Chapter 2

[The late Mr. T. C. Noble kindly communicated to me a copy of the original marriage certificate, which is as follows: "Samuell Peps of this parish Gent. & Elizabeth De Snt. Michell of Martins in the fields, Spinster. Published October 19tn, 22nd, 29th 1655, and were married by Richard Sherwin Esqr one of the justices of the Peace of the Cittie and Lyberties of Westm. December 1st. (Signed) Ri. Sherwin."]

but strangely enough Pepys himself supposed his wedding day to have been October 10th. Lord Braybrooke remarks on this,

"It is notorious that the registers in those times were very ill kept, of which we have here a striking instance . . . . Surely a man who kept a diary could not have made such a blunder."

What is even more strange than Pepys's conviction that he was married on October 10th is Mrs. Pepys's agreement with him: On October 10th, 1666, we read,

"So home to supper, and to bed, it being my wedding night, but how many years I cannot tell; but my wife says ten."

Here Mrs. Pepys was wrong, as it was eleven years; so she may have been wrong in the day also. In spite of the high authority of Mr. and Mrs. Pepys on a question so interesting to them both, we must accept the register as conclusive on this point until further evidence of its incorrectness is forthcoming.

Sir Edward Montage (afterwards Earl of Sandwich), who was Pepys's first cousin one remove (Pepys's grandfather and Montage's mother being brother and sister), was a true friend to his poor kinsman, and he at once held out a helping hand to the imprudent couple, allowing them to live in his house. John Pepys does not appear to have been in sufficiently good circumstances to pay for the education of his son, and it seems probable that Samuel went to the university under his influential cousin's patronage. At all events he owed his success in life primarily to Montage, to whom he appears to have acted as a sort of agent.

On March 26th, 1658, he underwent a successful operation for the stone, and we find him celebrating each anniversary of this important event of his life with thanksgiving. He went through life with little trouble on this score, but when he died at the age of seventy a nest of seven stones was found in his left kidney.

["June 10th, 1669. I went this evening to London, to carry Mr. Pepys to my brother Richard, now exceedingly afflicted with the stone, who had been successfully cut, and carried the stone, as big as a tennis ball, to show him and encourage his resolution to go thro' the operation."--Evelyn's Diary.]

In June, 1659, Pepys accompanied Sir Edward Montage in the "Naseby," when the Admiral of the Baltic Fleet and Algernon Sidney went to the Sound as joint commissioners. It was then that Montage corresponded with Charles II., but he had to be very secret in his movements on account of the suspicions of Sidney. Pepys knew nothing of what was going on, as he confesses in the Diary:

"I do from this raise an opinion of him, to be one of the most secret men in the world, which I was not so convinced of before."

On Pepys's return to England he obtained an appointment in the office of Mr., afterwards Sir George Downing, who was one of the Four Tellers of the Receipt of the Exchequer. He was clerk to Downing when he commenced his diary on January 1st, 1660, and then lived in Axe Yard, close by King Street, Westminster, a place on the site of which was built Fludyer Street. This, too, was swept away for the Government offices in 1864-65. His salary was L50 a year. Downing invited Pepys to accompany him to Holland, but he does not appear to have been very pressing, and a few days later in this same January he got him appointed one of the Clerks of the Council, but the recipient of the favour does not appear to have been very grateful. A great change was now about to take place in Pepys's fortunes, for in the following March he was made secretary to Sir Edward Montage in his expedition to bring about the Restoration of Charles II., and on the 23rd he went on board the "Swiftsure" with Montage. On the 30th they transferred themselves to the "Naseby." Owing to this appointment of Pepys we have in the Diary a very full account of the daily movements of the fleet until, events having followed their natural course, Montage had the honour of bringing Charles II. to Dover, where the King was received with great rejoicing. Several of the ships in the fleet had names which were obnoxious to Royalists, and on the 23rd May the King came on board the "Naseby" and altered there--the "Naseby" to the "Charles," the "Richard" to the "Royal James," the "Speaker" to the "Mary," the "Winsby" to the "Happy Return," the "Wakefield" to the "Richmond," the "Lambert" to the "Henrietta," the "Cheriton" to the "Speedwell," and the "Bradford" to the "Success." This portion of the Diary is of particular interest, and the various excursions in Holland which the Diarist made are described in a very amusing manner.

When Montagu and Pepys had both returned to London, the former told the latter that he had obtained the promise of the office of Clerk of the Acts for him. Many difficulties occurred before Pepys actually secured the place, so that at times he was inclined to accept the offers which were made to him to give it up. General Monk was anxious to get the office for Mr. Turner, who was Chief Clerk in the Navy Office, but in the end Montagu's influence secured it for Pepys. Then Thomas Barlow, who had been appointed Clerk of the Acts in 1638, turned up, and appeared likely to become disagreeable. Pepys bought him off with an annuity of too, which he did not have to pay for any length of time, as Barlow died in February, 1664-65. It is not in human nature to be greatly grieved at the death of one to whom you have to pay an annuity, and Pepys expresses his feelings in a very naive manner:--

"For which God knows my heart I could be as sorry as is possible for one to be for a stranger by whose death he gets L100 per annum, he being a worthy honest man; but when I come to consider the providence of God by this means unexpectedly to give me L100 a year more in my estate, I have cause to bless God, and do it from the bottom of my heart."

This office was one of considerable importance, for not only was the holder the secretary or registrar of the Navy Board, but he was also one of the principal officers of the navy, and, as member of the board, of equal rank with the other commissioners. This office Pepys held during the whole period of the Diary, and we find him constantly fighting for his position, as some of the other members wished to reduce his rank merely to that of secretary. In his contention Pepys appears to have been in the right, and a valuable MS. volume in the Pepysian library contains an extract from the Old Instructions of about 1649, in which this very point is argued out. The volume appears to have been made up by William Penn the Quaker, from a collection of manuscripts on the affairs of the navy found in his father's, "Sir William Penn's closet." It was presented to Charles II., with a dedication ending thus:--

"I hope enough to justifie soe much freedome with a Prince that is so easie to excuse things well intended as this is "BY "Great Prince, "Thy faithfull subject, "WM. PENN"

"London, the 22 of the Mo. called June, 1680."

It does not appear how the volume came into Pepys's possession. It may have been given him by the king, or he may have taken it as a perquisite of his office. The book has an index, which was evidently added by Pepys; in this are these entries, which show his appreciation of the contents of the MS.:--

"Clerk of the Acts, his duty, his necessity and usefulness."

The following description of the duty of the Clerk of the Acts shows the importance of the office, and the statement that if the clerk is not fitted to act as a commissioner he is a blockhead and unfit for his employment is particularly racy, and not quite the form of expression one would expect to find in an official document:

"CLERKE OF THE ACTS.

"The clarke of the Navye's duty depends principally upon rateing (by the Board's approbation) of all bills and recording of them, and all orders, contracts & warrants, making up and casting of accompts, framing and writing answers to letters, orders, and commands from the Councell, Lord High Admirall, or Commissioners of the Admiralty, and he ought to be a very able accomptant, well versed in Navall affairs and all inferior officers dutyes.

"It hath been objected by some that the Clarke of the Acts ought to be subordinate to the rest of the Commissioners, and not to be joyned in equall power with them, although he was so constituted from the first institution, which hath been an opinion only of some to keep him at a distance, least he might be thought too forward if he had joynt power in discovering or argueing against that which peradventure private interest would have concealed; it is certaine no man sees more of the Navye's Transactions than himselfe, and possibly may speak as much to the project if required, or else he is a blockhead, and not fitt for that imployment. But why he should not make as able a Commissioner as a Shipp wright lett wise men judge."

In Pepys's patent the salary is stated to be L33 6s. 8d., but this was only the ancient "fee out of the Exchequer," which had been attached to the office for more than a century. Pepys's salary had been previously fixed at L350 a-year.

Neither of the two qualifications upon which particular stress is laid in the above Instructions was possessed by Pepys. He knew nothing about the navy, and so little of accounts that apparently he learned the multiplication table for the first time in July, 1661. We see from the particulars given in the Diary how hard he worked to obtain the knowledge required in his office, and in consequence of his assiduity he soon became a model official. When Pepys became Clerk of the Acts he took up his residence at the Navy Office, a large building situated between Crutched Friars and Seething Lane, with an entrance in each of those places. On July 4th, 1660, he went with Commissioner Pett to view the houses, and was very pleased with them, but he feared that the more influential officers would jockey him out of his rights. His fears were not well grounded, and on July 18th he records the fact that he dined in his own apartments, which were situated in the Seething Lane front.

On July 24th, 1660, Pepys was sworn in as Lord Sandwich's deputy for a Clerkship of the Privy Seal. This office, which he did not think much of at first, brought him "in for a time L3 a day." In June, 1660, he was made Master of Arts by proxy, and soon afterwards he was sworn in as a justice of the Peace for Middlesex, Essex, Kent, and Hampshire, the counties in which the chief dockyards were situated.

Pepys's life is written large in the Diary, and it is not necessary here to do more than catalogue the chief incidents of it in chronological order. In February, 1661-62, he was chosen a Younger Brother of the Trinity House, and in April, 1662, when on an official visit to Portsmouth Dockyard, he was made a burgess of the town. In August of the same year he was appointed one of the commissioners for the affairs of Tangier. Soon afterwards Thomas Povy, the treasurer, got his accounts into a muddle, and showed himself incompetent for the place, so that Pepys replaced him as treasurer to the commission.

In March, 1663-64, the Corporation of the Royal Fishery was appointed, with the Duke of York as governor, and thirty-two assistants, mostly "very great persons." Through Lord Sandwich's influence Pepys was made one of these.

The time was now arriving when Pepys's general ability and devotion to business brought him prominently into notice. During the Dutch war the unreadiness of the ships, more particularly in respect to victualling, was the cause of great trouble. The Clerk of the Acts did his utmost to set things right, and he was appointed Surveyor-General of the Victualling Office. The kind way in which Mr. Coventry proposed him as "the fittest man in England" for the office, and the Duke of York's expressed approval, greatly pleased him.

During the fearful period when the Plague was raging, Pepys stuck to his business, and the chief management of naval affairs devolved upon him, for the meetings at the Navy Office were but thinly attended. In a letter to Coventry he wrote:--

"The sickness in general thickens round us, and particularly upon our neighbourhood. You, sir, took your turn of the sword; I must not, therefore, grudge to take mine of the pestilence."

At this time his wife was living at Woolwich, and he himself with his clerks at Greenwich; one maid only remained in the house in London.

Pepys rendered special service at the time of the Fire of London. He communicated the king's wishes to the Lord Mayor, and he saved the Navy Office by having up workmen from Woolwich and Deptford Dockyards to pull down the houses around, and so prevent the spread of the flames.

When peace was at length concluded with the Dutch, and people had time to think over the disgrace which the country had suffered by the presence of De Ruyter's fleet in the Medway, it was natural that a public inquiry into the management of the war should be undertaken. A Parliamentary Committee was appointed in October, 1667, to inquire into the matter. Pepys made a statement which satisfied the committee, but for months afterwards he was continually being summoned to answer some charge, so that he confesses himself as mad to "become the hackney of this office in perpetual trouble and vexation that need it least."

At last a storm broke out in the House of Commons against the principal officers of the navy, and some members demanded that they should be put out of their places. In the end they were ordered to be heard in their own defence at the bar of the House. The whole labour of the defence fell upon Pepys, but having made out his case with great skill, he was rewarded by a most unexpected success. On the 5th March, 1667-68, he made the great speech of his life, and spoke for three hours, with the effect that he so far removed the prejudice against the officers of the Navy Board, that no further proceedings were taken in parliament on the subject. He was highly praised for his speech, and he was naturally much elated at his brilliant success.

About the year 1664 we first hear of a defect in Pepys's eyesight. He consulted the celebrated Cocker, and began to wear green spectacles, but gradually this defect became more pronounced, and on the 31st of May, 1669, he wrote the last words in his Diary:

"And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now as long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand."

He feared blindness and was forced to desist, to his lasting regret and our great loss.

At this time he obtained leave of absence from the duties of his office, and he set out on a tour through France and Holland accompanied by his wife. In his travels he was true to the occupation of his life, and made collections respecting the French and Dutch navies. Some months after his return he spoke of his journey as having been "full of health and content," but no sooner had he and his wife returned to London than the latter became seriously ill with a fever. The disease took a fatal turn, and on the 10th of November, 1669, Elizabeth Pepys died at the early age of twenty-nine years, to the great grief of her husband. She died at their house in Crutched Friars, and was buried at St. Olave's Church, Hart Street, where Pepys erected a monument to her memory.

Pepys's successful speech at the bar of the House of Commons made him anxious to become a member, and the Duke of York and Sir William Coventry heartily supported him in his resolution. An opening occurred in due course, at Aldborough, in Suffolk, owing to the death of Sir Robert Brooke in 1669, but, in consequence of the death of his wife, Pepys was unable to take part in the election. His cause was warmly espoused by the Duke of York and by Lord Henry Howard (afterwards Earl of Norwich and sixth Duke of Norfolk), but the efforts of his supporters failed, and the contest ended in favour of John Bruce, who represented the popular party. In November, 1673, Pepys was more successful, and was elected for Castle Rising on the elevation of the member, Sir Robert Paston, to the peerage as Viscount Yarmouth. His unsuccessful opponent, Mr. Offley, petitioned against the return, and the election was determined to be void by the Committee of Privileges. The Parliament, however, being prorogued the following month without the House's coming to any vote on the subject, Pepys was permitted to retain his seat. A most irrelevant matter was introduced into the inquiry, and Pepys was charged with having a crucifix in his house, from which it was inferred that he was "a papist or popishly inclined." The charge was grounded upon reported assertions of Sir John Banks and the Earl of Shaftesbury, which they did not stand to when examined on the subject, and the charge was not proved to be good.

["The House then proceeding upon the debate touching the Election for Castle Rising, between Mr. Pepys and Mr. Offley, did, in the first place, take into consideration what related personally to Mr. Pepys. Information being given to the House that they had received an account from a person of quality, that he saw an Altar with a Crucifix upon it, in the house of Mr. Pepys; Mr. Pepys, standing up in his place, did heartily and flatly deny that he ever had any Altar or Crucifix, or the image or picture of any Saint whatsoever in his house, from the top to the bottom of it; and the Members being called upon to name the person that gave them the information, they were unwilling to declare it without the order of the House; which, being made, they named the Earl of Shaftesbury; and the House being also informed that Sir J. Banks did likewise see the Altar, he was ordered to attend the Bar of the House, to declare what he knew of this matter. 'Ordered that Sir William Coventry, Sir Thomas Meeres, and Mr. Garraway do attend Lord Shaftesbury on the like occasion, and receive what information his Lordship, can give on this matter.'"--Journals of the House of Commons, vol. ix., p. 306.--" 13th February, Sir W. Coventry reports that they attended the Earl of Shaftesbury, and received from him the account which they had put in writing. The Earl of Shaftesbury denieth that he ever saw an Altar in Mr. Pepys's house or lodgings; as to the Crucifix, he saith he hath, some imperfect memory of seeing somewhat which he conceived to be a Crucifix. When his Lordship was asked the time, he said it was before the burning of the Office of the Navy. Being asked concerning the manner, he said he could not remember whether it were painted or carved, or in what manner the thing was; and that his memory was so very imperfect in it, that if he were upon his oath he could give no testimony."--. Ibid., vol. ix., p. 309.--" 16th February--Sir John Banks was called in--The Speaker desired him to answer what acquaintance he had with; Mr. Pepys, and whether he used to have recourse to him to his house and had ever seen there any Altar or Crucifix, or whether he knew of his being a Papist, or Popishly inclined. Sir J. Banks said that he had known and had been acquainted with Mr. Pepys several years, and had often visited him and conversed with him at the Navy Office, and at his house there upon several occasions, and that he never saw in his house there any Altar or Crucifix, and that he does not believe him to be a Papist, or that way inclined in the least, nor had any reason or ground to think or believe it."--Ibid., vol, ix., p. 310.]

It will be seen from the extracts from the Journals of the House of Commons given in the note that Pepys denied ever having had an altar or crucifix in his house. In the Diary there is a distinct statement of his possession of a crucifix, but it is not clear from the following extracts whether it was not merely a varnished engraving of the Crucifixion which he possessed:

July 20, 1666. "So I away to Lovett's, there to see how my picture goes on to be varnished, a fine crucifix which will be very fine." August 2. "At home find Lovett, who showed me my crucifix, which will be very fine when done." Nov. 3. "This morning comes Mr. Lovett and brings me my print of the Passion, varnished by him, and the frame which is indeed very fine, though not so fine as I expected; but pleases me exceedingly."

Whether he had or had not a crucifix in his house was a matter for himself alone, and the interference of the House of Commons was a gross violation of the liberty of the subject.

In connection with Lord Shaftesbury's part in this matter, the late Mr. W. D. Christie found the following letter to Sir Thomas Meres among the papers at St. Giles's House, Dorsetshire:--

"Exeter House, February 10th, 1674.

"Sir,--That there might be no mistake, I thought best to put my answer in writing to those questions that yourself, Sir William Coventry, and Mr. Garroway were pleased to propose to me this morning from the House of Commons, which is that I never designed to be a witness against any man for what I either heard or saw, and therefore did not take so exact notice of things inquired of as to be able to remember them so clearly as is requisite to do in a testimony upon honour or oath, or to so great and honourable a body as the House of Commons, it being some years distance since I was at Mr. Pepys his lodging. Only that particular of an altar is so signal that I must needs have remembered it had I seen any such thing, which I am sure I do not. This I desire you to communicate with Sir William Coventry and Mr. Garroway to be delivered as my answer to the House of Commons, it being the same I gave you this morning.

"I am, Sir, "Your most humble servant, "SHAFTESBURY."

After reading this letter Sir William Coventry very justly remarked, "There are a great many more Catholics than think themselves so, if having a crucifix will make one." Mr. Christie resented the remarks on Lord Shaftesbury's part in this persecution of Pepys made by Lord Braybrooke, who said, "Painful indeed is it to reflect to what length the bad passions which party violence inflames could in those days carry a man of Shaftesbury's rank, station, and abilities." Mr. Christie observes, "It is clear from the letter to Meres that Shaftesbury showed no malice and much scrupulousness when a formal charge, involving important results, was founded on his loose private conversations." This would be a fair vindication if the above attack upon Pepys stood alone, but we shall see later on that Shaftesbury was the moving spirit in a still more unjustifiable attack.