Friday 12 October 1660

Office day all the morning, and from thence with Sir W. Batten and the rest of the officers to a venison pasty of his at the Dolphin, where dined withal Col. Washington, Sir Edward Brett, and Major Norwood, very noble company. After dinner I went home, where I found Mr. Cooke, who told me that my Lady Sandwich is come to town to-day, whereupon I went to Westminster to see her, and found her at supper, so she made me sit down all alone with her, and after supper staid and talked with her, she showing me most extraordinary love and kindness, and do give me good assurance of my uncle’s resolution to make me his heir. From thence home and to bed.

18 Annotations

First Reading

Paul Miller  •  Link

"to a venison pasty of his at the Dolphin"

To Season a Venison Pasty from a seventeenth century recipe.

Take out ye bones & turn ye fat syde down upon a board. Yn take ye pill of 2
leamons & break them in pieces as long as yr finger & thrust them into every
hole of yr venison. then take 2 ounces of beaten pepper & thrice as much salt,
mingle it, then wring out ye juice of leamon into ye pepper & salt & season it,
first takeing out ye leamon pills haveing layn soe a night. then paste it with
gross pepper layd on ye top & good store of butter or mutton suet.

Mary  •  Link

a venison pasty of his

This entry, combined with entries regarding the earlier pasty eaten in the first week of September at the Bull's Head tavern, imply that a venison pasty was very much a 'special' dish, either made to order or reserved for a particular client.

Glyn  •  Link

Phil has started a special section for "Venison Pasty" at:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

I imagine most of the deer meat on sale in London would have been stolen, unless you had your own private deerpark as did Lord Sandwich.

vincent  •  Link

Game is never stolen, it just poached, very specialised?

Peter  •  Link

I suppose game is always poached because for quite some time it was a crime that could only be committed against French-speaking Norman landowners. The criminal would presumably try to get away with the game he had bagged in his pouch, pocket, or "poche".

Glyn  •  Link

I myself am pretty good at poaching eggs.

Peter  •  Link

Glyn, pocher des oeufs

Harry  •  Link

she showing me most extraordinary love and kindness, and do give me good assurance of my uncle's resolution to make me his heir.

Is this news to Sam, or just confirmation of what he already knew? Will this be a useful addition to his emerging wealth, and how soon it it likely to materialise?

Paul Brewster  •  Link

His uncle Robert Pepys
According to the Genealogical web site that vincent quoted above, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsw…
, RP signed a will on 12/15 Aug 1657. ("Real estate left to my nephew Samuel Pepys son of my brother John. My brother John and his son Samuel executors."). So by the time of this entry, his inheritance was already in the bag although SP may not have known it.

I'm not sure his uncle was completely forthcoming about the existence of a will favoring him when they met on June 6, 1661 (“I had a great deal of talk about my uncle Robert, and he told me that he could not tell how his mind stood as to his estate, but he would do all that lay in his power for me.”). I think we can see a little of this uncertainty sneaking through on the 10th of August when SP feels guilty because he has not paid enough attention to RP (“how busy my head has been, so that I have neglected to write letters to my uncle Robert in answer to many of his”). Even if he did know of the existence of this document, SP may well have feared (correctly as it turns out) that RP's two stepsons from his wife by a previous marriage would contest it (they were both lawyers),

RP will die on 5 July 1661 and the will quoted above is probated on 23 Aug 1661. This marks the start of a complex, Dickensian process described in the L&M companion. In short, SP doesn’t get control over the estate until his father dies in 1680. Seems like it may have often seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. But after all, land is still land.

vincent  •  Link

In the Will THAT YOU ARE maybe, could be ?? 'tis very Important test to please one's Uncle; Many fail that test.????.

Second Reading

Dick Wilson  •  Link

Pardon my cynicism, but I have to think that Sir William Batten is not being a Jolly Good Fellow treating his buddies. I have to think that he is paying them for some favor, or is asking them for something, or has some ulterior motive for wanting to ingratiate himself with these gents.

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... some ulterior motive for wanting to ingratiate himself with these gents."

I think Sir Will had more venison than he and Lady Batten could possibly eat, so he took "the boys" with him to share the wealth. That's what they did in those days. Waste not, want not.

Plus the Navy Board were still getting to know each other as colleagues. The Sir Wills had history: both self-made West Countrymen: Penn was apprenticed in 1638 to Batten, under whom he served in the Parliamentary navy. When Batten defected briefly to the Royalists in 1648, Penn came under suspicion.
The university-educated newcomer, Pepys, had made 2 short voyages with his cousin, the turncoat rich Army man who now calls himself Sandwich, and Pepys clearly didn't know a spinnaker from a genoa. There was little use for Latin in the Navy Office. Let's hope he knows a credit from a debit.
None of them knew Col. Slingsby from Adam, who was another land-lubber.
Sir George Carteret, an impeccable Royalist from Jersey who went to sea at 14, was a Treasurer who knew nothing about accounting.
And they were entertaining, not suppliers, but Batten's brother-in-law and a couple of cronies. Washington was a half-uncle to the 2nd Duke of Buckingham so maybe he had connections, and Brett must have been a friend of some sort.

This was a small event in the on-going efforts at team-making. Penn and Batten would know more about that than Pepys, who never had to be a leader of men and who, like Dick Wilson, probably just looked on this as another free lunch.
But he was being sized-up for character by his elders.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

CORRECTION: Norwood wasn't related to Batten. No idea where that came from!!! So he was another friend of the Navy Board's, and of Sandwich in particular (he was a go-beween with Charles II leading up to the Restoration, per L&M).

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... my Lady Sandwich is come to town to-day, whereupon I went to Westminster to see her, and found her at supper, so she made me sit down all alone with her, and after supper staid and talked with her, she showing me most extraordinary love and kindness, ..."

I understand why Sandwich doesn't include Elizabeth in his dinners with Pepys, since they discuss a lot of business and career ideas.

But I wonder why Jemima didn't include Elizabeth in this invite to an apparently spontaneous, casual supper.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

L&M says that Col. Washington, Sir Edward Brett, and Major Norwood were all officers high in Charles II's favor.

LKvM  •  Link

Re "The criminal would presumably try to get away with the game he had bagged in his pouch, pocket, or 'poche'."
It would have to be a rather small part of a rather small deer to fit in a pocket. But I've heard that English deer are very small (compared to American deer).

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

I'd never thought about that aspect of poaching, LKvM -- if you dragged even a small deer it would leave a trail of flattened grass and blood all the way to the poacher's house. If carried, it would take at least 2 strong people, and the blood would still be visible. How did they do it?

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