Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
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2. Some have seen Daniel’s removal of the manuscripts as a laudable attempt to preserve writings that might otherwise have been lost, others as cashing in on his privileged position. Milton’s nineteenth-century biographer David Masson accepted that Milton gave them to Skinner, but more recent scholars point out that there is no proof of this and that he may have helped himself. See Gordon Campbell, John K. Hale, David J. Holmes and J. Tweedie, ‘The Provenance of De Doctrina Christiana’, Milton Quarterly, no. 31, 1997, pp. 67–93.
The absence of Milton’s name from Pepys’s Diary is its saddest omission and remains puzzling, given what else went in. The poet had preceded him at St Paul’s, praised his cousin Montagu in verse, served as secretary on Cromwell’s council when Pepys had friends clerking there and was a close friend of his Axe Yard neighbour Hartlib. The first edition of Paradise Lost was published in London in 1667, but the earliest dated edition of Paradise Lost in Pepys’s library is from 1688.
3. Daniel Skinner to Pepys, n.d., received 5 July, Letters and the Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth (1932), pp. 53–5. English translation by Nicholas Monck.
4. Pepys to Sir Leoline Jenkins, 24 July 1676, cited in Gordon Campbell et al., ‘The Provenance of De Doctrina Christiana’, op. cit. Further quotations in this paragraph from same source, pp. 67–93.
5. They were published by order of George IV and reviewed by Macaulay in his essay on Milton (1825), which sings the praises of the puritans and defends the execution of Charles I.
6. Southwell’s remarks cited in Kenneth H. D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (1968), pp. 469, 495.
7. ibid., p. 471.
8. Pepys to James Houblon (whom he addresses as ‘Your Whigship’), 14 Mar. 1682, printed in Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, pp. 127–8. Richard Ollard suggests Pepys is joking in calling himself a Tory, but this is not borne out by subsequent events.
9. J. R.Jones in Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research, vol. xxx, 1957, prints list of MPs taken from Shaftesbury papers in PRO, Via /348. Old members are marked with an 0, new members are H= honest, i.e., pro-Shaftesbury, Β = bad or base, or D = doubtful. Pepys and Deane are both marked ov (old vile), so are Sir Robert Southwell and Lawrence Hyde. Roger Pepys, however, is ow (old worthy). The great majority of those on the parliamentary committee that examined Pepys’s case in Apr. 1679 are either ‘Old worthy’ or ‘new honest’.
10. Pepys to Sir Richard Beach at Chatham urging all imaginable vigilance against papist designs on the Fleet, 19 Nov. 1678, printed in Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys: The Years of Peril (1935), p. 240.
11. J. P. Kenyon, The Popish Plot (1972), gives Fogarty’s name among Jesuits arrested, p. 68. Jane Lane in her Titus Oates (1949), pp. 99–100, says Oates accused Fogarty of being present when the plot to poison the king was laid and of offering to murder Ormonde himself, etc. Fogarty died in prison the same winter.
12. Pepys to James Houblon, 2 Nov. 1678 and 4 Nov. 1678, printed in Further Correspondence of Samuel Pepys 1662–1679, ed. J. R. Tanner (1929), pp. 326–7, 327–8. Morelli being sent away with his trunks by the back water gate comes from testimony of Pepys’s butler John James, Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. II, pp. 1,181–7.
13. Kenneth H. D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury, p. 495. Thousands of daggers were produced and had to be officially banned.
14. Sir Edward Dering, in draft speech c. 1681 referring to witnesses at defence trials, cited in Parliamentary Diary of Edward Dering, ed. M. Bond (1976), p. 214.
15. Atkins’s own statement is in the Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, A 173, fol. 113·
16. Pepys to Paulina Jackson, 5 Dec. 1678, Further Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, ed. J. R. Tanner, pp. 328–9.
17. The figures are 302 to 158, from J. R. Jones, Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research, op. cit.
18. Halifax’s advice was given in 1679. See J. P. Kenyon, The Popish Plot, p. 166.
19. Pepys to Mr Conny (or Coney), surgeon at Chatham, 20 Mar. 1679, Further Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, ed. J. R. Tanner, pp. 354–5. Mary Skinner is not named in his letter, but she is the most likely ‘lady on whose behalf I solicited’ the medicine, and who is now ‘wearied out with the frequent returns of… fits’ and expects another ‘within a day or two’. He is writing from Derby House.
20. On 29 Mar. College Conclusion Book B, 148. Information from Gordon Campbell et al., ‘The Provenance of De Doctrina Christiana’, op. cit., p. 87.
21. Pepys to duke of York, 6 May 1679, Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys 1679–1703, ed. J. R. Tanner (1926), vol. I, p. 5, and duke of York to Charles II, 12 May 1679, and to Pepys, 13 May 1679, pp. 9, 10.
22. Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, A 173, fols. 62f.
23. For Pepys getting permission from the king, Pepys to Tom Hayter, 11 Nov. 1679, The Letters of Samuel Pepys and His Family Circle, ed. H. T. Heath, pp. 131–2. Letters from Pepys to St Michel in Heath, pp. 64–90, 92–131, 132–51, 152–5. Little Samuel was said to be ten by his mother in the summer of 1681.
24. Pepys to Balthasar St Michel, 14 July 1679, ibid., p. 74.
25. St Michel writes of ‘my five small babes’, 24 Sept. 1680, ibid., p. 164.
26. So they were reminded again by the attorney-general in Jan. 1680. Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. I, p. 62.
27. Pepys wrote to Mrs Skinner, 23 Oct. 1679, sending greetings to the Botelers. Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, p. 89.
28. Pepys to Mrs Skinner, 24 Oct. 1679, ibid., p. 89.
29. James confessed just before his death in Mar. 1680. Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. II, p. 1,248.
30. Pepys to Balthasar St Michel, 29 Sept. 1679, The Letters of Samuel Pepys and His Family Circle, ed. H. T. Heath, pp. 104–6.
31. Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. II, p. 1,169.
32. Pepys to Balthasar St Michel, 26 Jan. 1680, The Letters of Samuel Pepys and His Family Circle, ed. H. T. Heath, p. 151.
33. John Joyne’s statement for 27 Nov. 1679, from Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. I, p. 296.
34. ibid., p. 210.
35. Pepys wrote to Balthasar St Michel in Paris on 1 Jan. 1680 saying he had just returned to town. The Letters of Samuel Pepys and His Family Circle, ed. H. T. Heath, pp. 144–5.
36. Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. II, p. 1,189.
37. A note, undated but apparently from the late 1670s, reads ‘WH – my Wife’s picture’, which suggests Pepys may have let Hewer have a portrait of Elizabeth to hang in his house. Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, C 859, fol. 40.
38. The visit to Mary is on 10 Mar.
39. Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. II, p. 1,214.
40. ibid., p. 1,213.
41. 2 Mar. 1680, ibid., p. 1,240.
42. Pepys to his father, 27 Mar. 1680, Pepys to Morelli, 27 Mar. 1680, Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, pp. 92–4. The diary says nothing of Morelli, merely ‘I returned to Town.’
43. Pepys to Mrs Skinner, 1 July 1680, ibid., p. 96.
44. Some pages are blank. I am indebted to Dr Charles Knighton for his estimate of the number of words.
45. Many of the originals are among the Rawlinson MSS in the Bodleian.
46. Pepys Library, Mornamont MSS, vol. I, p. 517, document dated 27 May 1675.
23. Travels for the Stuarts
1. Pepys to James Houblon, 2 Oct. 1680, printed in Letters and the Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth (1932), p. 102.
2. Diary, 7 Feb. 1668, on meeting Jackson before his marriage to Pall.
3. John Matthews, M.A., was the Huntingdon schoolmaster in 1680, and John Jackson is entered as a pupil there. Victoria County History of Huntingdonshire, vol. II, p. 109.
4. Pepys to Mr Loke, 23 Apr. 1681, Letters of Samuel Pepys and His Family Circle, ed. H. T. Heath (1955), pp. 180–81.
5. Evelyn suggested the naval history to Pepys first in a letter 30 Jan. 1680,
Particular Friends: The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, ed. G. de la Bédoyère (1997), and see below. Letters about provostship in Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, pp. 115–18.
6. Will Hewer to Pepys, 16 Nov. 1680, Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, p. 109.
7. Will Hewer to Pepys, 15 Nov. 1680, ibid., p. 107, and Pepys to Will Hewer, 2 Nov. 1680, ibid., p. 105.
8. Pepys to Esther St Michel, 1 Oct. 1681, Letters of Samuel Pepys and His Family Circle, ed. H. T. Heath, p. 188.
9. Esther St Michel to Pepys, 24 Sept. 1681, ibid., p. 187.
10. The words are used by Dr John Peachell of Cambridge to Pepys, 11 Jan. 1681, Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, p. 110.
11. Will Howe had served Sandwich alongside Pepys from before 1660. Pepys to Howe, 8 July 1680, ibid., pp. 96–7, Howe’s response, 15 June 1 681 , pp. 114–5.
12. Obrian Skinner applied to Pepys in Jan. 1682 and Pepys endorsed his letter ‘little Obrian Skinner to Mr Pepys’. Cited in James Hanford, ‘Pepys and the Skinner Family’, Review of English Studies, vol. vii, July 1931, pp. 257–70. Peter was placed at sea in 1683, and Pepys wrote to his old friend Will Howe, by then a judge in Barbados, recommending Daniel, 8 July 1680, Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, pp. 96–7. Mrs Skinner’s letters to Pepys about Peter are 25 Apr. 1683, ibid., pp. 149–50, and 10 June 1689, ibid., pp. 200–201. Old Daniel Skinner died 21 Jan. 1684 and is buried at St Olave’s.
13. Trinity College. Conclusion Book B, 155, from Gordon Campbell, John K. Hale, David J. Holmes and J. Tweedie, ‘The Provenance of De Doctrina Christiana’, Milton Quarterly, no. 31, 1997, pp. 67–93.
14. Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, A 194, fol. 261. The letter asking Mrs Bagwell not to ‘lose time in attending, at least upon me’ was written 7 Jan. 1687, printed in Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys: The Saviour of the Navy (1938), pp. 166–7. Pepys to Lord Brouncker, 17 Dec. 1681, cited in Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys: The Years of Peril (1935), p. 372.
15. Appointment of Mills’s son-in-law, Arthur Bryant, Samuel Pepys: The Years of Peril, p. 372.
16. Her name appears in Pepys’s poll tax returns as one of his servants between 1681 and 1689. His letter to Mr Parry, 7 Apr. 1682, recommending Samuel Edwards to Christ’s Hospital is printed in Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, p. 110.
17. Evelyn’s description of Verrio’s Windsor frescos, 16 June 1683, The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer (1955). Verrio was a Catholic who had special permission to work in England, J. P. Kenyon, The Popish Plot (1972), p. 342.
18. Pepys to Lord Brouncker, 13 Mar. 1682, Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, pp. 126–7.
19. Pepys to Will Hewer, 19 May 1682, ibid., p. 139.
20. Morelli’s letter of 16 Feb. 1687, ‘ excusing late marriage, and desiring re-admission’ to the favour of his one-time employer, is his last appearance in Pepys’s files. Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, A 189, fol. 327.
21. Gilbert Burnet’s History of My Own Time (1818), vol. II, p. 234. Burnet’s account of Charles II’s character is devastating, and of course drawn from personal experience. He likens him to Tiberius, but we must not forget that Burnet was the friend of William III.
22. Cited in J. R. Tanner, Mr Pepys: An Introduction to the Diary together with a Sketch of His Later Life (1925), p. 249, from the Pepysian MSS, no. 2866, Naval Minutes, p. 76. Tanner remarks, ‘The last phrase brings before us vividly Charles II’s characteristic way.’
23. For Coventry’s original suggestion, see Diary, 13 June 1664. Pepys’s notes suggesting an account of ‘both the Dutch wars’ are undated but follow a copy of a letter from William Petty dated Apr. 1675, so they may have been written soon after the Third Dutch War ended in Feb. 1674. If this is so, Pepys is excluding the First Dutch War, fought under Cromwell, which again seems likely. His notes are in Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, A 185, fol. 221.
24. Evelyn’s letters to Pepys urging him to undertake a ‘General History of Navigation’ and supplying him with bibliographical and historical information are printed in The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, ed. G. de la Bédoyère, between pp. 94 and 140. They cover a formidable range, from ancient history and ancient Britain, naval architecture and engineering works, battles, fishing rights, trade, Anglo-French rivalry, Italian and French military studies, old coins marked with ships, drinking cups in the shape of ships, biblical references to ships, etc., etc.
25. The list of ‘Adieus’ is found among his ‘Tangier Memoranda’, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, C 859, fol. 151V.
26. Pepys to John Evelyn, 7 Aug. 1683, The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, ed. G. de la Bédoyère. For Pepys’s comments on Dr Ken’s sermons, see The Tangier Papers of Samuel Pepys, ed. and transcriber Edwin Chappell (1935), pp. 21, 30, 38.
27. The ‘Journal Towards Tangier’ is part of The Tangier Papers of Samuel Pepys.
28. ibid., p. 16.
29. ibid., p. 17.
30. ibid., pp. 56, 57.
31. ibid., 26 Nov. 1683, p. 56.
32. ibid., p. 213.
33. ibid., p. 224. It is not clear whether this is the same occasion as the one described in the journal for Monday, 22 Oct., when he rows in the bay at evening and observes the blueness of the remote hills ‘as I have sometimes seen them painted but never believed it natural painted’ (p. 47).
34. On 19 Oct. 1683 Pepys wrote to his cousins Barbara and Thomas Gale in London, still expressing the hope of ‘eating brawn with you at Christmas’. Letters and Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth, pp. 162–3.
35. Evelyn reports Pepys telling him about his investigation into the supposed miraculous cures, the contriver of which confessed to him that they were ‘all a cheat, which he would easily discover, though the poore superstitious people were imposed upon: yet have these Impostors, an allowance of the Bishops, to practice their Juggleings’. 16 Sept. 1685, The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer.
24. Whirligigs
1. The toadstools are described in his Memoires Relating to the State of the Royal Navy of England for Ten Years Determined December 1688, published in 1690 from the report and recommendations he made from 1684 on.
2. The appointment was made by James II in July 1685, and celebrated by him personally at Deptford Church and at a dinner in London. Within days Pepys took steps to end the ‘scandal’ of Younger Brothers of Trinity House being ‘dissenters from the Church and ill affected to the Government’. J. R. Tanner, ‘Samuel Pepys and the Trinity House’, English Historical Review, vol. xxxxiv, 1929, pp. 583–5.
3. Mary’s own will asked that she should be buried as close as possible to her aunt Elizabeth, which I take to be an indication of her feeling for her.
4. For his rude references to her, Diary, passim; for his not allowing Elizabeth to call on her, 15 May 1668.
5. John Evelyn to Pepys, 3 Oct. 1685, Particular Friends: The Correspondence of John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, ed. G. de la Bédoyère (1997). Evelyn can hardly have been referring to Elizabeth, dead now for fifteen years.
6. Pepys’s ‘Home Notes for myself to attend to when able’ are conjecturally dated 1698 by J. R. Tanner in Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys 1679–1703 (1926), vol. I, p. 167, and include the section ‘Works to bee visited with MS’. John Evelyn to Pepys, 14 Jan. 1699, The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, ed. G. de la Bédoyère.
7. Pepys writes of making ‘a visit to good Mrs Ewer at Clapham’: Pepys to John Evelyn, 2 Oct. 1685, The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, ed. G. de la Bédoyère.
8. This house was demolished in 1791. You can still appreciate how good its position over the water gate must have been.
9. 15 Sept. 1685, Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer (1955).
10. James Stanier Clarke was entrusted by the prince regent with the task of editin
g the ‘Life’ of James II and given access to the ‘Private Manuscripts of James the Second’ that had been smuggled out of Italy at Leghorn under the prince’s instructions in 1810 and brought to the library at Carlton House. They consisted of a biography apparently based on James’s own notes written from the age of sixteen, which he deposited in the Scotch College in Paris in 1701, only to be burnt in France during the revolution. The author is not known, but was thought to be Thomas Innes, a Catholic superior of the Scotch College. Clarke’s two volumes appeared in 1816.
11. The Revocation of Edict of Nantes in France brought many Huguenot refugees. A commission headed by archbishop of Canterbury and lord chancellor was formed to assist them, and ‘Saml. Pepys Esquire’ was among its members. N. G. Brett-James, The Growth of Stuart London (1935), p. 488.
Peachell wrote to Pepys in Feb. 1687 and was suspended from his mastership and vice-chancellorship of the university in May 1687. Pepys recommended him for a naval chaplaincy with Lord Dartmouth in Sept. 1688, which Peachell turned down. Letters in Letters and the Second Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. G. Howarth (1932), pp. 176–7, 194–5.
12. 16 Sept. 1685, The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer.
13. Pepys to Sir Robert Southwell, 10 Oct. 1685, last page of MS, British Library Add MSS, 12,907, fol. 31. Dryden was the laureate, but perhaps he was not on duty on this occasion.
14. Notes in the Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS, A 189, fol. 8, made by Josiah Burchett, Pepys’s clerk.
15. See J. D. Davies, Gentlemen and Tarpaulins (1991), p. 184. ‘ Good Voyages’ were still part of the naval system a century later.
16. Pepys has notes on the pressing of men in his ‘Navy White Book’ and prepared a paper for the duke of York in 1669, but he made no proposals to end it.