Sunday 3 March 1666/67

(Lord’s day). Lay long, merrily talking with my wife, and then up and to church, where a dull sermon of Mr. Mills touching Original Sin, and then home, and there find little Michell and his wife, whom I love mightily. Mightily contented I was in their company, for I love her much; and so after dinner I left them and by water from the Old Swan to White Hall, where, walking in the galleries, I in the first place met Mr. Pierce, who tells me the story of Tom Woodall, the surgeon, killed in a drunken quarrel, and how the Duke of York hath a mind to get him [Pierce] one of his places in St. Thomas’s Hospitall. Then comes Mr. Hayward, the Duke of York’s servant, and tells us that the Swede’s Embassador hath been here to-day with news that it is believed that the Dutch will yield to have the treaty at London or Dover, neither of which will get our King any credit, we having already consented to have it at The Hague; which, it seems, De Witt opposed, as a thing wherein the King of England must needs have some profound design, which in my conscience he hath not. They do also tell me that newes is this day come to the King, that the King of France is come with his army to the frontiers of Flanders, demanding leave to pass through their country towards Poland, but is denied, and thereupon that he is gone into the country. How true this is I dare not believe till I hear more.

From them I walked into the Parke, it being a fine but very cold day; and there took two or three turns the length of the Pell Mell: and there I met Serjeant Bearcroft, who was sent for the Duke of Buckingham, to have brought him prisoner to the Tower. He come to towne this day, and brings word that, being overtaken and outrid by the Duchesse of Buckingham within a few miles of the Duke’s house of Westhorp, he believes she got thither about a quarter of an hour before him, and so had time to consider; so that, when he come, the doors were kept shut against him. The next day, coming with officers of the neighbour market-town to force open the doors, they were open for him, but the Duke gone; so he took horse presently, and heard upon the road that the Duke of Buckingham was gone before him for London: so that he believes he is this day also come to towne before him; but no newes is yet heard of him. This is all he brings. Thence to my Lord Chancellor’s, and there, meeting Sir H. Cholmly, he and I walked in my Lord’s garden, and talked; among other things, of the treaty: and he says there will certainly be a peace, but I cannot believe it. He tells me that the Duke of Buckingham his crimes, as far as he knows, are his being of a caball with some discontented persons of the late House of Commons, and opposing the desires of the King in all his matters in that House; and endeavouring to become popular, and advising how the Commons’ House should proceed, and how he would order the House of Lords. And that he hath been endeavouring to have the King’s nativity calculated; which was done, and the fellow now in the Tower about it; which itself hath heretofore, as he says, been held treason, and people died for it; but by the Statute of Treasons, in Queen Mary’s times and since, it hath been left out. He tells me that this silly Lord hath provoked, by his ill-carriage, the Duke of York, my Lord Chancellor, and all the great persons; and therefore, most likely, will die. He tells me, too, many practices of treachery against this King; as betraying him in Scotland, and giving Oliver an account of the King’s private councils; which the King knows very well, and hath yet pardoned him.1

Here I passed away a little time more talking with him and Creed, whom I met there, and so away, Creed walking with me to White Hall, and there I took water and stayed at Michell’s to drink. I home, and there to read very good things in Fuller’s “Church History,” and “Worthies,” and so to supper, and after supper had much good discourse with W. Hewer, who supped with us, about the ticket office and the knaveries and extortions every day used there, and particularly of the business of Mr. Carcasse, whom I fear I shall find a very rogue. So parted with him, and then to bed.

34 Annotations

First Reading

Jesse  •  Link

"are his being of a caball with some discontented persons" - Cabal Ministry

This is a little confusing and to add to it the cabal acronym probably postdates the usage here (origin 1610-1620 per dictionary.com) even though they're likely -- though not necessarily -- one and the same.

cum salis grano  •  Link

Mnemonics, a popular pastime for those that wished that the common man be like mushrooms , kept in the dark...
Cabal was banded around at this time , the 5 geezers fitted nicely into the popular conspiracy mode.
Buckingham, Lauderdale, Ashly, Orery, and Trevor.
along with
Arlington, Clifford,
Whence it came ....

cum salis grano  •  Link

cabal, n.2

not this:
1613 PURCHAS Pilgr. I. V. xiv. (1617) 517 The Cabal is a wilde Beast in this Island [Java] whose bones doe restraine the blood from issuing in wounded parties.

but see 6;

cabal n1

[a. F. cabale (16th c. in Littré), used in all the English senses, ad. med.L. cab(b)ala (It., Sp., Pg. cabala),
CABBALA, q.v. In 17th c. at first pronounced {sm}cabal (whence the abridged CAB n.5); the current pronunciation was evidently reintroduced from Fr., perh. with sense 5 or 6.]

1. = CABBALA 1: The Jewish tradition as to the interpretation of the Old Testament. Obs.
1616 BULLOKAR, Cabal, the tradition of the Jewes doctrine of religion.
1660 HOWELL Lex. Tetragl., Words do involve the deepest Mysteries, By them the Jew into his Caball pries.
1663 BUTLER Hud. I. i. 530 For Mystick Learning, wondrous able In Magick, Talisman, and Cabal.

2. = CABBALA 2: a. Any tradition or special private interpretation.
b. A secret. Obs.
a1637 B. JONSON (O.) The measuring of the temple, a cabal found out but lately.
1635 D. PERSON Varieties I. Introd. 3 An insight in the Cabals and secrets of Nature.
1660-3 J. SPENCER Prodigies (1665) 344 If the truth..had been still reserved as a Cabbal amongst men.
1663 J. HEATH Flagellum or O. Cromwell 192 How the whole mystery and cabal of this business was managed by the..Committee.

3. A secret or private intrigue of a sinister character formed by a small body of persons; ‘something less than conspiracy’ (J.).
1646-7 CLARENDON Hist. Reb. (1702) I. v. 439 The King..asked him, whether he were engaged in any Cabal concerning the army?
1663 J. HEATH Flagellum or O. Cromwell, He was no sooner rid of the danger of this but he was puzzled with Lambert's cabal.

4. A secret or private meeting, esp. of intriguers or of a faction. arch. or Obs.
1649 BP. GUTHRIE Mem. (1702) 23 The Supplicants..met again at their several Caballs.
1656-7 CROMWELL in Burton Diary (1828) I. 382 He had never been at any cabal about the same.

5. A small body of persons engaged in secret or private machination or intrigue; a junto, clique, côterie, party, faction.
1660 Trial Regic. 175 You were..of the cabal. 1670 MARVELL Corr. cxlvii. Wks. 1872-5 II. 326 The governing cabal are Buckingham, Lauderdale, Ashly, Orery, and Trevor. Not but the other cabal [Arlington, Clifford, and their party] too have seemingly sometimes their turn.

6. Applied in the reign of Charles II to the small committee or junto of the Privy Council, otherwise called the ‘Committee for Foreign Affairs’, which had the chief management of the course of government, and was the precursor of the modern cabinet.

1665 PEPYS Diary 14 Oct., It being read before the King, Duke, and the Caball, with complete applause.
1667 Ibid. 31 Mar., Walked to my Lord Treasurer's, where the King, Duke of York, and the Cabal, and much company withal.

1667 Ibid. (1877) V. 128 The Cabal at present, being as he says the King, and the Duke of Buckingham, and Lord Keeper, the Duke of Albemarle and privy seale.

b. in Hist. applied spec. to the five ministers of Charles II, who signed the Treaty of Alliance with France for war against Holland in 1672: these were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley (Earl of Shaftesbury), and Lauderdale, the initials of whose names thus arranged chanced to spell the word cabal.
This was merely a witticism referring to sense 6; in point of fact these five men did not constitute the whole ‘Cabal’, or Committee for Foreign Affairs; nor were they so closely united in policy as to constitute a ‘cabal’ in sense 5, where quot. 1670 shows that three of them belonged to one ‘cabal’ or clique, and two to another. The name seems to have been first given to the five ministers in the pamphlet of 1673 ‘England's Appeal from the private Cabal at White-hall to the Great Council of the nation..by a true lover of his country.’ Modern historians often write loosely of the Buckingham-Arlington administration from the fall of Clarendon in 1667 to 1673 as the Cabal Cabinet or Cabal Ministry.
1673 England's Appeal 18 The safest way not to wrong neither the cabal nor the truth is to take a short survey of the carriage of the chief promoters of this war. 1689

Michael Robinson  •  Link

" ... a dull sermon of Mr. Mills touching Original Sin, ..."

But an improvement on his prior essay:

" ... Mr. Mills made an unnecessary sermon upon Original Sin, neither understood by himself nor the people. ..."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...the story of Tom Woodall, the surgeon, killed in a drunken quarrel..."

On the one hand...Surgeon in Ordinary to the King?Yikes!

On the other hand, at least he used alcohol...Maybe before the advent of antisepsis your best bet was a drunken surgeon..."Damn, spilled my gin all over the damned instruments and the wound site. Sorry, Your Highness...I assure you..." hic. "Your trepannin'll be..." hic. "A success..." or, as in Sam's case, new instruments.

A. De Araujo  •  Link

"He died...after a few days' illness caused by sitting on the damp grass when heated from a fox chase."
Old theory of disease causation, still subscribed by my mother!

Mary  •  Link

A de A.
Only equalled by the perils of sitting in a draught. Or (in Sam's case) by getting your feet wet.

Mary  •  Link

the casting of a king's horoscope.

This had never, of itself, been a treasonable crime. However, since 1353 it had been treasonable to undertake any act "compassing or imagining the death of a King, Queen or heir" and it's difficult to see how a full horoscope could be drawn without falling foul of this law.

JWB  •  Link

"Dryden’s magnificent portrait of Zimri"

"Dryden had a pension of £300 and a butt of Canary wine." Wikipedia

(Oh, and be careful of playing out in the night air. You'll catch your death of the croup.)

BFWB  •  Link

"the casting of a king’s horoscope."

Nowadays the Duke would be searching for the king's original Kenyan birth certificate.

Susan Scott  •  Link

There's a Victorian painting by Augustus Egg of "The Death of Buckingham" that was wildly popular in the 19th c. Showing the Duke dying alone and in despairing poverty and having gotten the bleak end he deserved for all his mischief, was very pleasing to Victorians. In reality, his end was as described above, and relatively free of drama and suffering, esp. considering the gruesome 17th c. deaths of many of his contemporaries like the Earl of Rochester. Even in death, Buckingham managed to slip free.

Here's the Egg painting:
http://tinyurl.com/ykydyh8g

cape henry  •  Link

"...and endeavouring to become popular..." This is also a grave accusation in this context, suggesting he is attempting to become the leader of some faction.

Buckingham's is a fascinating life. For those not already buried under reading, I recommend it.

cape henry  •  Link

"...to church, where a dull sermon of Mr. Mills touching Original Sin, and then home, and there find little Michell and his wife, whom I love mightily."

This line has to be intentionally funny because he is too careful a writer to credit it otherwise.

cum salis grano  •  Link

for those that do not know sin.
OED
the concept of original sin was established by the writings of St Augustine (died c604)).

a1393 GOWER Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) VI. 1 The grete Senne original, Which every man in general Upon his berthe hath envenymed.

original sin n. Theol. a state of corruption or sinfulness, or a tendency to evil, supposedly innate in all human beings and held to be inherited from Adam as a consequence of the Fall; opposed to actual sin (see ACTUAL adj. 1)

sin the word, where did it come:
[OE. syn(n, for original *sunj{omac}, related to continental forms with extended stem, viz. OFris. sende, MDu. sonde (Du. zonde), OS. sundea, sundia, OHG. sunt(e)a, sund(e)a (G. sünde), ON. syn{edh}, synd (Icel., Norw., Sw., Da. synd). The stem may be related to that of L. sons, sont-is guilty. In OE. there are examples of the original general sense, ‘offence, wrong-doing, misdeed’.]

Brian  •  Link

Original Sin: ADAM'S FALL

"In Adam's fall/We sinned all."

- from 'The New England Primer'

language hat  •  Link

Can I just ask people not to use tinyurl? I like to be able to see where I'm going.

Australian Susan  •  Link

More Health Old Wive's Tales:

Don't drink cold water - you'll get a fog on your stomach.

Don't go out with wet hair - you'll get pneumonia.

Susan S - wonderful Victorian paintings! Thank you!

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"And that he hath been endeavouring to have the King’s nativity calculated; which was done, and the fellow now in the Tower about it; which itself hath heretofore, as he says, been held treason, and people died for it; but by the Statute of Treasons, in Queen Mary’s times and since, it hath been left out."

L&M explain that John Heydon, astrologer and Rosicrucian, an associate of Buckingham, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh…
had been arrested in January, and among his papers was found an unsigned letter ordering him to cast the King's nativity. He was examined by several members of the government, and also (according to a letter of 13 March) tortured. Another charge was that Buckingham had used him to incite seamen to mutiny. In 1655-7 he had been imprisoned for forecasting that Cromwell would be hanged. The casting of the ruler's horoscope had never, in Mary's time or at any other time, been made treasonable per se, though it might come within the terms of 'compassing or imagining' the death of the King, Queen or heir, which had been one of the basic treasons since 1353. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hig… An act of 23 Eliz, c. 2 (valid only during Elizabeth's reign) had made is a felony to calculate the royal nativity. All these matters were pretexts used by Buckingham's political enemies for their own purposes.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"it is believed that the Dutch will yield to have the treaty at London or Dover, neither of which will get our King any credit, we having already consented to have it at The Hague; which, it seems, De Witt opposed, as a thing wherein the King of England must needs have some profound design, which in my conscience he hath not."

L&M clarify: The Hague was the centre of the Orangist faction, whose members were enemies of de Witt's republican party. (The de Witt brothers were in 1673 to meet their deaths at the hands ofd a mob there.) There was no truth in the news about London and Dover.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

" the Duke of York hath a mind to get him [Pierce] one of his places in St. Thomas’s Hospitall. "

L&M: Pearse was already Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the Duke. If peace were to be made he might lose his post as Surgeon-General to the fleet. He does not appear to have been given a hospital post, but his naval pay was continued after the peace: see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"They do also tell me that newes is this day come to the King, that the King of France is come with his army to the frontiers of Flanders, demanding leave to pass through their country towards Poland, but is denied, and thereupon that he is gone into the country. How true this is I dare not believe till I hear more."

L&M: A canard. Louis' diplomatic and military preparations for the invasion of Flanders (which took place, without any declaration of war, on 14/24 May) were not completed until the end of April, though there were said to be 50,000 horse and foot on the frontiers by the end of March: Bodl., Clar. 85, ff. 133+. There was civil war in Poland at this time, in which Louis was promoting the election of a French candidate to the Polish throne. During the winter he had allowed his ambitions in the Low Countries to take precedence of his Polish interests, but as late as April he was thinking of sending a small expeditionary force to Poland.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"From them I walked into the Parke,.and there I met Serjeant Bearcroft, who was sent for the Duke of Buckingham, to have brought him prisoner to the Tower."

L&M: For Buckingham's alleged offenses, see https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/… and
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

John Barcroft was one of the seargeants-at-arms to the King. (It was a seargeant-at-arms rather than a Council messenger who would be employed to arrest so exalted a malefactor.) Barcroft's (undated) narrative of his misadventure is in Bodl., Clar. 85, ff. 96-7....

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the Duke gone; so he took horse presently, and heard upon the road that the Duke of Buckingham was gone before him for London: so that he believes he is this day also come to towne before him; but no newes is yet heard of him."

L&M: Buckingham was said to have gone into hiding in the house of Sir Henry Belasyse: Sir John Reresby, Memoirs (ed. Browning), p. 66.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"He tells me that the Duke of Buckingham his crimes, as far as he knows, are his being of a caball with some discontented persons of the late House of Commons"

L&M: Durung the late session Buckingham had built up a connection in the Commons which included the ables critics of the government -- Temple, Garroway, Seymour and Howard. A. Browning, Danby, i. 42.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"as betraying him in Scotland, and giving Oliver an account of the King’s private councils; which the King knows very well, and hath yet pardoned him."

L&M: The King had reason to distrust Buckingham in Scotland in 1650-1, but his intrigues were with Argyll (leader of a rival royalist faction), not with Cromwell....

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"expecting little from James II, ... He was buried in Westminster Abbey."

SURPRISE -- probably more than one:
"James II thumbed his nose at Parliament by staging a magnificent state funeral for the Duke. Buckingham joined his gay father and his college love, Abraham Cowley, among the quiet tombs of Westminster Abbey."

https://lgbt.williams.edu/lgbt-ca…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"L&M explain that John Heydon, astrologer and Rosicrucian, an associate of Buckingham, had been arrested in January, and among his papers was found an unsigned letter ordering him to cast the King's nativity. He was examined by several members of the government, and also (according to a letter of 13 March) tortured. Another charge was that Buckingham had used him to incite seamen to mutiny ..."

see https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

mountebank  •  Link

"the Duke of York hath a mind to get him [Pierce] one of his places in St. Thomas’s Hospitall"

My first thought was "gosh, St. Thomas’s is still around, what an old hospital". Had a quick look on the Internet where there are suggestions that it was founded more than 900 years ago. Blimey.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS teaching hospital in Central London, England.

Originally located in Southwark, but based in Lambeth since 1871, the hospital has provided healthcare freely or under charitable auspices since the 12th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_…

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