Monday 11 November 1667
Up, and to Simpson at work in my office, and thence with Sir G. Carteret (who come to talk with me) to Broad Streete, where great crowding of people for money, at which he blamed himself. Thence with him and Lord Bruncker to Captain Cocke’s (he out of doors), and there drank their morning draught, and thence [Sir] G. Carteret and I toward the Temple in coach together; and there he did tell me how the King do all he can in the world to overthrow my Lord Chancellor, and that notice is taken of every man about the King that is not seen to promote the ruine of the Chancellor; and that this being another great day in his business, he dares not but be there. He tells me that as soon as Secretary Morrice brought the Great Seale from my Lord Chancellor, Bab. May fell upon his knees, and catched the King about the legs, and joyed him, and said that this was the first time that ever he could call him King of England, being freed from this great man: which was a most ridiculous saying. And he told me that, when first my Lord Gerard, a great while ago, come to the King, and told him that the Chancellor did say openly that the King was a lazy person and not fit to govern, which is now made one of the things in the people’s mouths against the Chancellor, “Why,” says the King, “that is no news, for he hath told me so twenty times, and but the other day he told me so;” and made matter of mirth at it: but yet this light discourse is likely to prove bad to him. I ’light at the Temple, and went to my tailor’s and mercer’s about a cloake, to choose the stuff, and so to my bookseller’s and bought some books, and so home to dinner, and Simpson my joyner with me, and after dinner, my wife, and I, and Willett, to the King’s play-house, and there saw “The Indian Emperour,” a good play, but not so good as people cry it up, I think, though above all things Nell’s ill speaking of a great part made me mad. Thence with great trouble and charge getting a coach (it being now and having been all this day a most cold and foggy, dark, thick day), we home, and there I to my office, and saw it made clean from top to bottom, till I feared I took cold in walking in a damp room while it is in washing, and so home to supper and to bed.
This day I had a whole doe sent me by Mr. Hozier, which is a fine present, and I had the umbles of it for dinner. This day I hear Kirton, my bookseller, poor man, is dead, I believe, of grief for his losses by the fire.
11 Annotations
First Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
The King to King Charles II of Spain and to Dona Maria Anna of Austria, Queen-Regent
Written from: Whitehall
Date: 11 November 1667
Signifies the revocation of His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary at the Court of their Majesties the Earl of Sandwich.
_____
Arlington to Sandwich
Written from: Whitehall
Date: 11 November 1667
Endorses Lord Sandwich's letter of revocation. Will remind the King to reinforce his commands to the Commissioners of the Treasury as to remittance of Bills of Exchange.
http://www.rsl.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwm…
Ralph Berry • Link
"and I had the umbles of it for dinner"
Sam eating humble pie!
Terry Foreman • Link
"“The Indian Emperour,” a good play, but not so good as people cry it up, I think, though above all things Nell’s ill speaking of a great part made me mad."
Perhaps evidence for L&M's note that "Nell Gwynn was a mediocre tragedienne"?
Mary • Link
In support of the idea that Nell was not best seen in tragedy, the following lines were allegedly written for her.
"We have been all ill-us'd, by this day's poet.
'Tis our joint cause; I know you in your hearts
Hate serious plays, as I do serious parts."
Christopher Squire • Link
'Umbles [var. of NUMBLES: see also HUMBLE n.]
1. The edible inward parts of an animal, usually of a deer.
. . 1662 J. DAVIES tr. Mandelslo's Trav. 208 They sell the flesh of them to the Chineses,..eating themselves onely the Umbles and Paunch.
1665 PEPYS Diary 13 Sept., He did give us the meanest dinner, (of beef, shoulder and umbles of venison).'
'numbles, n. . . French regional (Normandy) nomble entrails of a horned animal) . .
1688 R. HOLME Acad. Armory II. 188/1 Noombles, or Umbles; the Hart or Bucks plucks, as Heart, Lights, Liver, with other appendices. . . '
[OED]
Linda • Link
Lights = lungs
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
"notice is taken of every man about the King that is not seen to promote the ruine of the Chancellor; and that this being another great day in his business, he dares not but be there."
Earl of Clarendon's Impeachment.
The House [of Commons] then resumed the Consideration of the rest of the Heads of Accusation against the Earl of Clarendon:
And the several Heads being read, to the Sixteenth Head; the Sixteenth Head was read. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…
Terry Foreman • Link
Linda posted - "Lights = lungs"
Indeed!
Lights are the lungs of game or livestock as used in cooking and butchery. Although technically offal, lights are rarely used in English-speaking culinary traditions, with the exception of the Scottish national dish haggis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lig…
Terry Foreman • Link
"great trouble and charge getting a coach (it being now and having been all this day a most cold and foggy, dark, thick day)"
'Nov 11...[there] was such a great mist at London that never the like before was knowne. Horses ran against each other, carts against carts, coaces against coaches...'. Anthony à Wood, Life &Times , ii, 121. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/…
San Diego Sarah • Link
As one of Barbara Villiers Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine’s ‘wicked crew,’ Baptist May actively promoted the fall of Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, and his joy at Charles II taking control was probably in anticipation of the reversal of Clarendon’s foreign policy and the formation of the Triple Alliance against France.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
If this speculation is correct, foreign policy planning was going on despite the apparent political chaos of the times. The Triple Alliance against France happens in 1668.
San Diego Sarah • Link
"Endorses Lord Sandwich's letter of revocation"
What is a letter of revocation in this context? Does this mean Sandwich is recalled from Madrid where I recall he is currently living, having not gone back to Portugal after the trade treaty was signed.