The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain
Page 19
When it comes to young adults dying, especially young women in childbirth, the heartbreak is every bit as deep and soul-destroying as in modern times. And that makes you think. When you recall how cruel Restoration society is, how violent and disease-ridden, you almost want people to be inured to the loss of family members. But the fact is that they are just as vulnerable and as easily hurt as we are.
Humour
Let’s face it, you’re going to need a good sense of humour to get by in Restoration Britain. You’re also going to want to share a joke or two, just to lighten things up a bit. I don’t suggest that you hang out with many nonconformist churchmen, if it’s a laugh you are after. Nor would I suggest the company of Samuel Pepys. It is not that he does not do humour but rather that his jokes are either very poor or in very poor taste. For example, he finds it enormously funny that a man manages to convince a virtuous woman that he is a physician so that he can feel her sexual organs. An uproarious joke for Pepys is that a man might helpfully offer to gut another man’s oysters to stop them stinking. He is most amused by a chair that, when you sit on it, suddenly claps your body with mechanical arms and imprisons you. In April 1661 he is in a particularly ‘strange mood for mirth’. He asks some women if he can buy their children, and takes the ale that two little schoolboys are carrying to their schoolmaster and drinks it. Pepys also agrees with Captain Pett to put it about that he himself is actually the father of Pett’s expected child.104 As you can see, practical jokes and any sort of jape that exploits someone’s foolishness or ignorance are considered a merriment by our Sam. Bless him, he has many virtues and vices – but you are likely to place his sense of humour among the latter, not the former.
The same ill-shaped humour is to be found in almost every inn, tavern, alehouse and drinking establishment in the country. Ned Ward is in a London coffee house one day listening to someone playing the violin badly when two sailors, spying a stout hook driven into the wall above the fireplace, seize the fiddler and hook him up by the slit in the back of his breeches. Everybody laughs. When the poor man manages to free himself by much wriggling and falls to the floor, they laugh so much that ‘had we seen a fellow break his neck at football, it could not have been a greater jest’.105 There you have it. The popular sense of humour of this period, like that of most past societies, fits modern sensibilities about as well as a three-fingered glove.
For real wit, you need to pay heed to the poets of the court. They all have great fun with the king and his womanising. One anonymous courtier, referring to the attack by the Dutch on the English fleet in the Medway in June 1667, writes:
As Nero once with harp in hand surveyed
His flaming Rome, and as that burnt he played,
So our great prince, when the Dutch fleet arrived,
Saw his ships burn and, as they burnt, he swived.
So kind was he in our extremest need,
He would those flames extinguish with his seed.106
Even more cutting is the earl of Rochester’s ‘Satire upon Charles II’:
Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,
And love he loves, for he loves fucking much.
Nor are his high desires above his strength;
His sceptre and his prick are of a length;
And she may sway the one who plays with th’other,
And make him little wiser than his brother.
Poor Prince! Thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court,
Will govern thee because it makes thee sport.
’Tis sure the sauciest prick that e’er did swive,
The proudest, peremptoriest prick alive.
Though safety, law, religion, life lay on’t,
’Twould break through all to make its way to cunt.
Restless he rolls about from whore to whore,
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.107
Of course, to appreciate the humour in the above doggerel, you have to be there when Rochester accidentally hands a copy of it to the king himself.
In an age of wits, it is difficult to decide to whom should be given the last word and, with it, the last laugh. But let me finish with five quips from a range of people – a scientist, a peer, a lady, a rake and an MP – that between them neatly illustrate the sense of humour of the age:
• When Fellows of the Royal Society witness the experiment of draining the blood of one dog into another, whose own blood is removed, it is observed that it stands to be of great benefit to a man’s health if bad blood can be replaced with good. At which one Fellow asks what would happen if the blood of a Quaker were let into the body of an archbishop.108
• In 1660, the marquess of Dorchester, who is an amateur physician, challenges his son-in-law, Lord Ros, to a duel, telling him he will ram his sword down his throat. To which Lord Ros replies, ‘If by your threatening words you do not mean your pills, the worst is past. I am safe enough.’109
• Catherine Sedley is most surprised that James, duke of York – the future James II – takes her as his mistress. She wonders what he sees in her, saying, ‘It cannot be my beauty for he must see I have none. And it cannot be my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have any.’110
• Catherine Sedley’s father is Sir Charles Sedley, and she is his only legitimate daughter. Therefore he is none too happy that James takes her to bed. He is not placated when, as king, James creates her countess of Dorchester. Therefore, when in 1689 it comes to a vote in Parliament as to who should be king, he votes in favour of William III and Mary. Asked why, he explains: ‘James II made my daughter a countess, and I have been helping to make his daughter a queen.’111
• When Sir William Petty, the author of Political Arthithmetick, is challenged to a duel by Sir Aleyn Broderick, who doesn’t like something Petty has written about Ireland, he accepts the challenge. But Petty’s sight is not good. In fact, he is practically blind. He accordingly accepts Sir Aleyn’s challenge on one condition: that they fight in a dark cellar, with axes.112
5
Basic Essentials
‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do,’ runs the old saying, and it is advice that you would be well advised to follow in any place or time. But hang on: there are things you don’t know about this place and this time. When is Britain at war? The British fight three wars during this period: the Second Dutch War, from March 1665 to July 1667; the Third Dutch War, from April 1672 to February 1674; and the Nine Years’ War, which has already been going for a year by the time the British join in May 1689 and which does not come to an end until May 1697. I strongly recommend not joining the navy during these years unless you are particularly prone to extreme violence, in which case you have found your spiritual home. But for the rest of us, what about matters of ordinary life? There are things you don’t know that you don’t know. What coins do you use? Where do you go shopping? How do you tell the time? All these daily functions are different from the ways we do things in the modern world. Therefore in this chapter we will deal with those basic aspects of life that are easily taken for granted, but which you need to understand in order to get by.
The Weather
On Thursday night, about two or three o’clock, there was a most terrible storm of rain, hail and violent winds, accompanied with such dreadful thunder and lightning that some started up half distracted, thinking it to be the day of judgement; it was indeed the most formidable, unparalleled tempest that ever I knew; the wind blustering and beating great hailstones with such force against the windows and walls as did awaken very hard sleepers with fear.1
So Ralph Thoresby describes the night of 19 January 1678, when he is nineteen. Most people say that ‘the Great Wind’ of 18 February 1662 is the most destructive storm in living memory. Several Londoners are killed by falling tiles. The streets are left full of ‘brick bats, tile-shards, sheets of lead … hats and feathers and perriwigs’. Lady Saltonstall is killed in her bed when her house collapses on top of her. On the other side of England, in the Forest of Dean, 3,000 trees are
blown down.2
The other contender for the worst storm of the period is the hurricane of 11 January 1690. As Evelyn describes it:
This day there was a most extraordinary storm of wind, accompanied with snow and sharp weather; it did great harm in many places, blowing down houses, trees, etc, killing many people. It began about two in the morning, and lasted till five, being a kind of hurricane, which mariners observe have begun of late years to come northward.3
Despite the severity of these storms, it is probably the incessant cold that will bother you most. The modern average annual temperature for England is 9.7°C – in the 1660s it is 9.0°C; in the 1670s, 8.6°C; in the 1680s, 8.7°C; and in the 1690s a decidedly chilly 8.1°C. As for extremes, brace yourself. Four of the twelve months of the year are at their coldest ever in these forty years: the coldest March recorded is that of 1674; the coldest May that of 1698; the coldest July that of 1695; and the coldest September that of 1694.4 On top of these records, I am sure that you have not forgotten 1675, a ‘year without a summer’, and the Long Frost of 1683–4, when the three-month average drops to –1.2°C, the coldest three-month period ever recorded in England. (For comparison, the modern average for December–February is 3.7ºC.) It is at times like these that you notice how badly the window shutters fit, and how the wind whips under the front door.
The Calendar
There are two calendars in use in Europe in the late seventeenth century. The official one for the kingdom of England is the Julian Calendar, which we have been using since the Middle Ages. This starts each new year on Lady Day (25 March) and celebrates a leap year every fourth year, so there are 100 leap years in four centuries. The other is the Gregorian Calendar, which has been in use across most of the Continent since 1582 and is the one with which you are familiar. New Year’s Day in this system is 1 January, and there are 97 leap years every four centuries. The result is a slight time discrepancy between England and the rest of Europe. The Scots use the Julian Calendar, like the English, but with the important exception that they start a new year on 1 January, as they do on the Continent. Astronomers thus have to keep their wits about them when comparing notes. If a cosmic event is seen by an astronomer at the observatory in St Andrews on 5 January 1691, then the same event might be witnessed on 5 January 1690 by John Flamsteed at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and on 15 January 1691 by Giovanni Cassini at the Paris Observatory. The difference is particularly confusing for travellers. For example, if you spend Christmas Day 1668 in Paris and set out the following morning on a nine-day journey to London, you will arrive on Christmas Day 1668. If you set out the following day and travel north for the next sixteen days, as you cross the border into Scotland you will move from 12 January 1669 to 12 January 1670.
One further complication is that people don’t stick to one or the other system. Some English people (like Pepys) celebrate New Year’s Day on 1 January even though the year does not officially change until 25 March. Others use both the old and the new years to describe the period from 1 January to 24 March, thus they write Valentine’s Day 1676 as 14 February 1675/6. There are a couple more things that might catch you out. For example, which is the shortest day of the year in Britain? The answer is 10 or 11 December. And when do you think Easter Day is in 1667? On 7 April and 22 March. The reason is that the year lasts from 25 March 1667 to the following 24 March, and two Easter Days fall in this period. The year 1694 also has two Easters, with the added oddity that Easter Day 1694 is followed by Easter Monday 1695.
People note their birthdays, even if they do not celebrate them as we do in the modern world, and contrary to what you might have heard, they do know how old they are. This was not always the case: in past centuries, remembering your age was a tricky business, especially if all you had to go on was a vague memory of your mother telling you that you were born on the Wednesday after Whitsun in the thirteenth year of the reign of the previous king. By 1660, everyone is familiar with Anno Domini, even if they start the annus on different dates. Those who place great store in astrological prognostication are particularly keen to recall their birthdate. It is no coincidence that Charles II rides into London in 1660 on his thirtieth birthday. As for Pepys, not only does he celebrate his birthdays and wedding anniversaries but he also holds dinners to commemorate his operation to remove a bladder stone, a particularly nasty bit of surgery that proves fatal to many people. In 1663 he invites eight friends to join him in celebrating his survival with a slap-up meal.
‘Let’s dance and sing and make good cheer, since Christmas comes but once a year,’ writes the royalist poet John Taylor. No doubt his words and sentiments are familiar to you. Although there are no Christmas trees, cards, crackers or tinsel, the Nativity is festooned with traditions and merriment. People love to hang holly and ivy about their halls and to burn the Yule log. They wish each other happiness, and they drink and bid each other ‘good cheer’, ‘welcome’ and ‘God be with you’. In some towns, such as Cirencester, you can hear carol singers in the streets. In London the carol singers go from house to house carrying a wassail bowl (a bowl of spiced ale).5 Some old-fashioned manorial lords still provide huge dinners in their halls for all their servants and tenants.6 Employers might give their servants ‘treats’ in boxes (hence ‘Boxing Day’) and fathers might similarly give small gifts to their children. The ‘twelve days’ of Christmas are fully observed: with an emphasis on driving away melancholy for the whole duration, so games, music, dancing and fine food and drink are the order of the season. Mince pies, turkey and plum porridge have all become established as Christmas foods. Note, however, that the mince pies might not be quite what you are expecting: their ingredients include chicken, eggs, sugar, raisins, lemon peel, orange peel, spices and cow’s tongue.7
All this goodwill, carol singing, turkey eating and mince-pie scoffing is especially welcome in the Restoration period for a very sound reason: Christmas was banned by the Puritans. Of all the things to abolish! It does not appear in the Bible, the Puritans argued; therefore it is nothing more than an element of popery. You would have thought they would have insisted on religious observance on such a day but no, they wanted nothing to do with it. Theological writers argued that the date of Christ’s Nativity is not in the Bible, therefore it must be an invention of the Catholic Church.8 Ministers were forbidden from preaching on Christmas Day. Shops were required to be open. Amazing though it may seem, in the 1650s it was considered superstitious to eat mince pies, plum porridge or brawn in December. People did not like this, as you can imagine, and they started to personify the banished feast as ‘Old Father Christmas’: an old man with a white beard on trial for his life, who is innocent of any wrongdoing. But now Old Father Christmas is back, and you may freely eat mince pies during the twelve days’ feast. You can also deck churches and houses with boughs of holly and ivy, and spear pieces of roast beef with rosemary, play cards and bowls, go hawking or hunting, give money or boxes of presents to your children, servants and apprentices, and send the traditional present of a couple of capons to a friend – all of which were banned under the Commonwealth.9
St Valentine’s Day is traditionally when birds choose their mate, and so the day has all the frisson of a betrothal about it. Even married people choose valentines – and they don’t have to be their spouse. There are several ways of selecting someone. One is simply to choose a partner: a dangerous strategy, unless you do choose your spouse. Alternatively, you and your friends can all put each other’s names in a hat, on different-coloured paper for the sexes, and draw them out. A third option is to take as your valentine the first member of the opposite sex you see on the morning of 14 February (other than your own family and servants). In 1662 Elizabeth Pepys has to keep her eyes shut and hide from the workmen to avoid seeing one of them first. As the man must buy presents for his valentine, women will hope that the first person they clap eyes on is a handsome prince. Frances Stuart strikes lucky in 1668 and receives a jewel worth £800 from the duke of York.10
&nb
sp; Gunpowder Plot Day (5 November) is much more significant in Restoration Britain than it is in the modern world. All the shops remain closed and a special church service is held, at which people hear sermons about the deliverance of the kingdom from Guy Fawkes and the Catholic plotters in 1605. You won’t be surprised to hear that the celebrations include processions and bonfires. However, as the 1670s wear on, and people grow more and more anxious about the succession of the Catholic duke of York, the day becomes an excuse for popular demonstration. By the end of the decade, at the height of the fear during the Popish Plot, the guy is dressed as the pope and stuffed with live cats, which are burnt to death on the bonfires.11 When he becomes king, James II tries in vain to forbid such gruesome ceremonies. But then the Protestant champion William III lands on the coast of Devon on 5 November 1688. Now there are two reasons for Protestants to celebrate the date – England has been saved by God from Catholicism twice on the same day; this calls for twice the celebrations! November the 5th is thus a great day to be visiting England. Unless you are a Catholic. Or a cat.
Telling the Time
You might think that the act of telling the time is itself a ‘timeless’ activity. Two hands on a dial, twelve figures around it – it couldn’t be simpler. Well, that would be true if there were two hands on the dial; most longcase clocks built in this period have only the one, an hour hand. Some old church clocks and country-house clocks – turret clocks – do not have a face at all but simply ring the hour. Many people are still using sundials, including pocket ones that can be corrected for the time of year. Longcase clocks built by the best London makers do have two hands, and truly fine table clocks like those built by Tompion even have a dial that shows the days of the week. Watches too mostly have two hands, but note that they do not fit around your wrist but rest in your pocket, often attached to a chain or a cord.