Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self

by Claire Tomalin

  The name of the fourth special commissioner appointed to reform the navy comes as a surprise. It was ‘Mr St Michel’. Finding Baity recommended by Pepys to the king for his vigour of mind, zeal and readiness to give his ‘whole time to this Your Service, without liableness to Avocation from other Business or Pleasure’ makes you wonder for a moment if this can be the same St Michel to whom Pepys so often preached financial prudence and diligence. But Baity was still Elizabeth’s brother, and Pepys still felt he must look after him. It was not what a hard-headed administrator would have done, as he knew very well, but he went so far as to get him installed in what had been the Treasurer’s House at Deptford.17 This was the high point of Balty’s career, and at the end of 1686 Pepys urged him to take responsibility for his own future, warning him that he himself had lost strength and was suffering from a new kidney stone and an ulcer.18 Esther was expecting her seventh child at this point, and she died giving birth in February; Baity, left with so many children, showed no sign of giving up his dependence on Pepys. It was not in his nature to plan or save.

  Paulina still lived at Brampton, where Pepys’s deputy-lieutenant-ship of the county must have taken him from time to time. Judging that Sam, her elder son, was ‘heavy and backward in his learning’, he sent him to sea at fifteen. The Huntingdon schoolmaster gave better hopes of the younger, and eighteen months after Sam’s departure, in June 1686, John Jackson was entered as a pensioner at Magdalene. Well aware of what was expected of him, the thirteen-year-old sent off his first Latin letter to his uncle from his old college, and worked hard for his degree.19 Jane’s son Sam Edwards turned out to be another good boy, not surprisingly given his parentage, and in January 1688 Pepys saw him presented to the king and the lord mayor with the other boys of the mathematics department. Another figure from the past, John Creed, wrote to remind Pepys of their ‘long and very singular friendship’: he called him cousin, regretted that he himself was still only a Younger Brother of Trinity House, and made it clear he thought he should be made an Elder Brother – what are old friends for? But Pepys was no more disposed to like him than he had been before and did not oblige.20

  Then there were the deaths of friends. William Coventry, the man he had most respected in public life, with his dry wit, sharp mind and occasional tenderness, died at fifty-eight; he was quite withdrawn from politics and the world, but sharp in mind as ever.21 Betty Martin, who had cheered Pepys with her appetite for pleasure, departed in the same year. So did the flirtatious Lady Mordaunt, who had cheered him in a different fashion through some difficult years. His pretty Cambridge cousin Barbara, daughter of Roger Pepys and wife of Dr Gale, high master of St Paul’s School, died at forty, leaving a large family.22

  Two weeks after a Royal Society dinner in November 1687, at which Pepys must have spoken with the formidable William Petty, he too died, at his house in Piccadilly. He had been intellectually active to the last, recommending a university for London, a new bridge at Lambeth and the embankment of the river from Lambeth to Rotherhithe.23 He believed women should be properly educated and made sure his daughter was: ‘one day Arithmetick and Accountantship will adorn a young woman better than a suit of ribbands’.24 He thought the state should support illegitimate children.25 He proposed decimal coinage and a national health system. He suggested punishing thieves by labour rather than imprisonment. He scorned a peerage –’I had rather be a copper farthing of intrinsic value, than a brass half crown’ – and at the end of his life was advising William Penn the younger how to run his colony.26 Pepys had eleven of Petty’s books in his library, and not long before his death asked him to write an essay for him, a ‘Dialogue on Liberty of Conscience’, in which Petty was a passionate believer; he obliged, and Pepys kept the essay among his papers. Petty wrote in his will that he was content to die ‘in the profession of that faith, and in the practice of such worship, as I find established by the Law of my country, not being able to believe what I myself please, nor to worship God better than by doing as I would be done unto’.27

  Such views were unusual. Most people in England were thoroughly opposed to liberty of conscience, particularly now they saw their king celebrating mass in public, ignoring the Test Act and putting Catholic officers into the corporations, the army and the navy. His appointment of the Catholic Sir Roger Strickland as commander of the fleet in the Narrow Seas was deeply resented by officers and seamen. He went so far as to sack some high officials who refused to convert, among them his brothers-in-law, Henry and Lawrence Hyde, earls of Clarendon and Rochester respectively, now among Pepys’s friends; both were turned out of their government jobs. He began to build up a standing army. He intimidated certain judges and corrupted others. He dismissed his parliament and ruled without it; and he interfered in the universities. A crisis was reached in the spring of 1688 when he ordered his new ‘Declaration of Indulgence’, which allowed complete freedom of worship, to be read in all the churches in the country. On the face of it this looked like a fair promise of tolerance for all, but this was not how it was interpreted. Seven bishops refused and were imprisoned in the Tower, among them Pepys’s friend from the Tangier trip, Bishop Ken. Pepys was present when they were brought to be questioned by the king and Judge Jeffreys, and was called as a witness at their trial in Westminster Hall in June. He managed to say nothing that could help either side; here, as with the navy, he had to tread a most delicate path. The jury was in any case going to find the bishops not guilty, and when it did so the bonfires were lit in the streets, an effigy of the Pope was burnt in front of St James’s Palace, money was thrown to the crowds by various noblemen, and the soldiers camped on Hounslow Heath – supposedly there to enforce the king’s will – cheered the verdict.

  Pepys had seen London boil up regularly throughout his life – in the forties, the fifties, the sixties and the seventies – and now it was boiling again. What made the whole country turn against James was the birth of a son; there were allegations, quite unfounded but widely believed, that the baby was an impostor, smuggled into the queen’s delivery room in a warming pan. This coincided with the trial of the bishops, and since the little prince had two Catholic parents and would be brought up a Catholic and take the throne as one, he proved the last straw. A group of politicians was already in touch with William of Orange, husband of James’s Protestant daughter Mary, and the people were ready and eager to attack ‘Jesuits’, ‘papists’ and Irishmen. Admiral Herbert, whom Pepys had so detested in Tangier, travelled in disguise to Holland carrying a formal invitation to William from leading statesmen and peers to come and take the throne of England; and Herbert, popular as ever among seamen, offered his services to the Dutch fleet to bring him over.28

  When news came that the Prince of Orange was indeed fitting up his fleet, Pepys went to Chatham to see to the defences and the manning of the ships. He found things in good order technically; the morale of officers and men was less certain. The king appeared calm, as though determined not to take the threat seriously; he had turned down an offer of help from Louis XIV, and when he began to think he might need it after all the French were busy with their own concerns and no ships were available. At the end of September William put out an address to the officers and seamen of the English fleet, naming Herbert as his man, warning them of james’s intended destruction of their religion and liberties, and promising favour to ‘all who deserve well of Us and of the Nation’.29 This did make James remove his Catholic commander-in-chief at sea, Strickland, and replace him with Dartmouth, another close friend but a Protestant and so less obnoxious to the men. Pepys drafted the king’s instructions on 1 October, requiring him ‘to use his utmost endeavours with the Fleet to prevent the Fleet of War expected from Holland from approaching or making any Descent [i.e., landing]’.30 In October Pepys punctiliously closed his special commission at the end of its two years’ work and prepared to support Dartmouth as best he could. Both men were in agonizingly difficult positions, their personal loyalty to James demanding that they su
pport him against his son-in-law, while London, the country and the navy were clearly turning to Protestant William as their saviour.

  The king, realizing at last that he had to appease the angry nation, promised an election, restored the City’s charter and privileges and the heads of colleges he had sacked. By now William’s fleet was about to set sail. It was driven back by a storm. Dartmouth was off Harwich with the English fleet; Pepys suggested he should sail towards the Dutch coast to inspect the damage inflicted by the storm. Dartmouth declined. Pepys’s intelligence led him and the king to expect the Dutch to attempt to land in the north-east of England, but, when on 1 November the Dutch embarked again, an east wind sent them along the south coast. The brightly decorated fleet, 200 troop transports escorted by 49 fighting ships, sailed as blithely as though on a pleasure cruise. The country’s loyalties were so completely reversed that they were not perceived as a threatening enemy, and the sea battles of the Dutch wars, even the attack on the Medway, were forgotten. With the wind against him, Dartmouth was unable to get his ships out; in any case his captains were reluctant. On the day William landed at Torbay, the English fleet reached Beachy Head and was again becalmed. It was clear they were not going to attack the Dutch. William came ashore peacefully, bringing with him the biggest army that had ever landed in England.

  He proceeded adroitly, announcing nothing, asking James only for a free election. James reviewed his troops at Colchester and then set off for Salisbury, first arranging that his infant son should be taken to Portsmouth and conveyed to France; Dartmouth refused to hand over the prince to a foreign power, and the baby was returned to London. At Salisbury James’s senior officers, led by John Churchill, began to desert him for William. Pepys’s friend Sheeres, still loyal and in command of the dwindling artillery, wrote to Dartmouth to say that the king was almost deserted: ‘The King is very ill… I am at my wits’ end, and you will forgive me, my good Lord, while you know what an aching heart I have for you.’31 In various parts of the country there were risings in favour of William, and only two military encounters took place between his soldiers and James’s, both insignificant.

  Strong as Pepys’s personal loyalty to James was, he had to think of his own position, and at this stage his behaviour was not quite that of a hero. On 17 November he accompanied James, who was on his way to Salisbury, as far as Windsor, and presented him with an IOU for a sum agreed by Charles II in March 1679, plus further sums due to him as treasurer for Tangier. The king signed, a striking testimonial at such a moment to his friendship for Pepys, and perhaps his view of what was going to happen.32 As the situation deteriorated for him, Pepys struggled to keep afloat, uncertain what he should do. The letter he sent off to the mayor and Corporation of his constituency at Harwich shows him straining to adopt an acceptable position, loyal to James, but also loyal to the Church of England and prepared for the revolution: ‘not but that I do still firmly hope (as Cloudy as things do at this day look) that God Almighty has it yet in his Gracious purpose to support the King and his Government, and strongly protect the Church of England… but that hope not being entirely void of some apprehension that things may possibly end otherwise’.33

  His apprehension was justified. When the king reached London again he found his second daughter, Princess Anne, had fled and put herself under the protection of his opponents. A modern historian has suggested that James suffered a nervous breakdown at this stage, brought on by stress and memories of his boyhood and the fate of his father; certainly from now on there is no sign of the brave young soldier he had been. His behaviour became confused and he was plainly frightened.34 He agreed to William’s terms to remove Catholics from all offices and assign revenues to support the invading forces until an election could be called; he then disbanded his own army without paying it. Pepys signed his orders for the use of a yacht to carry the queen and prince to France, and on 12 December James took flight himself. He was captured by fishermen and held humiliatingly at Faversham while London erupted into riots, and he wrote to William asking to be rescued. A rescue party was sent, and on his return to London the volatile crowds cheered him – the mobile vulgus, or the mob, as it was beginning to be known.35 William was now at Windsor, where he received assurances that the English fleet would submit to him, as he informed Herbert in a note: assurances that can have come only from Dartmouth.36 The next day William held a council and his troops reached London. James was invited to go to Ham House, on the Thames between Richmond and Hampton Court, but chose to take flight again, to the general relief, and this time it was made sure that he should reach France without hindrance. His flight was not announced for several days, during which London was without any controlling force; a group of peers met and offered to keep order until William arrived in town. On 18 December he was in Whitehall. Pepys was summoned to him the following day. He was not deprived of his office, although his friends expected him to be.

  On the same day Hewer wrote to him to say, ‘You may rest assured that I am wholly yours, and that you shall never want the utmost of my constant, faithful, and personal service; the utmost I can do being inconsiderable to what your kindness and favour to me has and does oblige me to. And therefore as all I have proceeded from you; so all I have and am, is and shall be at your service.’ Pepys inscribed it with the words ‘a letter of great tenderness at a time of difficulty’, and kept it carefully. It is the nearest thing to a love letter among his papers.37

  He continued to work throughout the Christmas season, sending William’s orders to the fleet on Christmas day itself and attending him again on 12 January, two days after the formal dismissal of Dartmouth. This meant that Pepys had to appear alongside the hated Admiral Herbert to receive instructions for preparing naval defences against any intervention by the French. He gritted his teeth and did so. By now he had decided to stand again in the parliamentary election due to be fought in February. On New Year’s Day he wrote again to the mayor of Harwich to sound him out: ‘upon so great a Revolution as we are now under, it may very well be that the Corporation may at this Conjuncture think of some Person that may be more useful for them’.38 He was right to be cautious, but he went ahead, and the old stories were brought out against him. A friend wrote to tell him that a Captain Hugh Ridley of the Antelope had declared at a coffee house in Harwich ‘that Pepys was a Papist and went to Mass and he had several times observed you at the King and Queen’s chapel’. The last part was probably true. There were also cries of ‘No Tower men, no men out of the Tower’. He can’t have been surprised to lose the election.39 On 13 February William, who had negotiated firmly for the crown and nothing less, was declared king alongside Queen Mary, with the succession to her sister Anne.

  The overwhelming majority of the nation, including high government officials, welcomed the new regime with relief. But there were a few, including the archbishop of Canterbury, who considered themselves bound by their earlier oaths of allegiance to James and refused to take a new one. They were known as nonjurors, and among this small band was Pepys. A week after the proclamation of the new monarchs he resigned his secretaryship. The changes he saw coming in the Navy Office were one reason. There was also his personal loyalty to James, which now became more important to him than any principle involved – for Pepys was a parliamentarian and no believer in absolute monarchy. But where Joseph Williamson was able to move coolly from court supporter under Charles and James to privy councillor under William and continue his career as a diplomat, Pepys could not bring himself to make the necessary adjustments. Memories of the accommodations of 1660 surely made their contribution. He was not going to turn his coat again. Hewer resigned his position alongside him; so did Deane and Pearse; and St Michel lost his. The new secretary to the Admiralty wrote requiring Pepys to hand over his official papers and furniture, and, since his house had been used as a government office, he was also required to vacate it. He dug in his heels at this point and made so many difficulties that the Admiralty gave up and decided in April that it
would be easier to set up their offices somewhere else. Pepys remained at the end of Buckingham Street with his household, his books, his pictures, his papers and his view over the Thames, paying his own rent, stubborn and, for the first time in his life, a hero.

  25. The Jacobite

  Pepys faced an unhappy prospect. His loyalty to King James put him under suspicion, and although he was still a rich man, he was to earn nothing more. There was no pension, and no more contact with his beloved navy. He was harassed by the government, and James’s attempts to win back the crown made things worse for him. He could not travel. His domestic life was made awkward by competing claims for his favour. Mary would be forty as he reached sixty, a mistress preparing for her next role as nurse, and not always well herself. Other friends sickened and died, among them his cousin Roger Pepys, who died at the height of the crisis, in October 1688; and his own health deteriorated from year to year.1 He was used to physical pain but also to physical pleasure; now it was pain on the menu most days. Yet, when you look at his and his friends’ letters from the years after 1689, there are few signs of self-pity or failure of nerve, and many of a man busy with plans and projects, determined to think, to act and to renew himself. He had the sustaining force of the love of old friends, and he never stopped making new ones, including younger men whose promise he saw and did what he could to help along. He valued his doctors as much for their conversation as their skills. He gave substantial help to Protestant refugees from France. He took up fresh interests. Unable to travel himself, he made a surrogate of his nephew and through him gloried in the Grand Tour he had dreamt of making. His library became at once his obsession and his comfort. He wrote some magnificent letters. He planned treats for his protégés, commissioned portraits and gave musical parties. He encouraged Dryden to make his version of some of The Canterbury Tales and lent him his own early edition; an invitation to discuss Chaucer over a meal of cold chicken and salad is among his letters.2 There were philosophical exchanges with Evelyn. He never lost the will to squeeze every drop from every day.