Always wash your hands after holding a letter from press censor Roger L'Estrange, here seen still trying to pin down Ralph Wallis, a vitriolic pamphleteer who's been running circles around him for a decade, to Williamson, someone he certainly has no love for but who's now climbed far above him, for a reward please, the poor censor's cross being so heavy to bear. A couple days ago, he was already writing Arlington of being "exposed either to want bread or to live on charity", and of how Williamson owed him "his part of 25L. due".
And of how "the law is so short that unless the very act of printing be expressly proved, the printer will come off"; and of how "the Government will find it hard to reduce the press to that order to which I once brought it, and would have kept it" [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 179]. Alas, poor L'Estrange, he says all this but doesn't even seem to expect much anymore, the dissolute government of the present days not having time anymore for the aging reactionary.
Aging, spent, bitter, and not even doing a good job. Apart from Wallis, he can't name any printer or author, he needs more evidence, a jury couldn't use it, and this, and that, and he's ill, and sorry. And, excuse me, he "can fasten nothing on 'The poor Whores' Petition' that a jury will take notice of"? Just weeks ago it was Evidence A in sending four of the rioters to the gallows. Is L'Estrange that unaware of what the court cares about, or does he agree with the petition?
Sam, whose pride is to be a paragon of righteousness and honesty, congratulates himself on his street smarts and thorough knowledge of his city, which tonight allowed him to save his money and fair Knepp from evil, despite being (ahem) a very average athlete. He was, to be fair, a bit puzzled at how easy it was, and at the gentlemen he passed in the labyrinth of obscure alleys, who bowed and smiled and doffed their hats at him. He reflects that London may be ruined, but courtesy is not, and ascribes it to respect for His Majesty on this very Coronation Day, and so to bed.
Stepping silently over the rubble, the two rogues espy the insouciant couple, already visible in the glow that Billy the Link-boy helpfully holds aloft. They finger their heavy clubs in happy anticipation. What fool can be trudging through the Ruines at this hour, and on a festival day at that?
"Best-looking customers in a week", whispers one. "A guinny they'll try escape by the alley on the left where Big Joe waits for them". He already inhales to yell, "stand and deliver" when the senior thief clamps a hand on his mouth.
"Stay. Leave them be. He's a brother, I see".
"The squire in the finery, he's a brother thief?"
"And not just any. Du Vall the French guy carries his likeness in his wallet and showed me the other day. That be Sam 'Golden-Tongue' Pepys of the Navy Office".
"The 'Navy Office'? It really exists? I thought that was tavern-talk".
"You're new to the trade. The Navy Office. Carkesse, Sandwich, Penn, Brouncker, all these legends. We think we steal, but they plunder, up and down the coast, even at sea, right from the King's pocket. You know what 'breaking bulk' is?"
"Nay, I only know 'breaking heads'. You think we can be Navy Officemen too, someday?"
"You'll need to learn your letters, so I guess not".
"Or at least get his autograph on my club?"
But it's too late. Sam has hurriedly turned into the alley on the left.
"You win. Here's your guinea. Now go tell Big Joe to stand down".
[A note: Read the life of Claude Du Vall, his infamous if elegant exploits and how he met his just desserts in 1670, in the "Burglars, Robbers and Highwaymen" section of the posterior but highly enlightening - motivational, to some - "Newgate Calendar", reproduced at www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngintr…]
Clarendon, Clarendon my friend... What an adventure you've had, and what were you doing in Normandy still? We know not of any city of "Bourbon" between Rouen and Dreux, but you must have stopped at Gaillon, which is indeed on the way, and home to the convent of Bourbon-lèz-Gaillon (visit at http://lemercuredegaillon.free.fr…) Anyway, our last reports had you on the bus to Germany ("The Dover packet brings news that the Earl of Clarendon is at Calais, sick of fever, and is bound for Germany", at the end of https://www.british-history.ac.uk…). It seems the fever really delayed you.
Leaving aside just what those "English seamen" were doing so far from the coast, how did they identify you as the infamous C? It's not like they've seen your photo in the papers. If such had been invented, Mr. Pepys' life could be equally as lively (given how the first grievance they hurled at you was about their unpaid wages)... but England's a village, no?
The English seamen and the rabble of other patrons watch in glee as the youngest of the stranded nobles jerks a dead rat at the innkeeper: "I demand, madam, that at the least you have the room swept! We are not the ruffians you seem to expect! This monsieur here is none but His Grace the Lord Clarendon, a very high personage in la Cour d'Angleterre!"
Clarendon gestures agitedly. We had agreed I was your uncle Claude! The mood in the common room suddenly changes. The cook uses the chance to discreetly whisk away the dead rat for tonight's roast.
Warrant from Lord Arlington to Andrew Crooke (...) to search any house, shop, or printing room, supposed to contain scandalous or unlicensed books, or books imported contrary to law; to seize them, make the presses unserviceable, and bring the offenders before himself, or a justice of peace (...)
Surely this warrant, while useful to have just in case, wasn't actually executed. It seems a recipe for absolute chaos - on the streets, in Parliament and in Lord Arlington's waiting room - for all the printers decamping to Rotterdam, and for England to revert wholly to handwriting.
Who was this Andrew Crooke anyway? Mr Google our learned bookseller says he is or was himself in the book trade, and only remembered for publishing Thomas Hobbes and Christiaan Huyghens. Is he now an enforcer for the printer's guild? How sad.
Coventry and Penn, these two knaves, of course they have a secret code, which was indeed exposed on May 21 last:
***************** Mrs. Turner do tell me that my Lady and Pegg have themselves owned to her that Sir W. Coventry and Sir W. Pen had private marks to write to one another by, that when they in appearance writ a fair letter in behalf of anybody, that they had a little mark to show they meant it only in shew: this, these silly people did confess themselves of him. (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…) *****************
"Him" being, presumably, Thomas Turner the general clerk, and now all the women know, and whisper knowingly over their chocolate (or laundry baskets, as their station may dictate). Silly indeed of the two false rogues, but they're not actually seen being roguishly plotting together all that often, their common knavery notwithstanding. When they appear together in the diary it's usually at different times of the day or with the rest of the herd. Maybe a search of Coventry's correspondence would unearth some sinister cabal with Pen? A quick search of the State Papers finds not a single letter from one to the other. They both have their troubles and their little secrets, but what again are they supposed to plot together about?
Anyway, better not to remind Sam of all the conspiracies around him, for today he seems melancholic enough, drifting from one vaguely hostile meeting he couldn't care less about, to another, to a failed dinner, to another meeting where we suspect he was gruff and ill-humored, to skulking half-hidden in the park at sunset like a vampyre. You can almost hear the raven overhead, crying "nevermore"! Is it the terrible besslessness of the times? The failed experiment in diary restructuring? Whatever disrupted the routine these past 10 days? Sam should have a draught of sack, or a tumble, or think of Descartes!
We think quite extraordinary this letter which Allin writes to Williamson today:
******************** April 18. The Monmouth, Downs. Sir Thos. Allin to Williamson. Thanks for his news. Your letters are taxed as high as if they came 100 miles, which will break me if I stay long here. When I rode admiral in the Downs, in Mr. O’Neal’s days, I had my letters free. I beg that letters passing between me and my correspondent, Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships, may go free. I am not beholden to the packet-boat, my own boat carrying and bringing what I have. I paid 4d. for a letter which never was but 2d., and 1s. 4d. for a treble letter; my salary will not allow payments at these rates. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 143.] ********************
Leave aside that Allin's salary "will not allow payments" that Sam flings about daily on oranges at the theater. But Allin is, as we know, an admiral and the main fleet commander in the Channel, where he's the one to deal with Capt. De la Roche, the other French, the Dutch, the Ostenders, and whatnot. Williamson is secretary to Arlington and serves as the government's human switchboard. When these two trade letters, it's not likely to be poetry. Maybe Williamson "his news" is the Gazette, but the triplicate letters Allin then mentions look like his official mail, and beside if someone needs the Gazette it's him. So Allin is telling us (1) he has to pay for his communications, or at least their overland portion, and (2) they move through nothing so official as "Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships". Allin could swallow it as one of the costs of his charge, and pillage some French prize to make it up, except it's not the way anymore. He doesn't think it normal either. Sam certainly doesn't seem to pay or to rely on a friendly merchant for the Office's mail.
Here's a conversation topic with the waterman (since at this late hour on the near-empty Thames, "look how this bloke is driving" won't be available). It's at the end of Gazette No. 250, that would be in the taverns around now:
*********************************** Advertisement. Whereas His Majesty having a great Occasion of setting our his Fleet to Sea, and a great number of Watermen and Watermens servants have been impressed, and are to be impressed for that Service; few whereof have made their appearance on board His Majesties ships, according to the appointment and direction of the Tickets left at their respective houses and habitations. Therefore it is His Majesties Pleasure and the Command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, That all Watermen, and Watermens servants, that have been or shall be impressed by the Rulers of the company of Watermen, by having Tickets left at their houses and habitations as aforesaid, together with His Majesties Press and Conduct Money, and do not make their personal appearance, and constantly attend on board, according to the true intent and meaning of the said Tickets, without any pretense or excuse whatsoever, according to His Majesties Order, shall be imprisoned, disfranchised, and banished the River of Thames, and undergo such other penalties, as are provided against such Offenders. ***********************************
Slightly pathetic. There's the repetitive legalese of the age, but before the open-ended threats in the finale His Majesties be stomping his foot and whining, here. How many watermen read the Gazette, anyway? And how will you find gents make your way home by moonshine, if your loyal watermen be 'pressed, eh? Why, we may be replaced by young rogues who can hardly row a boat - like that bloke out there, did you see that? sheesh - and then, on the benighted river, they might go waaaay to the middle where the water be deep, like thus, and maybe they'd rock the boat, like this.
Sam gulps and clutches his freshly-bought books. Wishes he had dressed down a bit today. "Too right, sir. That, uh, be the next landing after the bridge. But you're absolutely right".
1s. isn't a bad price for imports from Palestine. Maybe those oranges were small, but they're not even such a luxury that (on 15 January last) they can't be thrown at a bad actress.
There must have been quite a nice amount of demand. The present volume of State Papers mentions ships laden with oranges only three times in the 10-month period it covers but, happily, they're all Spanish or Portuguese vessels. Those ships are mostly described as carrying "oranges and lemons" and little else, so they may have been packed full with fruit; a risky venture, what with the rats and the weeks of sailing. The peace between those two and between Spain and France should now allow the oranges to flow unimpeded.
As for the orange girls, discussed yesterday, they seem the direct ancestors to the beer girls of Southeast Asia - who, skimpily dressed in Heineken green, cruise the beer gardens of Bangkok or Phnom Penh, making sure that your glass is always full and your need for a fifth bottle instantly satisfied. They're not indeed considered to add class to an establishment, but that's hardly the point. We think that if they could travel back in time and space to the King's playhouse they would, after a brief moment of adjustment, know exactly what to do with Sam and his insatiable thirst for agrumes.
He's back! Fully formed sentences... detail and color... And-So-To-Bed at the end. It seems it was just tinkering with the diary's format.
The vitamin C may have helped, because, from yesterday's entry, it seems oranges are just 1s. apiece at the theater, and so Sam stuffed himself with up to six of them.
Ooh, I wanna go to the Folly, it seems so cool! Harlots! Drunk gamblers falling into the Thames! Cheap oysters! Pleeease, Sam can we go again?
But let's not get too carried away. The Folly comes across as quite a pleasure dome in descriptions from the 1740s, generally a good time to be dissolute, but that's two generations into the future. For now, the fifth link which JB has helpfully posted has a comment that the Folly was "originally a musical summerhouse attracting the elite", which sounds more like a Sam place, and only later did "it descen[d] into drunkenness and harlotry". Alamy is a photo archive and doesn't source its comment, but it also seems that in Sam's day the Folly was anchored in front of Somerset House, a much more central location than the faraway Twickenham where it may have had to decamp only later, when it became too much fun.
Westminster, 13 Apr. The Committee of Miscarriage to the Commissioners of the Navy: You are summoned to come and explain how it was that His Royal Highness the Duke of York, second biggest man in the Kingdom and commander in chief of the armed forces, had to personally take care of bedding for the soldiers aboard The Mermaid (if that's where the problem was, a 24-gun ship so large enough but not of HRH-drops-all-for-it caliber) at a time when the future of England and Europe hang in the balance.
Naah. Minor problem. In current circumstances it's still better to have soldiers with no beds than beds with no soldiers. HRH would have been only too happy to show the personal attention to common soldiers. May have had the hammocks emblazoned with his arms and "Personal Gift of York, with thanks for your service. Sweet dreams".
With today's bizarre entry we can safely dismiss at least two theories on the causes of the present Diary Interlude. It's not "Busy Sam", since he had time for the Folly, a play and the Park. It's not "Distraught Sam", as he seems to have had a fairly ordinary and rather good day, though the "Little laugh" at the play and "the rest" which also "vexed me" along with the Commissioners' summons, suggest there was a little grey cloud in the picture.
It's probably also not "Debauched Sam"; whatever the Folly may have been, it probably wasn't at its most exciting in mid-morning, when the card sharps and the madams would have still been in bed. Even if it was already swinging, on a tab of just 1s. plus (maybe) the house oysters, Sam can't have been partaking of much that was on the menu. In that case we suspect that, as when he went to see the Temple Halls gamblers at new year's eve, he would have sat quietly with his oysters, watched it all with a knowing smile and a faintly disapproving frown, and touched nothing. It is, however, a bit odd that Sam didn't record a coach or boat fare to Twickenham, a fairly long way to go - and quickly, the morning being packed as usual. He may have been dragged there by someone, who paid his way and eventually left him with his shellfish ("sure you don't want to go see the real fun downstairs?" -- "alas my friend, I have to go deal with Chris Pett's widow, then I have all these meetings with the periwigs", sigh sigh sigh).
This leaves, absent more imaginative theories, more mundane explanations. Today's the day when he would have been expected to tidy up notes for the past 2-3 days, and the diarist demon certainly seems to be rattling its cage. Is Sam experimenting with a new Diary format, that would cleverly combine the day's accounts with a narrative, and be easier to search later on? Did he really write it up, but for some reason (misplaced the key!) not in the regular notebook, and for some reason (squared) never inserted them?
The latest Gazette that Sam can have seen at Lord Brouncker's, if that's indeed "the Book", was No. 249 (dated April 2-6, but the dates on the masthead are completely out of whack). It must have been still wet, making it fit for a Diary mention, as it contains an item dated April 11 from Paris that would have had to move fast indeed.
It does contain Peace news, notably a complicated item from Brussels, April 10, on "an Approbation or Ratification of the Alternative accepted of by the Marquis de Castel Rodrigo, with a full power to sign the Project offered by the French, in order to a Peace, who has thereupon been willing to send his Commission to the Ministers of His Majesty of Great Brittain, and the States General of the United Provinces, now at Paris, for the signing thereof". That HMG has mediators in Paris is news to us, but if so Brouncker may have heard of Spain's acceptance through the diplomatic grapevine even if the Gazette hadn't yet arrived. Also a report from The Hague that "the Plenipotentiaries begin now to repair to Aix la Chappelle". But as we noted recently that Gazette issue also overflows with reports of troops marching or being mobilized, and in fact a further report from the Hague notes that the States, informed that Louis has confirmed a ceasefire until April 10, are "having not yet any great confidence of the Negotiations in France and other parts in relation to the Treaty", and so are massing forces on the border all the same.
The "Peace" could also have been that between Spain and Portugal, which the same Gazette says was celebrated in Vienna with a Te Deum and two wine fountains. That one isn't new news anymore, but it's a Sandwich achievement, and has now allowed My Lord to obtain leave to return home, surely one of the top events Sam looks forward to.
If the news from Paris couldn't run fast enough and all that Sam saw was the previous issue, No. 248, then he read items dated through April 8, including one on Louis "oblig[ing] himself to the Pope, and all other Princes of Christendom, to restore back to the Spaniards all such places as [he] make[s] himself master of by his Arms, between the end of March and the 25 of May if in that time a peace shall be concluded between the two Crowns". The hundreds of soldiers to be maimed or killed until May 25 to gain or defend those places for nothing at all might not have appreciated, but it's a peace offer alright.
Possessed by a wandering Japanese spirit, or having mistaken a rare edition of long-lost master Matsuo Shishiro for a Cicero, Sam today wrote a very fine haiku:
平和のニュース 音楽を学ぶ
(Heiwa no nyūsu/ongaku o manabu, "peace news/learn music", the closest that Google Translate comes to the pure Pepys original, alas losing a bit of the cadence along the way. The OED clarifies that "conning" is, "Archaic: learning by heart", something master Shishiro would have approved too).
And, maybe he is having a Very Special Week in Bess' absence. The man buys gloves on his way to the theater, pays double fare on the way back. Hmmmm. Did he dismiss the servants and cook a romantic supper? His secret personal recipe, bacon sautéed with anchovies. One more memory he may not have wanted to write up a couple days later.
It seems that Sam collects his notes to write the Diary every 3-4 days. So, if anything has distracted him from the routine it could become apparent around Wednesday. Surely he's not libertine enough to disappear entirely into some week-long orgy, on which we suspect he would only be too happy to give us a report anyway. Could it just be the pressure of work? He seems to have quite a bit of discretion on how hard he works - his neglect of the Office last year was something he reproached himself, not something he ever said his bosses were calling him in about. He did, recently, moan on how the Office would run better if he really took control, perhaps he gave that a try? Or could there be something in the Office caseload, or in the current war scare for all the off-hand way he mentions it in the Diary, that especially preoccupies our bachelor? Something even more dire than the Committees' demands or the constant problems with ropeyards and captains.
Or is he just enraptured by the lives of saints in the Golden Legend?
And, correct on "weighing" the ships. Those things have been half-submerged for months. Some were so well made as to still be salvageable but many of them must have started to disintegrate, filling the river with more or less invisible driftwood and flotsam.
Our own view, if we are to make historicall comparisons, is that the people of the early 21st century (to whom we send our regards) are not facing anything like the geopolitical situation which is plunging Europe into chaos a day's sailing from Sam's little world. The sudden, all-around mobilizations, the complicated and unstable alliances, the central power juggernaut intent on gobbling land while professing peace, all this seems sooo July 1914. Except of course that Europe already is at war, in fact in at least three of them as two other nasty little conflicts continue in Poland and Cyprus (with totally insane trench warfare in the latter case), to say nothing of the colonies. England can really pat itself on the back for being an island.
It surfaces, by the way, that the Spanish force which the Navy is supposed to "convoy" through the Channel on its way to the Flemish front and amid French warships, is of 10,000 men. Go ahead and convoy that.
Sam seems to have been so busy at the office today, that he didn't find time for his letters in the morning sitting. Yesterday, when he reported working on the "great hurry to be made in the fitting forth of this present little fleet", he may have been handed an extremely scary, and no doubt very sensitive, request from Mr. Wren to the Commissioners, which falls right into his area of expertise and
"Asks for an estimate of the charge of transporting 4,000 foot to Ostend, to be made two ways, one upon the King's ships, and the other upon hired vessels." (https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
Left unsaid and hanging in the air is whose men, to do what, on what conditions, and how the French would react if England went from doing its thing as a naval power, to stepping so squarely into the land war.
The other source of Intelligence at our disposall, the Gazette (and no wonder it's in such demand these days) reports (in Nos. 248 and 249) that, even as the plenipotentiaries are assembling at Aix-la-Chapelle, no one is using the truce which Louis has declared until April 10 to learn silk painting and that, instead, tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of warships are converging on the Netherlands - perhaps because there's nothing like putting a gun on the table at the start of negotiations, and no less likely to be ready in case the talks just break down. By coincidence, 4,000 men is also the size of the contingents which the Swiss have agreed to provide to Spain, and of new levies the French are raising to send north. Holland is hurriedly arming 60 men-of-war and frigates, putting its entire fleet on hair-trigger readiness, and is massing troops at Berg-op-Zoom on the border. Sweden has agreed to provide 12,000 men - perhaps some of those could have to come on English ships. Even the Russians are looking to gang up on Louis, with an incredible offer by the Grand Duke of Muscovy, who's been in Madrid, of helping Spain with 40,000 men!
So, it's raining men, and someone in Westminster wants Sam's shop to do a quick costing on putting a finger into the meat grinder.
"Great hurry to be made" in particular about the gun crews, which the Ordnance Office was despairing of getting back. Just step back, gents, and let Sam Pepys work his magic network:
April 7, Portsmouth: Capt. John Tinker to Sam. Pepys. Has ordered the gunner of each ship to attend the Ordnance Officers, to get their stores ready to put aboard as soon as the ships are ready to take them. (https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
Dear Sam: Congratulations on another spectacular day. Now, why not save some ink and stop it with the protestations that all this praise affronts your modesty? You did enjoy lending HRH your cloak so much that, when you remembered it after closing the day's entry, you did rush back to the page to make sure it was recorded. Come on!
And, the French. Always the French. The intelligence couldn't be more confused. Just today, Thomas Holden in the same letter from Falmouth had a report from a ship come out of La Rochelle "that there is no talk there of a war with England", and a report from Allin's vessel "that we are like to have a speedy war with France". Now we worry that Allin, who even had "a skirmish" with the French, might just be smarting for action when everything is so precariously balanced. Someone on Allin's frigate said "they were cruising off the Lizard to meet the Spanish fleet, and convoy them through the Channel". Beaufort's fleet is there too, but to keep the Spanish from reinforcing their forces in Flanders. How do we wish there was an Economic Exclusive Zone in which it would be OK to convoy the Spanish, to let the French slaughter them in international waters if that be their pleasure. Both sides are now fighting harder than ever to gain the most advantage for when the music stops. Tomorrow, in fact, the Gazette will get a report from Brussels of the Spanish arresting all the French they can find, presumably because hostages are so handy in peace negotiations.
Comments
Second Reading
About Friday 24 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Always wash your hands after holding a letter from press censor Roger L'Estrange, here seen still trying to pin down Ralph Wallis, a vitriolic pamphleteer who's been running circles around him for a decade, to Williamson, someone he certainly has no love for but who's now climbed far above him, for a reward please, the poor censor's cross being so heavy to bear. A couple days ago, he was already writing Arlington of being "exposed either to want bread or to live on charity", and of how Williamson owed him "his part of 25L. due".
And of how "the law is so short that unless the very act of printing be expressly proved, the printer will come off"; and of how "the Government will find it hard to reduce the press to that order to which I once brought it, and would have kept it" [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 179]. Alas, poor L'Estrange, he says all this but doesn't even seem to expect much anymore, the dissolute government of the present days not having time anymore for the aging reactionary.
Aging, spent, bitter, and not even doing a good job. Apart from Wallis, he can't name any printer or author, he needs more evidence, a jury couldn't use it, and this, and that, and he's ill, and sorry. And, excuse me, he "can fasten nothing on 'The poor Whores' Petition' that a jury will take notice of"? Just weeks ago it was Evidence A in sending four of the rioters to the gallows. Is L'Estrange that unaware of what the court cares about, or does he agree with the petition?
About Thursday 23 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam, whose pride is to be a paragon of righteousness and honesty, congratulates himself on his street smarts and thorough knowledge of his city, which tonight allowed him to save his money and fair Knepp from evil, despite being (ahem) a very average athlete. He was, to be fair, a bit puzzled at how easy it was, and at the gentlemen he passed in the labyrinth of obscure alleys, who bowed and smiled and doffed their hats at him. He reflects that London may be ruined, but courtesy is not, and ascribes it to respect for His Majesty on this very Coronation Day, and so to bed.
About Thursday 23 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Stepping silently over the rubble, the two rogues espy the insouciant couple, already visible in the glow that Billy the Link-boy helpfully holds aloft. They finger their heavy clubs in happy anticipation. What fool can be trudging through the Ruines at this hour, and on a festival day at that?
"Best-looking customers in a week", whispers one. "A guinny they'll try escape by the alley on the left where Big Joe waits for them". He already inhales to yell, "stand and deliver" when the senior thief clamps a hand on his mouth.
"Stay. Leave them be. He's a brother, I see".
"The squire in the finery, he's a brother thief?"
"And not just any. Du Vall the French guy carries his likeness in his wallet and showed me the other day. That be Sam 'Golden-Tongue' Pepys of the Navy Office".
"The 'Navy Office'? It really exists? I thought that was tavern-talk".
"You're new to the trade. The Navy Office. Carkesse, Sandwich, Penn, Brouncker, all these legends. We think we steal, but they plunder, up and down the coast, even at sea, right from the King's pocket. You know what 'breaking bulk' is?"
"Nay, I only know 'breaking heads'. You think we can be Navy Officemen too, someday?"
"You'll need to learn your letters, so I guess not".
"Or at least get his autograph on my club?"
But it's too late. Sam has hurriedly turned into the alley on the left.
"You win. Here's your guinea. Now go tell Big Joe to stand down".
[A note: Read the life of Claude Du Vall, his infamous if elegant exploits and how he met his just desserts in 1670, in the "Burglars, Robbers and Highwaymen" section of the posterior but highly enlightening - motivational, to some - "Newgate Calendar", reproduced at www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngintr…]
About Wednesday 22 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Clarendon, Clarendon my friend... What an adventure you've had, and what were you doing in Normandy still? We know not of any city of "Bourbon" between Rouen and Dreux, but you must have stopped at Gaillon, which is indeed on the way, and home to the convent of Bourbon-lèz-Gaillon (visit at http://lemercuredegaillon.free.fr…) Anyway, our last reports had you on the bus to Germany ("The Dover packet brings news that the Earl of Clarendon is at Calais, sick of fever, and is bound for Germany", at the end of https://www.british-history.ac.uk…). It seems the fever really delayed you.
Leaving aside just what those "English seamen" were doing so far from the coast, how did they identify you as the infamous C? It's not like they've seen your photo in the papers. If such had been invented, Mr. Pepys' life could be equally as lively (given how the first grievance they hurled at you was about their unpaid wages)... but England's a village, no?
The English seamen and the rabble of other patrons watch in glee as the youngest of the stranded nobles jerks a dead rat at the innkeeper: "I demand, madam, that at the least you have the room swept! We are not the ruffians you seem to expect! This monsieur here is none but His Grace the Lord Clarendon, a very high personage in la Cour d'Angleterre!"
Clarendon gestures agitedly. We had agreed I was your uncle Claude! The mood in the common room suddenly changes. The cook uses the chance to discreetly whisk away the dead rat for tonight's roast.
About Monday 20 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Warrant from Lord Arlington to Andrew Crooke (...) to search any house, shop, or printing room, supposed to contain scandalous or unlicensed books, or books imported contrary to law;
to seize them, make the presses unserviceable, and bring the offenders before himself, or a justice of peace (...)
Surely this warrant, while useful to have just in case, wasn't actually executed. It seems a recipe for absolute chaos - on the streets, in Parliament and in Lord Arlington's waiting room - for all the printers decamping to Rotterdam, and for England to revert wholly to handwriting.
Who was this Andrew Crooke anyway? Mr Google our learned bookseller says he is or was himself in the book trade, and only remembered for publishing Thomas Hobbes and Christiaan Huyghens. Is he now an enforcer for the printer's guild? How sad.
About Monday 20 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Coventry and Penn, these two knaves, of course they have a secret code, which was indeed exposed on May 21 last:
*****************
Mrs. Turner do tell me that my Lady and Pegg have themselves owned to her that Sir W. Coventry and Sir W. Pen had private marks to write to one another by, that when they in appearance writ a fair letter in behalf of anybody, that they had a little mark to show they meant it only in shew: this, these silly people did confess themselves of him. (https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…)
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"Him" being, presumably, Thomas Turner the general clerk, and now all the women know, and whisper knowingly over their chocolate (or laundry baskets, as their station may dictate). Silly indeed of the two false rogues, but they're not actually seen being roguishly plotting together all that often, their common knavery notwithstanding. When they appear together in the diary it's usually at different times of the day or with the rest of the herd. Maybe a search of Coventry's correspondence would unearth some sinister cabal with Pen? A quick search of the State Papers finds not a single letter from one to the other. They both have their troubles and their little secrets, but what again are they supposed to plot together about?
Anyway, better not to remind Sam of all the conspiracies around him, for today he seems melancholic enough, drifting from one vaguely hostile meeting he couldn't care less about, to another, to a failed dinner, to another meeting where we suspect he was gruff and ill-humored, to skulking half-hidden in the park at sunset like a vampyre. You can almost hear the raven overhead, crying "nevermore"! Is it the terrible besslessness of the times? The failed experiment in diary restructuring? Whatever disrupted the routine these past 10 days? Sam should have a draught of sack, or a tumble, or think of Descartes!
About Saturday 18 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
We think quite extraordinary this letter which Allin writes to Williamson today:
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April 18. The Monmouth, Downs. Sir Thos. Allin to Williamson.
Thanks for his news. Your letters are taxed as high as if they came 100 miles, which will break me if I stay long here. When I rode admiral in the Downs, in Mr. O’Neal’s days, I had my letters free. I beg that letters passing between me and my correspondent, Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships, may go free. I am not beholden to the packet-boat, my own boat carrying and bringing what I have. I paid 4d. for a letter which never was but 2d., and 1s. 4d. for a treble letter; my salary will not allow payments at these rates. [S.P. Dom., Car. II. 238, No. 143.]
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Leave aside that Allin's salary "will not allow payments" that Sam flings about daily on oranges at the theater. But Allin is, as we know, an admiral and the main fleet commander in the Channel, where he's the one to deal with Capt. De la Roche, the other French, the Dutch, the Ostenders, and whatnot. Williamson is secretary to Arlington and serves as the government's human switchboard. When these two trade letters, it's not likely to be poetry. Maybe Williamson "his news" is the Gazette, but the triplicate letters Allin then mentions look like his official mail, and beside if someone needs the Gazette it's him. So Allin is telling us (1) he has to pay for his communications, or at least their overland portion, and (2) they move through nothing so official as "Edw. Pate, merchant of London, who receives all my letters from ships". Allin could swallow it as one of the costs of his charge, and pillage some French prize to make it up, except it's not the way anymore. He doesn't think it normal either. Sam certainly doesn't seem to pay or to rely on a friendly merchant for the Office's mail.
About Thursday 16 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"... by water, by moonshine, home"
Here's a conversation topic with the waterman (since at this late hour on the near-empty Thames, "look how this bloke is driving" won't be available). It's at the end of Gazette No. 250, that would be in the taverns around now:
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Advertisement.
Whereas His Majesty having a great Occasion of setting our his Fleet to Sea, and a great number of Watermen and Watermens servants have been impressed, and are to be impressed for that Service; few whereof have made their appearance on board His Majesties ships, according to the appointment and direction of the Tickets left at their respective houses and habitations. Therefore it is His Majesties Pleasure and the Command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of England, That all Watermen, and Watermens servants, that have been or shall be impressed by the Rulers of the company of Watermen, by having Tickets left at their houses and habitations as aforesaid, together with His Majesties Press and Conduct Money, and do not make their personal appearance, and constantly attend on board, according to the true intent and meaning of the said Tickets, without any pretense or excuse whatsoever, according to His Majesties Order, shall be imprisoned, disfranchised, and banished the River of Thames, and undergo such other penalties, as are provided against such Offenders.
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Slightly pathetic. There's the repetitive legalese of the age, but before the open-ended threats in the finale His Majesties be stomping his foot and whining, here. How many watermen read the Gazette, anyway? And how will you find gents make your way home by moonshine, if your loyal watermen be 'pressed, eh? Why, we may be replaced by young rogues who can hardly row a boat - like that bloke out there, did you see that? sheesh - and then, on the benighted river, they might go waaaay to the middle where the water be deep, like thus, and maybe they'd rock the boat, like this.
Sam gulps and clutches his freshly-bought books. Wishes he had dressed down a bit today. "Too right, sir. That, uh, be the next landing after the bridge. But you're absolutely right".
About Tuesday 14 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
1s. isn't a bad price for imports from Palestine. Maybe those oranges were small, but they're not even such a luxury that (on 15 January last) they can't be thrown at a bad actress.
There must have been quite a nice amount of demand. The present volume of State Papers mentions ships laden with oranges only three times in the 10-month period it covers but, happily, they're all Spanish or Portuguese vessels. Those ships are mostly described as carrying "oranges and lemons" and little else, so they may have been packed full with fruit; a risky venture, what with the rats and the weeks of sailing. The peace between those two and between Spain and France should now allow the oranges to flow unimpeded.
As for the orange girls, discussed yesterday, they seem the direct ancestors to the beer girls of Southeast Asia - who, skimpily dressed in Heineken green, cruise the beer gardens of Bangkok or Phnom Penh, making sure that your glass is always full and your need for a fifth bottle instantly satisfied. They're not indeed considered to add class to an establishment, but that's hardly the point. We think that if they could travel back in time and space to the King's playhouse they would, after a brief moment of adjustment, know exactly what to do with Sam and his insatiable thirst for agrumes.
About Wednesday 15 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
He's back! Fully formed sentences... detail and color... And-So-To-Bed at the end. It seems it was just tinkering with the diary's format.
The vitamin C may have helped, because, from yesterday's entry, it seems oranges are just 1s. apiece at the theater, and so Sam stuffed himself with up to six of them.
About Monday 13 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Ooh, I wanna go to the Folly, it seems so cool! Harlots! Drunk gamblers falling into the Thames! Cheap oysters! Pleeease, Sam can we go again?
But let's not get too carried away. The Folly comes across as quite a pleasure dome in descriptions from the 1740s, generally a good time to be dissolute, but that's two generations into the future. For now, the fifth link which JB has helpfully posted has a comment that the Folly was "originally a musical summerhouse attracting the elite", which sounds more like a Sam place, and only later did "it descen[d] into drunkenness and harlotry". Alamy is a photo archive and doesn't source its comment, but it also seems that in Sam's day the Folly was anchored in front of Somerset House, a much more central location than the faraway Twickenham where it may have had to decamp only later, when it became too much fun.
About Monday 13 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Westminster, 13 Apr. The Committee of Miscarriage to the Commissioners of the Navy: You are summoned to come and explain how it was that His Royal Highness the Duke of York, second biggest man in the Kingdom and commander in chief of the armed forces, had to personally take care of bedding for the soldiers aboard The Mermaid (if that's where the problem was, a 24-gun ship so large enough but not of HRH-drops-all-for-it caliber) at a time when the future of England and Europe hang in the balance.
Naah. Minor problem. In current circumstances it's still better to have soldiers with no beds than beds with no soldiers. HRH would have been only too happy to show the personal attention to common soldiers. May have had the hammocks emblazoned with his arms and "Personal Gift of York, with thanks for your service. Sweet dreams".
About Monday 13 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
With today's bizarre entry we can safely dismiss at least two theories on the causes of the present Diary Interlude. It's not "Busy Sam", since he had time for the Folly, a play and the Park. It's not "Distraught Sam", as he seems to have had a fairly ordinary and rather good day, though the "Little laugh" at the play and "the rest" which also "vexed me" along with the Commissioners' summons, suggest there was a little grey cloud in the picture.
It's probably also not "Debauched Sam"; whatever the Folly may have been, it probably wasn't at its most exciting in mid-morning, when the card sharps and the madams would have still been in bed. Even if it was already swinging, on a tab of just 1s. plus (maybe) the house oysters, Sam can't have been partaking of much that was on the menu. In that case we suspect that, as when he went to see the Temple Halls gamblers at new year's eve, he would have sat quietly with his oysters, watched it all with a knowing smile and a faintly disapproving frown, and touched nothing. It is, however, a bit odd that Sam didn't record a coach or boat fare to Twickenham, a fairly long way to go - and quickly, the morning being packed as usual. He may have been dragged there by someone, who paid his way and eventually left him with his shellfish ("sure you don't want to go see the real fun downstairs?" -- "alas my friend, I have to go deal with Chris Pett's widow, then I have all these meetings with the periwigs", sigh sigh sigh).
This leaves, absent more imaginative theories, more mundane explanations. Today's the day when he would have been expected to tidy up notes for the past 2-3 days, and the diarist demon certainly seems to be rattling its cage. Is Sam experimenting with a new Diary format, that would cleverly combine the day's accounts with a narrative, and be easier to search later on? Did he really write it up, but for some reason (misplaced the key!) not in the regular notebook, and for some reason (squared) never inserted them?
About Sunday 12 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
The latest Gazette that Sam can have seen at Lord Brouncker's, if that's indeed "the Book", was No. 249 (dated April 2-6, but the dates on the masthead are completely out of whack). It must have been still wet, making it fit for a Diary mention, as it contains an item dated April 11 from Paris that would have had to move fast indeed.
It does contain Peace news, notably a complicated item from Brussels, April 10, on "an Approbation or Ratification of the Alternative accepted of by the Marquis de Castel Rodrigo, with a full power to sign the Project offered by the French, in order to a Peace, who has thereupon been willing to send his Commission to the Ministers of His Majesty of Great Brittain, and the States General of the United Provinces, now at Paris, for the signing thereof". That HMG has mediators in Paris is news to us, but if so Brouncker may have heard of Spain's acceptance through the diplomatic grapevine even if the Gazette hadn't yet arrived. Also a report from The Hague that "the Plenipotentiaries begin now to repair to Aix la Chappelle". But as we noted recently that Gazette issue also overflows with reports of troops marching or being mobilized, and in fact a further report from the Hague notes that the States, informed that Louis has confirmed a ceasefire until April 10, are "having not yet any great confidence of the Negotiations in France and other parts in relation to the Treaty", and so are massing forces on the border all the same.
The "Peace" could also have been that between Spain and Portugal, which the same Gazette says was celebrated in Vienna with a Te Deum and two wine fountains. That one isn't new news anymore, but it's a Sandwich achievement, and has now allowed My Lord to obtain leave to return home, surely one of the top events Sam looks forward to.
If the news from Paris couldn't run fast enough and all that Sam saw was the previous issue, No. 248, then he read items dated through April 8, including one on Louis "oblig[ing] himself to the Pope, and all other Princes of Christendom, to restore back to the Spaniards all such places as [he] make[s] himself master of by his Arms, between the end of March and the 25 of May if in that time a peace shall be concluded between the two Crowns". The hundreds of soldiers to be maimed or killed until May 25 to gain or defend those places for nothing at all might not have appreciated, but it's a peace offer alright.
About Saturday 11 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Possessed by a wandering Japanese spirit, or having mistaken a rare edition of long-lost master Matsuo Shishiro for a Cicero, Sam today wrote a very fine haiku:
平和のニュース
音楽を学ぶ
(Heiwa no nyūsu/ongaku o manabu, "peace news/learn music", the closest that Google Translate comes to the pure Pepys original, alas losing a bit of the cadence along the way. The OED clarifies that "conning" is, "Archaic: learning by heart", something master Shishiro would have approved too).
And, maybe he is having a Very Special Week in Bess' absence. The man buys gloves on his way to the theater, pays double fare on the way back. Hmmmm. Did he dismiss the servants and cook a romantic supper? His secret personal recipe, bacon sautéed with anchovies. One more memory he may not have wanted to write up a couple days later.
About Friday 10 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
It seems that Sam collects his notes to write the Diary every 3-4 days. So, if anything has distracted him from the routine it could become apparent around Wednesday. Surely he's not libertine enough to disappear entirely into some week-long orgy, on which we suspect he would only be too happy to give us a report anyway. Could it just be the pressure of work? He seems to have quite a bit of discretion on how hard he works - his neglect of the Office last year was something he reproached himself, not something he ever said his bosses were calling him in about. He did, recently, moan on how the Office would run better if he really took control, perhaps he gave that a try? Or could there be something in the Office caseload, or in the current war scare for all the off-hand way he mentions it in the Diary, that especially preoccupies our bachelor? Something even more dire than the Committees' demands or the constant problems with ropeyards and captains.
Or is he just enraptured by the lives of saints in the Golden Legend?
And, correct on "weighing" the ships. Those things have been half-submerged for months. Some were so well made as to still be salvageable but many of them must have started to disintegrate, filling the river with more or less invisible driftwood and flotsam.
About Thursday 9 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Our own view, if we are to make historicall comparisons, is that the people of the early 21st century (to whom we send our regards) are not facing anything like the geopolitical situation which is plunging Europe into chaos a day's sailing from Sam's little world. The sudden, all-around mobilizations, the complicated and unstable alliances, the central power juggernaut intent on gobbling land while professing peace, all this seems sooo July 1914. Except of course that Europe already is at war, in fact in at least three of them as two other nasty little conflicts continue in Poland and Cyprus (with totally insane trench warfare in the latter case), to say nothing of the colonies. England can really pat itself on the back for being an island.
It surfaces, by the way, that the Spanish force which the Navy is supposed to "convoy" through the Channel on its way to the Flemish front and amid French warships, is of 10,000 men. Go ahead and convoy that.
About Thursday 9 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Sam seems to have been so busy at the office today, that he didn't find time for his letters in the morning sitting. Yesterday, when he reported working on the "great hurry to be made in the fitting forth of this present little fleet", he may have been handed an extremely scary, and no doubt very sensitive, request from Mr. Wren to the Commissioners, which falls right into his area of expertise and
"Asks for an estimate of the charge of transporting 4,000 foot to Ostend, to be made two ways, one upon the King's ships, and the other upon hired vessels." (https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
Left unsaid and hanging in the air is whose men, to do what, on what conditions, and how the French would react if England went from doing its thing as a naval power, to stepping so squarely into the land war.
The other source of Intelligence at our disposall, the Gazette (and no wonder it's in such demand these days) reports (in Nos. 248 and 249) that, even as the plenipotentiaries are assembling at Aix-la-Chapelle, no one is using the truce which Louis has declared until April 10 to learn silk painting and that, instead, tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of warships are converging on the Netherlands - perhaps because there's nothing like putting a gun on the table at the start of negotiations, and no less likely to be ready in case the talks just break down. By coincidence, 4,000 men is also the size of the contingents which the Swiss have agreed to provide to Spain, and of new levies the French are raising to send north. Holland is hurriedly arming 60 men-of-war and frigates, putting its entire fleet on hair-trigger readiness, and is massing troops at Berg-op-Zoom on the border. Sweden has agreed to provide 12,000 men - perhaps some of those could have to come on English ships. Even the Russians are looking to gang up on Louis, with an incredible offer by the Grand Duke of Muscovy, who's been in Madrid, of helping Spain with 40,000 men!
So, it's raining men, and someone in Westminster wants Sam's shop to do a quick costing on putting a finger into the meat grinder.
About Tuesday 7 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
"Great hurry to be made" in particular about the gun crews, which the Ordnance Office was despairing of getting back. Just step back, gents, and let Sam Pepys work his magic network:
April 7, Portsmouth: Capt. John Tinker to Sam. Pepys. Has ordered the gunner of each ship to attend the Ordnance Officers, to get their stores ready to put aboard as soon as the ships are ready to take them. (https://play.google.com/books/rea…)
And, voilà. Anything else?
About Monday 6 April 1668
Stephane Chenard • Link
Dear Sam: Congratulations on another spectacular day. Now, why not save some ink and stop it with the protestations that all this praise affronts your modesty? You did enjoy lending HRH your cloak so much that, when you remembered it after closing the day's entry, you did rush back to the page to make sure it was recorded. Come on!
And, the French. Always the French. The intelligence couldn't be more confused. Just today, Thomas Holden in the same letter from Falmouth had a report from a ship come out of La Rochelle "that there is no talk there of a war with England", and a report from Allin's vessel "that we are like to have a speedy war with France". Now we worry that Allin, who even had "a skirmish" with the French, might just be smarting for action when everything is so precariously balanced. Someone on Allin's frigate said "they were cruising off the Lizard to meet the Spanish fleet, and convoy them through the Channel". Beaufort's fleet is there too, but to keep the Spanish from reinforcing their forces in Flanders. How do we wish there was an Economic Exclusive Zone in which it would be OK to convoy the Spanish, to let the French slaughter them in international waters if that be their pleasure. Both sides are now fighting harder than ever to gain the most advantage for when the music stops. Tomorrow, in fact, the Gazette will get a report from Brussels of the Spanish arresting all the French they can find, presumably because hostages are so handy in peace negotiations.
(Holden's letter is at https://play.google.com/books/rea…. The Gazette notice will be in No. 248, page 2).