Sunday 29 September 1667

(Lord’s day). Up, and put off first my summer’s silk suit, and put on a cloth one. Then to church, and so home to dinner, my wife and I alone to a good dinner. All the afternoon talking in my chamber with my wife, about my keeping a coach the next year, and doing some things to my house, which will cost money — that is, furnish our best chamber with tapestry, and other rooms with pictures. In the evening read good books — my wife to me; and I did even my kitchen accounts. Then to supper, and so to bed.


9 Annotations

First Reading

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"All the afternoon talking in my chamber with my wife, about my keeping a coach the next year, and doing some things to my house, which will cost money — that is, furnish our best chamber with tapestry, and other rooms with pictures."

Definitely time to go a prospectin' out at Brampton for that buried gold. I'm surprised it's not a constant obsession with Sam to go and get it back.

Things seem to have certainly settled down since the Medway panic and our boy clearly feels fairly secure now. I wonder if Pett is still locked up.

Australian Susan  •  Link

Lovely, quiet domestic day. No adverse comments on the sermon but also no comments on pretty women in church, no faults to find with the cooking of dinner, no irritating company, but obviously happy with Bess as no comments on *not* having company. And no ranting at Bess for poor book-keeping. And lots of plans for the future furbishment of the house! Ripples of contentment spread outwards. For the time being......

Robert Gertz  •  Link

"'member boys..." the old sailor addressed his beleaguered, half-starved, some still suffering from untreated wounds, mates, gathered round him. "We vows here to kill any of them Court types who's been profitin' from this miserable war. If we see 'em in new coaches and with new furnishin's we singles 'em out, guts 'em in the dark, takes back what belongs to the King's poor sailors, loots and burns their houses to ground!!"

"Aye!!!"

"Any you soldier boys from Tangier colony and what was pressed on to the ships wit' us. Are you joinin' us in taking revenge on any who starved you with poor vittles and no supply of beer and left you without powder?"

"Aye!!!!"

"Lets kills 'em all right now!!" cry...

"Now, boys..." the old sailor shook head. "Wants to be fair about this. Only the ones who shows they've profitted while fobbin' us off with tickets and the like. But to them wes be grim death."

"Aye!!!!"

NJM  •  Link

http://royalsociety.org/Event.asp…

Anyone in London next week may be interested in booking for this evening lecture at the Royal Society about Pepys and the scientific advancement of the Royal Navy in his day.

Carl in Boston  •  Link

Lovely, quiet domestic day. I agree with Australian Susan. I thought the same before I read Susan's note. This is a rare and wondrous event, a quiet scene of domestic bliss with Elizabeth agreeing with Sam to spend money on tapestries and fixing up the house. Most agreeable, most agreeable indeed.

Second Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

"... that is, furnish our best chamber with tapestry, and other rooms with pictures."

Paintings and artwork had been popular for the nobility for 50 years plus, and the desire of Middling Sort to decorate their houses was now fashionable and affordable.

On the tapestries, I had assumed Charles II reopened the Mortlake Tapestry House started by his grandfather and used by his father, but closed by Cromwell. But no he didn't; Charles II said he would, but never did. So where will Pepys get his tapestries?

There's probably a second hand market for them ... after the failed war and the Great Fire we have seen the Court's, Penn's and Brouncker's problems with cash flow.

The best new tapestries come from Paris:

"In 1662 Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister of finance, took over the Gobelins manufactory on behalf of the Crown; its official title became Manufacture Royale des Meubles de la Couronne (Royal Factory of Furniture to the Crown). The first director, Charles Le Brun, orchestrated numerous craftsmen, including tapestry weavers, painters, bronze-workers, furniture-makers, and gold- and silversmiths, who supplied objects exclusively for [Louis XIV]'s palaces or as royal gifts. ...

"The tapestries woven at the Gobelins were the finest of any produced in Europe in the 1600s and 1700s. Cartoons were ordered from leading painters such as Le Brun, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Charles Coypel, and François Boucher. Skilled weavers were paid according to the difficulty of the work; those entrusted with heads and flesh tones received the highest wages.

During the reign of Louis XIV, tapestries celebrated the glory of the Sun King, ..."

For more, see: http://www.getty.edu/art/collecti…

Gerald Berg  •  Link

A wink is good as a nod to a blind bat. The domestic bliss is more like the quiet before a storm.

After fantasizing about 17 yo Deb Willet for 2 days Pepys is sated from anticipation. Deb is the staked goat and two different predators are stalking two different sorts of meals.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

More about the Fire Courts:
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…

Penn and Brouncker most probably had lost rental property in the Fire. The Court's solution was to extend leases by 40 years, and drastically reduce the rent. This gave everyone a break, and enabled the tenant to use the spare cash to rebuild. After 40 years the landlord took possession of the property and could charge full rent for it again. Everyone was financially impacted.

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