Thursday 23 August 1660

By water to Doctors’ Commons to Dr. Walker, to give him my Lord’s papers to view over concerning his being empowered to be Vice-Admiral under the Duke of York. There meeting with Mr. Pinkney, he and I to a morning draft, and thence by water to White Hall, to the Parliament House, where I spoke with Colonel Birch, and so to the Admiralty chamber, where we and Mr. Coventry had a meeting about several businesses. Amongst others, it was moved that Phineas Pett (kinsman to the Commissioner) of Chatham, should be suspended his employment till he had answered some articles put in against him, as that he should formerly say that the King was a bastard and his mother a whore.

Hence to Westminster Hall, where I met with my father Bowyer, and Mr. Spicer, and them I took to the Leg in King Street, and did give them a dish or two of meat, and so away to the Privy Seal, where, the King being out of town, we have had nothing to do these two days. To Westminster Hall, where I met with W. Symons, T. Doling, and Mr. Booth, and with them to the Dogg, where we eat a musk melon (the first that I have eat this year), and were very merry with W. Symons, calling him Mr. Dean, because of the Dean’s lands that his uncle had left him, which are like to be lost all.

Hence home by water, and very late at night writing letters to my Lord to Hinchinbroke, and also to the Vice-Admiral in the Downs, and so to bed.

8 Annotations

First Reading

vincent  •  Link

"Serious offense" muri, audient?"...Amongst others, it was moved that Phineas Pett (kinsman to the Commissioner) of Chatham, should be suspended his employment till he had answered some articles put in against him, as that he should formerly say that the King was a bastard and his mother a whore..."
So, not everybody is enamoured with the new regime.

chip  •  Link

L&M note that Doctors' Commons (near St. Paul's) housed the society of lawyers practising civil (Roman) law in the court of Admiralty (where Dr. Walter Walker was an advocate) and in the ecclesiastical courts. Next note mentions that Phineas Pett had been confirmed as Assistant Master-Shipwright, Chatham, on June 11, but was dismissed on 15 October. The Pett family (so numerous and powerful in naval affairs and so fond of office) attracted many enemies. Then about the Privy Seal, warrants were made out only on the authority of the 'King's bills' issued, under the sign manual, from the signet office. Finally Symons received the lands from his uncle, Henry Scobell, late Clerk of Parliament and registrar of the commission for the sale of the lands of deans and chapters. Symons had inherited two manors, confiscated from the Dean and chapter of St. Paul's. All such lands were now restored. Incidentally, L&M spell it Muske millon.

Nix  •  Link

What a busy day -- I count nine stops, and ten people encountered.

And thanks to Samuel (and Phil Gyford), Phineas Pett has achieved a curious kind of immortality: his name flashed around the world three-and-a-half centuries later for calling the king a bastard.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"my father Bowyer,"

Note the way Pepys frames his relation to a man (met professionally) in whose paternal country custody he entrusted Elizabeth while he was in Holland -- though her own parents live (in unfortunate quarters) in London.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"So away to the Privy Seal, where, the King being out of town, we have had nothing to do these two days."

L&M: Privy Seal warrants were made out only on the authority of 'King's bills' issued, under the sign manual of the Signet Office. Cf. https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/11/27/

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

John Evelyn's Diary – he and Mary Browne Evelyn live at Saye's Court, Deptford.

http://brittlebooks.library.illinois.edu/brittleb…

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23 August, 1660.
Came Duke Hamilton, Lord Lothian, and several Scottish Lords, to see my garden.

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John Evelyn’s garden was famous: He purchased Sayes Court, Deptford, in 1653 from his father-in-law, and laid out gardens, walks, groves, enclosures, and plantations, which afterwards became famous for their beauty. When he took over the place it was nothing but an open field of 100 acres, with scarcely a hedge in it. Pepys will visit and admire those hedges in October 1665. In the 1690’s Tzar Peter of Russia found pleasure in wrecking them. For more links and details, see all of the annotations at https://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/9046/#c25…

Duke of Hamilton: Lord William Douglas was created Earl of Selkirk in 1646, at the age of 11. He supported the Royalist cause in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and was fined £,1000, under the terms of the Commonwealth's Act of Pardon and Grace to the People of Scotland. On 29 April, 1656, Selkirk married Anne Hamilton, Duchess of Hamilton. He was created Duke of Hamilton in 1660 on the petition of his wife, the suo jure Duchess of Hamilton, receiving also several of the other Hamilton peerages for life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hamilton,_D…

William Carr/Kerr, 1st Earl of Lothian (1605 – October 1675)
Sounds like an unpleasant Covenanter to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kerr,_1st_E…

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