@Carolina: pleister and plaister are pronounced *almost*, but not quite the same. The "ei" sound doesn't exist in English, but the version of "ai" in plaister is relatively close.
In fact, pleister means plaster in both meanings: it's not just the thing you stick on a wound, but also the stuff you spread on walls.
Also, if you think Pepys' English is closer to Dutch than modern English, you should try Chaucer's. (No really. You should try Chaucer. Anyone should.) Not so much Beowulf; both English and Dutch have changed too much since then.
@Sarah: "The Stuarts were far from Victorians when it came to sex" - to be fair, neither were the Victorians, certainly not Vicky herself. As witnessed both by the number of children she and Albert had - rather more than was necessary to ensure an heir and a spare - and by the loving way she wrote of him privately.
Nor were the people in the 17th century quite as backwards as you will have it. The Earth was not flat, and Galileo was punished not for saying it went around the Sun, but for being an arrogant arse about it and insulting those in power while being on a very tottery footing himself. All of that *is* a Victorian, starting in the Enlightenment, myth.
(The Puritans who found themselves kicked out of even the Netherlands and went to found and fundamentally (sic!) shape the USA - those are another matter. But back then, they were a minority.)
It almost certainly is prints by Ragot *after* Rubens, but there's one thing it certainly isn't: it's not prints by Ragot *bought from* Rubens. Pieter Paul was not just a painter but also a diplomat, and did diplome in England, but he was dead 20 years by this time; and none of his descendants seem to have had much business in London. It it therefore very unlikely any Rubens was personally involved.
@Tonyel: I suspect the difference is that money can come in the form of promissory notes (proper banknotes didn't *quite* yet exist in Europe yet), which can be kept discreetly on one's person. Probably not coinage, to the sum of £500, since that would weigh a lot, but even that would be somewhat compact. Plate, by contrast, is bulky and ostentatious. You can't put a £100 coffee pot and set of dishes in your belt pocket or sleeve without it being obvious.
Unlike most (all?) of the pubs mentioned, the Clothworkers' Hall is still there, and still in the same location as it was in Pepys' time. Well, *a* Clothworkers' Hall is still there, for reasons which will become clear in six years' time... but the current one was built by the same Livery Company as all the previous ones. https://www.clothworkers.co.uk/ab…https://www.clothworkers.co.uk/hi… Apparently, they also still serve food, though I haven't been able to find whether they provide that service to members on a daily basis or only cater for events.
It shouldn't be surprising that Sam dined there, even if he was not yet (as Terry Foreman has noted he would later be) its Master. That would only be seven years from now, so he was probably already a member and it was presumably a family thing: his father and brother were both in the trade as tailors. Though still slightly surprising: why not be members of the Company of Merchant Taylors? They are, after all, 7th in the order of precedence, while the Clothworkers are "only" 12th.
Note that the King's Head doesn't exist any more. There are still pubs by that name in London, but not on Charing Cross. Indeed, as far as I can tell there are no pubs at all on Charing Cross itself. Nor would you want one there - it is now one of the busiest intersections in central London. There *is* a pub in or next to Charing Cross Station, but that is just off CC itself, on the Strand; and several in Charing Cross road. None of these are called the King's Head.
Nevertheless, there is still a king's head in the centre of Charing Cross, and it is Charles I's; but it is firmly attached to his neck as part of the equestrian statue which was erected there in 1675 as a replacement for the Charing Cross itself, which had been torn down by Cromwell in 1647.
It keeps surprising me how many different denominations of money Pepys receives. Pounds and shillings you expect, and those at least have fixed proportions between them. But recently he got a sum in florins, and those can't have been the English florin (long gone by 1660) nor the 19th century one, so it must have been a continental florin. And now he receives guilders, which I don't think was the same thing as a florin at the time.
Of course, we too deal in different currencies when we visit different countries, but we don't tend to mix and match them like this! I wonder how much exchange rates varied back then. It must have varied with the gold and/or silver content, but how would your average person know?
"The child" was born early 1647, so by spring 1660 he's 13 years old. In addition, puberty sometimes (often?) started later in those times. Not always: Mary, Princess Royal, mentioned several times in the last week, was apparently early (or at least tried to be, if Wikipedia is to be believed). But it may well have been reasonable to call Edward Mountagu a child at his age. He certainly wasn't a full-grown man.
@Sarah: and yet, he... religiously? Faithfully? At any rate, regularly attends services both at home and on board ship. Private services at that, not big church services.
I think he has retained his faith in religion. I'm not sure which form, and we know he has several in his family. What I think he's lost is his faith in *official* religion. But that's another matter, especially now that the Puritans are out.
I think I agree with Michiel van der Leeuw (first reading).
(First of all, pet peeve: Middelburg is in Zeeland. It is in Holland as much as Swansea is in England. This ought to be corrected in the encyclopaedia.)
But, more to the point, Middelburg is... well, not really *nowhere* near the coast, but certainly in the centre of its island, and not a harbour town. If they'd been anywhere near there, Samuel would have mentioned Vlissingen, which is and was Walcheren's main port, and which, moreover, was well known to the English under the name of Flushing.
Middelkerke in Flanders, by contrast, is slap bang on the coastline. Although it is rather further South than Zeeland, it is quite possible that they reached Belgium late that afternoon, sailed all through the night, and so got to Scheveningen early next morning.
As to "belong", remember that they're on a warship. An officer's subordinates belong to his company, or to his crew. Up to a point, he *can* dispose of them as he wants, certainly to the point of making them sleep somewhere else.
True, Samuel isn't actually a sailor, but I wouldn't be surprised if similar rules held for, and were seen as normal by, civilian personnel on board ship under the command of what was after all the General at Sea. It's a semi-military life, with semi-military rules.
One interesting thing about Nate Lockwood's annotation on corning gunpowder is that this is presumed to be how gunpowder tea got its name. Its small rolled-up, dried leaves resemble the shape and colour of gunpowder corns.
Luckily, it is both healthier and better-tasting than actual gunpowder, particularly when made into Maghrebi mint tea.
Comments
Third Reading
About Sunday 5 August 1660
RLB • Link
@Carolina: pleister and plaister are pronounced *almost*, but not quite the same. The "ei" sound doesn't exist in English, but the version of "ai" in plaister is relatively close.
In fact, pleister means plaster in both meanings: it's not just the thing you stick on a wound, but also the stuff you spread on walls.
Also, if you think Pepys' English is closer to Dutch than modern English, you should try Chaucer's. (No really. You should try Chaucer. Anyone should.) Not so much Beowulf; both English and Dutch have changed too much since then.
About Tuesday 10 July 1660
RLB • Link
@Sarah: "The Stuarts were far from Victorians when it came to sex" - to be fair, neither were the Victorians, certainly not Vicky herself. As witnessed both by the number of children she and Albert had - rather more than was necessary to ensure an heir and a spare - and by the loving way she wrote of him privately.
Nor were the people in the 17th century quite as backwards as you will have it. The Earth was not flat, and Galileo was punished not for saying it went around the Sun, but for being an arrogant arse about it and insulting those in power while being on a very tottery footing himself. All of that *is* a Victorian, starting in the Enlightenment, myth.
(The Puritans who found themselves kicked out of even the Netherlands and went to found and fundamentally (sic!) shape the USA - those are another matter. But back then, they were a minority.)
About Saturday 7 July 1660
RLB • Link
It almost certainly is prints by Ragot *after* Rubens, but there's one thing it certainly isn't: it's not prints by Ragot *bought from* Rubens. Pieter Paul was not just a painter but also a diplomat, and did diplome in England, but he was dead 20 years by this time; and none of his descendants seem to have had much business in London. It it therefore very unlikely any Rubens was personally involved.
About Wednesday 4 July 1660
RLB • Link
@Tonyel: I suspect the difference is that money can come in the form of promissory notes (proper banknotes didn't *quite* yet exist in Europe yet), which can be kept discreetly on one's person. Probably not coinage, to the sum of £500, since that would weigh a lot, but even that would be somewhat compact. Plate, by contrast, is bulky and ostentatious. You can't put a £100 coffee pot and set of dishes in your belt pocket or sleeve without it being obvious.
About Thursday 28 June 1660
RLB • Link
Unlike most (all?) of the pubs mentioned, the Clothworkers' Hall is still there, and still in the same location as it was in Pepys' time. Well, *a* Clothworkers' Hall is still there, for reasons which will become clear in six years' time... but the current one was built by the same Livery Company as all the previous ones. https://www.clothworkers.co.uk/ab… https://www.clothworkers.co.uk/hi…
Apparently, they also still serve food, though I haven't been able to find whether they provide that service to members on a daily basis or only cater for events.
It shouldn't be surprising that Sam dined there, even if he was not yet (as Terry Foreman has noted he would later be) its Master. That would only be seven years from now, so he was probably already a member and it was presumably a family thing: his father and brother were both in the trade as tailors. Though still slightly surprising: why not be members of the Company of Merchant Taylors? They are, after all, 7th in the order of precedence, while the Clothworkers are "only" 12th.
About Wednesday 20 June 1660
RLB • Link
Note that the King's Head doesn't exist any more. There are still pubs by that name in London, but not on Charing Cross. Indeed, as far as I can tell there are no pubs at all on Charing Cross itself. Nor would you want one there - it is now one of the busiest intersections in central London. There *is* a pub in or next to Charing Cross Station, but that is just off CC itself, on the Strand; and several in Charing Cross road. None of these are called the King's Head.
Nevertheless, there is still a king's head in the centre of Charing Cross, and it is Charles I's; but it is firmly attached to his neck as part of the equestrian statue which was erected there in 1675 as a replacement for the Charing Cross itself, which had been torn down by Cromwell in 1647.
About Wednesday 30 May 1660
RLB • Link
Funny: my question above is answered by the footnote for 1 June.
About Friday 1 June 1660
RLB • Link
And... that footnote neatly answers my question of two days ago.
About Wednesday 30 May 1660
RLB • Link
It keeps surprising me how many different denominations of money Pepys receives. Pounds and shillings you expect, and those at least have fixed proportions between them. But recently he got a sum in florins, and those can't have been the English florin (long gone by 1660) nor the 19th century one, so it must have been a continental florin. And now he receives guilders, which I don't think was the same thing as a florin at the time.
Of course, we too deal in different currencies when we visit different countries, but we don't tend to mix and match them like this! I wonder how much exchange rates varied back then. It must have varied with the gold and/or silver content, but how would your average person know?
About Saturday 19 May 1660
RLB • Link
"The child" was born early 1647, so by spring 1660 he's 13 years old. In addition, puberty sometimes (often?) started later in those times. Not always: Mary, Princess Royal, mentioned several times in the last week, was apparently early (or at least tried to be, if Wikipedia is to be believed). But it may well have been reasonable to call Edward Mountagu a child at his age. He certainly wasn't a full-grown man.
About Sunday 20 May 1660
RLB • Link
The jawbone and several vertebræ of a sperm whale, by the way, are still in Scheveningen's Oude Kerk.
About Tuesday 15 May 1660
RLB • Link
@Sarah: and yet, he... religiously? Faithfully? At any rate, regularly attends services both at home and on board ship. Private services at that, not big church services.
I think he has retained his faith in religion. I'm not sure which form, and we know he has several in his family. What I think he's lost is his faith in *official* religion. But that's another matter, especially now that the Puritans are out.
About Sunday 13 May 1660
RLB • Link
I think I agree with Michiel van der Leeuw (first reading).
(First of all, pet peeve: Middelburg is in Zeeland. It is in Holland as much as Swansea is in England. This ought to be corrected in the encyclopaedia.)
But, more to the point, Middelburg is... well, not really *nowhere* near the coast, but certainly in the centre of its island, and not a harbour town. If they'd been anywhere near there, Samuel would have mentioned Vlissingen, which is and was Walcheren's main port, and which, moreover, was well known to the English under the name of Flushing.
Middelkerke in Flanders, by contrast, is slap bang on the coastline. Although it is rather further South than Zeeland, it is quite possible that they reached Belgium late that afternoon, sailed all through the night, and so got to Scheveningen early next morning.
About Monday 14 May 1660
RLB • Link
As to "belong", remember that they're on a warship. An officer's subordinates belong to his company, or to his crew. Up to a point, he *can* dispose of them as he wants, certainly to the point of making them sleep somewhere else.
True, Samuel isn't actually a sailor, but I wouldn't be surprised if similar rules held for, and were seen as normal by, civilian personnel on board ship under the command of what was after all the General at Sea. It's a semi-military life, with semi-military rules.
About Monday 9 April 1660
RLB • Link
One interesting thing about Nate Lockwood's annotation on corning gunpowder is that this is presumed to be how gunpowder tea got its name. Its small rolled-up, dried leaves resemble the shape and colour of gunpowder corns.
Luckily, it is both healthier and better-tasting than actual gunpowder, particularly when made into Maghrebi mint tea.