Sunday 31 May 1668

(Lord’s day). Up, and to church in the morning. At noon I sent for Mr. Mills and his wife and daughter to dine, and they dined with me, and W. Hewer, and very good company, I being in good humour. They gone to church, comes Mr. Tempest, and he and I sang a psalm or two, and so parted, and I by water to the New Exchange, and there to Mrs. Pierces, where Knepp, and she, and W. Howe, and Mr. Pierce, and little Betty, over to Fox Hall, and there walked and supped with great pleasure. Here was Mrs. Manuel also, and mighty good company, and good mirth in making W. Howe spend his six or seven shillings, and so they called him altogether “Cully.” So back, and at Somerset-stairs do understand that a boy is newly drowned, washing himself there, and they cannot find his body.

So seeing them home, I home by water, W. Howe going with me, and after some talk he lay at my house, and all to bed. Here I hear that Mrs. Davis is quite gone from the Duke of York’s house, and Gosnell comes in her room, which I am glad of. At the play at Court the other night, Mrs. Davis was there; and when she was to come to dance her jigg, the Queene would not stay to see it, which people do think it was out of displeasure at her being the King’s whore, that she could not bear it. My Lady Castlemayne is, it seems, now mightily out of request, the King coming little to her, and thus she mighty melancholy and discontented.


14 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"good mirth in making W. Howe spend his six or seven shillings, and so they called him altogether “Cully.”"

cul·ly    /ˈkʌli/ –noun
1. Archaic . a dupe.
2. Slang . fellow; companion.

Origin: 1655–65; perhaps shortening of cullion
http://dictionary.reference.com/b…

Chris Squire  •  Link

‘Cully, n. < Originally slang or rogues' cant, of uncertain origin. Connection has been suggested with cullion n. or its Italian cognate coglione ‘a noddie, a foole, a patch, a dolt; a cuglion, a gull, a meacocke’ (Florio). Leland thinks it of Gypsy origin, comparing Spanish Gypsy chulai man, Turkish Gypsy khulai gentleman. Slang or colloq. Now rare.
1. One who is cheated or imposed upon (e.g. by a sharper, strumpet, etc.); a dupe, gull; one easily deceived or taken in; a silly fellow, simpleton. (Much in use in the 17th c.)
1664 S. Butler Hudibras ii. ii. 123 Women, that‥Brought in‥Their Husbands Cullies, and Sweet-hearts.
1687 C. Sedley Bellamira i. i, I'll‥shew her I am not such a cully as she takes me for.
a1720 J. Hughes in Duncombe's Lett. (1773) III. App. xxxvii, The wit is always the cully of the heart . . ‘ [OED]

= 'sucker' nowadays.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

Cully "perhaps shortening of cullion"

cul·lion (klyn)
n. Archaic
A contemptible fellow; a rascal.
[Middle English coilon, testicle, from Old French coillon, from Latin culleus, bag.]
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/…

The bachelors and their gal pals may be more vulgar than they know.

David Goldfarb  •  Link

Today we start the countdown: the diary goes into its final year.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

It does seem like Sam...Never one to avoid trumpeting his ... behavior...has resolved his summer bachelor itch for the moment at least and is simply enjoying pleasant company. I did note he seemed nervous about having gone too far with Knepp the other day though she kindly said nothing to him...Perhaps his "gang" has intimated that his behavior is getting out of control? Or possibly renewed intimacy with Bess has left him a bit guilty and anxious to improve his behavior...For the moment?

john  •  Link

"It does seem like Sam [...] has resolved his summer bachelor itch"

Imitating royalty can be tiring.

jeannine  •  Link

A little more detail, per Davidson’ “Catherine of Braganza” (little spoiler here from after the Diary)

“Mary Davis, who had been acting at the Duke’s Theater at the beginning of this year, was now accommodated by the King with a house in Suffolk Street. She had a ‘mighty fine coach’, according to Pepys, who saw her step into it at the door of her own house. She wore a ring the King had given her worth £700, and she was a source of profound mortification to Lady Castlemaine, quite as much to Catherine. At the play the King was seen gazing, enraptured, at a particular box, and ‘The Lady”, craning to see the object of his notice and finding it to be Moll Davis, ‘looked like fire’. She danced in the Whitehall theatricals, and Charles kept his eyes fixed on her faultless dancing. She appeared when the play was ended to dance again, but Catherine would not stay to see her, but rose and left the room. Burnet declares Charles’s infatuation to have been neither very ardent nor of long duration, yet he had a daughter by Moll Davis six years later, a girl named Mary Tudor, who in 1687 married that Frances Ratcliffe…. Moll Davis’s manner of life is not known after Charles left her, nor the date of her death. She sinks into complete oblivion.” (p230-231)

Mary  •  Link

The final year.

What a sorry thought. What shall I do without my morning encounter with Samuel Pepys?

But seriously, I'm enormously grateful to Phil for his dedication to running this blog over such an extended period. I hope that he's derived as much enjoyment from it as we have.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

" Moll Davis’s manner of life is not known after Charles left her, nor the date of her death. She sinks into complete oblivion.”

The link to Moll Davis in today's text provides the results of later research: http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

[May] 1668
Warrant to Col. Legg, Lieutenant of Ordnance,
to pay 300l. to Thos. Writtle, late governor of Upnor Castle, which is to be converted into a magazine of stores for the Ordnance, on surrender of his said office and fee of 30/. a year.
[S.P. Dom., Entry Book 30, f. 34.]

@@@

May. 1668
Memoranda [from the Signet books] of grants, &c.,
passed during the month, the uncalendared portions of which are as follows:

Grant to Sir Rob. Southwell, Envoy Extraordinary to Portugal,
of 3l. a day for diet and entertainment, 243/. to be paid in advance, and his bills for intelligence, &c., to be allowed.

Lease to the Duke of Albemarle and the other Treasury Commissioners,
for 7 years, of the profits of writs of covenant and writs of entry on all compositions made in the Alienation Office, at 1,346/. a year for the covenants and writs, and 200/. a year for writs of entry;
the said sums to be paid into the Hanaper.

Grant to the Earl of Middleton of the governorship of Tangiers.
[S.P. Dom., Car. II. 239, No. 55.]

@@@

May? 1668
Commission to the Duke of Albemarle, the officers of the Exchequer, and other receivers,
to continue the exercise of the commission granted to them and the late Lord Treasurer Southampton, to appoint receivers of poll money in each county, and receivers-general in London, and to authorise and pay for the providing of special carriages, for transport of the money.

Also empowering them to remedy the inconvenience complained about, of draining the counties by bringing so much money to London,
by returning the moneys into an exchange, whence bills of exchange may be drawn upon the receivers of the respective counties, for which exchange a convenient house in London is to be hired, and persons employed to attend, with clerks, &c.;
also regulating the payments to be made on bills of exchange in the Exchequer.
[8 ½ sheets. S.P. Dom., Car. II. 240, No. 194.]
===
Much safer not to be transporting the money around in carts as well. This sounds like the beginning of a central banking system.

@@@

For much much more, see
'Charles II: May 1668', in Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Charles II, 1667-8, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1893), pp. 369-418.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Little Winifred takes Moll Davis' dressing room ... she must have been a star. I'm surprised Pepys wasn't backstage checking out her casting couch, and boasting to her friends about how he taught her to sing.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

I found a description about the transportation of silver, admittedly before Pepys' time:

On Friday, August 26, 1642, information was given to both Houses of
Parliament about a ship coming from St. Domingo, in the West Indies, with a cargo valued at ;^600,000. Her name was variously given as "the ship Cleare of London," and as the Sanda Clara, and she was laden with silver, cochineal, ginger, hides, &c., &c.

The fleet of the Earl of Warwick was then blockading Portsmouth in the interest of the Parliament, and, in consequence, the Sancta Clara was carried into Southampton by her captain, Benedict Strafford.

Her cargo was seized by order of the Parliament, and sent up to London, the silver alone requiring three waggons and a cart to convey it to the Guildhall, under the escort of Major Burrell and a troop of horse.

THE CIVIL WAR IN HAMPSHIRE
(1642-45)
AND THE STORY OF BASING HOUSE

by REV. G. N. GODWIN, B.D.

SOUTHAMPTON
HENRY MARCH GILBERT AND SON

LONDON
JOHN AND EDWARD BUMPUS LTD.

1904
https://www.ebooksread.com/author…

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