Pepys

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Pepys

Pepys was born in Salisbury Court, [|Fleet Street], London English naval administrator and Member of Parliament Chief Secretary to the [|Admiralty] under both [|King Charles II] and subsequently [|King James II] He is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man.

The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. On 1 January 1660, Pepys began to keep a diary. He recorded his daily life for almost ten years. The women he pursued, his friends and his dealings are all laid out. His diary reveals his jealousies, insecurities, trivial concerns, and his fractious relationship with his wife.' As well as providing a first-hand account of the Restoration, Pepys's diary is notable for its detailed and unique accounts of several other major events of the 1660s. 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.

The diary gives a detailed account of Pepys's personal life. He liked wine and plays, and the company of other people. He also spent a great deal of time evaluating his fortune and his place in the world. He was always curious and often acted on that curiosity, as he acted upon almost all his impulses. Periodically he would resolve to devote more time to hard work instead of leisure. 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. __**Photos**__ media type="file" key="Pepys.m4a" width="300" height="50"

[|Tuesday 23 April 1661] The King in his robes, bare-headed, which was very fine. And after all had placed themselves, there was a sermon and the service; and then in the Quire at the high altar, the King passed through all the ceremonies of the Coronacon, which to my great grief I and most in the Abbey could not see. The crown being put upon his head, a great shout begun, and he came forth to the throne, and there passed more ceremonies: as taking the oath, and having things read to him by __ the Bishop __; and his lords (who put on their caps as soon as the King put on his crown) 2 and bishops come, and kneeled before him. But so great a noise that I could make but little of the music; and indeed, it was lost to every body. But I had so great a lust to …. [censored] that I went out a little while before the King had done all his ceremonies, and went round the Abbey to __ Westminster Hall __, all the way within rayles, and 10,000 people, with the ground covered with blue cloth; and scaffolds all the way. Into the Hall I got, where it was very fine with hangings and scaffolds one upon another full of brave ladies; and my __ wife __ in one little one, on the right hand.

[|Sunday 2 September 1666] So near the fire as we could for smoke; and all over the Thames, with one’s face in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of firedrops. This is very true; so as houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire, three or four, nay, five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water; we to a little ale-house on __ the Bankside __, over against the ‘Three Cranes, and there staid till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before us. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruins. So home with a sad heart, and there find every body discoursing and lamenting the fire;

[|Tuesday 12 January 1669] This evening I observed my wife mighty dull, and I myself was not mighty fond, because of some hard words she did give me at noon, out of a jealousy at my being abroad this morning, which, God knows, it was upon the business of the Office unexpectedly: but I to bed, not thinking but she would come after me. But waking by and by out of a slumber, which I usually fall into presently after my coming into the bed, I found she did not prepare to come to bed, but got fresh candles, and more wood for her fire, it being mighty cold, too. At this being troubled, I after a while prayed her to come to bed, all my people being gone to bed; so, after an hour or two, she silent, and I now and then praying her to come to bed, she fell out into a fury, that I was a rogue, and false to her.. At last, about one o’clock, she come to my side of the bed, and drew my curtaine open, and with the tongs red hot at the ends, made as if she did design to pinch me with them, at which, in dismay, I rose up, and with a few words she laid them down; and did by little and, little, very sillily, let all the discourse fall; and about two, but with much seeming difficulty, come to bed, and there lay well all night...

QUESTIONS for the Above Selection: 1. What events does Pepys describe in his diary? 2. What information would he not have written if he knew it was going to be published? 3. What details does Pepys include indicating he was excited to be there?