Quicksilver Reading CompanionNow as England was a country of fixed ways, they imprisoned Daniel Waterhouse in the Tower of London during the political and religious upheaval of 1688.
“imprisoned him in the same chamber where they had put Oldenburg twenty years before” — Henry Oldenburg was the first Secretary of the Royal Society and was briefly imprisoned in the Tower in 1667 on suspicion of “dangerous” foreign correspondence. Stephenson’s annotation: “Oldenburg was a German who had lived in England for many years… he was arrested on suspicion of being a spy for the Dutch.”
“pathetic Latin plaints graven by Papists under Elizabeth” — This refers to the persecution of Roman Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth I. Many prisoners left elaborate inscriptions and prayers in the stone walls of the Tower while awaiting execution.
“the Mint being shut down at the moment” — The Royal Mint was historically located within the walls of the Tower of London. Its operations, including the struggle against “clipping” and counterfeiting, are central to the era’s economic history.
“Eliza, Countess de la Zeur, to d’Avaux” — The Comte d’Avaux was a key French diplomat and ambassador to the Dutch Republic, famous for maintaining an extensive network of spies to monitor the movements of William III of Orange.
“taken towns and cities from the Turks” — A reference to the Great Turkish War, a series of late 17th-century conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League, which included the Habsburgs and Poland.
“King’s Own Black Torrent Guards… stationed at Whitehall Palace” — Whitehall Palace was the primary residence of English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698, when it was almost entirely destroyed by fire.
“perhaps I’d have written the Principia instead of him” — The Principia Mathematica is Newton’s 1687 masterpiece that laid the foundations of classical mechanics. Hooke famously and bitterly claimed that Newton stole the idea of the inverse-square law of gravity from him.
“You are the millionth human to look at a spark, a flea, a raindrop” — Hooke’s 1665 book Micrographia featured stunningly detailed illustrations of objects seen through a microscope, including a famous fold-out drawing of a flea that captivated the public.
“locked up the Anglican bishops for refusing to preach toleration” — The Trial of the Seven Bishops was a 1688 legal case where James II prosecuted high-ranking clergy for seditious libel after they petitioned against his Declaration of Indulgence.
“the so-called Prince is just a common babe… smuggled into the birth-chamber inside a warming-pan” — The Warming-Pan Scandal was a widespread conspiracy theory claiming that James II’s son was a changeling smuggled into the palace to ensure a Catholic succession.
“the King wanted Cambridge to grant a degree to a Benedictine monk named Father Francis” — Alban Francis was a monk whose attempt to gain a Master of Arts degree without taking Protestant oaths led to a major legal conflict between James II and the university.
“The King tried to insinuate Jesuits and such-like everywhere” — The Jesuits were a Catholic religious order often viewed with extreme suspicion in 17th-century England, frequently feared as secret agents of foreign Catholic powers.
“John Churchill” — John Churchill, later the 1st Duke of Marlborough, was a brilliant soldier who rose to power under James II but famously defected to William of Orange during the Glorious Revolution.
“in fact it was a vector olivier” — From the original wiki (gerard): “Many of the letters from Leibniz to Daniel Waterhouse contain conceptual or verbal anachronisms, but the occurrence of ‘scalar’ and ‘vector’ is notable.
While the Latin word vector existed at the time, Oliver Heaviside and Willard Gibbs actually developed the concept of vector in the 19th century. The Irish mathematician/physicist William Rowan Hamilton developed the concept of the quaternion, about 1850. Quaternions are an extension of the complex numbers.”
“It bore the address: GRUBENDOL LONDON.” — Grubendol was the international postal pseudonym used by the Royal Society for its foreign correspondence to avoid political scrutiny and censorship.
“obtain an audience with the Emperor and tell him of my plans for the Universal Library” — Leopold I was the Holy Roman Emperor whom Leibniz lobbied for various scientific and political projects, including his vision for a centralized system of human knowledge.
“the silver-mining project in the Harz has failed” — Leibniz’s Harz Mountain Project was an ambitious engineering attempt to use wind power to pump water out of silver mines; it failed largely due to the resistance of traditional miners and technical inconsistencies.
“The brilliance of the light was governed by an inverse square law, just like gravity.” — The Inverse Square Law states that a physical quantity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source, a foundational concept for both Newton and Hooke.
“I have the stone, Sergeant, and cannot make water at times of my own choosing” — Bladder stones were an excruciatingly common ailment in the 17th century, often leading to chronic infection or kidney failure.
“I have seen men cut for the stone, Sergeant, and I’ll take death, thank you very much.” — Lithotomy was the surgical removal of bladder stones. Performed without anesthesia, the patient was tied down while a surgeon cut through the perineum; it had a very high mortality rate.
“Taunton—your love is one of the Taunton schoolgirls!” — The Maids of Taunton were schoolgirls who presented banners to the Duke of Monmouth. After his rebellion failed, they were imprisoned and their families were forced to pay heavy ransoms to the Queen’s maids of honor.
“half-hanged, drawn, and quartered in London” — To be hanged, drawn and quartered was the statutory penalty for high treason, involving public torture, disemboweling, and dismemberment.
“As a mudlark” — Mudlarks were people who scavenged in the river mud of the Thames for items of value, a practice associated with the extreme poor and children of London.
Original annotations by: gerard