Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. With this week's episode on John Evelyn's Fumafujium,
Speaker 1: we thought we'd bring out our past episode on his
Speaker 1: contemporary and fellow diarist, Samuel Peeps. Samuel Peeps also fond
Speaker 1: of irritating women in public spaces, and sometimes they would
Speaker 1: stick him with pins. So know that this episode originally
Speaker 1: came out on May twenty ninth, twenty nineteen, So enjoy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracey E. V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Polly Frying. Samuel Peeps has been something
Speaker 1: of a recurring character on our show. We have either
Speaker 1: name dropped him or read bits of his diaries, and
Speaker 1: our episodes on and Lister and the Pirate Henry every In,
Speaker 1: the Straw Hat Riots and Britain's Theft of Tea from
Speaker 1: China and the Body House Riots of sixteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: and the belief that the Royal Touch could cure your scrofula.
Speaker 1: I have to imagine previous hosts have at some point
Speaker 1: said something about Samuel Peeps too, but that's a lot
Speaker 1: harder for us to track at this point. I think
Speaker 1: all historians eventually talk about Samuel Peeps. It all eventually
Speaker 1: comes back to Peeps. Something that came up in one
Speaker 1: of these discussions between Holly and me, which is was
Speaker 1: that we had both read selections from Peep's diary in school,
Speaker 1: and yet we did not know until working on this
Speaker 1: podcast how funny it could be. It was like our
Speaker 1: experience was the opposite of The Princess Bride, where somebody
Speaker 1: had gone through the diary and only left in the
Speaker 1: boring parts. When I started working on this episode, I
Speaker 1: was also surprised to learn that the funny parts were
Speaker 1: not the only thing left out of my Samuel Peeps
Speaker 1: experience in school. Our episode on Ann Lister's diaries talked
Speaker 1: about how much of them were dedicated to detailing her
Speaker 1: sexual relationships, and the same thing. It's true for Samuel Peeps,
Speaker 1: and parts of his diary are similarly explicit. Like one
Speaker 1: passage that I was reading as I was researching this
Speaker 1: caused me to go whoa out loud at my desk.
Speaker 1: We aren't going to be reading that package passage. But
Speaker 1: just like fair warning. See I knew there was dirty
Speaker 1: stuff in the diaries, and I wonder if and I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly what copy I read at various points
Speaker 1: in my education. I wonder if maybe in my case,
Speaker 1: some of the funny stuff was there, but I didn't
Speaker 1: get the comedy. I think probably every Samuel Peeps thing
Speaker 1: that I had read had been in an anthology, like,
Speaker 1: not a standalone copy of anything. And I went back
Speaker 1: and looked as I was working on this, to be like,
Speaker 1: am I like fudging my own memory here? And no?
Speaker 1: Like my Norton Anthology of English Literature from back in
Speaker 1: my college days, like only has a couple of passages,
Speaker 1: They're only about the fire. They're not funny or racy
Speaker 1: in any way. And I think that was the case,
Speaker 1: like anything that I was reading was excerpted in another
Speaker 1: work and not like a standalone, more lengthy thing. Regardless, though,
Speaker 1: we're coming up on the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of Peep's last diary entry, which was written on May
Speaker 1: thirty first of sixteen sixty nine, so it seemed like
Speaker 1: a good time to take a closer look, not just
Speaker 1: at the diary, but also at who Peeps was beyond
Speaker 1: his famous chronicle of life in seventeenth century London. Samuel
Speaker 1: Peeps was born in London on February twenty third, sixteen
Speaker 1: thirty three. His father was a tailor and his mother
Speaker 1: was a butcher's daughter, so they were not a particularly
Speaker 1: prominent or affluent family. Samuel had ten siblings, but only
Speaker 1: two of them lived to adulthood, and of those three,
Speaker 1: Samuel was the oldest. With the help of other family,
Speaker 1: Samuel was able to go to school. He went to
Speaker 1: Huntingdon Grammar School and then moved on to Saint Paul's School.
Speaker 1: From there he went to Cambridge, where he started a
Speaker 1: lifelong friendship with John Dryden, who would go on to
Speaker 1: be England's first poet laureate. Peeps graduated with a BA
Speaker 1: in sixteen fifty three. The Peeps family had one connection
Speaker 1: that served Samuel extremely well. That was Edward Montague, who
Speaker 1: was Samuel's father's cousin and would eventually become the first
Speaker 1: Earl of Sandwich. He took an interest in Samuel and
Speaker 1: hired him as a secretary. Had that not happened, Samuel
Speaker 1: probably would have pursued a career in law. In sixteen
Speaker 1: fifty five, Samuel married Elizabeth sa Michelle. She was the
Speaker 1: daughter of a French Huguenot who had come to England
Speaker 1: as a refugee. They had a religious ceremony on October tenth,
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty five, when Elizabeth was fourteen and Samuel was
Speaker 1: twenty two, and then they had a civil ceremony on
Speaker 1: December first, by which point she had turned fifteen. This
Speaker 1: was definitely a match made for love and not for money.
Speaker 1: The sam Michel's had been well off and prominent, but
Speaker 1: they had fallen on hard times in part because of
Speaker 1: her father's religious conversion. Samuel wound up supporting seven of
Speaker 1: them financially, but at the start of his marriage to
Speaker 1: Elizabeth he wasn't in a position to do that at all.
Speaker 1: He couldn't even afford lodgings for the two of them,
Speaker 1: so they had to live in his room in Montague's
Speaker 1: quarters at Whitehall Palace. In spite of their feelings for
Speaker 1: one another, which I mean they do seem to have
Speaker 1: genuinely been very fond of each other, and their ages
Speaker 1: today are highly questionable, but at the time like that,
Speaker 1: those are pretty normal ages to get married. Their marriage
Speaker 1: got off to a really rocky start. Elizabeth had some
Speaker 1: sort of recurring, persistent gynecological problem, and Samuel was in
Speaker 1: a lot of pain due to stones and his bladder
Speaker 1: and urinary tracts, so from the very beginning their physical
Speaker 1: relationship was difficult and probably painful for both of them.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's feelings on this aren't really recorded anywhere, but it
Speaker 1: was hugely frustrating for Samuel. Also, while Samuel was besotted
Speaker 1: with his wife, he was deeply jealous and possessive. She
Speaker 1: was lovely, lively and charming, and tended to attract the
Speaker 1: attention of other men. As far as we know, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: was always faithful to Samuel, but she also clearly enjoyed
Speaker 1: flattery and attention. If Samuel thought a man was paying
Speaker 1: too much attention to her, or that she was being
Speaker 1: too flirtatious, he would get angry about it, and aside
Speaker 1: from that, he could be very critical of her. All
Speaker 1: of this together made their relationship really tense. Elizabeth went
Speaker 1: back home to her family for a few months in
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty seven, returning to Samuel at Whitehall in December.
Speaker 1: They finally moved into a place of their own the
Speaker 1: following August. Although their relationship continued to have just serious
Speaker 1: ups and downs, they both had volatile tempers. Peeps had
Speaker 1: a lot of affairs, and they were known to fight
Speaker 1: and even threaten each other when things got really heated.
Speaker 1: At least in Peepe's diary, though, which is virtually the
Speaker 1: only source of information that we have about Elizabeth. They
Speaker 1: also seemed really genuinely fond of each other when things
Speaker 1: were good. On March twenty sixth, sixteen fifty eight, Peeps
Speaker 1: had a lithotomy, which is a surgical procedure to remove
Speaker 1: a bladderstone. A surgeon named Thomas Hollier removed a stone
Speaker 1: that measured about two inches in diameter, which Samuel kept
Speaker 1: in a specially made case to show to people afterward.
Speaker 1: He recovered with no complications, which is incredible considering that
Speaker 1: there was no anesthesia and the instruments weren't in any
Speaker 1: way sterile. These surgeries weren't uncommon at the time, but
Speaker 1: deaths and complications were pretty commonplace. Peeps developed other stones
Speaker 1: later on, but for a time after this procedure he
Speaker 1: was almost symptom free. I said in this outline that
Speaker 1: he recovered with no complications. He and Elizabeth never had
Speaker 1: any children, and one of the things that people cite
Speaker 1: as maybe a reason for that is that this procedure
Speaker 1: might have been successful at removing the stone, but also
Speaker 1: might have inadvertently made him unable to have children. That's
Speaker 1: all very speculative, though, like we don't know exactly why
Speaker 1: they didn't have any children. Peeps wrote his first diary
Speaker 1: entry on January first, sixteen sixty, and he referred to
Speaker 1: this ailment in the very first sentence, quote, Blessed be God.
Speaker 1: At the end of the last year, I was in
Speaker 1: very good health, without any sense of my old pain,
Speaker 1: but upon taking of cold. We'll talk more about the
Speaker 1: diary later, especially through this next section of the episode,
Speaker 1: but this is when he started keeping it. Sixteen sixty
Speaker 1: was a big year for Samuel Peeps. He finished his
Speaker 1: master's degree and he was part of the fleet that
Speaker 1: brought King Charles the Second back to England. Super quick recap.
Speaker 1: Charles the Second's father, Charles the First, was king during
Speaker 1: the English Civil Wars, which were a series of conflicts
Speaker 1: primarily between royalists and parliamentarians. Charles the First was executed
Speaker 1: in sixteen forty nine and Charles the Second was forced
Speaker 1: into exile in sixteen fifty one. Oliver Cromwell, who had
Speaker 1: been at General on the parliamentarian side, became Lord Protector
Speaker 1: of England, Scotland and Ireland. Not long after Cromwell's death
Speaker 1: in sixteen fifty eight, royalists started working out a deal
Speaker 1: to restore Charles two to the throne. Obviously, it was
Speaker 1: a lot more complicated than was quick highlights. And also
Speaker 1: complicated were the loyalties of Peep's patron, Edward Montague. Montague
Speaker 1: had fought on the parliamentarian side, and he had been
Speaker 1: closely connected to both Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard,
Speaker 1: who tried unsuccessfully to follow in his late father's footsteps.
Speaker 1: Montague had actually advocated for Oliver Cromwell to be crowned
Speaker 1: as king, but by the spring of sixteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: Royalists and parliamentarians alike were wondering if Montague's allegiance was shifting.
Speaker 1: Charles the second's representatives made overtures to him while Parliament
Speaker 1: stripped him of his Admiralty commission, and for good reason,
Speaker 1: he was negotiating in secret for the return of the king.
Speaker 1: But after a very politically chaotic end of sixteen fifty
Speaker 1: nine and beginning of sixteen sixty, Montague was reappointed to
Speaker 1: the Admiralty Commission and made General of the Sea along
Speaker 1: with George Monk, who was actively working to restore Charles
Speaker 1: the Second to the throne. Once a deal was negotiated
Speaker 1: for Charles's return, Montague secured the fleet that traveled to
Speaker 1: the Netherlands to bring him back to England, and thanks
Speaker 1: to Montague's influence, Samuel Peeps was on board with that fleet.
Speaker 1: The fleet landed back at Dover with the king on
Speaker 1: May twenty fifth, sixteen sixty, and almost immediately Charles the
Speaker 1: Second made Montague an Earl. That was the beginning of
Speaker 1: a tremendously eventful decade for Peeps personally and for Britain
Speaker 1: in general. And we're going to talk more about all
Speaker 1: of that after a sponsor break. After Edward Montague became
Speaker 1: the Earl of Sandwich, he told Samuel Peeps quote, we
Speaker 1: must have a little patience and we will rise together.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I will do you all the good
Speaker 1: jobs I can. This's worked out really well for Peeps
Speaker 1: through the Earl's influence. In the summer of sixteen sixty,
Speaker 1: he was named Clerk of the Axe at the Navy
Speaker 1: Board that's the administrative board responsible for running the Royal
Speaker 1: Navy and keeping it maintained and supplied. This position came
Speaker 1: along with a salary and a house, and it also
Speaker 1: meant that Peeps became a justice of the peace in
Speaker 1: the counties where the dockyards were located. This was the
Speaker 1: beginning of a lifelong career as a naval administrator. Peeps
Speaker 1: was a very hard worker, but he didn't actually know
Speaker 1: anything about the navy like at all. Nearly his entire
Speaker 1: experience was going on that voyage to bring Charles the
Speaker 1: Second back to England, so at first he mostly just
Speaker 1: deferred to the rest of the board, some of whom
Speaker 1: had decades of navy experience. But over the next couple
Speaker 1: of years, Peeps realized that having a long career in
Speaker 1: the Navy didn't necessarily make a person an upstanding naval
Speaker 1: administrator or any good at it. He started to see
Speaker 1: a lot of laziness and waste and corruption, and he
Speaker 1: became especially distrustful of the men whose commands had been
Speaker 1: passed down to them through their families, rather than rising
Speaker 1: through the ranks based on their merit. But none of
Speaker 1: these opinions erased the fact that these men had not
Speaker 1: knowledge and experience that Peeps just didn't, so he got
Speaker 1: to work trying to close that gap as much as
Speaker 1: he could. His own education had been really weak in maths,
Speaker 1: so he got a tutor and started learning multiplication tables.
Speaker 1: He immersed himself in the terminology and procedures and measurements
Speaker 1: that were needed to build, maintain and supply ships. Soon
Speaker 1: he stopped following the lead of the more senior board
Speaker 1: members and started trying to make things more efficient and orderly,
Speaker 1: which really drew the ire of some of his colleagues.
Speaker 1: Peeps was taking on additional roles as well. He became
Speaker 1: secretary of the committee that ran the English colony at Tangier,
Speaker 1: which had been part of Catherine of Braganz's dowry when
Speaker 1: she married Charles the Second. He was elected as Fellow
Speaker 1: of the Royal Society in sixteen sixty five. The Second
Speaker 1: Anglo Dutch War started later that year, and many of
Speaker 1: the rest of the board were aging or at sea,
Speaker 1: so Peeps found himself overseeing a large part of the
Speaker 1: Navy's wartime administration, including setting up a centralized provisioning system.
Speaker 1: In the mid sixteen sixties, Peeps witnessed two catastrophes in
Speaker 1: very quick succession. The Great Plague of London and the
Speaker 1: Great Fire of London. The plague struck London in sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, although Peep's diary also includes news of the
Speaker 1: diseases spread elsewhere in the years before that. On April thirtieth,
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty five, he wrote, quote, great fears of the
Speaker 1: sickness here in the city, it being said that two
Speaker 1: or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us.
Speaker 1: All His entries through sixteen sixty five and into sixteen
Speaker 1: sixty six detail fear of the plague and death tolls,
Speaker 1: some of which were enormous. On August thirty first, he wrote,
Speaker 1: quote in the city died this week seven four hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety six, and all of them six thy one
Speaker 1: hundred two of the plague. But it is feared that
Speaker 1: the true number of the dead this week is near
Speaker 1: ten thousand, partly from the poor that cannot be taken
Speaker 1: notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly
Speaker 1: from the Quakers and others that will not have any
Speaker 1: bell ring for them. For the first few months of
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty six he records numbers that decrease, and then increase,
Speaker 1: and then decrease again, then finally noting a day of
Speaker 1: thanksgiving for the plague's end on November twentieth, although he
Speaker 1: acknowledges that people were still dying, the plague was in
Speaker 1: its last months when the fire began on September second,
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty six. Peeps chronicled the fire much like he
Speaker 1: did the plague, detailing people's fears along with what was
Speaker 1: burning and the progression of the fire itself and how
Speaker 1: the city tried to stop it. The fire affected Peeps
Speaker 1: for months after it was over. The following February, he wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the weather for three or four days being come to
Speaker 1: be exceedingly cold again as any time this year. I
Speaker 1: did within these six days see smoke still remaining of
Speaker 1: the late fire in the city. And it is strange
Speaker 1: to think how to this day I cannot sleep at
Speaker 1: night without great terrors of fire. And this very night
Speaker 1: I could not sleep till almost two in the morning
Speaker 1: through thoughts of fire. The Second Anglo Dutch War was
Speaker 1: going on through all of this, and peace negotiations started
Speaker 1: in August of sixteen sixty six and lasted into the
Speaker 1: following year. As the negotiations progressed, the British government decided
Speaker 1: to recall the fleet and scale down the navy while
Speaker 1: still trying to protect England from a Dutch attack. On
Speaker 1: March twenty third, Peeps wrote quote at the office where
Speaker 1: Sir W. Penn come being returned from Chatham from considering
Speaker 1: the means of fortifying the River Medway by a chain
Speaker 1: at the stakes and ships laid there with guns to
Speaker 1: keep the enemy from coming up to burn our ships.
Speaker 1: All our care being now to fortify ourselves against their
Speaker 1: invading us. So basically they didn't have enough money to
Speaker 1: keep maintaining the navy like at the strength that it
Speaker 1: had been while they were more actively at war. But
Speaker 1: the peace treaty had not been signed yet, so they
Speaker 1: needed to still have some kind of defense, and they
Speaker 1: were attempting to do this with a chain stretched across
Speaker 1: the mouth of the river. But a Dutch force did
Speaker 1: indeed attack the River Medway. That happened on June ninth,
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty seven. They broke through that chain, destroyed some
Speaker 1: of the ships, and captured others, including capturing the fleet's flagship,
Speaker 1: the Royal Charles. This was disastrous for the navy. It
Speaker 1: was terrifying for the British people since it put the
Speaker 1: Dutch in striking distance of London. Of course, then people
Speaker 1: questioned the judgment of the king over the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but the war did end with the Treaty of Breta
Speaker 1: a month later. Peeps, being the administrator who had arranged
Speaker 1: so much of the withdrawal, was investigated repeatedly. In the end,
Speaker 1: though the officers who made the decisions took more of
Speaker 1: the blame than the Navy board, who had figured out
Speaker 1: just how to carry out those decisions. Soon, though, Peeps
Speaker 1: had other problems to worry about. On October twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty eight, his wife caught him with one of
Speaker 1: their maids, Deborah Willett. Deb was eighteen and she had
Speaker 1: been hired primarily as Elizabeth's companion, and Elizabeth was of
Speaker 1: course outraged. They were not caught talking. Peeps was explicit
Speaker 1: in his diary about exactly what was going on. On
Speaker 1: October thirty first, he wrote, quote, so ends this month
Speaker 1: with some quiet to my mind, though not perfect, after
Speaker 1: the greatest falling out with my poor wife and through
Speaker 1: my folly with the girl that I ever had, and
Speaker 1: I have reason to be sorry and ashamed of it,
Speaker 1: and more to be troubled for the poor girl's sake,
Speaker 1: whom I fear I shall, by this means prove the
Speaker 1: ruin of though I shall think myself concerned both to
Speaker 1: love and be a friend to her. In November, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: forced Samuel to dismiss Deb from their staff and agree
Speaker 1: to never see her again, but he did not keep
Speaker 1: that promise. He figured out where Deb had gone and
Speaker 1: went to visit and give her some money. It is
Speaker 1: not clear whether he continued their affair after she was
Speaker 1: out of the household, though, And also, this was not
Speaker 1: the only affair that Peeps detailed in his diary. He
Speaker 1: wrote about dalliances with his friend's wives, and his wife's
Speaker 1: friends and maids in their household, and on and on
Speaker 1: and on us and these episodes were not always welcome.
Speaker 1: On August eighteenth of sixteen sixty seven, he wrote about
Speaker 1: going to church, where he quote stood by a pretty
Speaker 1: modest maid, whom I did labor to take by the
Speaker 1: hand and the body, but she would not, but got
Speaker 1: further and further from me, and at last I could
Speaker 1: perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to
Speaker 1: prick me if I should touch her again, which seeing
Speaker 1: I did for bear, and was glad I did spy
Speaker 1: her design, and then I fell to gaze upon another
Speaker 1: pretty maid, and a kew close to me, and she
Speaker 1: on me, and I did go about to take her
Speaker 1: by the hand, which she suffered a little, and then withdrew.
Speaker 1: So the sermon ended, and the church broke up, and
Speaker 1: my amars ended too, and so took coach and home,
Speaker 1: and there took up my wife and to Islington with her.
Speaker 1: Oh Peeps. As he was writing about the fallout of
Speaker 1: his wife's discovery of his affair, Peeps was also writing
Speaker 1: about problems with his eyes. His diary entries record pain,
Speaker 1: sensitivity to light, and trouble seeing. He found that drinking
Speaker 1: made it worse, but he didn't want to give up drink.
Speaker 1: He loved going to the theater, but the light bothered
Speaker 1: him there, and he was forced to stop going. He
Speaker 1: tried all kinds of compresses and potions and pills to
Speaker 1: no effect, and he was granted several months of leave
Speaker 1: to try to recover. On May thirty first, sixteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: he wrote his last diary entry, saying, in part quote,
Speaker 1: and thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever
Speaker 1: be able to do with my own eyes in the
Speaker 1: keeping of my journal, I being not able to do
Speaker 1: it any longer, having done now so long as to
Speaker 1: undo my eyes almost every time that I take pen
Speaker 1: in my hand, and therefore whenever comes of it, I
Speaker 1: must forbear, and therefore resolve from this time forward to
Speaker 1: have it kept by my people in long hand, and
Speaker 1: must therefore be contented to set down no more than
Speaker 1: is fit for them and all the world to know.
Speaker 1: Or if there be anything which cannot be much, how
Speaker 1: my amours to deb are past, and my eyes hinder
Speaker 1: me in almost all other pleasures, I must endeavor to
Speaker 1: keep a margin in my book open, to add here
Speaker 1: and there a note in shorthand with my own hand.
Speaker 1: And so I would take myself to that course, which
Speaker 1: is almost as much as to see myself go into
Speaker 1: my grave, for which and all the discomforts that will
Speaker 1: accompany my being blind, the Good God prepare me. Not
Speaker 1: long after, Samuel and Elizabeth went to the Low Countries
Speaker 1: in France, where she contracted some sort of fever. She
Speaker 1: died on November tenth, sixteen sixty nine, at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty nine. Samuel never remarried, but he did start
Speaker 1: an ongoing relationship with a woman named Mary Skinner. Not
Speaker 1: long after, she eventually moved into his home and seems
Speaker 1: to have acted as his wife in everything but name.
Speaker 1: But in spite of this real certainty in the last
Speaker 1: diary entry that he was going blind, Peeps did not
Speaker 1: lose his sight as he feared that he would, and
Speaker 1: his career continued on for almost two decades after his
Speaker 1: wife's death. We'll have more on that after another quick
Speaker 1: spot to break. As Samuel Peeps was struggling with his
Speaker 1: eyesight and traveling with his wife, he was also up
Speaker 1: for election to the House of Commons, and that was
Speaker 1: an election that he lost. He also started facing rumors
Speaker 1: that he was a crypto papist or a secret Catholic.
Speaker 1: Catholics were highly suspect in England at this point, and
Speaker 1: Peeps had Catholic friends, some Catholic family members, there were
Speaker 1: some Catholic books in his library. All of this raised
Speaker 1: a lot of eyebrows. The Third Anglo Dutch War started
Speaker 1: in March of sixteen seventy two, and Peepe's old benefactor
Speaker 1: of the Earl of Sandwich, was killed in action. The
Speaker 1: two men hadn't been closed for a while. The Earl
Speaker 1: had been caught up in a scandal about the distribution
Speaker 1: of wartime prizes, and Peeps had made enough of a
Speaker 1: name for himself that he didn't really need the Earl's
Speaker 1: patronage anymore. Even so, Peeps was a banner bearer at
Speaker 1: the funeral. In sixteen seventy three, Parliament passed a test
Speaker 1: Act which banned Catholics and nonconforming Protestants from holding public office.
Speaker 1: King Charles the Second's brother, the Duke of York, refused
Speaker 1: to take the required oaths that were mandatory for Catholics,
Speaker 1: which he was, so he was forced to resign as
Speaker 1: Lord High Admiral. Afterward, the King established an Admiralty Commission
Speaker 1: and Peeps became its secretary. This was a promotion. It
Speaker 1: came with more income, more prestige, and a lot more influence.
Speaker 1: On November fourth, sixteen seventy three, Peeps was elected to
Speaker 1: the House of Commons, but once again rumors surfaced that
Speaker 1: he was secretly Catholic, which led to another investigation. In
Speaker 1: the end, he kept his seat, although his work as
Speaker 1: an MP mostly stuck to matters of the navy, and
Speaker 1: he kept picking up new roles outside the government and
Speaker 1: his job with the Admiralty, including becoming a governor of
Speaker 1: Christ's Hospital, the Master of the Clothworkers Company, and the
Speaker 1: Master of Trinity House. He also worked to reform and
Speaker 1: revitalize the name, especially when it came to setting standards
Speaker 1: and establishing regulations for how things should be done. He
Speaker 1: successfully lobbied for funding to build new ships, convincing the
Speaker 1: House of Commons to allocate six hundred thousand pounds for
Speaker 1: it in sixteen seventy seven. Largely due to Peep's influence
Speaker 1: and planning, the strength of the Royal Navy nearly doubled
Speaker 1: while he was with the Admiralty. He did all this
Speaker 1: in the face of ongoing accusations that he was a cryptopapist.
Speaker 1: His opponents even went so far as to accuse his
Speaker 1: clerk of murder. In May of sixteen seventy nine, Peeps
Speaker 1: and Sir Anthony Dean were accused of leaking British secrets
Speaker 1: to France, and Peeps was again accused of secretly being Catholic.
Speaker 1: He resigned his position with the Admiralty and he and
Speaker 1: Dean were both sent to the Tower. As this was
Speaker 1: going on, it was widely believed that Catholics were planning
Speaker 1: to assassinate the King and put his brother, the Duke
Speaker 1: of York, on the throne. This so called Popish plot
Speaker 1: did not exist, but people were certain that it did.
Speaker 1: Peeps started trying to put together his defense, but it
Speaker 1: turned out that the prosecution really did not have much
Speaker 1: of a case. One of the key witnesses against him
Speaker 1: was a butler that he had previously fired, and the
Speaker 1: charges were eventually dropped. Peeps spent the next few years
Speaker 1: mostly out of the public eye, traveling, collecting books for
Speaker 1: his library, and acting as a secretary to Lord Dartmouth
Speaker 1: during an expedition to evacuate the British colony of Tangier
Speaker 1: after Britain decided to abandon it. Peep's returned to the
Speaker 1: Admiralty in sixteen eighty four in a position that was
Speaker 1: created for him. That same year, he was elected President
Speaker 1: of the Royal Society. His biggest claim to fame in
Speaker 1: this role is that he arranged for the publication of
Speaker 1: Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, with peeps imprimature featured very prominently
Speaker 1: on the frontispiece. This was, however, funded by Edmund Halley,
Speaker 1: not by Peeps or the Royal Society. This was because
Speaker 1: Peeps had already spent the Society's budget and some of
Speaker 1: his own money on the elaborately illustrated History of Fish
Speaker 1: by Francis Willoughby, which then had been a total commercial flop. Okay,
Speaker 1: like we talked about in our Christmas Time episode where
Speaker 1: we talked about Charles Dickens and a Christmas Carol and
Speaker 1: how he just really wanted all of these engravings and illustrations.
Speaker 1: All those things were very, very expensive, and Peeps had
Speaker 1: run through the whole entire budget. But if you look,
Speaker 1: there's i mean plenty of scans of the frontispiece of
Speaker 1: Newton's Princeship of Mathematica, and it's Samuel Peeps's name is
Speaker 1: one of the bigger things on that document. In sixteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, King Charles the Second died and his brother,
Speaker 1: the Duke of York finally did become king, becoming James
Speaker 1: the second and seventh. Peeps continued on with the Admiralty
Speaker 1: under the new monarch, resuming his plans to strengthen the
Speaker 1: Royal Navy, while also just endlessly criticizing the people that
Speaker 1: had been in charge while he was gone. But none
Speaker 1: of this operation did the king a lot of good
Speaker 1: In sixteen eighty eight, William, the third Prince of Orange,
Speaker 1: overthrew James and the Glorious Revolution. William became co regent
Speaker 1: with his wife Mary, who was also James's daughter. The
Speaker 1: new administration purged Charles's supporters from office. Peeps resigned, was
Speaker 1: briefly detained under suspicion for treason, and was ultimately released
Speaker 1: on medical grounds. Peeps spent most of his remaining life
Speaker 1: reading and studying, and amassing a huge library which he
Speaker 1: just continually reorganized and curated. He also published a book,
Speaker 1: Memoirs of the Royal Navy, in sixteen ninety. Samuel PEAPs
Speaker 1: died on May twenty sixth, seventeen oh three, at the
Speaker 1: age of seventy. He was buried next to his late
Speaker 1: wife's Elizabeth, at Saint Olive Church. He left his three
Speaker 1: thousand volume library to Magdalen College at the University of Cambridge,
Speaker 1: with the stipulation that they be kept separate from the
Speaker 1: rest of the college's collection. Today, those are housed as
Speaker 1: Peep's Library, which is open to the public and to
Speaker 1: scholar alike. Peep's diaries were part of this collection during
Speaker 1: the nine years that he was keeping the diary. Peeps
Speaker 1: would note each day's activities, often ending with and soda bed,
Speaker 1: and then every few days he would edit them a
Speaker 1: little bit. He didn't seem to meaningfully change the content,
Speaker 1: but he kind of clean them up a little bit
Speaker 1: and copy them into a master journal. In addition to
Speaker 1: writing these in shorthand, he also used a hodgepodge of
Speaker 1: codes and other languages for the most salacious parts of it.
Speaker 1: The result was a set of six large volumes containing
Speaker 1: more than one and a quarter million words. For more
Speaker 1: than one hundred years after Peep's death, no one knew
Speaker 1: what was in these diaries. It was only after John
Speaker 1: Evelyn's Diaries were published in eighteen eighteen that scholars started
Speaker 1: trying to transcribe Peeps as well. Evelyn and Peeps lived
Speaker 1: at the same time. They were also friends. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: sort of the two companion diarists of this time in London.
Speaker 1: At the time, the people working with the diary thought
Speaker 1: that it was written in code, and a Cambridge undergraduate
Speaker 1: named John Smith took on the task of decoding it.
Speaker 1: King Charles the Second had dictated an account of his
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty one escape from England to Samuel Peeps. Peeps
Speaker 1: had taken the dictation in shorthand and then later transcribed
Speaker 1: it into longhand, intending to publish it. Smith compared these
Speaker 1: two versions to work out how to transcribe the diaries.
Speaker 1: This work wasn't actually necessary though. Peeps was really writing
Speaker 1: in Thomas Shelton's system of shorthand, and the handbook for it,
Speaker 1: titled Tutor to Tachiography, was there in Peep's library as well.
Speaker 1: Somebody apparently told John Smith, like some years later, by
Speaker 1: the way, the manual to this was like, it was
Speaker 1: right there. You didn't really I don't know what his
Speaker 1: reaction was to this. I envisioned some hair pulling and
Speaker 1: some screaming, but maybe that would just be me either
Speaker 1: hair pulling and screaming or like. That was a fun challenge,
Speaker 1: though I don't mind that I did. A bunch of
Speaker 1: totally unnecessary portions of the transcribed diary were published starting
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty five, with longer editions coming out in
Speaker 1: the years that followed. A mostly complete edition, edited by HB. Wheatley,
Speaker 1: came out in ten volumes across eighteen ninety three through
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine. In all these nineteenth century versions, profanity
Speaker 1: and the most explicit parts are all edited out. There
Speaker 1: are phrases, sentences, or sometimes whole days removed. Robert Lewis
Speaker 1: Stevenson wrote about the diaries in eighteen eighty six. He
Speaker 1: expressed some chagrin at the idea that some parts of
Speaker 1: them were quote unfit for publication, saying, quote we may think,
Speaker 1: without being sorted, that when we purchase six huge and
Speaker 1: distressingly expensive volumes, we are entitled to be treated rather
Speaker 1: more like scholars and rather less like children. The first
Speaker 1: edition that didn't edit out the sex and profanity came
Speaker 1: out almost another century later. It was another series of
Speaker 1: volumes published between nineteen seventy in nineteen eighty three. So
Speaker 1: if you have only read the parts of the diary
Speaker 1: that are in the public domain and are probably also
Speaker 1: about either the plague or the fire, like we talked
Speaker 1: about at the top of the episode, you might have
Speaker 1: a very different impression of this diary than if you
Speaker 1: read other parts of an unexpurgated version. Just as examples,
Speaker 1: on October thirteenth, sixteen sixty, he went out to see
Speaker 1: a public hanging, something that he seems to have really
Speaker 1: enjoyed doing. This one was Major General Thomas Harrison, who
Speaker 1: had been convicted of regicide in the execution of King
Speaker 1: Charles the First, Peeps wrote, quote, I went out to
Speaker 1: Charing Cross to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered,
Speaker 1: which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any
Speaker 1: man could in that condition. While on the boat with
Speaker 1: Charles the Second during his return to England, Peeps wrote
Speaker 1: about a dog defecating on the deck, saying quote, I
Speaker 1: went with mister Mansell and one of the King's footmen
Speaker 1: with a dog that the king loved, which explative leaded
Speaker 1: the boat, which made us laugh, which made me think
Speaker 1: that a king and all that belonged to him are
Speaker 1: but just as others are. He also didn't temper his opinions.
Speaker 1: On September twenty ninth, sixteen sixty two, he wrote quote,
Speaker 1: we saw Midsummer Night's Dream, which I had never seen before,
Speaker 1: nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid,
Speaker 1: ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life. I
Speaker 1: saw I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women,
Speaker 1: which was all my pleasure. So yes. Peep's diaries include
Speaker 1: a pretty straightforward eyewitness account of several major historical events.
Speaker 1: In the sixteen sixties. But Peeps clearly also thought everything
Speaker 1: around him was interesting and worth noticing, So these diaries
Speaker 1: are also a fascinating account of daily life in London,
Speaker 1: including what people ate and what they saw at the
Speaker 1: theater and what music was popular, and then little details
Speaker 1: like discovering that the wig you bought was full of nits,
Speaker 1: or what to do when you had tummy trouble while
Speaker 1: you were staying at somebody else's house and the maid
Speaker 1: forgot to leave you a chamber pot. It's full of
Speaker 1: all kinds of random things that he saw and was
Speaker 1: just delighted or surprised by, and of course all of
Speaker 1: those many many affairs, and it's all online for free,
Speaker 1: except those most explicit parts. If you go to peepsdiary
Speaker 1: dot com. It's been putting up an entry a day
Speaker 1: at a time since twenty thirteen, along with lots of
Speaker 1: annotations and letters and other information, and there are additions
Speaker 1: at Project Gutenberg and archive dot org as well, so
Speaker 1: you have plenty to dig through. If you want to
Speaker 1: learn more Peeps, you can just click on some random stuff.
Speaker 1: You might have a day where he was in the
Speaker 1: office and everything was sort of just political administrative stuff,
Speaker 1: or you might get one about a dog pooping on
Speaker 1: the deck of a boat. Thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us
Speaker 1: a note, our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com,
Speaker 1: and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.