Knowoperwrimo
Nov. 2nd, 2008 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lucianusTuesday 2. November
Laid some distance off Gravesend until the tide turned, then docked after a very poor passage, mighty stormy but now would seem to clear and so to the Swan for the night and after a good dinner of mutton and rather much wine, to bed, I to lie with Sir R. W. and our valets in the closet and tomorrow we will hire a werryman to take us to London, as Sir Roger cares not to go on the long ferry with swine.
Ships sailing to the port of London might dock at Gravesend which is down the Thames from the city. From there travelers could take the "long ferry," a public service or hire a wherryman to take them to London Bridge. The long ferry transported many different travelers and sometimes their livestock, hence Sir Roger's comment about not wanting to travel with swine. The Swan Inn in Gravesend is attested to in Samuel Pepys' diary in the 1660's. It might be a stretch backdating it to 1591 but perhaps not too much, the George Inn in Southwark is still in the same building, under the same name it had in 1677 (and I've eaten there in the last 4 years). Luke lies (shares a bed) with Sir Roger on this trip, this is not as strange or salacious as it might sound. We read in Pepys' diary that he often shares a bed with male companions while traveling and for Luke, sharing a bed with a person such as Sir Roger, a knight and commander would be an honor. As we see from the text they are accompanied by their valets. One's valet kept one's clothing and gear in order, served their master and in the case of valets of military gentlemen, scraped them up off the battlefield if they had been killed or wounded.
Lloyd, Howell A. The Rouen campaign, 1590-1592; politics, warfare and the early-modern state, by Howell A. Lloyd. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973.
Picard, Liza, 1927- Elizabeth's London : everyday life in Elizabethan London. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.
Laid some distance off Gravesend until the tide turned, then docked after a very poor passage, mighty stormy but now would seem to clear and so to the Swan for the night and after a good dinner of mutton and rather much wine, to bed, I to lie with Sir R. W. and our valets in the closet and tomorrow we will hire a werryman to take us to London, as Sir Roger cares not to go on the long ferry with swine.
Ships sailing to the port of London might dock at Gravesend which is down the Thames from the city. From there travelers could take the "long ferry," a public service or hire a wherryman to take them to London Bridge. The long ferry transported many different travelers and sometimes their livestock, hence Sir Roger's comment about not wanting to travel with swine. The Swan Inn in Gravesend is attested to in Samuel Pepys' diary in the 1660's. It might be a stretch backdating it to 1591 but perhaps not too much, the George Inn in Southwark is still in the same building, under the same name it had in 1677 (and I've eaten there in the last 4 years). Luke lies (shares a bed) with Sir Roger on this trip, this is not as strange or salacious as it might sound. We read in Pepys' diary that he often shares a bed with male companions while traveling and for Luke, sharing a bed with a person such as Sir Roger, a knight and commander would be an honor. As we see from the text they are accompanied by their valets. One's valet kept one's clothing and gear in order, served their master and in the case of valets of military gentlemen, scraped them up off the battlefield if they had been killed or wounded.
Lloyd, Howell A. The Rouen campaign, 1590-1592; politics, warfare and the early-modern state, by Howell A. Lloyd. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973.
Picard, Liza, 1927- Elizabeth's London : everyday life in Elizabethan London. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.
