Sunday 26 July 1668

(Lord’s day). Up, and all the morning and after dinner, the afternoon also, with W. Hewer in my closet, setting right my Tangier Accounts, which I have let alone these six months and more, but find them very right, and is my great comfort. So in the evening to walk with my wife, and to supper and to bed.


7 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"...my Tangier Accounts, which I have let alone these six months and more, but find them very right...."

Perhaps they were this way because he'd "set them right" betimes on 29 May.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

My impression, looking over Tangier references
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo… ,
is that SP discusses more actions than he takes -- being an organization man = turf-protective bureaucrat constrained in his range -- notes new contracts and payments PRN, and "sets right" his accounts as he can -- somewhat on autopilot -- and so is way off in his estimate of how long it's been since he did that.

Samuel Pepys ought to read his journall more often!

Second Reading

mountebank  •  Link

Starting in a couple of minutes on BBC Radio 4, an adaptation of Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II by Linda Porter:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/…

"Charles II was addicted to women and, after his restoration to the throne in 1660, despite being married to Catherine of Braganza, he kept a series of mistresses - many of them at the same time.

The most famous of them all was Nell Gwyn. She was loved by the British public who sympathised with her working class vulgarity and sense of humour. They didn’t take too kindly to the King’s French mistress Louise de Kéroualle, a powerful networker at the court with more influence than the Queen.

At a time when religious and political tensions ran high, with Catholics and Protestants fighting over the succession to the throne, these women exerted profound influences on him. For all of these women, the rewards were grand houses, titles with land and increasingly lavish pensions. Between them, Charles II fathered 13 illegitimate children while his neglected and unloved wife remained childless."

Mary K  •  Link

Arguably the greatest enduring love of Charles's life was that for his sister, Minette, the wife of The Duke of Orleans, brother to Louis IX. Their letters to one another, "My Dearest Minette" edited by Ruth Norrington, reveal a deep love and mutual respect expressed between brother and sister. The book, though first published in 1996, is still available in paperback. Another Pepsian annotator mentioned the same book quite recently.

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

Henrietta Anne, AKA Minette, was the sister-in-law of Louis XIV ... and allegedly his former mistress. As we know from Pepys, they didn't use the "in law" tag, so, yes, he would have referred to her as his 'sister'.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…

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