The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

Captain John Stanesby, of the Eagle. John Lanyon wrote to the Navy Commissioners from Plymouth, May 16th:

“Understands from the seamen that the conduct of Captains Nixon and Stanesby in their late engagement with two Dutch capers was very foul; the night they left the Dutch, no lights were put out as formerly, and though in sight of them in the morning, they still kept on their way; the Eagle lay by some time, and both the enemy’s ships plied on her, but finding the Elizabeth nearly out of sight she also made sail; it is true the wind and sea were high, but there were no sufficient reasons for such endeavours to get from them.”

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1664⁠–⁠65, p. 367

Both captains were tried; Nixon was condemned to be shot but Stanesby was cleared, and Charnock asserts that he was commander of the Happy Return in 1672. ↩

Nicholas Hurleston, Master of the Trinity House. He died in November of this year. ↩

Sir Arthur Ingram, knight, of Knottingley, Surveyor of the Customs at Hull. He lived in Fenchurch Street, and was a liberal benefactor to the parish of St. Dionis Backchurch after the Great Fire. The site of his mansion is marked by Ingram Court. ↩

The new style was adopted by most of the countries of Europe long before it was legalized in England, although Russia still retains the old style. See note 47. ↩

A list of the Dutch fleet, May 23rd, 1665, is printed in Penn’s Memorials of Sir William Penn, vol. ii, p. 318, from which Pepys’s lists of the commanders of the seven squadrons can be corrected. The first squadron was under Jacob van Wassenaer, Baron d’Opdam, Great Admiral of Holland and West Frieseland; the second under Lieut.-Admiral John Evertsen; the third under Lieut.-Admiral Egbert Meeuswisz Cortenaer (who died of his wounds after the sea-fight of June 3rd); the fourth under Lieut.-Admiral Stellingwerf; the fifth under Vice-Admiral Cornelius Tromp (son of the great Martin H. Tromp); the sixth under Vice-Admiral Cornelius Evertsen, and the seventh under Vice-Admiral Wouter Schram. ↩

For note on Pepys’s quotation from Epictetus, see note 1534. ↩

John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, celebrated for his wit and notorious for his profligacy. Born April 10th, 1648; died July 26th, 1680. ↩

Elizabeth, daughter of John Malet, of Enmere, co. Somerset; married to the Earl of Rochester in 1667. ↩

Sir Francis Hawley of Euckland House, co. Somerset, created a baronet, 1642, and in 1646 an Irish peer, by the title of Baron Hawley of Donamore; in 1671 he was chosen M.P. for St. Michael’s, and in 1673 became a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Duke of York. He died 1684, aged seventy-six. His daughter Elizabeth was Elizabeth Malet’s mother. ↩

Goldfish introduced from China. ↩

On May 29th Sir William Coventry wrote to Lord Arlington: “Capt. Langhorne has arrived with seven ships, and reports the taking of the Hamburg fleet with the man of war their convoy; mistaking the Dutch fleet for the English, he fell into it” (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1664⁠–⁠65, p. 393) ↩

Huysman. ↩

Thomas Vyner, born 1588, Sheriff of London, 1648. When Lord Mayor, in 1654, he was knighted by Cromwell (Ludlow’s Memoirs), and created a baronet at the Restoration, 1660. He was a goldsmith, and dying May 11th, 1665, was buried in St. Mary Woolnoth, in Lombard Street. ↩

Cade’s tavern was “The Three Golden Lions” in Cornhill. The ground floor was apparently occupied by a bookseller’s shop (Boyne’s Tokens, ed. Williamson, 1889, vol. i, p. 372). ↩

Sir William Coventry and Sir William Penn to the Navy Commissioners, June 4th: “Engaged yesterday with the Dutch; they began to stand away at 3 p.m. Chased them all the rest of the day and night; 20 considerable ships are destroyed and taken; we have only lost the Great Charity. The Earl of Marlborough, Rear-Admiral Sansum, and Captain Kirby are slain, and Sir John Lawson wounded” (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1664⁠–⁠65, p. 406). ↩

Sir Henry Felton, of Playford, Suffolk, Bart., who married Susanne, daughter of Sir Lionel Talmash, of Helmingham, Bart. Their second son, Sir Thomas Felton, married Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter and co-heir of James, Lord Howard de Walden, and third Earl of Suffolk. —⁠B. ↩

Vauxhall Gardens. ↩

Although the two Mays are so frequently mentioned in these pages, and by almost every contemporary annalist, no authentic account of their parentage has been traced; nor is it clear whether they were brothers, or in any way related. There is, however, a strong presumption that they sprung from a family of the same name, seated at Rawmere, in Sussex, one of whom, Jeffrey May, acquired property at Sutton Cheynell, in Leicestershire, in 1574, which was sold by the representatives of Baptist May, in 1712, under an Act passed for the payment of his debts. But though Nichols (History of Leicestershire, vol. iv, pt. ii, p. 548) gives a detailed pedigree of the Mays, he could not ascertain whose son Baptist May was, who held the office of Privy Purse to Charles I; and he does not even allude to Hugh May. It is stated in Collins’s Peerage, vol. ii, p. 560, ed. 1741, that during their flight after the battle of Worcester, James, Duke of York, delivered his George, which had been a present from the queen his mother, to Mr. Hugh May, who preserved it through all difficulties, and afterwards returned it to his royal highness in Holland. Soon after 1662 Hugh May was established as an architect,