'Never to see the like again in this world' - Pepys and the Coronation

by Deborah Swift

I've spent the last three years writing a trilogy about three different women that feature in Pepys' Diary. Now that rather epic journey has come to an end, and I'm leaving Pepys' Diary behind for research in pastures new.

Someone asked me which was my favourite episode in the diary, and the one that stands out for me is the Coronation of Charles II.

'it is impossible to relate the glory of this day'

So says Pepys, never one to be lost for words, and his fly-on-the-wall response to this massive overturning of national events fascinates me. The re-establishment of Charles II as a constitutional monarch changed the country from what amounted to a republic, back to a monarchy-led state with many immediate and long term effects. In these days of entrenched views on Brexit, we can see that populations can, and do, change their minds.

Pepys, who was initially brought up with Puritan leanings, was so taken up by the return of the exiled prince that he couldn't wait to be part of this sudden turn-around and even went over to the Hague to greet the prince and the fleet.

There were a few awkwardnesses though - in the transition from Cromwell's Parliament to the restitution of the monarchy, the old order had to be repealed and the new reinforced. Thus the ships in the fleet that had been named after Parliament victories, such as The Naseby had to be rapidly re-named The Royall Charles.

Whilst journeying back from the Hague, Pepys is treated to the prince's own version of his escape from Worcester. Many of our pubs retain the names 'The Royal Oak' (commemorating his escape from Worcester), and 'The King's Head',  from this era where the celebration of the monarchy was at its height. Pepys's later relationship with the King must have been cemented by the fact he made this extra effort to meet and greet him on his return.

On the day of the Coronation Parade, Pepys is up at the crack of dawn and putting on his new coat for the occasion -

Up early and made myself as fine as I could, and put on my velvet coat, the first day that I put it on, though made half a year ago.

 It seemed no expense had been spared for the procession through London,

The streets all gravelled, and the houses hung with carpets before them...
So glorious was the show with gold and silver, that we were not able to look at it, our eyes at last being so much overcome with it.

The Coronation Cavalcade passed through four specially constructed arches (see picture at the bottom of the post). The designs can be seen here and include titles for the arches like ' Garden of Plenty', 'Temple of Concord' and ''Return of the Monarchy'. That must have been a rush for the masons responsible!

Pepys got up at 4am the next day for the actual Coronation, and found himself a good view from a scaffold at the north end of Westminster Abbey. He had to wait until 11am to see Charles arrive.

And a great pleasure it was to see the Abbey raised in the middle, all covered with red, and a throne (that is a chair) and footstool on the top of it; and all the officers of all kinds, so much as the very fidlers, in red vests.

Unfortunately the crucial moment was lost to Pepys,

the King passed through all the ceremonies of the Coronacon, which to my great grief I and most in the Abbey could not see. The crown being put upon his head, a great shout begun, and he came forth to the throne

Afterwards silver commemorative medals were thrown to the congregation, but Pepys was unable to catch one. Pepys then has to go out to take a pee, but resumes his description of the outside of the Abbey, in which he says he saw '10,000 people, with the ground covered with blue cloth; and scaffolds all the way.' In a city of 40,000, that is a pretty good turn-out.

At one point in the feast afterwards, the King's Champion is brought out, 'all in armour on horseback, with his spear and targett carried before him' and a proclamation made:

And a Herald proclaims “That if any dare deny Charles Stewart to be lawful King of England, here was a Champion that would fight with him;” and with these words, the Champion flings down his gauntlet, and all this he do three times in his going up towards the King’s table.

Charles must have had quite a jittery moment then as he waited with baited breath to see if there would be any objection to him becoming King. But nobody objected, and no doubt the King's Champion was somewhat relieved also.

Once the day's events were over, ' it fell a-raining and thundering and lightening as I have not seen it do for some years' and Pepys tells us that the people set great store by this as an omen from above, though he himself dismisses the idea as 'a foolery to take too much notice of such things.'

Without Pepys's vibrant description, so much detail would have been lost to us. A picture doesn't give you the reaction of the people, and this is what is so appealing about Pepys's descriptions and opinions.

By the evening bonfires are burning all over the city to bathe it in an orange glow, and Pepys is dead drunk, so much so that he says, 'if ever I was foxed it was now, which I cannot say yet, because I fell asleep and slept till morning. Only when I waked I found myself wet with my spewing. Thus did the day end with joy every where.'

You can find the diary entry here: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1661/04/

All pictures from Wikipedia unless linked.

Find my books www.deborahswift.com

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Trade in the 17th Century - The Tallow Chandler

by Deborah Swift

Matthias Storm c.1640 Old Woman with a Candle

I was at a great loss for candles; so that as soon as ever it was dark, which was generally by seven o'clock, I was obliged to go to bed ……… The only remedy I had was, that when I had killed a goat, I saved the tallow, and with a little dish of clay, which I baked in the sun, to which I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a lamp; and this gave me light, though not a clear steady light like a candle."

The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719

Light has always been a symbol for move out of ignorance and into the light of knowledge. As long as we can manufacture and control light, then we are no longer bound by the seasons, or forced to work from sunrise to sunset. Light gives us extra time for work and play, and the time to create during the hours free from chores or work.

The candle was one of the earliest forms of artificial light, and in the period in which I write, most candles were tallow. I need to continually think of this whenever I write a night-time scene, or a winter scene. We take the availability of good light so much for granted.

The Stink of Tallow 
Tallow was cheap animal fat, usually the waste material from meat - hence often sheep or bullock fat.

The tallow was prepared by first chopping the fat into small pieces and then boiling it up in a large copper to detach the muscle or membrane from the fat. The resultant mush was pressed to extract the 'juice', or tallow, and the remains or 'greaves' fed to the dogs or pigs, and even to the geese that were being fattened up for market.To produce a pure light, the chandler must wrestle with dead animal carcasses, and the associated smell and mess. For this reason, chandlery was perceived as a very low class trade, and the chandlers premises were often located near the tanneries and slaughterhouses, and close to a river with access to water. The process reminds me that for every 'light' there is the often invisible 'dark'.

'A woman reading by Candle-light' by Frans van Mieris the elder,
c.1665; black chalk on vellum.

Fir candles, made of a long thin splinter of fir, were commonly used in Scotland, and a fir candle holder was known as a "puirman"(poorman). But tallow candles were the common household candle in early England, and by the 13th century, candle-making had become a guild craft in England and France, controlled by ancient City Livery Companies. The Tallow Chandlers Company, one of the London Guilds, sill exists. It was formed in about 1300 to regulate and manage candle-making. Over the next 150 years they expanded in membership and influence, until King Edward IV granted them a coat of arms in 1456.

In rural areas, where no Livery Company existed, chandlers would sometimes go from house to house with their moulds, making candles from the kitchen fats saved for that purpose, or in smaller towns they made and sold their own candles from a shop. Candle-making was usually done in winter by a householder, as livestock was generally slaughtered around Martinmas (November 11th) to save the expense of over-wintering them. Tallow candles could be made for you in your own home with your own saved drippings by an itinerant tallow chandler (tallow chandlers and wax chandlers had separate guilds, and jealously guarded their products).

Candles, especially tallow ones, were kept in a wooden or metal box hung on the wall in order to protect them from vermin, as being animal fat, mice regarded them as food. Being away from the fire also prevented the candles wilting and bending in heat.

A candle box of 1680

Holy Beeswax
Unlike animal-based tallow, beeswax burned pure and cleanly, without producing a smoky flame. It also had a pleasant sweet smell rather than the foul, acrid odor of tallow. However,  it took an entire honeycomb's worth of beeswax to make one 4" candle, so it was very expensive. Beeswax candles were widely used for church ceremonies. The beeswax itself had a religious significance in 17th Century England. One story is that bees were absent from the Garden of Eden and so escaped Eve's sin. Another is that medieval monks thought that bees reproduced by immaculate conception, like the Virgin Mary, and so the beeswax of a church candle came to signify purity.

The Revolutionary Art of Plaiting a Wick
The absorbency and efficiency of a wick depended on the number of individual strands. Adding or subtracting a few extra strands of animal hair or hemp fibre made the difference between a candle that burned well, or one that guttered or dripped. The wicks were made from twisted threads of flax, cotton, or hemp, and trimming the wick to get rid of candle "snuffs" was essential to keeping your candle burning well, or it would flare and smoke. I often imagine my characters having to trim the wick in the middle of conversations, or tackling writing a letter.

The best wicks were invented later in the 19th century, and revolutionised the candle. They were plaited so they curled as they burned to ensure that the tip burnt off during use so they didn't have to be continually trimmed, thus ensuring you could carry out your task uninterrupted. To achieve this curl, the plait or braid of a wick was woven asymmetrically, with a few extra strands in one of the threads. After being cut to length, the wicks were dipped in molten wax so that one end was stiff enough to poke through the hole at the bottom of the mould, and then the moulds were filled.

Wooden & Pewter Candle Mould

The Fall of Tallow

The tallow chandler's fortunes declined at the end of the 17th century. New materials, such as spermacetti (from whale blubber) and paraffin wax, replaced tallow. Then in the late 19th Century gas lighting arrived, twelve times as bright as a candle, only to be replaced by electricity twenty years later. These eras are comparatively short, when you think that we had many hundreds of years where most of our light was by the dim smoky haze of tallow candles.

More about lighting? Lucy Worsley has a post about domestic lighting here.

Thank you for reading. Find my latest book, Pleasing Mr Pepys, here.

Sources:

Images from Wikicommons

The Social History of Lighting - William O'Dea

Restoration London - Liza Pickard

At Day's Close: A History of Nighttime - Roger Ekirch

http://clanntartan.sitesneakpeek.com/manual/lighting.html
https://www.tallowchandlers.org

https://www.periodoakantiques.co.uk