Researching with Seventeenth Century Diaries

by Deborah Swift

One good thing about the internet is that I have access to many documents online, that previously were only available to me through archives. The most valuable sources for me are diaries, in which I get a first-hand account of seventeenth century life. I have linked all the diarists in this post to their online diaries.

Etching by Robert Spence

The first diary I used was that of the Quaker, George Fox, because he appears in my first novel, and like many diaries of the time his diary was written because of a religious impulse, in which he was documenting his relationship with God. The original journal was revised before it was published and I found both editions interesting to compare.

Fox's journal was first officially published in 1694, by which time it had been substantially edited, and cleaned up. Parts of the journal were not in fact by Fox at all but were re-constructed by his editors keen to spread a message of clean and godly living. References to meetings in taverns, and the dissent within the Quaker movement have been expunged from the narrative. The diary portrays Fox as rather more saintly than he probably was, and always vindicated by God's providence. This is the problem with diaries published later (particularly by Victorians) - the temptation is always to clean them up, thus losing value for researchers like me. Only recently have we been able to read the 'naughty bits' in Pepys' Diary.

Many diarists of the seventeenth century were religious men. Though the diary of Roger Lowe is very much the diary of the common man, it still shows his refusal to conform to the re-established church. It gives us insights into a seventeenth century mercer's apprentice living in a Lancashire village. In his entries we discover that literacy was unusual in his community, and somewhat prized, because he sometimes offered to write letters for his neighbours. In October 1663 his friend John Hasleden told him;

"that he loved a wench in Ireland, and so the day after I writ a love-letter for him into Ireland". 

Can't help wondering exactly what he put! His diaries reflect the concerns of a working class man, not a member of the aristorcacy, and as such are especially valuable:

"Friday. dyed Alexander Potter 3d son to Cozen John Potter de Lilly Lane who in his life time was nevr supposd to have any genius a meer child yet now att his death called father & mother & prayd forgivenes of his faults in cheating them of a half peny and wished them to live in peace & that his sister Ellin would leave off swearinge & so dyed & without question is now att rest." (25th June 1675)

The diary of Roger Lowe of Ashton in Makerfield is preserved in the Leyland Free Library and Museum, in Hindley, Lancashire. Here is a link to pictures and more extracts.

 

Samuel Pepys began his diary in 1660 and continued to write it for ten years. His diary is arguably the best-known resource we have on London in the 17th century. It provides us with a fly-on-the-wall account of daily life in the period just following the Restoration of King Charles II, and includes passages on The Plague and The Great Fire. Here's a bit from the Coronation of Charles II, in which he confesses that in the middle of the proceedings he has to answer a call of nature. This is the joy of Pepys; the personal and the political are intertwined.

"The King in his robes, bare headed, which was very fine. And after all had placed themselfs - there was a sermon and the service. And then in the Quire at the high altar he passed all the ceremonies of the Coronacion - which, to my very great grief, I and most of the Abbey could not see. The crowne being put upon his head, a great shout begun. And he came forth to the Throne and there passed more ceremonies: as, taking the oath and having things read to him by the Bishopp, and his lords (who put on their capps as soon as the King put on his Crowne) and Bishopps came and kneeled before him.....But I had so great a list to pisse, that I went out a little while before the King had done all his ceremonies and went round the abby to Westminster-hall, all the way within rayles, and 10000 people, with the ground coverd with blue cloth - and Scaffolds all the way. Into the hall I got - where it was very fine with hangings and scaffolds, one upon another, full of brave ladies. And my wife in one little one on the right hand."

An awareness of the importance of national events also seems to have encouraged Roger Morrice, who began to keep an 'entring book' in 1678 after the Popish Plot which aimed to re-establish the Catholic Church by assassinating Charles II. The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 created massive anti-Catholic hysteria. Like Pepys' Diary, Morrice's diary  was written in shorthand, and so was only translated this century, and runs to more than a million words. (See this article )His diary begins in 1677 and ends in 1691, and so covers the reigns of Charles II, James II, and William and Mary.

Morrice was a clergyman who had been expelled from his parish after Charles II returned from exile. He shows us many incidences of political or religious unrest, like this example from 1666 showing the persecution of the Quakers:

"Upon Lords day the 17th October at Leicester, the Quakers mett together. There are some Soldiers quartred in the Town, and a Black that is Kettle Drummer to one Company went into the Quakers Meeting, and did as they did, sign, groan, and sing, &c. A little after came in a Captain and three or foure Soldiers, who brought ale and Tobacco pipes with them and sate down and smoked and drunk. The Captain drank the King’s health to a Quaker; the Quaker answered I thirst not; the Captain said it thou drinkest not my Master’s health, I will Cuckold they wife before they eyes. With that, the Captain and Souldiers rose up, and drew their Swords, Shut the doores, and used and abused the women much. Some of the young Girles are so affrighted their recovery is questioned." 

Morrice had a friend who was a Privy councillor and so was able to comment on the death of Charles II, a report that is somewhat controversial and indicates a return to Catholicism.

"On Thursday night a priest came up the back way. It was believed by all that he confessed the king, gave him extreme unction and that His Majesty died a papist."

Death of Charles II

But what of the women of this period? I can recommend the diary of Anne Clifford, a stubborn and independent woman who travelled great distances in her attempt to regain her stolen inheritance - which included Skipton Castle in Yorkshire along with Pendragon Castle, Brough Castle, Appleby Castle and Brougham Castle, all in Westmorland. Her relationship with her husband was strained, but her love for her estates never wavered:

'Upon the 5th my Lord went up to my closet and saw how little money I had left, contrary to all that they had told him. Sometimes I had fair words from him and sometimes foul but I took all patiently and did strive to give him as much content and assurance of my love as I could possibly. Yet I always told him that I would never part with Westmoreland upon any condition whatsoever.'

Though not strictly a diary, though written in her lifetime, a source I really enjoyed reading was the memoir of Anne Fanshawe, a Royalist during the English Civil War. As was common in that period, she gave birth to 14 live children and had six miscarriages. When her husband was taken prisoner at the Battle of Worcester she stood outside his window in the middle of the night in the rain to talk to him.  She also wrote a book of cookery and her recipe for ice cream is thought to be the earliest recorded in Europe.

Anne Fanshawe's Recipe for ice cream

Here is a passage from her memoirs about the arrival of the King:

"We had by the States' order sent on board to the King's most eminent servants, great store of provisions: for our family we had sent on board the Speedwell a tierce of claret, a hogshead of Rhenish wine, six dozen of fowls, a dozen of gammons of bacon, a great basket of bread, and six sheep, two dozen of neats' tongues, and a great box of sweetmeats. Thus taking our leaves of those obliging persons we had conversed with in the Hague, we went on board upon the 23rd of May, about two o'clock in the afternoon. The King embarked at four of the clock, upon which we set sail, the shore being covered with people, and shouts from all places of a good voyage, which was seconded with many volleys of shot interchanged: so favourable was the wind, that the ships' wherries went from ship to ship to visit their friends all night long."

Anne Fanshawe

Other diarists worth considering from this period are John Evelyn, Ralph Josselin and Robert Hooke. For women, try Celia Fiennes the great traveller, or Lucy Hutchinson's account of the English Civil War. I hope you have enjoyed my small foray into the many seventeenth century diaries available to us, and I hope it fuels more research! My novels featuring the hidden lives of the women in Pepys' Diary are available now from Accent Press.

Do nudge me on twitter @swiftstory to chat, or find me on my website.
All pictures are from Wikipedia, unless linked.

APPLE DAY AT COPPED HALL by Adèle Geras

Once upon a time, O Best Beloved, there was no email. People sent one another postcards. The photograph below shows a caryatid at Copped Hall. One of the first cards sent to me by Linda Newbery, who's been a friend since the mid-1980s, carried a similar image.  This is my photograph but the one Linda sent had been taken by her mother, Iris Newbery, a wonderful photographer and one of the volunteers who, over the last 17 years,  has been responsible for the resurrection of Copped Hall from the ruin it was until quite recently.  Iris  often takes the photographs for the Friends of Copped Hall's calendar and Linda has sent me each one as it appeared. 

 The caryatids greet you as you go into the gardens. Opposite them are their male equivalents, the Telemons, see below. On October 9th, Linda took me and Jon Appleton and  Christian Keys       to Apple Day at the house, and for me it was like fiction coming to life, a sort of dream come true.

Linda's novel, THE SHELL HOUSE, (pub 2002)  features Copped Hall, though in a state far removed from its present condition. Linda changed things, as novelists often do and has added a grotto and a lake to the landscape,  but this was the place that inspired her.  I  love the book and I've wanted to visit Copped Hall for a long time.

Below is the view that greets you when you come up the  long drive. Copped Hall has been a place of habitation for several centuries.   From 1150, there have been families here, farming the land, building, and right up until the fire of 1917, it has been a home.  The Cranfields, the `Conyers and most recently the Wythes added to the original structure, made gardens, erected statues and created a house that could be seen from the surrounding countryside. Copped Hall overlooks three valleys and is a perfect example of a dwelling in a landscape - something that appeals deeply to the British. 

 Below is the present day façade of the house. After the fire in May, 1917, the Wythes did not restore the mansion. In 1952, the estate was sold and things from the mansion (staircases,  leadwork, gates, railings etc) were dispersed to dealers and others. One of the most touching things about the resurrection of Copped Hall is the effort being made to retrieve these items from the places they went to and a great many of them have been returned and put back where they used to be. After 1952, the gardens went to rack and ruin and there were also problems with vandalism.

It was clear to us, walking round the gardens, that archaeological work is still being done. Here is a photo of the excavation which hopes to uncover some of the Elizabethan remains discovered  on the estate.

In  1988 a group led by architect Alan Cox  got together to fight a proposal to put up offices on the land in the 1990s.  They won and the scheme was rejected.  They became the Friends of Copped Hall with the aim of buying the property and restoring it to its former glory. They gained support both locally and nationally for their principles.

Below is a picture of the Walled Garden, a place of supreme order and beauty. In the last fifteen years, it has changed from the tangled, messy jungle the original volunteers found when they took it over.  Iris Newbery has been a volunteer for many years and remembers these days very well. She is now nearly 91, but still volunteering. On the day we visited, she was in the office, in a gallery above the shop,  fretting over a printer which wasn't behaving properly. The laminator was also, she felt, on the brink of causing trouble.  She and others have each had a task that they've undertaken enthusiastically day after day, week after week, in all weathers. They have made an orderly paradise out of what was once a ruin and seeing it on a beautiful October day you realise how much work was involved. 

Here is one of the glasshouses. They were nothing but metal skeletons when the volunteers arrived to start the work.

And below is a heap of collected  bits of the decorative border to one of the paths which will be put back together again one day. Nothing that's rescued is thrown away. Everything that is found or bought from other owners is used imaginatively and intelligently.

And here is the gate of the Walled Garden. 

While the garden was being restored, work on the house was also continuing. The rooms of the mansion are still not exactly as they were. You can see bare walls, and roof beams and exposed areas which will one day be covered, but the soul of each room is there already. Here's the kitchen.

Here is what will one day be a most beautiful staircase. The Friends of Copped Hall are seeking money to restore it, bit by bit. Every little helps, as they say, and on Apple Day they displayed a number which people could text to donate even small sums and earmark them for this staircase. That's what I'm going to do with my donation because my photograph doesn't fully convey how wonderful it looks.

Here in one of the bedrooms is a dress displayed in a creative way which enables you to imagine previous owners, standing at the window. I'm a sucker for dressmakers' dummies and this is a particularly lovely outfit in front of a very nice view.

And this is a model of the house which is also a money box. You can put your notes and coins into a hole in the roof!

And here is another part of the garden.

Finally, what made Copped Hall extra enchanted for me was this discovery: it was where A Midsummer Night's Dream was performed for the very first time. You would have to go far to find a more perfect venue for such an occasion.

There's a website. It's at www.coppedhalltrust.org.uk 

The Hall hosts a great many cultural and educational events, though it's not open very often. It's best to look on the website if you want to visit, but I can promise you will love it. The volunteering continues into the catering too. I saw, (though I didn't eat) ranks of delicious - looking home- made cakes but I can vouch for a terrific veg and nut roast and salad.  50 p bought me Margaret Gervis's recipes for Mincemeat Cake and Tea Loaf on both sides of one piece of A5, beautifully laminated by Iris Newbery's laminator when it was in tip top condition...

Beaux on the Stage

by Marie-Louise Jensen

I've always been fascinated by the phenomenon of men sitting on the stage during performances and disrupting the play, and read more about it when I researched my short story, A Night in the Theatre, for our History Girls anthology.
I'm very far from being an expert on the Restoration period and the theatre (though I would love to learn more) but I understood a few things much better from what I did read.
So how and why did the Restoration theatre-goers (and later) put up with fine bucks on the stage making a nuisance of themselves and disturbing the action?
I think the first thing to bear in mind was how different the stage was. It was much bigger and had a huge, wide apron that sloped down towards the audience. So there was more space for this practice than there would be now.
Secondly, going to the theatre was a more general entertainment experience than just watching the play. It was not generally considered to be a high point for drama. You went for the afternoon, you socialized, you showed off your new clothes, you ate and drank and there were even prostitutes on offer. Not just the actresses, though some of those fell into the trade too, as is general knowledge and no end of displaying of charms and intriguing went on in the dressing rooms, to which 'gentlemen' were admitted.
Often the men in the pit were so noisy that you couldn't hear the play, let alone the men on the stage itself. Sword fights regularly broke out and everyone else had to scramble for safety.
For many, the play itself was fairly incidental. But not for everyone, and audience grew steadily more annoyed.
In the 1700s, a dramatic satire, called Lethe by David Garrick, was performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. There is a wonderful dialogue about beaux on the stage from the point of view of one of them:

Aesop: How do you spend your evenings?
Fine Gentleman: I dress in the evening and go generally behind the scenes of both play-houses; not as you may imagine to be diverted with the play, but to intrigue and show myself - I stand upon the stage, talk loud and stare about, - which confounds the actors and disturbs the audience; upon which the galleries, who hate the appearance of one of us, begin to hiss and cry "off off!" while I, undaunted, stamp my foot, so, take snuff with my right hand and smile scornfully - thus. This exasperates the savages, and they attack with vollies of suck'd oranges and half-eaten pippins.
Aesop: And do you retire?
Fine Gentleman: Without doubt if I am sober - for orange will stain silk and an apple may disfigure a feature.

Garrick finally banished spectators from the stage in 1763 - not before time!

Dry And Moonshine - Lucy Inglis

On New Year’s day 1660, the twenty-six year old Samuel Pepys decided to keep a diary. He would cease a decade later. His entries are a fascinating insight into the life of a seventeenth century public servant, householder and private man. Sam was vain, stoic, snobby and clever. He cheated on his wife, Elisabeth. He underwent major surgery to remove a large bladder stone, a procedure known as lithotomy; he carried the stone with him and celebrated the anniversary of his operation. He walked the streets of London constantly, between his City home and his Westminster office. The diaries of Samuel Pepys are one of the great private works of the seventeenth century and allow us to see London through the eyes of a man on the make. Although, officially, the new civil year began on March 25th until 1752, Sam, like us, began his New Year on January 1st, with resolutions, thanksgiving, and food. These are some of his reminiscences.

1660 was bittersweet. Samuel and his wife Elisabeth were both well, but they would remain childless: ‘Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking of cold. I lived in Axe Yard having my wife, and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three. My wife … gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year … [the hope was belied]’.

The start of 1661 found self-regarding Sam ‘in constant good health, and in a most handsome and thriving condition’. However, this appears to be in spite of the disgusting New Year’s meal served by Mr Pierce’s wife, for ‘she is such a slut that I do not love her victualls’.

1662 got off to a terrible start for poor Elisabeth. Waking this morning out of my sleep on a sudden, I did with my elbow hit my wife a great blow over her face and nose, which waked her with pain, at which I was sorry’. He wasn’t so sorry that he didn’t immediately go back to sleep again, though.

In 1666 Sam went out to celebrate, and ‘got into the coach where Mrs. Knipp was and got her upon my knee (the coach being full) and played with her breasts and sung, and at last set her at her house and so good night’. Things did not carry on so well at home though, and ‘my wife’s teeth fell of akeing, and she to bed’.

The following year, 1667, the Thames had frozen over and Sam stayed in bed, where he ‘Lay long, being a bitter, cold, frosty day, the frost being now grown old, and the Thames covered with ice’.

In 1669, the final year of the diary, he went ‘back to my aunt’s, and there supped and talked, and staid pretty late, it being dry and moonshine, and so walked home, and to bed in very good humour’.

Writing history is often less about knowledge of the past than the willingness to filter a different time through those who lived there. Sam was sometimes coarse, often an opportunistic groper and always ambitious. He would probably be intolerable to a modern woman, yet his New Years are still relevant to our human experience: the sharp poignancy of trying for a child and failing and the dread of finding a hair in the food at a dinner party, from the mundane hazards of sharing a bed to the frisson of a snatched encounter. And finally, the late night walk home at the beginning of a new year, full of possibility and hope for the future.

Happy New Year! Wishing all the readers and all the History Girls a wonderful 2013. For more on Samuel Pepys, please visit the labour of love that is Phil Gyford’s online version of the diary, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.