Thursday 20 May 1669

Up and to the Office, where all the morning. At noon, the whole Office — Brouncker, J. Minnes, T. Middleton, Samuel Pepys, and Captain Cox to dine with the Parish, at the Three Tuns, this day being Ascension-day, where exceeding good discourse among the merchants, and thence back home, and after a little talk with my wife, to my office did a great deal of business, and so with my eyes might weary, and my head full of care how to get my accounts and business settled against my journey, home to supper, and bed.

Yesterday, at my coming home, I found that my wife had, on a sudden, put away Matt upon some falling out, and I doubt my wife did call her ill names by my wife’s own discourse; but I did not meddle to say anything upon it, but let her go, being not sorry, because now we may get one that speaks French, to go abroad with us.


23 Annotations

First Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

The Royal Society today at Arundel House — from the Hooke Folio Online

May. 20. the Curator produced again his his magneticall watch soe improued as he sayd that it should moue in all positions, with any kind of Motion without stopping or being Disturbed he communicated the way of this Improuement to the President, being not yet free to Declare it in publique till he hath brought it to perfection. It was again orderd that a minute hand should be fitted to it to see the aequality of its Vibrations.

http://webapps.qmul.ac.uk/cell/Ho…

Terry Foreman  •  Link

John Evelyn's Diary

20th May, 1669. This evening, at 10 o'clock, was born my third daughter, who was baptized on the 25th by the name of Susannah.

http://goo.gl/rjHJo

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I doubt [= fear] my wife did call her ill names...."

Glyn  •  Link

This coming Friday, 25 May, 2012 there’s a commemoration service at noon at St Olave’s church:

Since 1927 (allowing for some years’ interruption following the catastrophic bombing of April 1941) St Olave’s has held an annual service to commemorate its most illustrious former parishioner, Samuel Pepys. The service is organised in association with The Samuel Pepys Club.

The service traditionally features an address on aspects of Pepys, his life and times and the church has been honoured to welcome a number of extremely fine speakers over the years.

This year we will be pleased to have with us Prof. Peter McCullough of Oxford University, who will speaking on the subject “Pepys and Faith”. This is a subject which we have wanted to address for a number of years and are very glad that Prof. McCullough has been able to accept our invitation on this occasion.

It is open to everyone and some of us hope to be there.

Chris Squire  •  Link

'put away . . 2. trans.
. . c. To dismiss or get rid of (a person, occas. also an animal); to send away from one's presence; to exclude; (freq.) spec. to divorce. Now somewhat arch.
. . 1599   Aycliffe Reg. in Sir C. Sharp Chron. Mirab. (1841) 36   Put away such servants‥as wyll not usually come to churche.
1682   T. Shadwell Medal of John Bayes (1843) II. Ep. A,   He‥has perform'd it so dully, that if you put him away‥No body else will take him.
1722   D. Defoe Moll Flanders 114   If‥he should take the Advantage the Law would give him, he might put me away with disdain.' [OED]

Glyn: thank you for the info re St Olave's: I will come if I can; I will also be at the luncheon.

Robert Gertz  •  Link

I can't remember Sam ever calling himself "Samuel Pepys".

nix  •  Link

"because now we may get one that speaks French" --

Enter the saucy Ferench maid?

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I can’t remember Sam ever calling himself “Samuel Pepys”."

More evidence: Letters to John Evelyn are signed "SPepys" or "S:P". Evelyn addresses his "For Samuel Pepys Esqr:"

http://www.pepysdiary.com/letters/

GrahamT  •  Link

Although he was telling the King and DoY that he was going to Holland for his trip abroad, the fact that he hopes to get a French speaking maid to travel with them suggests that France was the intended destination all along.

Glyn  •  Link

And yet another female servant bites the dust. Working for Elizabeth is a very high-risk occupation.

Mary  •  Link

Either Elizabeth is careless of her reputation or there is a sufficiently large pool of available domestic servants in London at this date that she does not have to worry overmuch about getting herself a bad name as an employer.

languagehat  •  Link

I would be very surprised if people of the Pepys' status had to worry about their reputation as employers. Try as I might, I can't imagine a vacancy in such a household going unfilled because the mistress of the house was known to be demanding and temperamental (which I suspect was so common as to hardly be worth talking about -- if the servants were regularly beaten, that would be a different story).

Ramona in Idaho  •  Link

Glyn,
When I've been in London I've made a donation and picked up the yearly address (some were "Samuel Pepys
and St. Paul's School","The Pepsyian Daily Round", "Pepys and the Book Trade", "Pepys House,
Brampton." So I am wondering...is there any way
we can purchase this year's address from afar?
Ramona

DiPhi  •  Link

How sad that Samuel wasn't able to continue his diary so we could read about his travels abroad! Curses!

Glyn  •  Link

Hello Ramona in Idaho. I've sent you a personal message.

DiPhi - I guess we shouldn't tell Phil that Pepys started writing a diary again a few months later. (It was dictated to his staff members and was purely business, so isn't very interesting. He only did it for a few weeks as I recall.)

Carl in Boston  •  Link

"The service is organised in association with The Samuel Pepys Club."
This is a highly relevant lead for what to do next. The Club is closed to further members, but they have a list of books, especially 3 volumes by Bryant in 1937. I was able to order these books online from our statewide library service. "The Plot Against Pepys" is not held by the libraries, I might have to purchase a copy. I read the Encyclopedia Articles by Jeannine on this site, most excellent well done.

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

“I can’t remember Sam ever calling himself “Samuel Pepys”.”

Terry, I think Robert was talking about Sam(uel) referring to himself in the third person in a Diary entry, rather than whether he referred to himself as "Samuel" (vs. the less formal "Sam"). I can't remember Sam including himself in a Diary entry in this way before this entry...

Andrew Hamilton  •  Link

“I can’t remember Sam ever calling himself 'Samuel Pepys'.”

Nor I. It was a surprise.

Second Reading

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"I can’t remember Sam ever calling himself “Samuel Pepys”.

Nor can I.

(1) He refers to himself in the third person; AND (2) L&M transcribe S. Pepys.

Terry Foreman  •  Link

"At noon, the whole Office — Brouncker, J. Minnes, T. Middleton, Samuel Pepys, and Captain Cox to dine with the Parish, at the Three Tuns, this day being Ascension-day"

It's about parish dinners that follow the "beating of the [parish] bound": http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…

Beating the bounds is an ancient custom still observed in some English and Welsh parishes. Under the name of the Gangdays the custom of going a-ganging was kept before the Norman Conquest.[1] A group of old and young members of the community would walk the boundaries of the parish, usually led by the parish priest and church officials, to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bea…

Matt Newton  •  Link

Dinner at the three tuns.
Everyone chip in for the bill or paid by the State?
I love good freebie

Timo  •  Link

Who else can’t help wishing that Glyn’s commemoration service at St Olaves was a suitably dull affair?

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

According to this article the Pepys commerative service is held every year, around May 26. Neither St. Olave's nor the Pepys Club are advertising one this year ... we live in unpredictable times, after all.

But when things "get back to normal", and time and opportunity allowing, we can go too ... https://www.britainexpress.com/Lo…
http://pepys-club.org.uk/about-th…

You never know, we might meet Glyn and any one of the other annotators.

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