Annotations and comments

Terry Foreman has posted 16,449 annotations/comments since 28 June 2005.

Comments

First Reading

About Biographies of Pepys

Terry F  •  Link

Dirk says Questia offers a free online read of "Samuel Pepys In the Diary" -- not really:

Re Questia: once entirely a subscription service, "Questia offers free access to the first page of every chapter in a book and the first paragraph of each article for your review." then requires a subscription: http://www.questia .com/PM.qst?a=refresh&docId=5711957&type=book There are various plans: http://www.questia.com/Registrati…

Questia's free access is comparable to Amazon's for many books, though not this one (either in the US or the UK).

About Sunday 21 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

I "did vex my aunt talking in commendation of the mass which I had been at to-day, but excused it afterwards that it was only to make mirth."

L&M note: "Answering the charge of being a papist in 1674, Pepys, in a speech to the Commons, is reported to have challenged 'the whole world that he has not been once in his life at Mass': Grey, ii.427. He was not counting the occasions on which he had been a spectator...."

Here he joins (or is swept along by) the crowd in the Queen's train, was not a happy "auditor," but was a happy spectator of the finery; and, of course, "what pleased [him] best was to see [his] dear Lady Castlemaine" -- perhaps a religious* experience at a Mass after all!

*"religious" in the sense of "a matter pf one's 'ultimate concern'" (a definition proposed by 20c Protestant German-American theologian Pail Tillich http://www.angelfire.com/md2/time… )

About Sunday 21 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"a sermon in Portuguese; which I not understanding, did go away"

L&M note: "In 1667 Pepys managed to understand some of a sermon in Portuguese...."

To see how that comes about will be interesting, I wot!
(From you in the know, NO SPOILERS, please.)

About Samuel Pepys and Fleet Street

Terry F  •  Link

Peter, thank you for this wonderful "note"! It has the feel and the documentation to render it authoritative to me and to many other readers, I am sure.
Special are your photos, intermingled with references in the Diary; among the former, esp. the photo of the Baptismal Font.
The 1714 engraving of the Navy Office, Crutched Friars, looks like I supposed it.
Again, thank you for this!

About Saturday 20 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

Meanwhile in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony:

'Convulsive ergotism may have been a physiological basis for the Salem witchcraft crisis in 1692' (and of other witchcraft cases there, 1648-1706).
The hypothesis in inverted commas is the subtitle of a crucial paper by Linnda R. Caporael, published in the prestigious journal *Science,* Vol. 192 (2 April 1976): http://web.utk.edu/~kstclair/221/…

About Saturday 20 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

The 18th was also the century of chemistry, in which lead poisoning was proposed as the cause of symptoms of a syndrome.

The so-called "Devon colic" first reported in 1655 was hypothesized as due to "lead...used in the cider making process both as a component of the cider presses and in the form of lead shot which was used to clean them." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devo…

About Saturday 20 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

Bradford, L&M do not try to clarify the madness of the tradesmen.

Since it's too early for the use of mercuric nitrate to make felt hats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merc… ), I was wondering if there were not something like lead that was involved, as it was in "The Madness of King George [III])" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead

[Side note: "The movie is based on a play by Alan Bennett called "The Madness of George III". The popular story in the UK is that the movie's title is different from that of the play because it was thought the American audience might mistake it for a sequel. While not wholly true, director Nicholas Hytner has confirmed that it was "not wholly untrue" and it is now widely held that this almost certainly did play a part in the titling of the film."] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01104…

About Friday 19 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

Mary, it is also the case that the BBC Online's Thames Tour of Rotherhithe's Stage 6, The Mayflower pub http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/conte… includes some historical mis-information, esp. the canard that the Pilgrims who set sail from there "were the first permanent European settlers in America."
When I was in elementary school in Southern California, we learned that the Spanish had colonized portions of the Americas a century earlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span…

(Does this evidence a problem with the identity of *Europe*? Surely not!)

About Turkey

Terry F  •  Link

"Turkey" in still more languages

In Arabic it is called "Ethiopian bird" and in Greek it is gallopoula which means "French girl" or "French bird." -- that, much of the above and images of turkeys at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turk…

About Friday 19 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

Did Mr. Pepys take insufficient funds with him, surely knowing ahead of time how many men were due what?

Puzzling biz.

About Friday 19 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"I was forced to begin an ill practice of bringing down the wages of servants, for which people did curse me, which I do not love."

L&M note: "Details of the pay are in PRO, Adm. 20/4, pp. 78+. A savings of £100 was made on the previous quarter: ib., pp. 75+.”

Which did Mr. Pepys not love — the “ill practice” or that “people did curse [him]” for it? What “forced” him to do it, if, as L&M’s note suggests, there was profit to the Navy Office in it?

About Thursday 18 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

"I have 30l. to pay to the cavaliers" was among Sam’s laments two eves ago.

A surcharge on the incomes of present office-holders were distributed to “indigent officers who had served in the King's forces” (L&M).

Jeannine, I don’t know if it fits what you mean by “charity” — Charity was always a Christan virtue, though practices and arrangements for it varied (no simple answer to cover all Catholics or all Protestants). Perhaps Australian Susan can say something on this score.

Interestingly in countries where shari’ah is the law, e.g. Saudi Arabia, the obligation of *zakah* on assets which redistributes wealth. http://zakat.al-islam.com/eng/

About Thursday 18 September 1662

Terry F  •  Link

Re the two pearls of great price:
L&M note: "The story has not been traced elsewhere. For the famine see [April 9]."

About Ald. Edward Backwell

Terry F  •  Link

BACKWELL, Edward
Ald Bishopsgate, 13 Jan 1659/60- 13 Jun 1661, disch, F £720 (1) Co Co Langborn, 1676-81 'The Unicorn', Exchange Alley, Lombard Street, 1650, 1672, St Mary Woolnoth, 1652-81, dwelling house in Mark Lane, AH Barking, by 1676 (2) GOLD, appr, 1635, to Thomas VYNER, fr, 1651, PW, 1660 (3) d 13 Jun 1683, bur St Mary Woolnoth, re-bur Tyringham, Bucks (4) Will copy in CRO dated 29 Dec 1679 (5) f Barnaby Backwell of Backwell, Som, m Jane, da of John Temple of Burton Dassett, Warw, and -, Bucks, esq, mar (A) 1657, at St Andrew Undershaft, Sarah, da of - Brett, merchant, (B) Mary, da of Richard Leigh of - Warw (6) Goldsmith, banker, and State financier to Cromwell and Charles II (7) He had £295,995 involved in Stop of Exchequer, 1672 This was paid back at the rate of £17,759 3s 8d p a He possibly broke in 1682 EIC stock £2,000, RAC stocks £1,000 of original stock, 1671 (8) City property, land Bucks, Hunts (9) MP Wendover, 1672/3 (unseated), 1679-81 (10) Commsr for Lieut, 1660, 1676, 1681 Son John (mar only da of Sir Edward Tyringham), MP Wendover, 1689-90, 1695, 1698 G's Tyringham Backwell mar da (? Elizabeth) of Francis CHILD (11)

(1) Beaven, I, p 40 (2) Heal, London Goldsmiths, p 98, Hilton Price, Handbook, p 182, Boyd 15726, VBk, St Mary Woolnoth, will, will of Henry MOSSE (3) Beaven, II, p 90, GOLD, Appr Reg, I, f 300, Index of Appr (4) Boyd 15726 (5) CRO, Deed 121 5 There is no indication of court or date of probate (6) DNB, Boyd 15726 (7) No attempt can be made here to indicate the scope of Backwell's financial activities R D Richards, Economic History, III (1928), pp 334-55, surveys some sources for a study of Backwell's dealings There is an article in DNB Backwell's ledgers are now in the possession of Messrs Glyn-Mills, the London bankers See S Pepys, Diary, passim (8) DNB, will, R D Richards, loc cit (9) Will, see VCH, Buckinghamshire, II, p 324, III, pp 337-8, IV, p 482, for some of his Bucks property (10) Lipscombe, Buckinghamshire, II, p 478+n, Beaven, II, p 90 (11) Beaven, II, p 187, DNB, will of Francis CHILD, Boyd 15726

From: ‘Backwell - Byfield’, The Rulers of London 1660-1689: A biographical record of the Aldermen and Common Councilment of the City of London (1966), pp. 21-42. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…. Date accessed: 18 September 2005.

About Ald. Francis Maynell

Terry F  •  Link

MEYNELL, Francis
Ald Aldersgate, 7 Feb 1659/60-17 Dec 1663 removed to Cordwainer-6 Oct 1666 (d) (1) Lombard Street, by 1650-66, St Mary Woolnoth, 1652, Broad Street, post-Fire, Tooting, Surr (2) GOLD, not of L, Oct 1660 (3) d 6 Oct 1666, bur Tooting, Surr (4) Will pr in Court of Delegates, Dec 1667, and PCC 23 Drax pr, 5 Feb 1682/3 f Godfrey Meynell of Willington, Derbs, gent, m Dorothy, da of John Whitehaugh of Whitechapel, Middx, mar Sarah (4) Goldsmith and banker A corner stone of government finance Combined with Edward BACKWELL and Thomas and Robert VYNER in specific government loans His personal estate took ten years to call in (5) Land Derbs, Kent, Berks, Notts (6) Sheriff, 1661-2 (7) Bro of Richard MEYNELL Bro Isaac Maynell continued the business in Lombard Street after the Fire (8)
(1) Beaven, I, pp 6, 118 (2) Heal, London Goldsmiths, p 205 Hilton Price, Old Lombard Street, p 110, will (3) Beaven, I, p 6, TLMAS, VI, pp 30-1 (4) Boyd 2223 (5) Heal, London Goldsmiths, p 205 See Cal Treas Bks, I, II, passim, CSB, II, 75, 112b, 242b, 382, III, 20b-23, IV, 32 Invs give an indication of the scope of his lending (6) Will (7) Beaven, I, p 6 (8) Will of Richard MEYNELL, Heal, London Goldsmiths, p 205

From: 'Maycock - Mynne', The Rulers of London 1660-1689: A biographical record of the Aldermen and Common Councilment of the City of London (1966), pp. 101-19. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…. Date accessed: 18 September 2005.