to check on the mail.
About Saturday 3 October 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
If the king attended Robert Gertz's resurrected Star Chamber, then he must have did so by magic mirror, as on this day Captain Silas Taylor, our man in Harwich, writes to Sam that "The King and his Royal Highness supped this night at my house, and will lodge here till Monday" (State Paper No. 96, found in the usual place).
The poor captain evidently took time out of a busy day to scratch a whiny letter asking for Sam's help at just the wrong time, when he was on the road on Sandwich duty. First, "Last night", he writes, "the King's Harbingers [his advance party] came and took up all the houses and lodgings". Nice that Silas has a house fit for a king's weekend, though if not his Majestie could do his close-to-the-common-man thing. But he doesn't travel alone, and we rather picture the Court descending like locusts on the good burghers of Harwich, to giggle at their funny accent and outmoded dress; families sent to camp out ("and far, pray, to trouble not his Highness with their noisome smells"); this room hastily repainted in bright pink ("my Lady's favorite color"); the cat drowned in the well ("his Grace is allergic"); pantries stripped bare ("why, look at all this ham and cheese (chomp) why are those beoble alwaych gomblaining? (gulp) And was the tax paid on that wine?") Not to mention those stains in the chapel, that will take weeks to remove ("my, is that catholicism?")
Then the captain is, he writes, "troubled that none of the Navy Commissioners are here, to speak to his Majesty and his Royal Highness about encroachments made upon the yard by the town". Left unsaid is why H.M. can't see that for himself but, aye, the commissioners - they answer his messages with standard letters starting with "Your call is very important to us".
"[A]lso for the want of a boat, when his Majesty comes to Landguard Fort. I am utterly ignorant how to get one supplied. I have stopped all the wherries here and at Ipswich, but not one is fit for them to come into; it is too late now to complain, I must shift as well as I can".
Alas, poor Silas! If he, who represents the Office at Harwich, can't find a simple wherry (a small river boat), who can? Imagine him, running along the wharves in his king-is-here finery, increasingly desperate, while a lieutenant on the beach tries to gain time by showing seashells to the king and duke: "You here! Your boat is requisitioned - pfew! What a foul smell of rotten fish! You can go! You! Argh, the crew's full of buboes! This one? No, they're Dutch. This one, maybe, if we scrub them hard enough? Rats, it just sank. Those are drunk. Those are Dissenters. The 'Glorious Oliver'? I don't think so. Jack? I still owe him ten pounds. Ah, if only Mr. Pepys had been there! Mr. Pepys would know! Mr. Pepys knows everything. Now I will end my days in the Barbadoes, for sure..."
About Monday 28 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Evidently it caught fire. The elevated writing desk makes perfect sense (maybe something like this: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo…).
And we should like to see that video. But now we worry that the crackling sound may have come from... roasting nits!
About Wednesday 30 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
And so concludes the month of September, anno 1668, God save the king. In what vortex has our hero disappeared? Here is a mysterie for our Society to tease, but, to Entertain us in these 13 days, be advised that our book-seller Mr. Google offers volume IX of the State Papers (Domestic) of the reign of Charles II, covering October 1668 to December 1669 in the 1894 edition printed by Eyre & Spottiswood on Fleet Street, at
https://books.google.fr/books?id=…
Aye, in this volume we get all of 14 months, of ships arriving laden with pilchards, passes granted for horses to France and complaints about unpaid bills, clear through December 1669. Why, this should be more than enough for our Purpose, judging by certain prophecie we heard. As we emerged from Mr. Google's, our boy struggling to carry our 800-page tome, this crazy Astrologer was marching by, shouting "the world will end on May 31st, 1669!" Not for nothing does His Majestie wisely forbid such horoscopes. Who will rid us of these phanatickes and charlatans? We promptly had the Watch bundle away the old fool to Newgate.
About Monday 28 September 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Everyone seems very relaxed about the incident at the Burlingtons', but we feel it deserves a thorough investigation. This is Sam's beautiful periwigg, the pride of his shaven pate, that we're talkin' about. First, the mechanicks of the event: We were under the impression that said wig reached to shoulder-length, so Sam would have had to sit with his back directly over the flame; how can anyone so used to sealing-candles and to periwiggs, and as alert to open flames as anyone living in 1668, be so negligent? Tut-tut, says Smokey Bear. The alternative is that Sam wasn't sitting but standing, but the candle would then have to be a good 30 centimeters tall, which seems a bit much for sealing letters even in a lordly house.
In this case the fire had to be intense enough for the hair to crackle audibly! We're not talking about some vague smoldering here. Cue Sam yanking off the flaming wig and setting fire to the curtains, the tocsin rung, Londoners throwing their clocks into the river and burying their cheese again, jews and Catholicks killed just in case 'twas them, Louis XIV seizing his chance to invade.
The Curator of Expts. should be directed to stop torturing doggs for a moment and to procure some wigs, to ascertain from what Distance, depending e.g. on the Dryness and Nature of the Hair, would a significant Fire Risk arise, and how ardent the combustion must be for an Audible noise to issue. All periwigged heads in attendance nod approval; it seems more urgent than all this tedious tinkering with air pressure; also, it's not like it never happens. Consider, for instance, the Hogarthian illustration at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik…, which postdates today's entry by over a century but could well be what today's scene looked like? Or this one, more recent still, at https://www.1st-art-gallery.com/T…, which we find hilarious and a proof that Wigs On Fire tend to be considered funny, even though they're likely to hurt a lot?
Wigs on Fire in fact might be as commonplace as inkstains, in a city full of offices full of wigs and sealing candles, since Sam then casually proceeds to Westminster and the Exchequer, fearless of giggles about "liar, liar, wig on fire". Hey, every other bureaucrat or official he meets there also has a few singed locks, it shows how hard you work for His Majestie.
We expect that Sam, swinging by home, picked a fresh wig before heading for the theater, where the working-man look wouldn't do. (If not - Knepp, offstage, twirling a hairlock: "My Sammy-boy needs a patch for his wiggy? Why sir, would you peruse our catalog?") But while buying more ribbons rates a mention, fixing the wig doesn't.