How the Pepyses Kept Twelfth Day
In the family of Samuel Pepys, the Feast of the Epiphany was kept with music, cake and quaint traditions.
January 6th, 1660
The Interregnum 1649-1660
A slice of fruit cake.
© James Petts, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
A slice of Christmas cake, made and photographed by James Petts. Twelfth Day on January 6th, so named because it falls twelve days after Christmas, is the Feast of the Epiphany (‘showing-forth’) in the West, where it commemorates the visit of the Wise Men. In the East, where it is called the Theophany (‘showing-forth-of-God’), it commemorates the Baptism of Christ, and the Light of the World. The Russians keep the feast on January 19th, which is January 6th on the Julian Calendar still used in their church — and indeed still being used by Pepys in 1660. Twelfth Night, which has given its name to one of William Shakespeare’s plays, is the previous day, the Vigil of the feast.
Introduction
Twelfth Day, the Feast of the Epiphany, is kept on January 6th each year and marks the end of the Christmas season. Samuel Pepys, never one to miss the opportunity for a glass of good cheer and some venison pasty, took care to make a family party of it — even if his duties as paymaster for the Treasury meant a slow start to the festivities.
Friday January 6th, 1660
THIS morning Mr Sheply and I did eat our breakfast at Mrs Harper’s,* (my brother John being with me)* upon a cold turkey-pie and a goose. From thence I went to my office,* where we paid money to the soldiers till one o’clock, at which time we made an end, and I went home and took my wife* and went to my cosen, Thomas Pepys,* and found them just sat down to dinner, which was very good; only the venison pasty was palpable beef,* which was not handsome.
After dinner I took my leave, leaving my wife with my cozen Stradwick,* and went to Westminster to Mr Vines, where George and I fiddled* a good while, Dick and his wife (who was lately brought to bed)* and her sister being there, but Mr Hudson not coming according to his promise, I went away, and calling at my house* on the wench,* I took her and the lanthorn* with me to my cosen Stradwick, where, after a good supper, there being there my father, mother, brothers, and sister,* my cosen Scott and his wife,* Mr Drawwater and his wife,* and her brother, Mr Stradwick, we had a brave cake brought us, and in the choosing, Pall* was Queen and Mr Stradwick was King. After that my wife and I bid adieu and came home, it being still a great frost.
From The Diary of Samuel Pepys Vol. I, by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), for the date January 6th, 1659/60.
* Mr Sheply was in service with Admiral Sir Edward Montagu. Mrs Harper was the landlady of a tavern near Pepys’s home in Westminster.
* John Pepys (1641-1677) was Samuel’s younger brother.
* At this time, Pepys worked in the Exchequer office in the Palace of Westminster.
* Samuel’s wife was Elizabeth Pepys (1640-1669).
* Thomas Pepys was the son of Samuel’s uncle Thomas, his father’s brother.
* Pepys liked nothing better than venison pasty, and mentions it frequently throughout his diary. In this case, he detected that the meat was beef, not venison (deer meat). In calling that ‘not handsome’, he implies that he felt someone had played a trick on him and his host.
* Tom Stradwick, who was married to Pepys’s sister Elizabeth, had a sister Jane, who had married James Drawwater.
* That is, they played music on stringed instruments such as the viol.
* That is, she had recently given birth to a child.
* Samuel and Elizabeth lived at this time in Axe Yard, Westminster, just south of what is now Downing Street.
* ‘The wench’ (an Old English word for a young serving woman) was Samuel’s pet name for Jane Birch, maid to the Pepys family from 1658 to 1661. In March 1669 she married Samuel’s clerk, Tom Edwards, and Samuel was chosen as godfather to their son, Sam, born in 1673. Jane was widowed twice, and in 1690 Samuel settled a £15 annuity on her.
* A lanthorn (pronounced lant-horn) is a lantern: it gets dark early on January 6th.
* Samuel’s father was John Pepys, his mother was Margaret. The brothers who came with them were Thomas and John, and the sister was Paulina.
* Benjamin Scott was husband of Judith, Samuel’s cousin and another daughter of Chief Justice Richard Pepys.
* Samuel Pepys’s cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Pepys, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, who was married to Thomas Stradwick.
* That is, Samuel’s sister Paulina. The tradition was for Twelfth Cake to be served at this Christian feast, commemorating the three Wise Men who made a pilgrimage to Bethlehem to see the infant Jesus. The term ‘brave’ cake means a luxury cake; in his dictionary, Samuel Johnson suggested the synonyms ‘magnificent’ and ‘grand’. Two tokens were baked into the cake, one in each side; one side was sliced and given to the men, and the other side was sliced and given to the women. Whoever found a token in his or her slice was acclaimed King or Queen for the day.
