Diary, Jan 1659/60 | Page 4

1752 the year extended from March 25th to the following March 24th. Thus since 1752 we have been in the habit of putting the two dates for the months of January and February and March 1 to 24--in all years previous to 1752. Practically, however, many persons considered the year to commence with January 1st, as it will be seen Pepys did. The 1st of January was considered as New Year's day long before Pepys's time. The fiscal year has not been altered; and the national accounts are still reckoned from old Lady Day, which falls on the 6th of April.]
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.
[Pepys was successfully cut for the stone on March 26th, 1658. See March 26th below. Although not suffering from this cause again until the end of his life, there are frequent references in the Diary to pain whenever he caught cold. In a letter from Pepys to his nephew Jackson, April 8th, 1700, there is a reference to the breaking out three years before his death of the wound caused by the cutting for the stone: "It has been my calamity for much the greatest part of this time to have been kept bedrid, under an evil so rarely known as to have had it matter of universal surprise and with little less general opinion of its dangerousness; namely, that the cicatrice of a wound occasioned upon my cutting for the stone, without hearing anything of it in all this time, should after more than 40 years' perfect cure, break out again." At the post-mortem examination a nest of seven stones, weighing four and a half ounces, was found in the left kidney, which was entirely ulcerated.]
I lived in Axe Yard,
[Pepys's house was on the south side of King Street, Westminster; it is singular that when he removed to a residence in the city, he should have settled close to another Axe Yard. Fludyer Street stands on the site of Axe Yard, which derived its name from a great messuage or brewhouse on the west side of King Street, called "The Axe," and referred to in a document of the 23rd of Henry VIII--B.]
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.]
[This is the first of too many censored passages marked by ". . . ." wherin Mr. Wheatly determines (in this unabridged edition) that some of the words of Pepy's are too raw for our eyes. D.W.]
The condition of the State was thus; viz. the Rump, after being disturbed by my Lord Lambert,
[John Lambert, major-general in the Parliamentary army. The title Lord was not his by right, but it was frequently given to the republican officers. He was born in 1619, at Calton Hall, in the parish of Kirkby-in-Malham-Dale, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1642 he was appointed captain of horse under Fairfax, and acted as major-general to Cromwell in 1650 during the war in Scotland. After this Parliament conferred on him a grant of lands in Scotland worth L1000 per annum. He refused to take the oath of allegiance to Cromwell, for which the Protector deprived him of his commission. After Cromwell's death he tried to set up a military government. The Commons cashiered Lambert, Desborough, and other officers, October 12th, 1659, but Lambert retaliated by thrusting out the Commons, and set out to meet Monk. His men fell away from him, and he was sent to the Tower, March 3rd, 1660, but escaped. In 1662 he was tried on a charge of high treason and condemned, but his life was spared. It is generally stated that he passed the remainder of his life in the island of Guernsey, but this is proved to be incorrect by a MS. in the Plymouth Athenaeum, entitled "Plimmouth Memoirs collected by James Yonge, 1684" This will be seen from the following extracts quoted by Mr. R. J. King, in "Notes and Queries," "1667 Lambert the arch-rebel brought to this island [St. Nicholas, at the entrance of Plymouth harbour]." "1683 Easter day Lambert that olde rebell dyed this winter on Plimmouth Island where he had been prisoner 15 years and more."]
was lately returned to sit again. The officers of the Army all forced to yield. Lawson
[Sir John Lawson, the son of a poor man at Hull, entered the navy as a common sailor, rose to the rank of admiral, and distinguished himself during the Protectorate. Though a republican, he readily closed with the design of restoring the King. He