Wednesday 26 April 1665

Up very betimes, my cold continuing and my stomach sick with the buttered ale that I did drink the last night in bed, which did lie upon me till I did this morning vomitt it up.

So walked to Povy’s, where Creed met me, and there I did receive the first parcel of money as Treasurer of Tangier, and did give him my receipt for it, which was about 2,800l. value in Tallys; we did also examine and settle several other things, and then I away to White Hall, talking, with Povy alone, about my opinion of Creed’s indiscretion in looking after Mrs. Pickering, desiring him to make no more a sport of it, but to correct him, if he finds that he continues to owne any such thing. This I did by my Lady’s desire, and do intend to pursue the stop of it.

So to the Carrier’s by Cripplegate, to see whether my mother be come to towne or no, I expecting her to-day, but she is not come. So to dinner to my Lady Sandwich’s, and there after dinner above in the diningroom did spend an houre or two with her talking again about Creed’s folly; but strange it is that he should dare to propose this business himself of Mrs. Pickering to my Lady, and to tell my Lady that he did it for her virtue sake, not minding her money, for he could have a wife with more, but, for that, he did intend to depend upon her Ladyshipp to get as much of her father and mother for her as she could; and that, what he did, was by encouragement from discourse of her Ladyshipp’s: he also had wrote to Mrs. Pickering, but she did give him a slighting answer back again. But I do very much fear that Mrs. Pickering’s honour, if the world comes to take notice of it, may be wronged by it.

Thence home, and all the afternoon till night at my office, then home to supper and to bed.


38 Annotations

First Reading

Pedro  •  Link

"see whether my mother be come to towne or no, I expecting her to-day, but she is not come."

Hope Mrs P makes the journey, and we can check that her dementia is not getting any worse.

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

Well, we know that sometimes her relationships with people are difficult, but not that she has dementia...

Question:
"But I do very much fear that Mrs. Pickering’s honour, if the world comes to take notice of it, may be wronged by it"

Why would this be? Right now, she seems to be rejecting Creed's advances, so I'm not sure I understand Sam's concern here.

A headcold *and* nausea all night ... ugh.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

At Gresham College today from the Hooke Folio Online

Apr. 26. mr. Howard more obseruats. of Comet.
Recommended to the pervsall of mr Hooke (expts. of florentine Poyson)
(Blount another modul of chariot. comittee for that purpose to meet at writlemarsh)
An animated horse hair to be viewd wth microscope
Phi: Iac: Sacks. Letter to Society.) may dew to be tryed.).
http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…

The Mollusc  •  Link

Perhaps if Creed happened to tell more people that he was seeking to court Mrs Pickering at the suggestion of Lady Sandwich and family, it could generate hurtful gossip about the town about their lack of regard for her...

After all, he is merely a man (who must rely on his wits), while she is a gentlewoman (who can rely on her fortune and position in society).

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"the Carrier’s by Cripplegate"

L&M wonder, was this the White Hind?

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"...and to tell my Lady that he did it for her virtue sake, not minding her money, for he could have a wife with more..."

And we thought our boy was bold... On the other hand, I don't doubt John Creed could find a wealthier wife if he wished.

Interesting the way Lady Jem keeps calling on Sam to sort this matter out and insisting she didn't mean to encourage Creed. Jemina Crew Montagu after all was quite eager right after the Restoration to marry her namesake daughter off to a wealthy merchant before her newly Earled husband sneered down such a low match to his greatness. Perhaps she gave John more encouragement than she wishes to admit to Sam and more importantly, my Lord Sandwich, now regrets it, and hopes desperately that cousin Sam can fix things. As for Betty Pickering, I don't think she's quite as adamant against Mr. Creed as Sam would have us believe. Creed might enjoy a fight against the odds but I really doubt he'd pursue this unless he sense good hope of success in the lady's attitude.

After all, Sam...Didn't a bold Pepys marry her way into the nobility?

***

Poor Bess...Not a pleasant wake-up call this am.

CGS  •  Link

Marrying an income, heard today, women minimum required to marry for cash, 1.5M$, men it be 1.1m$, result of survey. So wot be new?

For girls getting an upgrade to first class accommodation's it be said, that it be easier for the female of the species than the male.

andy  •  Link

buttered ale that I did drink the last night in bed,

For the composition of buttered ale, see:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

but why would he drink beer in bed? A guaranteed emetic, surely?

Bradford  •  Link

Just the thought of buttered ale at the wrong time might make a person queasy, in bed or out. Quick! Think of ice cubes instead! (A good mental remedy for the icks when nothing else is available.)

Robert Gertz  •  Link

The more I think on it, the more intriguing this Creed/Pickering romance gets. Maybe some hitherto unsuspected piece of him is a besotted romantic; maybe after too many nights spent sleeping with Sam, he's plain desperate but John Creed seems far too coolly level-headed not to have something that persuades him he can win out even over Lord Sandwich's likely opposition -I wonder if perhaps he has enough potential dirt on my Lord's finances and/or political bet-hedging to be able to threaten should the Earl try to dismiss his suit.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Nice to think of Margaret coming to town by herself to see the old sights and her successful boy, an adventurous side of her we haven't seen.

language hat  •  Link

"her dementia is not getting any worse"

Can we please not make assumptions like this? There has been absolutely no indication that she has dementia, or indeed any problems beyond a husband and son who treat her slightingly.

JWB  •  Link

her Ladyshipp

Sound to me as if she looked upon prospective Creed/Pickering match with benign neglect, giving Creed's ambition free reign, until he proposed she broker the deal : "...get as much of her father and mother for her as she could". An act her Ladyshipp likely considered beneath herself and so she consulted Sam to relieve her embarrassment.

JWB  •  Link

"So to the Carrier’s..."

Curious sentence: "...whether my mother be come...& "...she is not come." It's as if Sam's re-living his expectation & disappointment in the present tense when later he made this entry. Leads me to think that his feeling towards her ran deeper than reading the diary thus far would lead us to believe.

Pedro  •  Link

"There has been absolutely no indication that she has dementia,"

Of course she never had dementia, so no one should bring up that old chestnut this time!

Terry Foreman  •  Link

John Evelyn's Diary (absent Dirk)

26: I gave his Majestie Accompt of what I had don [e with Young Capt. Ever(t)en, eldest son of Cornelius, Vice-Admiral of Zeeland], & desired the same favour for another Cap: which his Majestie gave me:
***

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"For girls getting an upgrade to first class accommodation’s it be said, that it be easier for the female of the species than the male."

Observations like this are one reason I enjoy reading your annotations, oh Man of a Thousand Names...

Paul Chapin  •  Link

The mind of Margaret Pepys
We have agreed to disagree on the question of whether Margaret showed signs of dementia, the subject of a rather heated discussion some while back. Pace LH, there certainly were "indications" that she did, inconclusive ones to be sure, but enough to convince some of us that that was the case. It won't do for those on one side of that argument to come back and insist that the matter is settled in their favor, with no new evidence.

language hat  •  Link

I do not insist that everyone agree with me. I suggest that it is pointless and counterproductive to keep bringing up the matter, leading to another fruitless go-around. Note: I did not bring it up. If it gets brought up, it will be disputed.

cgs  •  Link

I forgot: [easily done ]
But I do find it interesting that she had to come by cart, that would take at least two days [approx 70 miles at 3mph avg] at 12 hrs a day.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

Seems to me there are many issues we can't definitely know but find useful and relevant to discuss. Margaret's state of mind has much bearing on understand John's character and Sam's and the other Pepys and their development, especially Pall. It's important to note there's no proof of problems in her mental condition but that in the past Sam has recorded observations that do suggest more than mere anger or resentment against male dominance. Just as her religious faith...Was she a firm Puritan?...And John's character...Was he the nurturing parent in the Pepys family or merely a proud father, lavishing attention on one successful son?...are issues of interest worth discussing but which we can't ever fully settle, so Mrs. Pepys' mental state. It would throw a very different light on John if he were a reasonably decent for the time but utterly at a loss caregiver trying to cope with his own career-ending disability and that of his wife, along with a (certainly justly) rebellious daughter, rather indifferent, even lazy, college-age son, and well-meaning but overbearing, successful elder son. Not that any topic related to entries any one wishes to bring up should be denied, but this one is a very relevant one. Again, of course, it's necessary to separate what we definitely know from what we believe.

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"Again, of course, it’s necessary to separate what we definitely know from what we believe."

I think this is what LH is (justified in) protesting about. It's fun to speculate. We all do it, and it's all good, as long as it's noted as speculation. However, when people talk about something as a given when there is no hard evidence behind it, that crosses the line and creates controversy.

Pedro  •  Link

“I did not bring it up”

Being the one that brought it up, I realize that I should have expressed myself more in the way that Robert has. The subject has been discussed before, but I wished to highlight that we now have an opportunity, or not, to add to the discussion. Surely the subject is not that controversial that it should not be further addressed if new evidence presents itself.

Anyway, surely the owner of the site should be the judge of what should not be discussed, and I sometimes wonder that our experience would be greatly enhanced, if many lurking in the background, felt that they would not be pounced upon if their thoughts did not fit in with the “learned” annotators.

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

As if this horse wasn't already dead enough, please allow me to beat it a bit more...

Pedro, I don't think anyone is saying that the topic should not be discussed. I enjoy your annotations, and welcome all comers. I think it's simply a matter of casting our discussions in clear terms. When we're speculating, we should say so.

We've all been on a five-year journey together, and feel we know Sam and his world pretty well. It's easy to forget sometimes that, despite the wonders of the Internet and the skill of the annotators in adding to our perspective about Sam's time, there is still so much that we don't know that it's just about impossible to draw definite conclusions about people's motivations, states of mind, circumstances, morals, context, etc. All we can do is guess. Hopefully what we do is make an educated guess, backed by what evidence we can gather, but in the end it's still a guess, and we should simply be careful to cast it as such.

language hat  •  Link

"Pedro, I don’t think anyone is saying that the topic should not be discussed. I enjoy your annotations, and welcome all comers. I think it’s simply a matter of casting our discussions in clear terms. When we’re speculating, we should say so."

Exactly. I enjoy your contributions, Pedro, but when you write "we can check that her dementia is not getting any worse" you are assuming as a matter of fact that she is demented, which some of us strongly disagree with. If you had said something like "we can get more evidence as to whether she suffers from dementia," I would have had no problem with it.

Pedro  •  Link

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice sarcasm.

For me the above discussion has been a lesson in communication by the written form.

As a member of the school that thinks that Mrs. P does NOT have dementia, my first post …”Hope Mrs P makes the journey, and we can check that her dementia is not getting any worse.”…was in the sarcastic sense that those who think she has dementia may be able to further their case in the coming weeks.

To check on the meaning of sarcasm from Wikipedia I came across…

“Sarcasm can be difficult to grasp in written form. To prevent this some people emphasize words with italics, bold, capitalization, and/or underlining (e.g. that’s just great); sarcastic comments on the Internet with an emoticon, such as ^o); or surround them with a made-up markup language tag, e.g. *sarcasm*, or

Writers in the UK and some other countries have adopted the use of (!) (An exclamation mark in parentheses) following speech in which sarcasm or irony is perceptible via the tone of voice, a punctuation mark which is very regularly seen in subtitles.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarc…

As Tod and LH seemed to think that I inferred that Mrs P had dementia, it is clear that I should have included an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence! The second mistake was to reply again in a sarcastic way, and then followed a discussion on the subject. The third mistake was to defend the right to discuss even though there seems to be an unwritten agreement that we agree to disagree.

Mind you, some say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit!

jeannine  •  Link

Pedro is an English annotator
Sometimes a playful instigator
He posted a “bomb”
Brought dispute to the calm
A wild little debate detonator!

language hat  •  Link

Oops, sorry Pedro! Yeah, sarcasm often doesn't work well online.

Pedro  •  Link

Meanwhile about 12 leagues from Texel more confusion…

Allin says…

“A hard mizzling fog in the morning, the wind being NW and NNW, very little wind. After noon it came SSE and SE. a very thick fog, that we could not see by times one ship, and continued so until the towards morning. Captain Francis Saunders was forced to stay aboard, not possible to find his ship.”

Australian Susan  •  Link

And why did poor Mrs Pepys the elder have to travel by the rough and uncomfy carrier's cart when her husband, son and d-in-l would surely travel by horseback or coach?? Somebody's penny pinching here.

Background Lurker  •  Link

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice sarcasm.

Bradford you're clearly the culpit here. Weren't you working on an emoticon for sarcasm some time ago? Where is it man. Oh, and don't forget the one for whimsy!

http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Bradford  •  Link

I tried angle brackets, but they do something wicked to the coding. +++Would triple value-added plus-marks clue the clueless?+++ ***Or a trio of asterisks signal whims to the non-whimsical?***

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Apr. 26. mr. Howard more obseruats. of Comet. Recommended to the pervsall of mr Hooke (expts. of florentine Poyson)

(Blount another modul of chariot. comittee for that purpose to meet at [his house at Wricklemarsh [in Blackheath, Kent - MS: writlemarsh]

An animated horse hair to be viewd wth microscope

Phi: Iac: Sacks. Letter to Society.) may dew to be tryed.).

http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…

Second Reading

arby  •  Link

The "animated horse hair" would be one of the many species of horsehair worm, a fascinating parasite of insects, crickets in the case of my common local one.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Extract of a Letter from the same Mr. Lister, written from York, April 12, 1672, concerning animated Horse-hairs; rectifying a vulgar Error. N° 83, p. 4064. Philosophical Transaction, VII, p. 717-8 (1672)
*The worm here described is the Gordius Aquaticus of Linnaeus, and is by no means uncommon in stagnant waters during the summer months: it is also occasionally found in damp ground in gardens, &c. particularly after great rain accompanying thunder storms. The kind described by Lister as found in the bodies of beetles, is supposed to constitute a distinct species, and in the Gmelinian edition of the Systema Naturae, is even referred to a different genus under the name of Filaria, it is the Filaria.
https://books.google.com/books?id…

Gordius is a genus of worms in the phylum Nematomorpha, the horsehair worms. It was formerly treated as the only genus in the family Gordiidae, but the genus Acutogordius is now usually included there. The genus is distributed worldwide except for Antarctica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor…

Deborah  •  Link

"But I do very much fear that Mrs. Pickering’s honour, if the world comes to take notice of it, may be wronged by it."

Right to worry, Sam, as without you, it would be long forgotten.

Chris Squire UK  •  Link

Re: ‘ . . my stomach sick with the buttered ale that I did drink the last night in bed . . ’

‘ . . 2. b. buttered ale n. (also buttered beer) a beverage composed of sugar, cinnamon, butter, and beer brewed without hops.
. . 1662 S. Pepys Diary 5 Dec. (1970) III. 275 And gave him a morning draught of butterd ale.
1667 S. Pepys Diary 28 Sept. (1974) VIII. 454 It will cost him..l300 in ale and l52 in buttered-ale . . ‘
(OED)

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