Samuel Pepys' last diary entry - May 31, 1669

On this day in 1669, English naval administrator Samuel Pepys wrote his last diary entry. Learn more about Samuel Pepys in an episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class at https://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/samuel-pepys-beyond-the-diary.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Eves, and Welcome to this Day
in History Class, a show that uncovers a little bit
more about history every day. Today is May thirty one, nineteen.

(00:23):
The day was May thirty feet, sixteen sixty nine. English
naval administrator Samuel Peeps wrote his last diary entry. His
diary entries documented key events in English history, and Peep's
has become known for his writings on these events, as
well as his commentary on life in mid seventeenth century

(00:44):
London and his own life. Samuel was born in London
on February sixteen thirty three and to a family of
modest means. He attended Cambridge University on a scholarship, and
he graduated with a bachelor's degree in sixteen fifty three.
Two years later, when he was twenty two, he married

(01:06):
Elizabeth St. Michel, who was fourteen years old at the time.
Through his father's cousin, Edward Montague, Peeps had gotten a
job as a secretary, and over the years he worked
his way up through governmental post in the Navy, reaching
the position of Chief Secretary of the Admiralty. Samuel and

(01:26):
Elizabeth had a turbulent relationship. Both were dealing with health issues.
Peeps showed jealousy about the attention she got from other men,
and he had many affairs. Peeps had bladderstone removed in
a surgery in March of sixteen fifty eight, and in
his first diary entry on January first, sixteen sixty, he

(01:48):
wrote about his recovery. Blessed be God. At the end
of the last year, I was in very good health,
without any sense of my old pain. But upon taking
of cold I lived in axe Yard, having my wife
and servant Jane, and no more in the family than
us three. Some of his most notable diary entries are

(02:09):
about the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.
On September three, six sixty five, he wrote the following
up and put on my colored silk suit, very fine,
and my new perry wig bought a good while since,
but durst not where, because the plague was in Westminster
when I bought it. And it is a wonder what

(02:30):
will be the fashion after the plague is done as
to perry wigs, for nobody will dare to buy any
hair for fear of the infection that it had been
cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.
He chronicled the death holes in the plague, and on
the second of September and sixteen sixty six, he wrote
about Londoner's terror and the fire that began tearing through

(02:52):
the city that day. Samuel also wrote about the restoration,
the Second Anglo Dutch War, the navy, his affairs, and
other details of his personal life and his diary. Peeps
beat his servants, and he wrote about his sexual advances
that would today be considered sexual abuse. But by sixteen

(03:13):
sixty nine he feared his eyesight was getting much worse
and decided to stop writing his entries. On May thirty one,
almost a decade after his first diary entry, Peeps wrote
his last entry. It said, in part, and thus ends
all that I doubt I shall ever be able to
do with my own eyes and the keeping of my journal,

(03:35):
I being not able to do it any longer, having
done now so long as to undo my eyes almost
every time that I take a pit in my hand,
and therefore whatever comes of it, I must forbear, and
therefore resolve from this time forward to have it kept
by my people in Longhand, and must therefore be contented
to set down no more than is fit for them

(03:58):
in all the world to know Peepe's wife, Elizabeth, died
later that year of some sort of fever. After the
couple went on a trip to France and the Low Countries.
Peeps went on to become a member of Parliament. He
also helped build up the strength of the Royal Navy.
Accusations that he was secretly Catholic abounded, and he resigned

(04:20):
from his work with the Admiralty. He continued to travel,
worked as a secretary, and eventually was elected president of
the Royal Society, an institution that promotes science. Peeps died
in May of seventeen oh three. His diary entries were
written in shorthand, and the diary contains more than a
million words. Parts of the diary were first published in

(04:44):
eighteen Early versions of the diary were censored for profanity
and content deemed inappropriate, though uncensored editions are available today.
I'm each Deacote, and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you like
to learn more about Samuel Peeps, you can listen to

(05:06):
the episode of stuff you missed in history class called
Samuel peeps beyond the Diary, and if you love listening
to stories about people in history, there's a good chance
you'd enjoy Unpopular, a new podcast I host about people
who took a stand against the status quo to create
meaningful change. You can listen and subscribe on the I

(05:27):
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
this day in History class. Thanks for joining me on
this trip through history. See you here, same place tomorrow.

(05:47):
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