Saturday 17 November 1660

In the morning to Whitehall, where I inquired at the Privy Seal Office for a form for a nobleman to make one his Chaplain. But I understanding that there is not any, I did draw up one, and so to my Lord’s, and there I did give him it to sign for Mr. Turner to be his first Chaplain. I did likewise get my Lord to sign my last sea accounts, so that I am even to this day when I have received the balance of Mr. Creed.

I dined with my Lady and my Lady Pickering, where her son John dined with us, who do continue a fool as he ever was since I knew him. His mother would fain marry him to get a portion for his sister Betty but he will not hear of it.

Hither came Major Hart this noon, who tells me that the Regiment is now disbanded, and that there is some money coming to me for it. I took him to my Lord to Mr. Crew’s, and from thence with Mr. Shepley and Mr. Moore to the Devil Tavern, and there we drank. So home and wrote letters by the post. Then to my lyra viall, and to bed.

26 Annotations

First Reading

Paul Miller  •  Link

"at the Privy Seal Office for a form for a nobleman to make one his Chaplain. But I understanding that there is not any, I did draw up one"

Fee, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of an
bureaucratic Englishman

vincent  •  Link

Major Hart bringing bad news , the lost of of a gratuity { see sept 10th anno's }

dirk  •  Link

"His mother would fain marry him to get a portion for his sister Betty"

Can somebody clarify this for me. I'm somewhat lost here...

vincent  •  Link

My interpretation is that the Family is in poor circumstances and the boy is an idiot , marry him off for the name and and give some of the proceeds(Dowry) to marrying off the girl.
But the lad is not that short [of bats] in the belfry.

Jackie  •  Link

Yes. Women without a dowry were considered pretty much unmarriageable. In this case, if the idiot boy married well, then he'd get a good sum of money from his new wife's family, some of which could be used to assist his sister to marry.

andy  •  Link

But I understanding that there is not any, I did draw up one:

What advantages lay for a nobleman in registering his Chaplain, or was it, in these religiously sensitive times, obligatory?

Sam clearly anticpates that others will need to do the same thing, and as an early civil servant translates the procedures to be followed - must be set out elsewhere - into an easy form.

Sam would have loved Windows and object-oriented programming, with the ticks and boxes that we are using here!

Jon  •  Link

"...I did draw one up."

Not in our sense, but as in a form of words. Sam is delivering his lord a Result, and proud of it. Would this effectively have been a contract or charter, setting out the obligations and returns on either side, rather than a piece of bureaucracy?

Nix  •  Link

"to get a portion for his sister Betty" --

Failing this, she will be in the position of Sam's sister Pall (see last week's discussion), but with an idiot brother instead of a rapidly rising public servant.

Mary  •  Link

Turner's chaplaincy

We're not looking at an exclusive occupation here. From 1649-1689 Turner was Rector of Eynesbury in Huntingdonshire and from 1687-1705, Rector of Wistow, also in Huntingdonshire.

David A. Smith  •  Link

"I understanding that there is not any, I did draw up one"
Extending Andy and Jon's observations, we see here another example of how the Restoration was not simply a succession but a genuine regime change (in our modern lexicon). We are in a time of Restored but fragile monarchy, with undefined church-state boundaries. (Before this we had the Puritans, and before them, the Established Church of England.) The document legitimizes a role and its boundaries.
We also see evidence of Sam's value. Unruffled by the absence of precedent -- indeed, stimulated by it! -- he whips up a form and has it effectuated within the day. Such an aide -- especially a witty, flattering, industrious one -- is a valuable resource to a rising Lord who has the king's ear ....

Roger Arbor  •  Link

Thank you David... one can imagine Sandwich speaking to his peers of this young Pepys who is SO useful and resourceful.

john lauer  •  Link

Having reread the background on John Pickering, I think he was not literally an idiot, but was generally seen by Pepys as what we would now call an egregious ass. After all, we're told he has, or had, worked at the Exchequer. An ass in a position of some authority? Of course Sam would have loathed him.

vincent  •  Link

'Tis wonderful to see the rules {of law} taking shape, Pleasing those that could have a say [and power to make physical changes] in the affairs of the realm , a space between absolute power [King,or Dictatorship]of One Person to the other extreem of anarchy {Too many differences of Opinining} {fortunately there was the escape valve of adventure[plus lots of rewards ] to the East Indies or to the West Indies {+ new colonies with university of H in Cambridge} for those could not survive under any of the above..{at least they had differing areas to try out their plans and satisfy the Polit-relig Ideals }
There are so many revolutions and evolutions in motion in all the Known endeavours, Food Distribution, Organising Government [rather relying on whim ] Military Organising, Shipping etc..
Then Taxes to pay for it all.
So much of todays ways got their start in this period. This last 10 months have been momentus.

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

"His mother would fain marry him to get a portion for his sister Betty but he will not hear of it."

Betty is Elizabeth Pickering, John's sister. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… She married John Creed in 1668. We read other speculation on a marriage for John Pickering on August 13, 1660

Sasha Clarkson  •  Link

Sam and Sandwich have a financial interest in the Privy Seal office. So, by inventing a new form to be filled in, Sam might have invented a new money-spinner too?

MarkS  •  Link

It wasn't a form in the modern sense of the word, and it wouldn't be a money-spinner.

Sam was looking for an example of a legal contract for a nobleman to retain a household chaplain. No doubt the Privy Seal had many different types of model contracts on file for their own use, so Sam was hoping he could find a suitable one. It was just to save him time and give him an idea of what such a contract usually looked like.

Since there wasn't any contract of this type on file, he simply drew one up as best he could, for Sandwich and Turner to sign. It didn't affect anything at the Privy Seal Office.

Has Sam had any formal legal training? Probably not, but he has seen a large number of legal contracts, and he knows what Sandwich wants.

eileen d.  •  Link

just a reminder, PLEASE no spoilers. this site provides a wonderful immediacy for us readers by allowing us to learn things as Pepys learns them.

there's plenty of info in the background links when one desires a chronological overview of individuals or events. that information does not belong here in the daily annotations.

sorry, bill, while I appreciate your contributions I find I now have to skip your posts, scrolling quickly past so as to avoid an unwanted revelation.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I inquired at the Privy Seal Office for a form for a nobleman to make one his Chaplain. But I understanding that there is not any, I did draw up one"

It's not clear why there wasn't such a form: L&M explain: formal appointment as chaplain to a nobleman would permit a certain amount of non-residence [2nd job - income, living], by virtue of an act of 1529.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"Hither came Major Hart this noon, who tells me that the Regiment is now disbanded"

L&M: In Shropshire on 12 November, its arrears amounting to over £16,000: Merc. Pub., 15 November, p. 727. For Pepys's pay see http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"I dined with my Lady and my Lady Pickering, where her son John dined with us, who do continue a fool as he ever was since I knew him. His mother would fain marry him to get a portion for his sister Betty but he will not hear of it."

The Pickerings are now in much reduced circumstances; Pepys noted that their lodgings "... was a poor one in Blackfryars," and Lady Elizabeth Montagu Pickering did not invite him in when he walked her home recently, which surprised him.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

She is the wife of the notorious Parliamentarian Sir Gilbert Pickering (one of the judges at the trial of King Charles and a forgiven Regicide, although his sentence was still under review by Parliament); at best he will never hold office again, plus their lands have been confiscated so there are no rents coming in. They are probably living on the Sandwich's charity and whatever son John brings home, which must irritate John, who grew up wanting nothing as his father was a wealthy landed gentlemen with Cromwell's ear.

Both John and young Betty's futures now depend on John making an adventageous marriage. Bill, in John Pickering's Encyclopedia page, says he was born in 1640, so he's 20 now. That's a lot of responsibility on some evidently immature shoulders.

Pepys was probably more mature at 10 than this spoiled young aristocrat will ever be. Who would have him for their daughter? He has nothing to offer, so phoo phooing his mother's ideas is one way of lessening the pressure.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

The House of Commons has finally noticed that the Poll Tax has not been collected in London yet. From today in Parliament:

Poll Bill.
Ordered, That Sir John Robinson, and Sir John Fredericke, do give Intimation to the Lord Mayor, this Afternoon, that this House doth take notice of the great Neglect of the City of London in collecting of the Money upon the Poll Bill, and upon the Acts of Assessment, in the several and respective Wards; and that they speedily collect and pay in the same:
And Sir John Robinson is to report their Answer, and Proceedings therein, on Monday Morning next.

Across the river in Deptford, John Evelyn paid his on 6 October, 1660:
"I paid the great tax of poll money, levied for disbanding the army, till now kept up. I paid as an Esquire 10/., and one shilling for every servant in my house."

LKvM  •  Link

"His mother would fain marry him to get a portion for his sister . . . ."
Today we would say "would fain marry him OFF to get a portion . . . ."
That makes more sense, except that today we don't use "would fain."

Stephane Chenard  •  Link

The poll tax problem is prominent enough for Venetian ambassador Giavarina to make it item No. 1 in his weekly dispatch (dated November 26 new style, at https://www.british-history.ac.uk…). Venice cares about this stuff, because it has been granted royal leave to recruit England's demobbed soldiers into its own wars. Giavarina his letter:

"[Parliament's] special aim is the complete disbanding of the army and the disarming of the fleet (...) Finding that their orders were left unfulfilled chiefly from lack of money they immediately applied themselves to find fresh cash for the purpose, which absorbs immense and incredible sums. They are therefore discussing a tax, which will soon be ripe, of 70,000l. sterling a month for six weeks, and as much of the poll tax is still unpaid, they are preparing stringent orders, threatening with severe penalties those who show an unwillingness to submit."

So, problem: The People, perhaps made dizzy by the influx of oxygen (sorry, "vital spirit") that came with the end of one Dictatorship, aren't paying this Tax. Solution: Create that new one, with even more stringent deadlines. Hmm, yes, that should do it. Adjourn, then. Everybody to the Devil Tavern!

JMW  •  Link

"His mother would fain marry him to get a portion for his sister . . . ."
Today we would say "would fain marry him OFF to get a portion . . . ."
That makes more sense, except that today we don't use "would fain."

I (born 1950) have heard the use of "fain" with this meaning when I was young, but in the context of someone speaking, naturally, Lancashire dialect. But not more recently.

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