Our Wiki entry reads: '"Argenis" is a book by John Barclay. It is a work of historical allegory which tells the story of the religious conflict in France under Henry III of France and Henry IV of France, and also touches on more contemporary English events, such as the Overbury scandal. The tendency is royalist, anti-aristocratic; it is told from the angle of a king who reduces the landed aristocrats' power in the interest of the "country", the interest of which is identified with that of the king. 'Jennifer Morrish describes "Argenis" as one of "the two most influential Neo-Latin novels", along with Thomas More's "Utopia".'
What were the 'contemporary English events, such as the Overbury scandal'?
'In the autumn of 1615 the Earl and Countess of Somerset were detained on suspicion of having murdered Sir Thomas Overbury. 'The arrest of these leading court figures created a sensation. The young and beautiful Countess of Somerset had already achieved notoriety when she divorced her first husband in controversial circumstances. The Earl of Somerset was one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom, having risen to prominence as the male 'favourite' of James I. 'In a vivid, enthralling narrative, Anne Somerset unravels these extraordinary events. It is, at once, a story rich in passion, intrigue and corruption and a murder mystery -- for, despite the guilty verdicts, there is much about Overbury's death that remains enigmatic. The Overbury murder case profoundly damaged the monarchy, and constituted the greatest court scandal in English history.'
Unnatural Murder: Poison in the Court of James I: The Overbury Murder By Anne Somerset SKU: 9781474618731 https://shop.nationalarchives.gov…
Throughout English history the rule of law and the preservation of liberty have been inseparable, and both are intrinsic to England's constitution.
A new book, "Law, Liberty and the Constitution", gives accessible and entertaining history tracing the growth of the law from its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. It shows how the law evolved from a means of ensuring order and limiting feuds to become a supremely sophisticated dispenser of justice and the primary guardian of civil liberties. This development owed much to the English kings and their judiciary, who, in the 12th century, forged a unified system of law -- predating that of any other European country -- from almost wholly Anglo-Saxon elements.
By the17th century this royal offspring -- Oedipus Lex it could be called -- was capable of regicide. Since then the law has had a somewhat fractious relationship with that institution upon which the regal mantle of supreme power descended, Parliament. "Law, Liberty and the Constitution" tells the story of the common law not merely by describing major developments but by concentrating on prominent personalities and decisive cases relating to the constitution, criminal jurisprudence, and civil liberties.
It investigates the great constitutional conflicts, the rise of advocacy, and curious and important cases relating to slavery, insanity, obscenity, cannibalism, the death penalty, and miscarriages of justice.
"Law, Liberty and the Constitution" concludes by examining the extension of the law into the prosecution of war criminals and protection of universal human rights and the threats posed by over-reaction to national emergencies and terrorism. Devoid of jargon and replete with good stories, it represents a new approach to the telling of legal history and will be of interest to anyone wishing to know more about the common law -- the spinal cord of the English body politic.
Harry Potter is a former fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge and a practising barrister specialising in criminal defence. He has authored books on the death penalty and Scottish history and wrote and presented an award-winning series on the history of the common law for the BBC.
Jamaica -- William Coventry probably needed to know about the island because it was in need of a new governor. Pedro explained the situation at https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
From 1657–1662 Edward Doyley (1617–1675) held the position, and needed to be replaced by a Royalist.
You can read the Minutes of the Council for Foreign Plantations as they appear in 'America and West Indies: January 1661', in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 5, 1661-1668, (London, 1880) pp. 1-4. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
In time Pepys will get to know most of these people. "Middleton" is probably not Commissioner Sir William -- my guess is that it was John, 1st Earl of Middleton. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Creed's wedding date disguises the fact that he was trying to find a match long before that -- I don't think he was a wealthy man, even if he was well connected by birth. Pepys married young, and it was a love match, probably not approved of by either family, but his appears to have adjusted better to the done deed.
I think of them as peers and rivals, at the start of the Diary both wanting the same positions with Sandwich. Pepys' appointment with the Navy left the way clear for Creed to have those positions and be close to Sandwich all the time. At this point they should have become friends and colleagues -- but Creed seems to have joined the long list of people Pepys suspected of double-dealing and disloyalty. Which was Standard Operating Practice of the day, so he was probably right. That's a shame, because Pepys desperately needed some male friends.
Sir Thomas Willis / Willys (1612 - 1701) was elected through a technicality as an MP for the city of Cambridge for the Cavalier Parliament at the start of the Diary. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Willys’ ancestors had lived in Cambridgeshire in Elizabethan times, but it was not until the reign of King James I that they had a grant of the crown manor of Fen Ditton, 2 miles from Cambridge.
Unlike his brother Richard, who fought with distinction for King Charles, Thomas Willys, created 1st Bart. in 1641, took no known part in the Civil Wars, and held local office throughout the Interregnum, which may have facilitated his brother’s notorious betrayal of the Sealed Knot to the Protectorate Government.
In 1659 Sir Thomas Willys became the first of the family to sit in Parliament, representing Cambridgeshire.
Willys expected to be re-elected for the county in 1660, but his refusal to commit himself to an unconditional Restoration led to his defeat. Nevertheless, he was returned for Cambridge. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
An inactive Member of the Convention, Sir Richard made no recorded speeches and was appointed to 5 committees, including the committee of elections and privileges, and those to settle the establishment of Dunkirk and to draw up instructions for disbanding the army.
Although doubtless in opposition, he was proposed as a knight of the Royal Oak with an income of £1,000 p.a.
He is unlikely to have stood in 1661, although 2 years later Samuel Pepys thought it worth his while to ‘confute and disabuse’ his allegations of ‘errors and corruption’ in the navy and the ‘great expense thereof’.
Willys stood for Cambridge again as a country candidate at the first general election of 1679. Although he was defeated and his petition never reported, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury marked him ‘honest’.
As an exclusionist, Sir Thomas Willys was removed from the commission of the peace in 1680, and thenceforth seems to have withdrawn from public life.
Sir Thomas Willys MP died on 17 Nov. 1701, aged 89, and was buried at Fen Ditton.
Roger Pepys was one of two MPs for the city of Cambridge during Diary times: he was a Puritan and a Country Party man. And there were shenanigans: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Sir William Compton MP and Roger Pepys were elected together as MPs for the city of Cambridge in the spring of 1661: https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Cambridge was an open constituency. The only borough in Cambridgeshire, it chose its Members exclusively from the local gentry. The influence of the university was probably indirect, but helps to account for the failure of the country candidates during the exclusion crisis. It was at this time that manipulation of the freeman roll for electoral purposes began, and control of the corporation, consisting of the mayor, 12 aldermen and 24 common councilmen, became essential.
In April 1660 Sir Dudley North and Sir Thomas Willys, whose lukewarm attitude to the Restoration had led to defeat in the county election, were hastily granted the freedom of Cambridge to qualify them to represent the borough in the Convention. They did not stand again, and in 1661 Sir William Compton, a much respected Cavalier, was returned "with all the ceremonies as could be, and more, a great deal of joy ... he was brought back with all the town music, and [the] mayor with his maces, and all the gownmen in great order." https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
But his colleague, Roger Pepys, the city recorder, was clearly no friend to the Court, and in 1662 the Puritan corporation was drastically purged. The mayor, 7 aldermen, and 13 of the common council were removed. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
When Compton died in 1663, he was replaced by William, 3rd Baron Alington, his step-son, who was equally loyal to the Court. https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
We now move beyond the Diary, but this tells us a lot about how elections were manipulated in Pepys' lifetime:
At the first general election of 1679 Willys and Pepys stood as country candidates. They were opposed by Alington and Sir Thomas Chicheley (high steward of the borough, who had stepped down from the county seat). Great pressure was applied to ensure his return. The mayor went from house to house ‘to awe the electors’, and some freemen were warned that they would lose university custom and would be debarred from the charitable loans administered by the corporation if they voted the wrong way. Open house was kept at various inns owned by freemen, and the mayor was reported to have made ‘all the neighbour gentlemen free of the town’.
Pepys defied the corporation and lost both election and recordership, to which office Alington was appointed. Pepys and Willys petitioned, alleging abuses at the election, but no report was made before the first Exclusion Parliament was dissolved. Alington and Chicheley were again returned in August 1679. On the day of the election, the freedom was granted to 7 non-residents, including Sir Levinus Bennet, 2nd Bt., shortly to be returned for the county.
Pepys and the rest of England have lived as Puritans for at least the last 15 years; Pepys' mother is thought to have been of that persuasion, so he probably had lived that way for his whole life. Puritans did not consider Lent or Easter as seasons -- plus there was famine in the land caused by war and weather, and they ate what they could without too many questions.
Today's sermon might have given Pepys some ideas about the traditions you refer to, Christopher; since Pepys doesn't share what that content was, we cannot guess. Plus he's the Batten's guest; it's the Battens who are not observing the traditions. And Sir William at least was known as a good Presbyterian. No mention has been made of Lady Elizabeth's beliefs.
"... to Westminster, where I had business with the Commissioners for paying the seamen about my Lord’s pay ..."
Why would Pepys go to Westminster to talk to the Commissioners, who could be found in his Navy Board Office, as linked?
Because, again, I believe these were the Parliamentary Commissioners involved in paying off the Navy, and were currently figuring out where to find a surprise 4,000/., as recently claimed by Sandwich: Those Commissioner included William Prynne MP Col. John Birch MP Sir Richard Browne MP, the Lord Mayor of London and Col. Edward King, MP. And William Jessop was their clerk,
and post it in your search -- it works fine. I can't believe this is the first .pdf I've posted, but possibly ---? In other words, I have no idea why you can't click through.
It's a recent development, 徽柔, that childhood lasts to 26 in the USA. As recently as WWI, cabin boys in the Royal Navy were 13. In Pepys' day, 13-year-old brides were common -- being a mother at 15 was pretty standard.
"Leaving home and entering service was a key transition in early modern England. This paper presents evidence on the age of apprenticeship in London. Using a new sample of 22,156 apprentices bound between 1575 and 1810, we find that apprentices became younger (from 17.4 to 14.7 years) and more homogenous, [regardless] of background." ... "In French cities, apprenticeship began at age 12 in the 16th century, and rose over the 17th century, with youths becoming journeymen in their mid-to-late teens; by the 18th century, Parisian apprentices were bound at an average age of 15.2 years." chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2009/WP125.pdf
However, we must factor in here the bloodshed and death caused by the Civil Wars and resulting famine because the men were not available to tend the land. That means many children, widows and orphans had to leave home in order to survive. And the city job applicants were increasingly female and children.
If the Hewer family had wanted to "home school" young Will, it would be easy for them to do -- and that home schooling would not necessarily have been in Latin, Greek and Hebrew -- it could have been in accounting, French, German, law, dancing, shorthand, astronomy and geography (i.e. practical skills for a future merchant).
I should have added to the above annotation about Tip-cat that playing this game in the street can be dangerous/expensive -- balls, pucks, and cats, can go through windows, which could be why Rev. Ralph is unhappy about it.
(My cousin used to bet his son, who was an outstanding batsman by the age of 13, 50l. that he wouldn't break a school window that day. Only at away games, of course. I don't know how many of those bets he had to make good on, but it certainly motivated the boy. He ended up playing for Surrey.)
Tip-cat, an outdoor game dating back at least to the 17th century and introduced to North America and elsewhere by English colonists. ...
Although there are many varieties of the game, all involve a stick about 3 ft. (1 m) long, used as a bat, and a piece of wood (the cat) about 4 in. (10 cm) long, 1 to 2 in. (2.5 to 5 cm) thick, and tapered at the ends. The cat is placed on the ground, struck at one end to propel it upward (tipping the cat), and then slammed with the stick as far as possible.
In one version, the batter tries to round the bases, as in rounders, before the fielder retrieves the cat and throws it back to home base. If a batter misses the cat 3 times, or if a fielder catches it on a fly, the batter is out. Earlier versions of the game are based on guessing the distance that the cat is hit, scoring points according to the number that comes up on a 4-sided cat, and running from base to base on a large circle while the cat is being retrieved.
As pointed out, Will Hewer is 18 -- and sadly none of his bios that I've seen mention his education. But he's old enough to have gone to University and done a couple of years at the Inns of Court. Since he goes on to be Judge Advocate General of the Navy in 1677, he must have had some schooling in the law. Or perhaps he just spent his youth in his family's counting house, talking to sea captains and asking dumb questions of the clerks.
Comments
Third Reading
About Barclay's 'Argenis'
San Diego Sarah • Link
Our Wiki entry reads:
'"Argenis" is a book by John Barclay. It is a work of historical allegory which tells the story of the religious conflict in France under Henry III of France and Henry IV of France, and also touches on more contemporary English events, such as the Overbury scandal. The tendency is royalist, anti-aristocratic; it is told from the angle of a king who reduces the landed aristocrats' power in the interest of the "country", the interest of which is identified with that of the king.
'Jennifer Morrish describes "Argenis" as one of "the two most influential Neo-Latin novels", along with Thomas More's "Utopia".'
What were the 'contemporary English events, such as the Overbury scandal'?
'In the autumn of 1615 the Earl and Countess of Somerset were detained on suspicion of having murdered Sir Thomas Overbury.
'The arrest of these leading court figures created a sensation. The young and beautiful Countess of Somerset had already achieved notoriety when she divorced her first husband in controversial circumstances. The Earl of Somerset was one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom, having risen to prominence as the male 'favourite' of James I.
'In a vivid, enthralling narrative, Anne Somerset unravels these extraordinary events. It is, at once, a story rich in passion, intrigue and corruption and a murder mystery -- for, despite the guilty verdicts, there is much about Overbury's death that remains enigmatic. The Overbury murder case profoundly damaged the monarchy, and constituted the greatest court scandal in English history.'
Unnatural Murder: Poison in the Court of James I: The Overbury Murder
By Anne Somerset
SKU: 9781474618731
https://shop.nationalarchives.gov…
About Civil law
San Diego Sarah • Link
Throughout English history the rule of law and the preservation of liberty have been inseparable, and both are intrinsic to England's constitution.
A new book, "Law, Liberty and the Constitution", gives accessible and entertaining history tracing the growth of the law from its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. It shows how the law evolved from a means of ensuring order and limiting feuds to become a supremely sophisticated dispenser of justice and the primary guardian of civil liberties. This development owed much to the English kings and their judiciary, who, in the 12th century, forged a unified system of law -- predating that of any other European country -- from almost wholly Anglo-Saxon elements.
By the17th century this royal offspring -- Oedipus Lex it could be called -- was capable of regicide.
Since then the law has had a somewhat fractious relationship with that institution upon which the regal mantle of supreme power descended, Parliament.
"Law, Liberty and the Constitution" tells the story of the common law not merely by describing major developments but by concentrating on prominent personalities and decisive cases relating to the constitution, criminal jurisprudence, and civil liberties.
It investigates the great constitutional conflicts, the rise of advocacy, and curious and important cases relating to slavery, insanity, obscenity, cannibalism, the death penalty, and miscarriages of justice.
"Law, Liberty and the Constitution" concludes by examining the extension of the law into the prosecution of war criminals and protection of universal human rights and the threats posed by over-reaction to national emergencies and terrorism. Devoid of jargon and replete with good stories, it represents a new approach to the telling of legal history and will be of interest to anyone wishing to know more about the common law -- the spinal cord of the English body politic.
Harry Potter is a former fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge and a practising barrister specialising in criminal defence. He has authored books on the death penalty and Scottish history and wrote and presented an award-winning series on the history of the common law for the BBC.
Manufacturer/Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Binding: Paperback
Author: Harry Potter
SKU: 9781783275038
https://shop.nationalarchives.gov…
About Wednesday 20 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
Jamaica -- William Coventry probably needed to know about the island because it was in need of a new governor.
Pedro explained the situation at https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
From 1657–1662 Edward Doyley (1617–1675) held the position, and needed to be replaced by a Royalist.
You can read the Minutes of the Council for Foreign Plantations as they appear in 'America and West Indies: January 1661', in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 5, 1661-1668, (London, 1880) pp. 1-4. British History Online
https://www.british-history.ac.uk…
In time Pepys will get to know most of these people. "Middleton" is probably not Commissioner Sir William -- my guess is that it was John, 1st Earl of Middleton.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Tuesday 19 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
Creed's wedding date disguises the fact that he was trying to find a match long before that -- I don't think he was a wealthy man, even if he was well connected by birth.
Pepys married young, and it was a love match, probably not approved of by either family, but his appears to have adjusted better to the done deed.
I think of them as peers and rivals, at the start of the Diary both wanting the same positions with Sandwich. Pepys' appointment with the Navy left the way clear for Creed to have those positions and be close to Sandwich all the time. At this point they should have become friends and colleagues -- but Creed seems to have joined the long list of people Pepys suspected of double-dealing and disloyalty. Which was Standard Operating Practice of the day, so he was probably right.
That's a shame, because Pepys desperately needed some male friends.
About Monday 18 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
Thanks. On the reading list.
About Monday 18 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
Are you sure about that, 徽柔 ? Buckingham isn't mentioned in any of the accounts of the wedding that I know about. Please share your source.
Seems to me Buckingham and St.Albans could have returned to England with Sandwich? https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
But they could have stayed. One biography said the wedding was a grand event, but gave no details or references, and I'd love to read about it.
About Dudley North (4th Baron North)
San Diego Sarah • Link
The story of the 1661 election is at
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Sir Thomas Willis
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sir Thomas Willis / Willys (1612 - 1701) was elected through a technicality as an MP for the city of Cambridge for the Cavalier Parliament at the start of the Diary.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
Willys’ ancestors had lived in Cambridgeshire in Elizabethan times, but it was not until the reign of King James I that they had a grant of the crown manor of Fen Ditton, 2 miles from Cambridge.
Unlike his brother Richard, who fought with distinction for King Charles, Thomas Willys, created 1st Bart. in 1641, took no known part in the Civil Wars, and held local office throughout the Interregnum, which may have facilitated his brother’s notorious betrayal of the Sealed Knot to the Protectorate Government.
In 1659 Sir Thomas Willys became the first of the family to sit in Parliament, representing Cambridgeshire.
Willys expected to be re-elected for the county in 1660, but his refusal to commit himself to an unconditional Restoration led to his defeat. Nevertheless, he was returned for Cambridge.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
An inactive Member of the Convention, Sir Richard made no recorded speeches and was appointed to 5 committees, including the committee of elections and privileges, and those to settle the establishment of Dunkirk and to draw up instructions for disbanding the army.
Although doubtless in opposition, he was proposed as a knight of the Royal Oak with an income of £1,000 p.a.
He is unlikely to have stood in 1661, although 2 years later Samuel Pepys thought it worth his while to ‘confute and disabuse’ his allegations of ‘errors and corruption’ in the navy and the ‘great expense thereof’.
Willys stood for Cambridge again as a country candidate at the first general election of 1679. Although he was defeated and his petition never reported, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury marked him ‘honest’.
As an exclusionist, Sir Thomas Willys was removed from the commission of the peace in 1680, and thenceforth seems to have withdrawn from public life.
Sir Thomas Willys MP died on 17 Nov. 1701, aged 89, and was buried at Fen Ditton.
FROM https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Roger Pepys (cousin)
San Diego Sarah • Link
Roger Pepys was one of two MPs for the city of Cambridge during Diary times: he was a Puritan and a Country Party man. And there were shenanigans:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About William Alington (3rd Baron Alington of Killard)
San Diego Sarah • Link
William, Baron Allington and Roger Pepys together represented the city of Cambridge as MPs:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Sir William Compton
San Diego Sarah • Link
Sir William Compton MP and Roger Pepys were elected together as MPs for the city of Cambridge in the spring of 1661:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
About Cambridge
San Diego Sarah • Link
Cambridge was an open constituency. The only borough in Cambridgeshire, it chose its Members exclusively from the local gentry. The influence of the university was probably indirect, but helps to account for the failure of the country candidates during the exclusion crisis. It was at this time that manipulation of the freeman roll for electoral purposes began, and control of the corporation, consisting of the mayor, 12 aldermen and 24 common councilmen, became essential.
In April 1660 Sir Dudley North and Sir Thomas Willys, whose lukewarm attitude to the Restoration had led to defeat in the county election, were hastily granted the freedom of Cambridge to qualify them to represent the borough in the Convention.
They did not stand again, and in 1661 Sir William Compton, a much respected Cavalier, was returned "with all the ceremonies as could be, and more, a great deal of joy ... he was brought back with all the town music, and [the] mayor with his maces, and all the gownmen in great order."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
But his colleague, Roger Pepys, the city recorder, was clearly no friend to the Court, and in 1662 the Puritan corporation was drastically purged. The mayor, 7 aldermen, and 13 of the common council were removed.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
When Compton died in 1663, he was replaced by William, 3rd Baron Alington, his step-son, who was equally loyal to the Court.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…
We now move beyond the Diary, but this tells us a lot about how elections were manipulated in Pepys' lifetime:
At the first general election of 1679 Willys and Pepys stood as country candidates. They were opposed by Alington and Sir Thomas Chicheley (high steward of the borough, who had stepped down from the county seat). Great pressure was applied to ensure his return. The mayor went from house to house ‘to awe the electors’, and some freemen were warned that they would lose university custom and would be debarred from the charitable loans administered by the corporation if they voted the wrong way. Open house was kept at various inns owned by freemen, and the mayor was reported to have made ‘all the neighbour gentlemen free of the town’.
Pepys defied the corporation and lost both election and recordership, to which office Alington was appointed.
Pepys and Willys petitioned, alleging abuses at the election, but no report was made before the first Exclusion Parliament was dissolved.
Alington and Chicheley were again returned in August 1679. On the day of the election, the freedom was granted to 7 non-residents, including Sir Levinus Bennet, 2nd Bt., shortly to be returned for the county.
The sitting Members were re-elected in 1681.
Neither of these elections was contested.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Sunday 17 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
"So much for following Lenten observances!"
Pepys and the rest of England have lived as Puritans for at least the last 15 years; Pepys' mother is thought to have been of that persuasion, so he probably had lived that way for his whole life. Puritans did not consider Lent or Easter as seasons -- plus there was famine in the land caused by war and weather, and they ate what they could without too many questions.
Today's sermon might have given Pepys some ideas about the traditions you refer to, Christopher; since Pepys doesn't share what that content was, we cannot guess.
Plus he's the Batten's guest; it's the Battens who are not observing the traditions. And Sir William at least was known as a good Presbyterian. No mention has been made of Lady Elizabeth's beliefs.
About Monday 18 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... to Westminster, where I had business with the Commissioners for paying the seamen about my Lord’s pay ..."
Why would Pepys go to Westminster to talk to the Commissioners, who could be found in his Navy Board Office, as linked?
Because, again, I believe these were the Parliamentary Commissioners involved in paying off the Navy, and were currently figuring out where to find a surprise 4,000/., as recently claimed by Sandwich:
Those Commissioner included
William Prynne MP
Col. John Birch MP
Sir Richard Browne MP, the Lord Mayor of London
and Col. Edward King, MP.
And William Jessop was their clerk,
About Saturday 16 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
If you would like to read "Leaving Home and Entering Service: The Age of Apprenticeship in Early Modern London" please copy
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2009/WP125.pdf
and post it in your search -- it works fine. I can't believe this is the first .pdf I've posted, but possibly ---? In other words, I have no idea why you can't click through.
About Saturday 16 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
It's a recent development, 徽柔, that childhood lasts to 26 in the USA. As recently as WWI, cabin boys in the Royal Navy were 13.
In Pepys' day, 13-year-old brides were common -- being a mother at 15 was pretty standard.
"Leaving home and entering service was a key transition in early modern England. This paper presents evidence on the age of apprenticeship in London. Using a new sample of 22,156 apprentices bound between 1575 and 1810, we find that apprentices became younger (from 17.4 to 14.7 years) and more homogenous, [regardless] of background." ...
"In French cities, apprenticeship began at age 12 in the 16th century, and rose over the 17th century, with youths becoming journeymen in their mid-to-late teens; by the 18th century, Parisian apprentices were bound at an average age of 15.2 years."
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2009/WP125.pdf
However, we must factor in here the bloodshed and death caused by the Civil Wars and resulting famine because the men were not available to tend the land. That means many children, widows and orphans had to leave home in order to survive. And the city job applicants were increasingly female and children.
If the Hewer family had wanted to "home school" young Will, it would be easy for them to do -- and that home schooling would not necessarily have been in Latin, Greek and Hebrew -- it could have been in accounting, French, German, law, dancing, shorthand, astronomy and geography (i.e. practical skills for a future merchant).
About Thursday 14 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
Makes sense. Thanks, Weic the Bish.
About Sunday 17 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
I should have added to the above annotation about Tip-cat that playing this game in the street can be dangerous/expensive -- balls, pucks, and cats, can go through windows, which could be why Rev. Ralph is unhappy about it.
(My cousin used to bet his son, who was an outstanding batsman by the age of 13, 50l. that he wouldn't break a school window that day. Only at away games, of course. I don't know how many of those bets he had to make good on, but it certainly motivated the boy. He ended up playing for Surrey.)
About Sunday 17 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
"... they play in the streets openly at cat ..."
Tip-cat, an outdoor game dating back at least to the 17th century and introduced to North America and elsewhere by English colonists. ...
Although there are many varieties of the game, all involve a stick about 3 ft. (1 m) long, used as a bat, and a piece of wood (the cat) about 4 in. (10 cm) long, 1 to 2 in. (2.5 to 5 cm) thick, and tapered at the ends.
The cat is placed on the ground, struck at one end to propel it upward (tipping the cat), and then slammed with the stick as far as possible.
In one version, the batter tries to round the bases, as in rounders, before the fielder retrieves the cat and throws it back to home base.
If a batter misses the cat 3 times, or if a fielder catches it on a fly, the batter is out.
Earlier versions of the game are based on guessing the distance that the cat is hit, scoring points according to the number that comes up on a 4-sided cat, and running from base to base on a large circle while the cat is being retrieved.
Some authorities consider tip-cat a forerunner of rounders and cricket.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/…
About Saturday 16 March 1660/61
San Diego Sarah • Link
As pointed out, Will Hewer is 18 -- and sadly none of his bios that I've seen mention his education. But he's old enough to have gone to University and done a couple of years at the Inns of Court. Since he goes on to be Judge Advocate General of the Navy in 1677, he must have had some schooling in the law.
Or perhaps he just spent his youth in his family's counting house, talking to sea captains and asking dumb questions of the clerks.