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Bill
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Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Bill has posted 2,777 annotations/comments since 9 March 2013.
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Second Reading
About Sunday 17 April 1664
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“I vexed to see what charges the vanity of my aunt puts her husband to among her friends and nothing at all among ours.”
CHARGE, A Burden, or Load; an Employ, an Office; Cost, or Expence; Also an Accusation, or Impeachment; an Onset; Also hurt, damage.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.
About Dr Waldegrave
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WALDEGRAVE, Sir WILLIAM (f.1689), physician; M.D. Padua, 1659; a Roman catholic; physician to Mary Beatrice, queen of James II.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.
About Sunday 10 April 1664
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“she had put on her new best gowns”
A GOWN, a long Garment.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.
About Mithrydate
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It was he [Mithridates] who first thought, the proper precautions being duly taken, of drinking poison every day; it being his object, by becoming habituated to it, to neutralize its dangerous effects. This prince was the first discoverer too of the various kinds of antidotes, one of which, indeed, still retains his name...
---Pliny the Elder. Natural History, 77-79 A.D.
About Pease porridge
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To make pease porridge.
TAKE a quart of green pease, put to them a quart of water, a bundle of dried mint, and a little salt. Let them boil till the pease are quite tender; then put in some beaten pepper, a piece of butter as big as a walnut, rolled in flour, stir it all together and let it boil a few minutes; then add two quarts of milk, let it boil a quarter of an hour, take out the mint, and serve it up.
---The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy. H. Glasse, 1774.
About Thursday 7 April 1664
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“my wife got me a pleasant French fricassee of veal for dinner”
FRICASSEY, a Dish of fry’d Meat as Rabbets, Chickens, &c.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.
About Sunday 27 March 1664
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A CLOSE, a piece of Ground fenced or hedged about.
---An universal etymological English dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.
About Tothill Street
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Tothill, Tuthill, or Tuttle Street, from the Broad Sanctuary to the Broadway, Westminster.
Tothill Street, a large street in Westminster, between Petty France (west) and the Old Gate House (east).—Hatton, 8vo, 1708, p. 84.
Such is Hatton's description; but the Gatehouse has long been level with the ground, and Petty France has since been transformed into York Street. Our notions have also changed about its size—no one would call it "a large street" now. In the 16th and 17th centuries there were mansions on both sides of Tothill Street, those on the south having gardens reaching to the Park. Stourton House, at the southwest end of the street, was the residence of the Lords Dacre of the South; opposite to it lived Lord Grey de Wilton; and at Caron House died, 1612, Sir George Carew. At Lincoln House Sir Henry Herbert had his office as Master of the Revels in 1664-1665. On May 28, 1623, Endymion Porter wrote to his wife Olive that "Lady Carey in Tuttle Street" is to pay her "£112 for money lent by him to her son in Spain." Before the middle of the 17th century smaller houses were beginning to be built here.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.
About Swan with Two Necks
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Swan with two Necks, Lad Lane, an old inn, tavern, and booking and parcel office, from which coaches and waggons started to the north of England; a corruption of Swan with two Nicks, the mark (cygninota) of the Vintners' Company for their "game of swans" on the Thames. By an old law (or custom, rather) every swan that swam under London Bridge belonged, by right of office, to the Lieutenant of the Tower. Lad Lane is now incorporated with Gresham Street.
The Carriers of Manchester doe lodge at the Two Neck'd Swan in Lad Lane, between Great Wood Street, and Milk Street End.—Taylor's Carrier's Cosmographie, 4to, 1637.
There was a house with this sign, in 1632, in Swan Alley, Southwark.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.
About Quest House
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The parish church of St. Sepulchre's was known as St. Sepulchre's in the Bailey. The Quest House was rebuilt by Dr. William Bell, vicar from 1662 to 1683. Strype writes of this: "A new house, free to Dr. Bell's successors, with a yard thereto. The use of a parlour, kitchen, and washhouse under the Quest-house that belonged to the parish for the said Bell's time, he being at the trouble to build it, and brought £200 towards it; the use thereof reserved to the parish on public occasions of quest or burials."
---Wheatley, 1904.
About Monday 16 May 1664
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"By and by we to see an experiment of killing a dogg by letting opium into his hind leg."
Pepys does not say whether this experiment was in any way connected with the work of the Royal Society. About this time the minutes contain the following reference: "May 4, 1664. It was ordered that Dr. Croune, Dr. Balle, and Mr. Hooke take care at the next meeting to cut off some skin of a dog; and that the operator provide a dog for that purpose." Several experiments at subsequent meetings are reported (Birch's "History of the Royal Society," vol. i., p. 422).
---Wheatley, 1904.
About Friday 20 May 1664
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"they say the King himself did once ask Montagu how his mistress (meaning the Queene) did."
After the Restoration ... Edward was, some time, Master of the Horse to Queen Catherine, but was removed (as 'twas reported) for a Squeeze of her Hand...
---The History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne. A. Boyer, 1722.
About William Ryley (jun.)
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RYLEY, WILLIAM, the younger (d. 1675), archivist; son of William Ryley the elder; barrister, Inner Temple, 1866; employed under his father in record office.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.
About William Ryley (sen.)
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RYLEY, WILLIAM, the elder (d.1667), herald and archivist; studied at Middle Temple; clerk of records in Tower, c. 1620; Bluemantle pursuivant of arms, 1633; Lancaster herald, 1641; supported parliamentarians, but was more than once suspected of treachery; keeper of records, 1644; Norroy king-of-arms, 1646; Clarenceux king-of-arms, 1659; proclaimed Charles II, 1660, but was reduced to rank of Lancaster herald on Restoration; buried in east cloister, Westminster Abbey; associated with his son William Ryley the younger in publication of 'Placita Parliamentaria. Or pleadings in Parliament,' 1661.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.
About Mum
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MUM, a kind of malt-liquor, much drank in Germany; and chiefly brought from Brunswick, which is the place of most note for making it, The process of brewing mum, as recorded in the townhouse of that city, is as follows: Take sixty-three gallons of water that has been boiled till one-third part is consumed, and brew it with seven bushels of wheaten-malt, one bushel of oat-meal, and one bushel of ground beans; when it is tunned, the hogshead must not be filled too full at first; as soon as it begins to work, put into it three pounds of the inner rind of fir; one pound of the tops of fir and beach; three handfuls of carduus benedictus; a handful or two of the flowers of rosa solis; add burnet, betony, marjoram, avens, pennyroyal, and wild thyme, of each a handful and a half; of elder-flowers, two handfuls or more; seeds of cardamum bruised, thirty ounces; barberries bruised, one ounce; when the liquor has worked a while, put the herbs and seeds into the vessel; and, after they are added, let it work over as little as possible; then fill it up; lastly, when it is stopped, put into the hogshead ten new-laid eggs unbroken; stop it up close, and drink it at two years end. Our english brewers, instead of the inner rind of fir, use cardamum, ginger, and sassafras; and also add elecampane, madder, and red-sanders. Mum, on being imported, pays for every barrel 11. 5 s.
---Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. 1741.
About Mum
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“and there drunk mum”
Mum was a wholesome kind of malt liquor prepared in Germany. The receipt for making it is given in Rees's Encyclopedia. One of Andrew Yarranton's wild schemes, at this time, was to bring the mum trade from Brunswick, and fix it at Stratford-on-Avon. See his England's Improvement.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.
About The Labyrinth (?)
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Or, "The Fatal Embarrassment," taken from Corneille.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.
About The Poultry Counter
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Poultry Compter, Wood Street, a sheriff’s prison, which stood a little to the east of Grocers' Hall Court; Chapel Place led directly to it. It was the only prison in London with a ward set apart for Jews (probably due to its proximity to the Jewry), and was the only prison left unattacked in the riots of 1780. It was a brick building of fifteen wards—the king's, the prince's, the upper, middle and women's wards, and the Jews' ward. There was a chapel, and the leads were used for exercise grounds.
John Bradford, one of the most illustrious of the Marian martyrs, was imprisoned here from January 30 to June 30, 1550. Here he was persecuted with "conferences," but as nothing could stir his fortitude, "he was suddenly conveyed out of the Compter, in the night season to Newgate; and from thence he was carried to Smithfield." Dekker and Boyse, two unfortunate sons of song, were long inhabitants of the Poultry Compter. Here died Lamb, the conjuror (commonly called Dr. Lamb), of the injuries he had received from the mob, who pelted him (June 13, 1628) from Moorgate to the Windmill in the Old Jewry, where he was felled to the ground with a stone, and was thence carried to the Poultry Compter, where he died the same night The rabble believed that the doctor dealt with the devil, and assisted the Duke of Buckingham in misleading the King. The City had to pay heavily for their negligence in not protecting the unfortunate man. The last slave imprisoned in England was confined (1772) in the Poultry Compter. This was Somerset, a negro, the particulars of whose case excited Sharpe and Clarkson in their useful and successful labour in the cause of negro emancipation.
Some four houses west from this parish of St. Mildred is a prison house pertaining to one of the sheriffs of London, and is called the Compter in the Poultry. This hath been there kept and continued time out of mind, for I have not read of the original thereof.—Stow, p. 99.
First Officer. Nay, we have been scholars, I can tell you,—we could not have been knaves so soon else; for as in that notable city called London, stand two most famous universities, Poultry and Wood Street, where some are of twenty years' standing, and have took all their degrees, from the Master's side, down to the Mistress's side, the Hole, so in like manner, etc.— The Phoenix, by T. Middleton, 4to, 1607.
Prisoners committed by the Lord Mayor were sent to the Poultry; prisoners committed by the sitting aldermen to Giltspur Street prison. The prisoners were removed from the Poultry Compter to White Cross Street prison shortly after the latter was completed.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.
About John Vaughan (MP Cardiganshire)
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VAUGHAN, Sir JOHN (1603-1674), judge; of Christ Church, Oxford; barrister, Inner Temple, 1630; friend of John Selden; M.P., Cardigan, 1628, April 1640, and in the Long parliament, 1640 till expelled, 1645; consulted by Charles I at Newport, 1648; imprisoned; M.P., Cardiganshire, 1661-8; a leader of the country party; active in the impeachment of Clarendon, 1667; knighted, 1668; chief-justice of the common pleas, 1668.
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.
About Leg (Westminster)
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Leg Tavern, King Street, Westminster. The leg was a not infrequent sign for hosiers and bootmakers, and as they would take care that their boots and stockings were represented as fitting close and smooth, the aptness of Falstaff’s simile is clear when he says that one of the reasons which made Prince Henry love Poins was that he wore "his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg." For inns the sign was very unusual.
December 18, 1656.—We dined with the Clothworkers at the Leg [they had a cause before the House]. After dinner I was awhile at the Leg with Major-General Howard, Mr. Briscoe, etc. etc.—Burton's Diary, vol. i. p. 174.
June 25, 1660.—With my Lord at White Hall all the morning. . . . Dined with young Mr. Powell, lately come from the Sound, being amused at our great charges here, and Mr. Southerne, now clerk to Mr. Coventry, at the Leg in King Street.— Pepys.
Pepys went again, May 27, 1661, to "Clerke's at the Legg, and there dined very merry." It was evidently a house in good favour.
---London, Past and Present. H.B. Wheatley, 1891.