“Last night being very rainy [the rain] broke into my house, the gutter being stopped, and spoiled all my ceilings almost.”
Pepys Show, September 1661
I want to start our look at Samuel Pepys’ diary entries for September 1661 at the end, because something wild happens. After that we’ll go back and look at his day-to-day stuff.
On September 30, Pepys wakes at five in the morning and travels to Whitehall by moon-shine, but arriving everyone else, he heads off to have his morning draught and hears that there’s a fight brewing between the ambassadors of France and Spain. Apparently the arrival of the ambassadors of Sweden have the other two parties upset about who has precedence between them, and they intend to fight over it, with the full blessing of King Charles II.
All the soldiers in town are at arms, as well as some of the traine-band militias, but they also have orders not to interfere with the fighting. Pepys goes about his business, but after lunch goes to check on the combatants, who are still preparing for the fight, and decides the French are noisy and vaunting, whereas the Spanish hardly stir.
While dining at the Wardrobe, Pepys hears that the Spanish have killed three horses and several men, and are now riding alongside the king’s coach, which makes everyone happy, for “indeed we do naturally all love the Spanish, and hate the French.” But Pepys is curious and wants to see for himself, so he goes by water on the Thames and then through the dirty and crowded streets until he gets to the royal stables.
It’s here he sees the Spanish coach go by, with at least fifty Spanish soldiers armed with swords to guard it. The English troops are cheering them. Here Pepys breaks off and goes to check on the French. It’s really interesting that he wants to see both sides of the affair to get the full picture—it’s something you’d want from a modern journalist, and it’s a surprisingly high standard for Pepys to impose on himself as a mere diary writer.
Pepys isn’t an eyewitness, but still he gets the story and tells us the Spaniards fought more desperately and also with more cunning, as they lined “their own harness with chains of iron that they could not be cut” and placed their coach more strategically, presumably so they could take cover behind it, and set guards for their horses, coach, and coachmen, but they also focused on killing the French horses, to limit French movement. The French outnumbered the Spanish 4:1 and were armed, supposedly, with nearly a hundred pistols, but took heavier losses even though the Spanish didn’t carry a single gun. An Englishman was also killed by a stray bullet. Pepys observes that the French started the day with an insolent spirit, but it has now evaporated and, “they all look like dead men, and not a word among them, but shake their heads.”
“So, having been very much daubed with dirt, I got a coach, and home where I vexed my wife in telling of her this story, and pleading for the Spaniards against the French.” Pepys rooting for the Spanish is kind of funny, considering both he and his wife are descended from French Huguenots.
Otherwise, the rest of the month has seen Pepys dealing with official business and also trying to wrap up his inheritance.
On September 5, he goes through with his plan to ship his sister Pall off to their parents’ new house in the countryside, in Brampton, even though she's a city girl at heart and doesn't want to leave London. Pepys gives her 20 shillings and “good counsel” then puts her onto a wagon and sends her away, crying. Later that night, at his uncle Fenner’s, a French footman “with feathers” was “in quest of my wife” and speaks with her alone, and Pepys becomes jealous when she promises to go to some place the next morning. The next day Pepys reports, “my wife holding her resolution to go this morning as she resolved yesterday, and though there could not be much hurt in it, yet my own jealousy put a hundred things into my mind, which did much trouble me all day.” He goes to see a play to distract himself while she’s gone. As far as I can tell, there’s no further mention of what this business of hers consists of. Pepys does seem to be a little more attentive to his wife for the rest of the month, even taking her along on a business trip. He gets irritated when she can’t keep up on horseback and twice falls from her sidesaddle, but blames himself for being angry.
A curious entry from September eleventh: “So from him to Dr. Williams, who did carry me into his garden, where he hath abundance of grapes; and did show me how a dog that he hath do kill all the cats that come thither to kill his pigeons, and do afterwards bury them; and do it with so much care that they shall be quite covered; that if but the tip of the tail hangs out he will take up the cat again, and dig the hole deeper. Which is very strange; and he tells me that he do believe that he hath killed above 100 cats.” That same evening, Pepys is visited by Balty, his wife’s ne’er-do-well brother, who arrives with his French servant. They wants to bring Mrs Pepys to visit a young lady “which he is servant to.” Apparently Balty is seeking to have her trepanned and then get for his wife. Which is kind of fucked. I don’t remember this at all, so I’m assuming it doesn’t go through. Years later, when he’s a widower and no longer keeping the diary, Pepys will use Balty as a spy in Paris.
In terms of his late uncle's will, this month a court is ruling on some property that was owned in Graveley. Pepys is worried that his uncle Thomas (“a close cunning fellow") will be awarded the property.
Pepys is in a tavern on the 16th, just wrapping his mind around going down to Graveley for the court hearing when something odd happens. In Pepys’ words, “In the middle of our discourse word was brought me from my brother’s that there is a fellow come from my father out of the country, on purpose to speak to me, so I went to him and he made a story how he had lost his letter, but he was sure it was for me to go into the country, which I believed, and thought it might be to give me notice of Gravely Court, but I afterwards found that it was a rogue that did use to play such tricks to get money of people, but he got none of me.” Interesting attempt at a con.
Uncle Thomas is awarded the property, though now Pepys says he’s happy for Thomas—probably because Thomas has to pay quite a bit of what are essentially back taxes to acquire the property. Uncle Thomas and his son are travelling “with Bradly, the rogue that had betrayed us, and one Young, a cunning fellow, who guides them.” When I first read it, I thought maybe Bradly or Young was the conman from the 16th, but there’s no evidence for that and I’m pretty sure now that's not the case (there’s no other mention of Bradly and Young in the diary that I can find).
Let’s leave Pepys on the 29th, where he drinks to much wine with Sir W. Penn that he gets “even almost foxed, and my head aked all night”. He finds himself so out of order that he ends the night without reading his prayers, “for fear of being perceived by my servants in what case I was. So to bed.”
Plays
September 6: Pepys saw “Elder Brother,” writes it was “ill acted.”
September 7: “So I having appointed the young ladies at the Wardrobe to go with them to a play to-day, I left him and my brother Tom who came along with him to dine, and my wife and I took them to the Theatre, where we seated ourselves close by the King, and Duke of York, and Madame Palmer, which was great content; and, indeed, I can never enough admire her beauty. And here was “Bartholomew Fayre,” with the puppet-show, acted to-day, which had not been these forty years (it being so satyricall against Puritanism, they durst not till now, which is strange they should already dare to do it, and the King do countenance it), but I do never a whit like it the better for the puppets, but rather the worse.”
September 9: Pepys at the King's Privy Kitchen but gets too drunk (at breakfast!), so goes for a walk and ends up at, “Salisbury Court play house, where was acted the first time “‘Tis pity Shee’s a Whore,” a simple play and ill acted, only it was my fortune to sit by a most pretty and most ingenious lady, which pleased me much.”
September 11: “walking through Lincoln’s Fields observed at the Opera a new play, “Twelfth Night” was acted there, and the King there; so I, against my own mind and resolution, could not forbear to go in, which did make the play seem a burthen to me, and I took no pleasure at all in it; and so after it was done went home with my mind troubled for my going thither, after my swearing to my wife that I would never go to a play without her.”
September 25: Pepys remembers his vow from a month ago to cut back on going to shows, but can’t help himself. “Hence, much against my nature and will, yet such is the power of the Devil over me I could not refuse it, to the Theatre, and saw “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” ill done.”
September 26: He takes his wife by coach to see the “King and no King,” “it being very well done.” It’s raining out, so they have trouble hiring a coach to bring them home.
Pepys in the news
Jstor.org has an article quoting Pepys on the Bawdy House Riots of 1668, which we’ll get to in a few years, hopefully. “In 1668, crowds, armed with staves, iron bars, and poleaxes, descended on London’s brothels and began tearing the buildings down. Thousands of people— four of whom paid for it with their lives, drawn and quartered for high treason—rioted in the streets for days.”
Pepys records the event thus:
The Duke of York and all with him this morning were full of the talk of the ’prentices, who are not yet [put] down, though the guards and militia of the town have been in armes all this night, and the night before; and the ’prentices have made fools of them, sometimes by running from them and flinging stones at them. Some blood hath been spilt, but a great many houses pulled down; and, among others, the Duke of York was mighty merry at that of Damaris Page’s, the great bawd of the seamen; and the Duke of York complained merrily that he hath lost two tenants, by their houses being pulled down, who paid him for their wine licenses 15l. a year. But here it was said how these idle fellows have had the confidence to say that they did ill in contenting themselves in pulling down the little bawdyhouses, and did not go and pull down the great bawdy-house at White Hall. And some of them have the last night had a word among them, and it was “Reformation and Reducement.” This do make the courtiers ill at ease to see this spirit among people, though they think this matter will not come to much: but it speaks people’s minds; and then they do say that there are men of understanding among them, that have been of Cromwell’s army: but how true that is, I know not.
One final note before I end this: that fight between the French and Spanish? I drew on it for the ambush that forms the climax of my story “Diary of the Wolf” in Old Moon Quarterly six, though in mine it’s a group of butchers leading a bull to an event that’s sort of like a bear-baiting.
Adam McPhee is a Canadian writer. His fiction has appeared in venues such as Old Moon Quarterly, Wyngraf, and Ahoy Comics, and has been longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize. He writes this newsletter, Adam's Notes.
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