Samuel Pepys
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"Pepys" redirects here. For other uses, see Pepys (disambiguation).
| Samuel Pepys | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Samuel Pepys by J. Hayls.
Oil on canvas, 1666, 756 mm × 629 mm National Portrait Gallery, London. |
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| Born | 23 February 1633 London, England |
| Died | 26 May 1703 (aged 70) Clapham, England |
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Resting place
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St Olave's, London, England |
| Education | Huntingdon Grammar School, St Paul's School and Cambridge University |
| Occupation | Naval Administrator started off as Clerk of the Acts working his way up to Chief Secretary to the Admiralty and Tory Member of Parliament for Castle Rising and Harwich |
| Known for | Diary |
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Political party
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Tory |
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Board member of
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President of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity House, Freeman of the City of London, Freeman of Portsmouth, Treasurer of the Tangier Committee |
| Religion | Anglican |
| Spouse(s) | Elisabeth Pepys (née de St Michel) |
| Relatives |
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His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.[2]
The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century, and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London.
Early life
Pepys was the fifth of eleven children, but child mortality was high and he was soon the oldest survivor.[10] He was baptised at St Bride's Church on 3 March.[8] Pepys did not spend all of his infancy in London, and for a while was sent to live with a nurse, Goody Lawrence, at Kingsland, just north of the city.[8] In about 1644 Pepys attended Huntingdon Grammar School, before being educated at St Paul's School, London, c. 1646–1650.[8] He attended the execution of Charles I, in 1649.[8]
In 1650, he went to Cambridge University, having received two exhibitions from St Paul's School (perhaps owing to the influence of Sir George Downing, who was chairman of the judges and for whom he later worked at the Exchequer)[11] and a grant from the Mercers' Company.[citation needed] In October he was admitted as a sizar to Magdalene College; he moved there in March 1651 and took his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1654.[8][12]
Later in 1654, or early in 1655, he entered the household of another of his father's cousins, Sir Edward Montagu, who was later created 1st Earl of Sandwich.
Illness
From a young age, Pepys suffered from bladder stones in his urinary tract – a condition from which his mother and brother John also later suffered.[15] He was almost never without pain, as well as other symptoms, including "blood in the urine" (hematuria). By the time of his marriage, the condition was very severe.In 1657, Pepys decided to undergo surgery: this cannot have been an easy option, as the operation was known to be especially painful and hazardous. Nevertheless, Pepys consulted Thomas Hollier, a surgeon; and, on 26 March 1658, the operation took place in a bedroom in the house of Pepys' cousin Jane Turner.[16] Pepys' stone was successfully removed[17] and he resolved to hold a celebration on every anniversary of the operation, which he did for several years.[18] However, there were long-term effects from the operation: the incision on his bladder broke open again late in his life, and the procedure may have left him sterile: though there is no direct evidence for this, as he was childless before the operation.[19]
In mid-1658 Pepys moved to Axe Yard, near the modern Downing Street. He worked as a teller in the Exchequer under George Downing.[8]
The diary
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- 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. I lived in Axe yard, having my wife and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three. My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks,[21] gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.
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- The condition of the State was thus. Viz. the Rump, after being disturbed by my Lord Lambert, was lately returned to sit again. The officers of the army all forced to yield. Lawson lie[s] still in the River and Monke is with his army in Scotland. Only my Lord Lambert is not yet come in to the Parliament; nor is it expected that he will, without being forced to it.
Public life
Learning arithmetic from a private tutor, and using models of ships to make up for his lack of first-hand nautical experience, Pepys came to play a significant role in the board's activities. In September 1660 he was made a Justice of the Peace, on 15 February 1662 Pepys was admitted as a Younger Brother of Trinity House, and on 30 April he received the freedom of Portsmouth. Through Sandwich, he was involved in the administration of the short-lived English colony at Tangier. He joined the Tangier committee in August 1662 when the colony was first founded, and became its treasurer in 1665. In 1663 he independently negotiated a £3,000 contract for Norwegian masts, demonstrating the freedom of action that his superior abilities allowed. He was appointed to a commission of the royal fishery on 8 April 1664.
His job required that he meet many people to dispense money and make contracts. He often laments over how he "lost his labour" having gone to some appointment at a coffee house or tavern, there to discover that the person he was seeking was not within. This was a constant frustration to Pepys.
Major events
As well as providing a first-hand account of the Restoration, Pepys's diary is notable for its detailed accounts of several other major events of the 1660s, along with the lesser known Diary of John Evelyn. In particular it is an invaluable source for the study of the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–7, of the Great Plague of 1665, and of the Great Fire of London in 1666. In relation to the Plague and Fire, C. S. Knighton has written: "From its reporting of these two disasters to the metropolis in which he thrived, Pepys's diary has become a national monument."[22] Again writing about these events, Robert Latham – the editor of the definitive edition of the diary – has remarked: "His descriptions of both – agonisingly vivid – achieve their effect by being something more than superlative reporting; they are written with compassion. As always with Pepys it is people, not literary effects, that matter."[23]Second Anglo-Dutch War
Further information: Second Anglo-Dutch War
About this Second Anglo-Dutch War Pepys wrote: "In all things, in wisdom, courage, force and success, the Dutch have the best of us and do end the war with victory on their side". And King Charles II said: "Don't fight the Dutch, imitate them".
In 1667, with the war lost, Pepys helped to discharge the navy.[8] The Dutch, who had defeated England on open water, now began to threaten the mainland itself. In June 1667 they conducted their Raid on the Medway, broke the defensive chain at Gillingham, and towed away the Royal Charles, one of the Royal Navy's most important ships. As he had done during the Fire and the Plague, Pepys again removed his wife and his gold from London.[8] While the Dutch raid was a major concern in itself, Pepys was personally placed under a different kind of pressure: the Navy Board, and his role as Clerk of the Acts, came under scrutiny from the public and from Parliament. The war ended in August, and on 17 October the House of Commons created a committee of "miscarriages".[8] On 20 October, a list of ships and commanders at the time of the division of the fleet in 1666 was demanded from Pepys.[8] However, these demands were actually quite desirable for him: tactical and strategic mistakes were not the responsibility of the Navy Board. The Board did face some allegations regarding the Medway raid, but they could exploit the criticism already attracted by the commissioner of Chatham, Peter Pett, to deflect criticism from themselves.[8] The committee accepted this tactic when they reported in February 1668. The Board was, however, criticised for its use of tickets to pay seamen. These tickets could only be exchanged for cash at the Navy's treasury in London.[8] Pepys made a long speech at the bar of the Commons on 5 March 1668 defending this practice. It was, in the words of C. S. Knighton, a "virtuoso performance".[8]
The commission was followed by an investigation led by a more powerful authority, the commissioners of accounts. They met at Brooke House, Holborn, and spent two years scrutinising how the war had been financed. In 1669 Pepys had to prepare detailed answers to the committee's eight "Observations" on the Navy Board's conduct, and in 1670 he was forced to defend his own role. A seaman's ticket with Pepys's name on it was produced as incontrovertible evidence of his corrupt dealings, but thanks to the intervention of the king, Pepys emerged from the sustained investigation relatively unscathed.[8]
Great Plague
Further information: The Great Plague of London
Outbreaks of plague were not particularly unusual events in London: major epidemics had occurred in 1592, 1603, 1625, and 1636.[24]
Furthermore, Pepys was not among the group of people who were most at
risk: he did not live in cramped housing, he did not routinely mix with
the poor, and he was not required to keep his family in London in the
event of a crisis.[25]
It was not until June that the unusual seriousness of the plague became
apparent, and Pepys's activities in the first five months of the year
were not significantly affected by plague.[26] Indeed, Claire Tomalin
writes that "the most notable fact about Pepys's plague year is that to
him it was one of the happiest of his life." In 1665 he worked very
hard, but the outcome was that he quadrupled his fortune.[25]
On 31 December, in his annual summary, he wrote that "I have never
lived so merrily (besides that I never got so much) as I have done this
plague time".[27] Nonetheless, Pepys was certainly concerned about the plague. On 16 August he wrote that:But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the 'Change. Jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the plague; and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up.He also chewed tobacco as a protection against infection, and worried that wig-makers might be using hair from the corpses as a raw material. Furthermore, it was Pepys who suggested that the Navy Office should evacuate to Greenwich, although he did offer to remain in town himself. He would later take great pride in his stoicism.[28] Meanwhile, Elisabeth Pepys was sent to Woolwich.[8] She did not return to Seething Lane until January 1666, and was shocked by the sight of St Olave's churchyard, where 300 people had been buried.[29]
Great Fire of London
Further information: Great Fire of London
I down to the water-side, and there got a boat and through bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Michell's house, as far as the Old Swan, already burned that way, and the fire running further, that in a very little time it got as far as the Steeleyard, while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that layoff; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till they were, some of them burned, their wings, and fell down. Having staid, and in an hour's time seen the fire: rage every way, and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high and driving it into the City; and every thing, after so long a drought, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs.————lives, and whereof my old school-fellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top, an there burned till it fell downSeeing that the wind was driving the fire westward, he ordered the boat to go to Whitehall, and became the first person to inform the king of the fire. The king told him to go to the Lord Mayor, Thomas Bloodworth and tell him to start pulling houses down. Pepys took a coach back as far as St Paul's Cathedral, before setting off on foot through the burning city. He found the Lord Mayor, who said: "Lord! what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it." At noon he returned home and "had an extraordinary good dinner, and as merry, as at this time we could be", before returning to watch the fire in the city once more. Later, he returned to Whitehall, then met his wife in St. James's Park. In the evening they watched the fire from the safety of Bankside: Pepys writes that "it made me weep to see it". Returning home, Pepys met his clerk, Tom Hayter, who had lost everything. Hearing news that the fire was advancing, he started to pack up his possessions by moonlight.
Sir W. Pen and I to Tower-streete, and there met the fire burning three or four doors beyond Mr. Howell's, whose goods, poor man, his trayes, and dishes, shovells, &c., were flung all along Tower-street in the kennels, and people working therewith from one end to the other; the fire coming on in that narrow streete, on both sides, with infinite fury. Sir W. Batten not knowing how to remove his wine, did dig a pit in the garden, and laid it in there; and I took the opportunity of laying all the papers of my office that I could not otherwise dispose of. And in the evening Sir W. Pen and I did dig another, and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese, as well as my wine and some other things.On Wednesday, 5 September, Pepys – who had taken to sleeping on his office floor – was woken by his wife at 2 a.m. She told him that the fire had almost reached All Hallows-by-the-Tower, and that it was at the foot of Seething Lane. He decided to send her and his gold – about £2350 – to Woolwich. In the following days Pepys witnessed looting, disorder and disruption. On 7 September he went to Paul's Wharf and saw the ruins of St Paul's Cathedral, of his old school, of his father's house, and of the house in which he had had his stone removed.[31] Despite all this destruction, Pepys's house, office and diary were saved.
Personal life
As well as being one of the most important civil servants of his age, Pepys was a widely cultivated man, taking an interest in books, music, the theatre, and science. He was passionately interested in music; and he composed, sang, and played, for pleasure, and even arranged music lessons for his servants. He played the lute, viol, violin, flageolet, recorder and spinet to varying degrees of proficiency.[8] He was also a keen singer, and performed at home, in coffee houses and even in Westminster Abbey.[8] He and his wife took flageolet lessons from the master Thomas Greeting.[32] He also taught his wife to sing, and paid for dancing lessons for her (although these stopped when he became jealous of the dancing master).
Sexual relations
Propriety did not prevent him from engaging in a number of extramarital liaisons with various women: these were chronicled in his diary, often in some detail, and generally using a cocktail of languages (English, French, Spanish and Latin) when relating the intimate details. The most dramatic of these encounters was with Deborah Willet, a young woman engaged as a companion for Elisabeth Pepys. On 25 October 1668 Pepys was surprised by his wife as he embraced Deb Willet: he writes that his wife "coming up suddenly, did find me imbracing the girl con [with] my hand sub [under] su [her] coats; and endeed I was with my main [hand] in her cunny. I was at a wonderful loss upon it and the girl also...." Following this event, he was characteristically filled with remorse, but (equally characteristically) continued to pursue Willet after she had been dismissed from the Pepys household.[33]"Mrs Knep was the wife of a Smithfield horsedealer, and the mistress of Pepys" — or at least "she granted him a share of her favours."[34] Scholars disagree on the full extent of the Pepys/Knep relationship; but much of later generations' knowledge of Knep comes from the diary. Pepys first met Knep on 6 December 1665; he described her as "pretty enough, but the most excellent, mad-humoured thing, and sings the noblest that I ever heard in my life." He called her husband "an ill, melancholy, jealous-looking fellow"[35] and suspected him of abusing his wife. Knep provided Pepys with backstage access, and was a conduit for theatrical and social gossip. When they wrote notes to each other, Pepys signed himself "Dapper Dickey," while Knep was "Barbary Allen" (that popular song was an item in her musical repertory).
The text of the diary
The diary was written in one of the many standard forms of shorthand used in Pepys's time, in this case called Tachygraphy and devised by Thomas Shelton. Though it is clear from its content that it was written as a purely personal record of his life and not for publication, there are indications Pepys actively took steps to preserve the bound manuscripts of his diary. Apart from writing it out in fair copy from rough notes, he also had the loose pages bound into six volumes, catalogued them in his library with all his other books, and is likely to have suspected that eventually someone would find them interesting.After the diary
Member of Parliament and Secretary to the Admiralty
In 1672 he became an Elder Brother of Trinity House and served in this capacity until 1689; he was Master of Trinity House in 1676–1677 and again in 1685–1686.[39] In 1673 he was promoted to Secretary to the Admiralty Commission and elected MP for Castle Rising in Norfolk.In 1673 he was involved with the establishment of the Royal Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital, which was to train 40 boys annually in navigation, for the benefit of the Royal Navy and the English Merchant Navy. In 1675 he was appointed a Governor of Christ's Hospital, and for many years he took a close interest in its affairs. Among his papers are two detailed memoranda on the administration of the school. In 1699 after the successful conclusion of a seven-year campaign to get the master of the Mathematical School replaced by a man who knew more about the sea, he was rewarded for his service as a Governor by being made a Freeman of the City of London.
At the beginning of 1679 Pepys was elected MP for Harwich in Charles II's third parliament which formed part of the Cavalier Parliament. He was elected along with Sir Anthony Deane, a Harwich alderman and leading naval architect, to whom Pepys had been patron since 1662. By May of that year, they were under attack from their political enemies. Pepys resigned as Secretary to the Admiralty, and they were imprisoned in the Tower of London on suspicion of treasonable correspondence with France, specifically leaking naval intelligence. The charges are believed to have been fabricated under the direction of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.[40] Pepys was accused, among other things, of being a papist. They were released in July, but proceedings against them were not dropped until June 1680.
From 1685 to 1688, he was active not only as Secretary for the Admiralty, but also as MP for Harwich. He had been elected MP for Sandwich, but this election was contested and he immediately withdrew to Harwich. When James fled the country at the end of 1688, Pepys's career also came to an end. In January 1689, he was defeated in the parliamentary election at Harwich; in February, one week after the accession of William and Mary, he resigned his secretaryship.
Royal Society
Retirement and death
From May to July 1689, and again in June 1690, he was imprisoned on suspicion of Jacobitism, but no charges were ever successfully brought against him. After his release, he retired from public life, aged 57. Ten years later, in 1701, he moved out of London, to a house in Clapham, owned by his friend William Hewer, who had begun his career working for Pepys in the admiralty.[44] Clapham, at the time, was in the country. It is now part of inner London.Pepys lived there until his death, on 26 May 1703. He had no children and bequeathed his estate to his unmarried nephew John Jackson.[45] His former protégé and friend Hewer acted as the executor of his estate.[46]
Pepys Library
Main article: Pepys Library
- Incunabula by William Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson
- Sixty medieval manuscripts
- The Pepys Manuscript: a late 15th century English choirbook
- Naval records such as two of the 'Anthony Rolls', illustrating the Royal Navy's ships c. 1546, including the Mary Rose
- Sir Francis Drake's personal almanac
- Over 1800 printed ballads: one of the finest collections in existence.[48]
Publication history of the diary
A second transcription, done with the benefit of the key, but often less accurately, was completed in 1875 by Mynors Bright, and published in 1875–1879.[51] This added about a third to the previously published text, but still left only about 80% of the diary in print.[52] Henry B. Wheatley, drawing on both his predecessors, produced a new edition in 1893[53]–1899, revised in 1926, with extensive notes and an index.
All of these editions omitted passages (chiefly about Pepys's sexual adventures) which the editors thought too obscene ever to be printed. Wheatley, in the preface to his edition noted:
"a few passages which cannot possibly be printed. It may be thought by some that these omissions are due to an unnecessary squeamishness, but it is not really so, and readers are therefore asked to have faith in the judgement of the editor."
The complete, unexpurgated and definitive edition, edited and transcribed by Robert Latham and William Matthews, was published by Bell & Hyman, London, and the University of California Press, Berkeley, in nine volumes, along with separate Companion and Index volumes, over the years 1970–1983. Various single-volume abridgements of this text are also available.
The Introduction in volume I provides a scholarly but readable account of "The Diarist", "The Diary" ("The Manuscript", "The Shorthand", and "The Text"), "History of Previous Editions", "The Diary as Literature", and "The Diary as History". The Companion provides a long series of detailed essays about Pepys and his world.
Biographical studies
The most recent general study is by Claire Tomalin, which won the 2002 Whitbread Book of the Year award, the judges calling it a "rich, thoughtful and deeply satisfying" account that unearths "a wealth of material about the uncharted life of Samuel Pepys".
On 1 January 2003 Phil Gyford started a weblog, pepysdiary.com, that serialised the diary one day each evening together with annotations from public and experts alike. In December 2003 the blog won the best specialist blog award in The Guardian's Best of British Blogs.[54]
In 2003 a television film The Private Life of Samuel Pepys aired on BBC2.
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