WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.600 Okay, let's unpack this. I want you to picture 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:04.820 the scene because it is one of those chaotic 00:00:04.820 --> 00:00:07.559 moments in, well, in the history of the Western 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:12.900 world. It's September 1666. London is literally 00:00:12.900 --> 00:00:15.400 burning to the ground. The Great Fire is raging. 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:18.059 Just imagine it, the heat, the smoke. The heat 00:00:18.059 --> 00:00:20.539 radiating off the timber frames, the smoke is 00:00:20.539 --> 00:00:24.300 choking the streets, and the panic is just absolute. 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:26.519 People are fleeing for their lives, grabbing 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:28.260 their children, their gold, their most precious 00:00:28.260 --> 00:00:30.699 heirlooms, throwing things into the river just 00:00:30.699 --> 00:00:32.719 to save them. Total chaos. And then there's this 00:00:32.719 --> 00:00:35.320 one guy, a high -ranking government official. 00:00:35.679 --> 00:00:38.420 And what is his priority in this moment of absolute 00:00:38.420 --> 00:00:41.100 apocalypse? He runs into his garden to dig a 00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:43.700 hole. Not to hide himself, no. He is digging 00:00:43.700 --> 00:00:46.479 a hole to bury his Parmesan cheese. It is a wonderful, 00:00:46.619 --> 00:00:49.100 almost surreal image, isn't it? But it captures 00:00:49.100 --> 00:00:52.079 him so perfectly. That cheese was a luxury item, 00:00:52.179 --> 00:00:54.439 a very expensive Italian import, and he was just 00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:56.719 not about to let the fire have it. It's so petty. 00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.340 It's practical, it's petty, and it's deeply, 00:00:59.500 --> 00:01:03.420 deeply human. Exactly. And that man, the man 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:05.719 with the shovel and the cheese, is Samuel Pippies. 00:01:07.719 --> 00:01:11.459 Today we are diving deep into his life. Honestly, 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:13.379 before looking at this source material, I used 00:01:13.379 --> 00:01:16.060 to think of Pepys as just some dusty historical 00:01:16.060 --> 00:01:18.359 figure in a wig. Yeah, the guy from the fire. 00:01:18.459 --> 00:01:19.959 Yeah, from the fire, exactly. Maybe someone you 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:22.340 read a paragraph about in school. But looking 00:01:22.340 --> 00:01:24.799 at the massive biographical overview we have 00:01:24.799 --> 00:01:27.439 today, specifically focusing on his diary and 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:30.480 his career, he is so much more than that. He's 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:32.920 essentially the ultimate fly on the wall for 00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:35.140 the 17th century. Fly on the wall is a good start, 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:37.879 but I'd argue he's more than that. He is arguably 00:01:37.879 --> 00:01:40.760 the greatest diarist of all time. I mean, without 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:43.319 him, our understanding of the restoration period 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:45.200 in England, the Great Plague, the Great Fire, 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.159 the birth of the modern British Navy, it would 00:01:48.159 --> 00:01:50.739 all be significantly flatter. It would be black 00:01:50.739 --> 00:01:53.420 and white. It would. He gives us the unfiltered, 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:57.159 high -definition, 4K version of history. But 00:01:57.159 --> 00:02:00.120 what makes this deep dive so fascinating is that 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:02.379 while he's recording these massive geopolitical 00:02:02.379 --> 00:02:05.579 events, he's simultaneously recording the most... 00:02:05.799 --> 00:02:08.539 intimate, mundane, and, well, sometimes shockingly 00:02:08.539 --> 00:02:11.520 scandalous details of his own life. It is such 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:13.539 a wild mix. We're talking about a source material 00:02:13.539 --> 00:02:16.259 that covers a diary spanning over a million words. 00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:18.259 One and a quarter million, to be precise. One 00:02:18.259 --> 00:02:20.020 and a quarter million words. But it also covers 00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:23.360 his medical history, which is, frankly, terrifying. 00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:26.120 His rise to power, which is a masterclass in 00:02:26.120 --> 00:02:28.419 administration, and his personal life, which 00:02:28.419 --> 00:02:32.409 is, well... Complicated is one word for it. It's 00:02:32.409 --> 00:02:34.710 a study in contradictions. He is a man of intense 00:02:34.710 --> 00:02:39.110 public service and intense private vice. So our 00:02:39.110 --> 00:02:40.909 mission today is to try and figure this guy out. 00:02:41.409 --> 00:02:43.750 How does a tailor's son become the chief secretary 00:02:43.750 --> 00:02:46.349 to the admiralty? Why on earth did he write his 00:02:46.349 --> 00:02:48.590 diary in code? And what happens when you write 00:02:48.590 --> 00:02:50.349 down literally everything, every bribe, every 00:02:50.349 --> 00:02:52.629 affair, every embarrassing thought for 10 years 00:02:52.629 --> 00:02:55.090 straight? It really is an interrogation of the 00:02:55.090 --> 00:02:58.150 human condition. all set during a time of absolute 00:02:58.150 --> 00:03:00.030 catastrophe. So let's start at the very beginning. 00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:03.330 Who was this guy before the diary? Because he 00:03:03.330 --> 00:03:05.810 didn't start out as a big shot Navy administrator 00:03:05.810 --> 00:03:10.129 burying expensive cheese. No, far from it. Samuel 00:03:10.129 --> 00:03:12.830 Papis was born in 1633, right off Fleet Street 00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:16.539 in London. And his background was... Well, it 00:03:16.539 --> 00:03:20.120 was humble but respectable. His father, John 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:22.680 Pepys, was a tailor. His mother, Margaret, was 00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:24.740 the daughter of a washmaid. So he isn't born 00:03:24.740 --> 00:03:26.960 into the aristocracy, not at all. Not even close. 00:03:27.060 --> 00:03:30.400 He is thoroughly middle class in a time when 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:32.419 social mobility was possible, but, I mean, it 00:03:32.419 --> 00:03:34.840 was extremely difficult. He wasn't born to power. 00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:36.819 He really had to work for it. He did, and you 00:03:36.819 --> 00:03:38.979 have to remember the context. He was the fifth 00:03:38.979 --> 00:03:42.250 of 11 children, but... And this tells you something 00:03:42.250 --> 00:03:45.189 so stark about the era. He was soon the oldest 00:03:45.189 --> 00:03:47.830 survivor. Eleven children. Child mortality was 00:03:47.830 --> 00:03:50.750 incredibly high. It was a world where death was 00:03:50.750 --> 00:03:54.150 just. It was always in the room with you. Wow. 00:03:54.490 --> 00:03:57.009 That's a pretty grim tone right away. But he 00:03:57.009 --> 00:03:59.110 was educated, right? He wasn't unlearned. Oh, 00:03:59.129 --> 00:04:01.490 he was very bright. He went to St. Paul's School 00:04:01.490 --> 00:04:03.710 in London, which was a prestigious institution, 00:04:03.909 --> 00:04:07.560 and later to Magdalene College, Cambridge. But 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:09.580 there's a detail from his childhood that I think 00:04:09.580 --> 00:04:11.620 just anchors us in the violence of the time. 00:04:11.740 --> 00:04:15.539 In 1649, when he was just a schoolboy, he skipped 00:04:15.539 --> 00:04:17.759 school to attend the execution of King Charles 00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:21.160 the Circe. He watched the king get beheaded as 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:24.730 a teenager. He was there. In the crowd, he saw 00:04:24.730 --> 00:04:27.329 the axe fall. And he even made a remark later 00:04:27.329 --> 00:04:29.490 that was quite anti -monarchist, something about 00:04:29.490 --> 00:04:31.790 how the memory of the wicked king should perish. 00:04:32.009 --> 00:04:34.170 Which is so ironic considering he spent his adult 00:04:34.170 --> 00:04:37.490 life serving that king's son, Charles II. Exactly. 00:04:37.490 --> 00:04:39.629 But yeah, he wasn't born with a silver spoon. 00:04:39.870 --> 00:04:43.209 He had connections, specifically a powerful cousin, 00:04:43.370 --> 00:04:45.709 Edward Montague, who later became the Earl of 00:04:45.709 --> 00:04:47.389 Sandwich, and that was his foot in the door. 00:04:47.709 --> 00:04:50.560 But once that door was open... Peeps had to hustle. 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:52.779 Okay, so he's smart, he's ambitious, he's climbing 00:04:52.779 --> 00:04:55.500 the ladder. But there's this one shadow hanging 00:04:55.500 --> 00:04:58.459 over his early life that I found absolutely horrifying 00:04:58.459 --> 00:05:00.740 in the research. We have to talk about the stone. 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:05.660 Ah, yes. The cut of the stone. You simply cannot 00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:08.300 understand Samuel Pepys without understanding 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:10.699 his bladder. I never thought I'd say that sentence 00:05:10.699 --> 00:05:13.120 about a historical figure, but... Let's just 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:15.540 pause on the risk of this surgery here. We say 00:05:15.540 --> 00:05:19.300 surgery today and we think sterile rooms, anesthesiologist, 00:05:19.379 --> 00:05:22.779 recovery rooms with nurses. Right. But in 1658, 00:05:22.939 --> 00:05:25.439 surgery was practically a spectator sport for 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:27.399 the morbid, wasn't it? What are we actually talking 00:05:27.399 --> 00:05:28.899 about here? We were talking about something called 00:05:28.899 --> 00:05:31.740 lithotomy. And it was a specialized trade, actually 00:05:31.740 --> 00:05:34.259 separate from regular physicians. You have to 00:05:34.259 --> 00:05:36.680 understand, bladder stones were the scourge of 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:39.889 the century because of the... Diet, lots of meat, 00:05:40.009 --> 00:05:43.769 bad beer, very little water, cold, damp houses. 00:05:44.029 --> 00:05:46.149 As they were common. Horribly common. Stones 00:05:46.149 --> 00:05:48.430 would form in the kidneys and drop to the bladder. 00:05:48.509 --> 00:05:51.610 And without intervention, it was a slow, agonizing 00:05:51.610 --> 00:05:54.889 death sentence. But the intervention? Well, the 00:05:54.889 --> 00:05:56.810 mortality rate for the surgery was roughly 20 00:05:56.810 --> 00:05:58.829 to 30 percent. So a one in three chance you just 00:05:58.829 --> 00:06:01.250 don't wake up. Or, you know, you die of infection 00:06:01.250 --> 00:06:04.459 a week later. Precisely. And Pepys had suffered 00:06:04.459 --> 00:06:06.920 since he was a child. Constant pain, blood in 00:06:06.920 --> 00:06:09.779 the urine, inability to pass water. By the time 00:06:09.779 --> 00:06:11.879 he was 25, the stone was so large it was ruining 00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:14.500 his life. He decided to risk the operation. I 00:06:14.500 --> 00:06:16.500 can't even imagine making that choice. He went 00:06:16.500 --> 00:06:18.720 to a man named Thomas Hollier at St. Thomas' 00:06:18.899 --> 00:06:22.350 Hospital. Hollier was a lysotomist. A cutter? 00:06:22.709 --> 00:06:25.930 And the preparation wasn't just show up. Peeps 00:06:25.930 --> 00:06:28.389 had to purge his system for days with enemas 00:06:28.389 --> 00:06:30.990 and laxatives. He was weak before he even laid 00:06:30.990 --> 00:06:32.970 down on the table. And the table isn't a bed. 00:06:33.089 --> 00:06:35.540 It's a specific kind of apparatus. Correct. They 00:06:35.540 --> 00:06:37.420 didn't just tie him down. They placed him in 00:06:37.420 --> 00:06:40.279 what's still called the lithotomy position. Knees 00:06:40.279 --> 00:06:44.279 up, spread wide, ankles bound to wrists. It exposes 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:47.180 the perineum, the area between the scrotum and 00:06:47.180 --> 00:06:50.160 the anus. Oh, God. And because there is no anesthesia, 00:06:50.259 --> 00:06:52.540 maybe a draft of opiate or alcohol, but nothing 00:06:52.540 --> 00:06:54.800 that actually stops the pain speed is the only 00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:57.560 mercy. Hollier had to be fast. Incredibly fast. 00:06:57.699 --> 00:07:00.360 How fast are we talking? Five minutes. Ten. Less. 00:07:00.939 --> 00:07:03.319 Maybe less than two minutes for the cut and the 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:06.279 extraction. He inserts a sound, a metal rod up 00:07:06.279 --> 00:07:08.740 the urethra to locate the stone by sound. Clink. 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:11.420 That tells him where to cut. Then he takes a 00:07:11.420 --> 00:07:13.540 knife, plunges it into the perineum to find the 00:07:13.540 --> 00:07:16.180 bladder neck, cuts it open, inserts forceps. 00:07:16.180 --> 00:07:18.779 And just pulls the stone out through a three 00:07:18.779 --> 00:07:21.199 -inch incision. While the patient is fully conscious 00:07:21.199 --> 00:07:25.720 and screaming. Four strong men held him down. 00:07:25.899 --> 00:07:29.019 The psychological impact of lying there, helpless, 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:31.680 knowing a man is cutting into your most sensitive 00:07:31.680 --> 00:07:33.939 anatomy with a knife that has likely been used 00:07:33.939 --> 00:07:37.459 on 10 other people that week. It changed Peepis. 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:40.120 It had to have hardened him. And the stone itself. 00:07:40.699 --> 00:07:42.720 We skipped over this. It wasn't a pebble. It 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:44.680 wasn't a small thing. No. The source material 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:46.800 says it was the size of a tennis ball. A tennis 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:49.560 ball. Inside his bladder. That's physically impossible 00:07:49.560 --> 00:07:52.699 to imagine. A 17th century real tennis ball was 00:07:52.699 --> 00:07:55.199 a bit smaller than a modern one. But still, we 00:07:55.199 --> 00:07:57.500 are talking about a jagged, crystallized rock 00:07:57.500 --> 00:08:00.339 the size of a tangerine or a small apple. The 00:08:00.339 --> 00:08:02.480 fact that he survived the shock and didn't die 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:05.199 of gangrene or sepsis in the days following is 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:07.889 a statistical miracle. And he knew it was a miracle. 00:08:07.990 --> 00:08:09.990 He kept the stone, didn't he? Like a souvenir. 00:08:10.290 --> 00:08:12.529 He did. He had a special case made for it. It 00:08:12.529 --> 00:08:14.970 wasn't just a souvenir. It was a trophy. He had 00:08:14.970 --> 00:08:17.370 defeated death. And every year on the anniversary 00:08:17.370 --> 00:08:21.269 of the surgery, March 26, he held a stone feast. 00:08:21.529 --> 00:08:24.350 A stone feast. He would invite friends over, 00:08:24.490 --> 00:08:27.069 bring out the stone, and they would celebrate 00:08:27.069 --> 00:08:29.050 the fact that he was still breathing. But such 00:08:29.050 --> 00:08:32.370 a specific, weird, and wonderful detail. Happy 00:08:32.370 --> 00:08:34.309 anniversary to my bladder surgery, everyone. 00:08:34.940 --> 00:08:37.100 But it did leave a mark physically, right? This 00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:39.799 wasn't a clean recovery. Indelibly. The incision 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:42.039 actually broke open again years later, late in 00:08:42.039 --> 00:08:45.320 his life. It never fully healed perfectly. And 00:08:45.320 --> 00:08:47.620 there's very strong speculation that the surgery 00:08:47.620 --> 00:08:51.039 left him sterile. The incision through the perineum 00:08:51.039 --> 00:08:53.720 can easily damage the vasodephrine. He and his 00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:55.700 wife Elizabeth never had children, despite no 00:08:55.700 --> 00:08:57.940 evidence of fertility issues before the operation. 00:08:58.340 --> 00:09:00.220 Which is tragic in its own right, but you mentioned 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:02.399 earlier that this might explain his attitude 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:04.980 in the biary, his whole worldview. I really think 00:09:04.980 --> 00:09:07.480 so. When you survive something that painful and 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:10.419 that dangerous at age 25, it gives you a certain 00:09:10.419 --> 00:09:13.120 carpe diem attitude, a seize the day mentality. 00:09:13.639 --> 00:09:16.399 He had this incredible zest for life, for food, 00:09:16.500 --> 00:09:19.460 for music, for success, for women. That feels 00:09:19.460 --> 00:09:21.740 like someone who knows he's living on borrowed 00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:23.860 time. He's grabbing at life with both hands. 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:27.279 Exactly. Because he knows intimately how fragile 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:29.159 it is. That makes a lot of sense. He's living 00:09:29.159 --> 00:09:31.059 life in high definition because he almost lost 00:09:31.059 --> 00:09:33.139 it. So, okay, let's get to the thing he's most 00:09:33.139 --> 00:09:36.519 famous for. The diary. He starts writing it on 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:40.700 January 1st, 1660. Why then? What was so special 00:09:40.700 --> 00:09:43.450 about that day? The timing was just... Perfect, 00:09:43.509 --> 00:09:45.950 historically speeding. England was in complete 00:09:45.950 --> 00:09:48.929 chaos. Oliver Cromwell had died. His son Richard 00:09:48.929 --> 00:09:51.129 had failed to hold power. The government was 00:09:51.129 --> 00:09:53.409 collapsing. It looked like the monarchy might 00:09:53.409 --> 00:09:56.190 be restored. A major turning point. A huge turning 00:09:56.190 --> 00:09:58.669 point. And Pepys was right there, working for 00:09:58.669 --> 00:10:01.129 the Navy under his cousin Montague, poised to 00:10:01.129 --> 00:10:03.250 be part of the transition. He sensed history 00:10:03.250 --> 00:10:05.409 was happening and he wanted to record it. And 00:10:05.409 --> 00:10:08.590 he keeps this diary for almost 10 years. But 00:10:08.590 --> 00:10:10.250 let's talk about the physical act of writing 00:10:10.250 --> 00:10:12.509 it. It's not written in plain English, is it? 00:10:12.529 --> 00:10:14.889 It's not like a journal you buy today. Mostly 00:10:14.889 --> 00:10:17.570 not, no. He used a system of shorthand called 00:10:17.570 --> 00:10:19.929 tachygraphy, which was devised by a man named 00:10:19.929 --> 00:10:22.730 Thomas Shelton. It looks like little squiggles, 00:10:22.730 --> 00:10:26.169 dots, and geometric shapes. Very strange to the 00:10:26.169 --> 00:10:29.509 modern eye. So was he trying to hide what he 00:10:29.509 --> 00:10:32.029 was writing? Was this a... keep out top secret 00:10:32.029 --> 00:10:35.450 situation from day one? Yes and no. I mean, shorthand 00:10:35.450 --> 00:10:37.769 was common for efficiency. Paper was expensive. 00:10:38.009 --> 00:10:39.870 Candles were expensive. And writing longhand 00:10:39.870 --> 00:10:41.210 just takes a lot of time. If you're going to 00:10:41.210 --> 00:10:42.809 write every single day, you want to be fast. 00:10:42.990 --> 00:10:44.970 It's a practical choice. But he definitely used 00:10:44.970 --> 00:10:47.750 it for privacy, too. And here's where the code 00:10:47.750 --> 00:10:50.309 gets really interesting. He had a special layer 00:10:50.309 --> 00:10:54.250 of encryption for the illicit parts of his life, 00:10:54.409 --> 00:10:57.870 his affairs, his sexual encounters, his darker 00:10:57.870 --> 00:11:00.429 thoughts about his colleagues. Oh, right. The 00:11:00.429 --> 00:11:02.450 famous lingua franca. I've heard about this. 00:11:02.850 --> 00:11:05.789 Exactly. When he was describing something scandalous, 00:11:05.850 --> 00:11:08.110 he wouldn't just use shorthand. He would switch 00:11:08.110 --> 00:11:11.169 into this pigeon mix of Spanish, French, Italian, 00:11:11.389 --> 00:11:14.269 and Latin. He might write something like, you 00:11:14.269 --> 00:11:18.809 know, I did kiss the woman, alongside a shorthand 00:11:18.809 --> 00:11:20.629 symbol. He thought he was being so clever and 00:11:20.629 --> 00:11:24.070 discreet. He did, but... The source material 00:11:24.070 --> 00:11:26.909 points out the wonderful irony here. He'd be 00:11:26.909 --> 00:11:29.110 writing in this elaborate code to hide an affair, 00:11:29.330 --> 00:11:31.730 but then right in the middle, purely out of habit 00:11:31.730 --> 00:11:34.629 or anger, he'd throw in an English profanity 00:11:34.629 --> 00:11:37.590 or a very clear name. So it wasn't the most unbreakable 00:11:37.590 --> 00:11:40.350 enigma code? Not at all. It was enough to keep 00:11:40.350 --> 00:11:42.710 the casual glance of a servant or his wife from 00:11:42.710 --> 00:11:45.549 immediately understanding, but anyone determined 00:11:45.549 --> 00:11:48.629 could absolutely crack it. Which begs the really 00:11:48.629 --> 00:11:51.120 big question. Did he expect people to read it? 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:53.100 Because if I'm writing a diary about how I took 00:11:53.100 --> 00:11:55.740 a bribe or cheated on my wife, I am burning that 00:11:55.740 --> 00:11:58.019 thing before I die. No question. That is the 00:11:58.019 --> 00:12:00.899 great contradiction of Samuel Pepys. He didn't 00:12:00.899 --> 00:12:02.779 plan on his contemporaries seeing it. He was 00:12:02.779 --> 00:12:05.320 terrified of his wife Elizabeth seeing it. But 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:08.259 he was a bibliophile, a book collector. He loved 00:12:08.259 --> 00:12:10.779 his library. And before he died, he carefully 00:12:10.779 --> 00:12:13.179 cataloged the diary volumes and included them 00:12:13.179 --> 00:12:15.580 in his library's index. He put them on the list. 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:17.659 He put them on the list. He even made sure the 00:12:17.659 --> 00:12:20.139 guide to the Shelton shorthand system he used 00:12:20.139 --> 00:12:22.779 was included in the library. No. He left the 00:12:22.779 --> 00:12:25.639 key to the code right next to the lockbox. Essentially, 00:12:25.679 --> 00:12:28.139 yes. He wanted his library preserved exactly 00:12:28.139 --> 00:12:32.049 as he left it. So deep down, his ego... or his 00:12:32.049 --> 00:12:34.889 sense of history, demanded that this record survive. 00:12:35.389 --> 00:12:37.970 He cataloged his own sins for future generations 00:12:37.970 --> 00:12:40.389 because he believed his life, his entire life, 00:12:40.470 --> 00:12:43.070 was worth examining. That is a fascinating duality. 00:12:43.090 --> 00:12:45.169 Don't look at this now, but please, please admire 00:12:45.169 --> 00:12:49.230 it in 200 years. So he starts writing 1660. And 00:12:49.230 --> 00:12:51.590 the 1660s in London, I mean, if you had to pick 00:12:51.590 --> 00:12:53.850 a decade to keep a diary, you couldn't pick a 00:12:53.850 --> 00:12:56.429 more dramatic one. It is the blockbuster decade 00:12:56.429 --> 00:12:58.750 of London history. It's just one thing after 00:12:58.750 --> 00:13:00.610 another. You have the restoration of the King, 00:13:00.870 --> 00:13:03.210 you have war with the Dutch, you have plague, 00:13:03.470 --> 00:13:05.769 and you have fire. Let's talk about the first 00:13:05.769 --> 00:13:09.620 major disaster. The Great Plague of 1665. The 00:13:09.620 --> 00:13:11.759 Bubonic Plague. It wasn't the first time it had 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:14.120 hit London, not by a long shot, but this was 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:17.159 the big one. The Great Plague. It killed perhaps 00:13:17.159 --> 00:13:19.820 100 ,000 people, which was roughly a quarter 00:13:19.820 --> 00:13:22.399 of London's population at the time. A quarter 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:24.299 of the city. Usually when the plague hits, the 00:13:24.299 --> 00:13:26.679 rich people flee, right? They head to their country 00:13:26.679 --> 00:13:29.379 estates. Correct. The king left, the court left, 00:13:29.539 --> 00:13:33.110 most wealthy merchants packed up and left. Pepys 00:13:33.110 --> 00:13:35.909 actually sent his wife to Woolwich for her safety, 00:13:36.070 --> 00:13:38.230 but he stayed in the city, at least initially. 00:13:38.330 --> 00:13:40.450 He had work to do. And his descriptions of it 00:13:40.450 --> 00:13:42.690 are just haunting. They are, because they focus 00:13:42.690 --> 00:13:44.870 on the silence. He writes about walking through 00:13:44.870 --> 00:13:46.929 the city of London and seeing almost no one. 00:13:47.009 --> 00:13:49.809 The shops are shuttered. The only sound is the 00:13:49.809 --> 00:13:52.389 church bells tolling for the dead, until eventually 00:13:52.389 --> 00:13:54.230 even they stopped because there were just too 00:13:54.230 --> 00:13:56.470 many to ring for. It sounds like a post -apocalyptic 00:13:56.470 --> 00:13:59.570 film. He describes seeing doors marked with red 00:13:59.570 --> 00:14:03.559 crosses. Yeah. Lord have mercy upon us. That 00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:05.360 was the phrase painted on the doors of infected 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:07.779 houses. If one person in the house had it, the 00:14:07.779 --> 00:14:10.500 whole house was boarded up with the family inside 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:14.360 for 40 days. So it's a death sentence for everyone 00:14:14.360 --> 00:14:16.960 in there. Pretty much. And Peeps captures the 00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:19.559 paranoia of it all perfectly. He describes interacting 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:22.240 with people. You stand at a distance. You try 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:24.399 not to touch the same money. You chew tobacco. 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:27.039 The tobacco thing is interesting. Why tobacco? 00:14:27.720 --> 00:14:29.899 There was a popular medical belief that the plague 00:14:29.899 --> 00:14:33.659 was caused by miasma, basically bad air or foul 00:14:33.659 --> 00:14:36.399 smells. So they thought that strong, pungent 00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:39.500 smells could ward off the infection. So peeps 00:14:39.500 --> 00:14:41.759 chewed tobacco constantly as a sort of chemical 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:44.019 mask. And there was a weird detail about wigs 00:14:44.019 --> 00:14:45.879 in the notes we looked at. Oh, this is classic 00:14:45.879 --> 00:14:48.500 peep anxiety. It's so telling. He loved fashion. 00:14:48.539 --> 00:14:50.960 He was very proud of his expensive wigs. But 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:53.000 during the plague, he became terrified to wear 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.679 them. He started wondering. Where did the hair 00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:58.059 come from? Oh, no. He worried that the hair used 00:14:58.059 --> 00:15:00.340 to make the wigs might have been sheared off 00:15:00.340 --> 00:15:02.960 the heads of plague victims in the pest houses. 00:15:03.299 --> 00:15:06.139 Which is a valid concern, honestly. It is. It's 00:15:06.139 --> 00:15:08.919 a horrifying thought. But here is the thing about 00:15:08.919 --> 00:15:12.419 Peeps. He is so complex. While he's writing about 00:15:12.419 --> 00:15:14.500 the tragedy and the death tolls and his fear 00:15:14.500 --> 00:15:17.179 of wigs, he's also writing about how great his 00:15:17.179 --> 00:15:19.940 life is. He writes, and this is almost a direct 00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:22.879 quote, I have never lived so merrily. Besides 00:15:22.879 --> 00:15:25.340 that I never got so much as I have done this 00:15:25.340 --> 00:15:27.740 plague time. Wait, wait. Never got so much? You 00:15:27.740 --> 00:15:30.799 mean money? Yes. The plague year was his most 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:38.259 profitable year yet. He was ghoulish. Victualing. 00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:41.200 Supplying the navy. The Second Anglo -Dutch War 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:43.850 was ramping up. While everyone else was paralyzed 00:15:43.850 --> 00:15:46.649 by fear or had fled the city, Peeps was working. 00:15:46.789 --> 00:15:49.070 He was at his post, organizing contracts for 00:15:49.070 --> 00:15:51.769 food, beer, timber for the fleet. So opportunity 00:15:51.769 --> 00:15:55.269 and chaos. A huge opportunity. Because the normal 00:15:55.269 --> 00:15:57.590 oversight mechanisms were disrupted by the plague, 00:15:57.730 --> 00:16:00.730 he had a much freer hand to negotiate deals and 00:16:00.730 --> 00:16:03.470 to take his cuts and his gifts. He quadrupled 00:16:03.470 --> 00:16:05.570 his wealth during the year the city was dotting 00:16:05.570 --> 00:16:09.370 around him. That is morally complicated, to say 00:16:09.370 --> 00:16:12.120 the least. thriving while the city is collapsing. 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:14.860 It captures the survivor mentality, though, doesn't 00:16:14.860 --> 00:16:17.000 it? Life goes on, business goes on, even in the 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:19.879 apocalypse. And to be fair to him, the Navy desperately 00:16:19.879 --> 00:16:22.500 needed those supplies. If he hadn't done it, 00:16:22.539 --> 00:16:24.080 the fleet wouldn't have sailed. He was doing 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:26.879 his job and doing it well. Speaking of apocalypse, 00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:30.139 we barely get out of the plague when 1666 rolls 00:16:30.139 --> 00:16:33.120 around. The Great Fire. The fire that shaped 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:36.350 modern London. And Samuel Pepys is our primary, 00:16:36.549 --> 00:16:39.549 most vivid witness. So it's 3 a .m. September 00:16:39.549 --> 00:16:42.629 2nd. His maid, Jane, wakes him up. She sees a 00:16:42.629 --> 00:16:44.529 fire in the distance. And Pepys looks out the 00:16:44.529 --> 00:16:46.250 window, decides it's not that big a deal. It 00:16:46.250 --> 00:16:48.009 looks far away over by London Bridge, and he 00:16:48.009 --> 00:16:49.830 goes back to bed. That is the most relatable 00:16:49.830 --> 00:16:52.149 thing I've ever heard, is the world ending. Nah, 00:16:52.269 --> 00:16:55.269 I'm tired. It just shows how common fires were 00:16:55.269 --> 00:16:58.269 in a city built of wood and pitch and thatch. 00:16:58.350 --> 00:17:00.570 But when he wakes up later that morning, it's 00:17:00.570 --> 00:17:03.059 a different story entirely. He realizes the scale 00:17:03.059 --> 00:17:05.539 of it. And this is where Peeps becomes a man 00:17:05.539 --> 00:17:08.160 of action. He doesn't just watch. No, he goes 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:09.599 to the Tower of London to get a high vantage 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:12.880 point. He sees the fire raging, a lamentable 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:15.599 fire, as he calls it. And he sees the pigeons. 00:17:15.700 --> 00:17:18.000 This stood out to me so much in the source material. 00:17:18.259 --> 00:17:21.319 Yes. This is one of those literary details that 00:17:21.319 --> 00:17:25.119 makes the diaries so special, so human. He describes 00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:27.960 these poor pigeons hovering around their balconies, 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:30.140 unwilling to leave their nests, their homes, 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:32.980 until their wings literally burn and they fall 00:17:32.980 --> 00:17:36.299 down into the flames. It's such a poignant, heartbreaking 00:17:36.299 --> 00:17:39.259 image of reluctance to leave what you know, even 00:17:39.259 --> 00:17:41.559 when it's destroying you. It's incredible. But 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:43.440 then he stops just watching and he starts doing, 00:17:43.539 --> 00:17:45.700 he becomes the first person to actually go and 00:17:45.700 --> 00:17:49.200 tell the king, Charles II, how bad this is. He 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:51.799 takes a boat up the Thames to Whitehall. The 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:54.140 fire hadn't reached there yet. He marches in. 00:17:54.670 --> 00:17:56.950 finds the king and the duke of york and tells 00:17:56.950 --> 00:17:59.150 them that unless they order houses to be pulled 00:17:59.150 --> 00:18:01.450 down to create fire breaks the whole city is 00:18:01.450 --> 00:18:04.130 lost pulling down houses seems so extreme it's 00:18:04.130 --> 00:18:06.589 the only way blowing them up with gunpowder or 00:18:06.589 --> 00:18:08.990 pulling them down with these huge hooks you have 00:18:08.990 --> 00:18:11.630 to starve the fire of fuel the lord mayor at 00:18:11.630 --> 00:18:13.769 the time was too afraid to do it because of property 00:18:13.769 --> 00:18:16.170 rights he was worried about getting sued he's 00:18:16.170 --> 00:18:18.589 worried about lawsuits while london burns papes 00:18:18.589 --> 00:18:21.609 told the king you have to authorize this now 00:18:21.609 --> 00:18:24.970 and the king listened to him He sent Peeps straight 00:18:24.970 --> 00:18:27.230 to the Lord Mayor with the royal order. Imagine 00:18:27.230 --> 00:18:29.869 the chaos of that scene. He finds the Lord Mayor 00:18:29.869 --> 00:18:32.690 and the guy is just broken, right? Completely. 00:18:32.869 --> 00:18:35.109 He describes the Lord Mayor, a man named Thomas 00:18:35.109 --> 00:18:37.950 Bloodworth, as being exhausted, walking around 00:18:37.950 --> 00:18:40.809 like a man in a daze, crying out, Lord, what 00:18:40.809 --> 00:18:44.009 can I do? People will not obey me. I have been 00:18:44.009 --> 00:18:46.309 pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us 00:18:46.309 --> 00:18:48.970 faster than we can do it. It's total anarchy. 00:18:49.190 --> 00:18:52.069 So Peeps goes home. And now the fire is getting 00:18:52.069 --> 00:18:54.930 closer to his own house in Seething Lane. And 00:18:54.930 --> 00:18:56.789 this leads us back to the beginning. Back to 00:18:56.789 --> 00:18:59.170 the Parmesan cheese. Yes. As the fire approaches, 00:18:59.430 --> 00:19:01.990 he has to evacuate his own goods. He sends his 00:19:01.990 --> 00:19:05.250 money and his wife away to safety. But some things, 00:19:05.349 --> 00:19:07.910 well, you have to improvise. He digs a pit in 00:19:07.910 --> 00:19:10.549 his garden. He buries his wine good French vintage 00:19:10.549 --> 00:19:13.609 and his Parmesan cheese. He saves the cheese. 00:19:13.849 --> 00:19:16.970 Did his house survive? It did, just barely. The 00:19:16.970 --> 00:19:18.910 fire stopped just before it reached Seething 00:19:18.910 --> 00:19:21.269 Lane. But he walked through the ruins afterwards. 00:19:21.549 --> 00:19:23.950 He saw his father's house destroyed, his old 00:19:23.950 --> 00:19:25.990 school destroyed, the house where he had his 00:19:25.990 --> 00:19:28.609 stone surgery destroyed. The London of his childhood 00:19:28.609 --> 00:19:31.609 was just wiped off the map. It's incredible that 00:19:31.609 --> 00:19:33.829 we have this first -person record. But we need 00:19:33.829 --> 00:19:35.890 to shift gears a bit here. We've talked about 00:19:35.890 --> 00:19:38.329 Peeves the Observer, but he was also a worker, 00:19:38.450 --> 00:19:41.390 a government man. Section 4 of our outline calls 00:19:41.390 --> 00:19:43.769 him the Navy Man. And this is where his historical 00:19:43.769 --> 00:19:46.109 significance really lies, outside of the diary. 00:19:46.589 --> 00:19:48.789 If you take away the diary completely, Samuel 00:19:48.789 --> 00:19:50.970 Pepys is still a major figure in British history 00:19:50.970 --> 00:19:53.329 because he essentially professionalized the Royal 00:19:53.329 --> 00:19:56.130 Navy. But when he started at the Navy Board as 00:19:56.130 --> 00:19:58.769 clerk of the acts, he knew nothing about ships. 00:19:59.490 --> 00:20:03.089 Zero maritime experience. He was a clerk. But 00:20:03.089 --> 00:20:06.230 unlike his colleagues, who were often lazy aristocrats 00:20:06.230 --> 00:20:09.289 or just political appointees, Pepys was diligent. 00:20:09.799 --> 00:20:13.119 He was a true workaholic. He hired a tutor to 00:20:13.119 --> 00:20:15.579 teach him arithmetic and multiplication tables. 00:20:15.740 --> 00:20:18.500 He taught himself math as an adult. He did. He 00:20:18.500 --> 00:20:20.839 bought model ships to understand how the parts 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:23.400 fit together, how rigging worked. He learned 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:25.740 the business from the hull up. He visited the 00:20:25.740 --> 00:20:28.339 dockyards. He talked to the sailors. He learned 00:20:28.339 --> 00:20:30.599 about timber and rope. He was a technocrat before 00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:33.049 that was even a word. Precisely. And the Navy 00:20:33.049 --> 00:20:34.750 desperately needed it. They were in the middle 00:20:34.750 --> 00:20:37.369 of the Second Anglo -Dutch War and things were 00:20:37.369 --> 00:20:39.250 not going well. That's putting it mildly. The 00:20:39.250 --> 00:20:41.309 whole thing was a mess. It was. And a big part 00:20:41.309 --> 00:20:43.490 of the problem was that the Navy was chronically 00:20:43.490 --> 00:20:46.170 underfunded. And this leads to the scandal of 00:20:46.170 --> 00:20:48.230 the tickets. We need to explain this because 00:20:48.230 --> 00:20:50.230 it defines the corruption of the era. Right. 00:20:50.369 --> 00:20:53.369 So how did sailors get paid back then? Well, 00:20:53.390 --> 00:20:56.849 often they didn't. Not in cash, anyway. The king, 00:20:56.910 --> 00:20:59.069 Charles II, was constantly broke and fighting 00:20:59.069 --> 00:21:01.589 parliament for money. So when a sailor returned 00:21:01.589 --> 00:21:04.529 from a long, dangerous voyage instead of cash, 00:21:04.910 --> 00:21:07.329 the Navy board would give him a ticket. It was 00:21:07.329 --> 00:21:09.950 essentially an IOU. The king owes you 10 pounds. 00:21:10.150 --> 00:21:12.069 But a sailor can't buy bread for his family with 00:21:12.069 --> 00:21:14.549 a ticket. He's starving. Exactly. So a secondary 00:21:14.549 --> 00:21:17.269 market pops up. Predatory brokers would stand 00:21:17.269 --> 00:21:19.930 outside the Navy office and say, I'll give you 00:21:19.930 --> 00:21:21.970 five pounds cash for your 10 pound ticket right 00:21:21.970 --> 00:21:24.930 now. And the sailor, desperate for any money 00:21:24.930 --> 00:21:28.880 at all. Takes the loss just to eat. That is just... 00:21:29.180 --> 00:21:31.299 It's predatory. And Peeps was involved in this 00:21:31.299 --> 00:21:33.720 system. The whole board was complicit. They knew 00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:35.900 the tickets were losing value. And guess who 00:21:35.900 --> 00:21:39.019 was often investing in those brokers or facilitating 00:21:39.019 --> 00:21:41.000 the administrative delays that made the tickets 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:44.119 worthless so the price would drop? Peeps absolutely 00:21:44.119 --> 00:21:46.500 profited from the liquidity crisis of the very 00:21:46.500 --> 00:21:49.140 men he was managing. Wow. When you read the diary, 00:21:49.319 --> 00:21:51.740 he's terrified of the sailors. He describes them 00:21:51.740 --> 00:21:54.299 starving in the streets, shouting at him, threatening 00:21:54.299 --> 00:21:56.619 him. He's afraid of being mobbed because he knows 00:21:56.619 --> 00:21:58.859 he's part of the problem. So we call him. corrupt 00:21:58.859 --> 00:22:01.720 because he took money but was he like stealing 00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:03.880 from the till or was this something more systemic 00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:06.240 because the line between a bribe and a salary 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:08.819 seems incredibly blurry here it's incredibly 00:22:08.819 --> 00:22:11.539 blurry navy clerks like peps weren't paid a living 00:22:11.539 --> 00:22:14.700 wage their official salary was tiny they were 00:22:14.700 --> 00:22:17.180 expected to monetize their position if someone 00:22:17.180 --> 00:22:19.240 wanted a contract for timber they might give 00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:21.720 pippi's a nice gift a gratuity so it was just 00:22:21.720 --> 00:22:24.799 part of the job description it was but peps established 00:22:24.799 --> 00:22:27.599 a rule for himself which he writes about I will 00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:30.660 take the bribe, he decides, only if the person 00:22:30.660 --> 00:22:32.960 I'm hiring is actually the best person for the 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:35.460 job. That's a very convenient moral loophole. 00:22:35.619 --> 00:22:37.940 I'll take your money, but only if you're competent 00:22:37.940 --> 00:22:40.099 enough to deserve the contract anyway. It was. 00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:43.819 But in the 1660s, that was revolutionary. His 00:22:43.819 --> 00:22:46.640 predecessors took the money and hired their incompetent 00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:49.000 nephews. Pipps took the money and hired the best 00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:51.259 shipwright. He rationalized it as efficiency 00:22:51.259 --> 00:22:54.079 for the state. But yes, his net worth jumped 00:22:54.079 --> 00:22:57.420 from almost nothing to over 7 ,500 pounds in 00:22:57.420 --> 00:23:01.180 seven years on a 350 -pound salary. The math 00:23:01.180 --> 00:23:03.940 doesn't lie. And despite his efficiency, the 00:23:03.940 --> 00:23:08.200 war went badly. In 1667, there was this massive 00:23:08.200 --> 00:23:11.279 national humiliation called the Raid on the Medway. 00:23:11.460 --> 00:23:14.019 This is the absolute low point for the English 00:23:14.019 --> 00:23:17.509 Navy in that century. The Dutch fleet, under 00:23:17.509 --> 00:23:19.890 Admiral de Ruyter, actually sailed up the River 00:23:19.890 --> 00:23:22.869 Medway, broke through the defensive chain, burned 00:23:22.869 --> 00:23:25.369 English ships at anchor, and towed away the flagship, 00:23:25.670 --> 00:23:27.789 the Royal Charles. That's like someone breaking 00:23:27.789 --> 00:23:30.069 into your garage and stealing your prized Ferrari 00:23:30.069 --> 00:23:32.170 while you watch from the window. It was a national 00:23:32.170 --> 00:23:35.259 disgrace. And everyone was looking for a scapegoat. 00:23:35.339 --> 00:23:37.519 The parliament was furious, and they summoned 00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:40.500 the entire Navy board to answer for these miscarriages. 00:23:40.700 --> 00:23:42.480 And this is Pepys' big moment, right? He has 00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:45.319 to defend the indefensible. On March 5th, 1668, 00:23:45.539 --> 00:23:47.140 he stood at the bar of the House of Commons. 00:23:47.380 --> 00:23:49.940 He had prepared for weeks. He stayed up all night. 00:23:50.099 --> 00:23:53.019 He drank brandy to steady his nerves. And then 00:23:53.019 --> 00:23:55.940 he spoke for over three hours without notes. 00:23:56.140 --> 00:23:59.079 Three hours. Straight. It was a virtuoso performance. 00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:01.960 He dazzled them with details, facts, figures, 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:04.640 logistics. He essentially proved that the failures 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:07.380 weren't the board's fault, but were due to a 00:24:07.380 --> 00:24:09.299 catastrophic lack of funding from Parliament 00:24:09.299 --> 00:24:11.900 and strategic errors by the king's commanders. 00:24:12.440 --> 00:24:15.039 He buried them in data. He out -bureaucrated 00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:17.779 the bureaucrats. He did, and they loved it. He 00:24:17.779 --> 00:24:19.960 saved his own skin and the boards. He walked 00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:22.279 out of there a hero. He wrote in his diary that 00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:24.319 night that he was hailed as the savior of the 00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:26.759 Navy. So he's competent. He's a hero administrator, 00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:30.500 a brilliant, corrupt workaholic. Yeah. But we 00:24:30.500 --> 00:24:32.549 have to pivot to the dark. darker side of his 00:24:32.549 --> 00:24:35.130 personal life. We can't talk about peeps without 00:24:35.130 --> 00:24:37.390 talking about women. And looking at this through 00:24:37.390 --> 00:24:40.349 a modern lens, a Me Too lens, it is pretty disturbing 00:24:40.349 --> 00:24:42.849 stuff. It is. And we have to be clear here. For 00:24:42.849 --> 00:24:45.190 a long time, historians sort of winked at peeps' 00:24:45.250 --> 00:24:48.390 affairs as dalliances or the behavior of a lusty 00:24:48.390 --> 00:24:51.309 rogue. But the source material, his own words, 00:24:51.410 --> 00:24:54.069 detail behavior that is, by any modern definition, 00:24:54.269 --> 00:24:56.750 sexual harassment and sexual assault. Let's start 00:24:56.750 --> 00:24:58.789 with his marriage first. Elizabeth. Elizabeth 00:24:58.789 --> 00:25:01.289 de Saint -Michel. She was the daughter of French 00:25:01.289 --> 00:25:04.589 Huguenot exiles. And she was only 14 when they 00:25:04.589 --> 00:25:09.720 married. He was 22. And her youth sets up a dynamic 00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:12.200 of control right from the start. It absolutely 00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:15.039 did. And their relationship was incredibly volatile. 00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:17.420 The diary shows they loved each other. They played 00:25:17.420 --> 00:25:19.299 music together. He taught her to sing and play 00:25:19.299 --> 00:25:22.200 instruments. But they fought constantly. He was 00:25:22.200 --> 00:25:24.759 intensely jealous of other men even looking at 00:25:24.759 --> 00:25:27.279 her. And she, well, she had every reason to be 00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:29.200 jealous of him. Because he was constantly cheating 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:31.740 on her. Constantly. The diary is a catalog of 00:25:31.740 --> 00:25:34.759 it. He pursued shop girls, the wives of his colleagues, 00:25:35.059 --> 00:25:37.960 servants in his own house, actresses. and he 00:25:37.960 --> 00:25:40.619 wrote it all down in meticulous, often sordid 00:25:40.619 --> 00:25:43.200 detail. There's one specific incident that seems 00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:45.980 to be the climax of this domestic drama, the 00:25:45.980 --> 00:25:48.740 Deb Willett affair. This is the moment the diary 00:25:48.740 --> 00:25:52.079 becomes a full -blown domestic tragedy. Deb Willett 00:25:52.079 --> 00:25:54.460 was a young woman, a teenager, who was hired 00:25:54.460 --> 00:25:57.380 to be a companion for Elizabeth. And Pease became 00:25:57.380 --> 00:25:59.619 obsessed with her. And he got caught. Oh, red 00:25:59.619 --> 00:26:03.119 -handed. On October 25, 1668, Elizabeth walked 00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:06.359 in on them unexpectedly and found Pease embracing 00:26:06.359 --> 00:26:10.119 Deb Willett. He writes, and he uses his most 00:26:10.119 --> 00:26:12.700 secret code here, that his hand was under her 00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:15.160 coats. Elizabeth must have gotten it clear. She 00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:18.430 did. she was devastated and furious she screamed 00:26:18.430 --> 00:26:20.730 at him she threatened to leave him she threatened 00:26:20.730 --> 00:26:23.549 to shame him publicly by telling everyone he 00:26:23.549 --> 00:26:25.869 describes her in a rage threatening him with 00:26:25.869 --> 00:26:28.549 hot tongs from the fireplace wow peeps was filled 00:26:28.549 --> 00:26:31.349 with remorse he cried he begged for forgiveness 00:26:31.349 --> 00:26:33.490 he swore it would never happen again but did 00:26:33.490 --> 00:26:36.349 he stop no that's the thing deb willett was fired 00:26:36.349 --> 00:26:38.829 obviously but pete's continued to try to find 00:26:38.829 --> 00:26:41.789 her and meet her secretly it shows this compulsive 00:26:41.789 --> 00:26:44.390 destructive side to his behavior that even his 00:26:44.390 --> 00:26:46.859 own guilt could control. And you mentioned earlier 00:26:46.859 --> 00:26:49.359 the darker side of this. It wasn't always, you 00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:51.200 know, consensual affairs with women of his own 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:54.099 class. No, not at all. The modern scholarly analysis 00:26:54.099 --> 00:26:56.519 points out that he often targeted women who were 00:26:56.519 --> 00:26:59.940 socially and economically inferior to him, servants, 00:27:00.019 --> 00:27:03.079 subordinates, wives. He would mask his coercion 00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:06.279 as being playful or kind. He would fondle his 00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:08.480 maid, Mary Mercer, while she was helping him 00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:10.559 get dressed in the morning. And because he was 00:27:10.559 --> 00:27:12.799 the boss, the master of the house, what could 00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:15.259 she do? She couldn't really say no without losing 00:27:15.259 --> 00:27:18.220 her job, her home. Exactly. There was an inherent 00:27:18.220 --> 00:27:21.500 power imbalance. He believed, as many men of 00:27:21.500 --> 00:27:24.099 his time did, that he was entitled to access 00:27:24.099 --> 00:27:26.920 to women's bodies. When a shipwright's wife named 00:27:26.920 --> 00:27:29.279 Lane, who he had a transaction with, claimed 00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:31.579 he assaulted her, he dismissed it in his diary 00:27:31.579 --> 00:27:34.099 as her being false, not because he claimed he 00:27:34.099 --> 00:27:36.299 didn't do it, but because he felt she had no 00:27:36.299 --> 00:27:38.400 moral right to complain. It's important we don't 00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:40.920 gloss over that. He's a historical genius, but 00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:43.359 he was also, in many ways, a predator. You have 00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:45.380 to hold both those truths at the same time to 00:27:45.380 --> 00:27:49.740 understand him. So the diary ends in May 1669. 00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:52.700 Why? He lived a lot longer than that. This is 00:27:52.700 --> 00:27:55.660 the great irony and the great tragedy for historians. 00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:57.619 He stopped writing because he thought he was 00:27:57.619 --> 00:28:00.279 going blind. The strain of writing all those 00:28:00.279 --> 00:28:02.940 tiny shorthand characters by candlelight. Yes. 00:28:03.059 --> 00:28:05.500 His eyes were painting him constantly. He was 00:28:05.500 --> 00:28:08.099 terrified. He wrote this heartbreaking final 00:28:08.099 --> 00:28:11.440 entry saying that to stop the diary is... almost 00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:14.359 as much as to see myself go into my grave. He 00:28:14.359 --> 00:28:16.519 thought he would be totally blind within months. 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:19.319 But he wasn't. No. He lived another 34 years. 00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:22.619 He never went blind. The current theory is that 00:28:22.619 --> 00:28:25.359 it was likely just severe eye strain or a condition 00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:28.119 like presbyopia that resolved itself as he stopped 00:28:28.119 --> 00:28:30.519 doing the intense close work of the shorthand. 00:28:30.700 --> 00:28:33.059 But for whatever reason, he never picked up the 00:28:33.059 --> 00:28:35.259 diary again. That is such a loss for history. 00:28:35.539 --> 00:28:37.900 Imagine what we missed in those next three decades. 00:28:38.639 --> 00:28:40.700 Because he didn't just retire to the garden and 00:28:40.700 --> 00:28:43.680 grow roses, did he? Not at all. His second act 00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:45.900 is arguably even more impressive in terms of 00:28:45.900 --> 00:28:48.339 public service. He became a member of Parliament. 00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:50.759 He eventually rose to become the Secretary to 00:28:50.759 --> 00:28:53.380 the Admiralty, the big boss, the top job. But 00:28:53.380 --> 00:28:55.220 it wasn't smooth sailing. You mentioned he was 00:28:55.220 --> 00:28:58.279 imprisoned. Twice. The guy who saved the Navy 00:28:58.279 --> 00:29:00.440 with his big speech got thrown in the Tower of 00:29:00.440 --> 00:29:04.349 London. Why? What on earth for politics and religion? 00:29:04.710 --> 00:29:08.089 In the late 1670s, there was this national hysteria 00:29:08.089 --> 00:29:11.049 about a popish plot, a supposed Catholic conspiracy 00:29:11.049 --> 00:29:14.289 to assassinate the king. And Pepys was accused 00:29:14.289 --> 00:29:17.130 by his political enemies of being a secret Catholic 00:29:17.130 --> 00:29:19.849 and selling naval secrets to the French. Was 00:29:19.849 --> 00:29:22.089 there any truth to it? None at all. It was all 00:29:22.089 --> 00:29:24.309 fabricated. But in that climate of hysteria, 00:29:24.369 --> 00:29:26.849 people were being tried and executed on far less 00:29:26.849 --> 00:29:29.509 evidence. He spent weeks in the tower, genuinely 00:29:29.509 --> 00:29:32.119 fearing for his life. That must have been terrifying 00:29:32.119 --> 00:29:34.440 considering he watched Charles Assers get executed 00:29:34.440 --> 00:29:36.839 as a boy. He knew what could happen. He had to 00:29:36.839 --> 00:29:39.039 use all his administrative skills and his connections 00:29:39.039 --> 00:29:42.500 to save himself. He investigated his main accuser, 00:29:42.500 --> 00:29:45.019 a con man named Colonel Scott, and he proved 00:29:45.019 --> 00:29:47.819 he was a fraud. He gathered dossiers of evidence. 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:50.299 He basically lawyered his way out of a death 00:29:50.299 --> 00:29:52.359 sentence. And he didn't just survive politically. 00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:55.140 He thrived in the intellectual world, too. He 00:29:55.140 --> 00:29:57.380 became president of the Royal Society. Which 00:29:57.380 --> 00:30:00.480 is a huge deal. The Royal Society was the premier 00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:02.819 scientific organization in the world at that 00:30:02.819 --> 00:30:05.519 time. And here's a fact that just blows people's 00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:08.160 minds. If you look at the title page of Isaac 00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:10.960 Newton's Principia Mathematica, one of the most 00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:13.339 important books in the entire history of science, 00:30:13.480 --> 00:30:16.140 whose name is on the cover, authorizing its publication. 00:30:16.500 --> 00:30:19.380 Don't tell me it's Samuel Pepys. It is. Imprimatur, 00:30:19.559 --> 00:30:23.579 S. Pepys. Red, Sacco, Brazes. Samuel Pepys, president 00:30:23.579 --> 00:30:26.240 of the Royal Society. His name is on the book 00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:28.160 that gave us the laws of motion and universal 00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:30.980 gravitation. That is absolutely amazing. But 00:30:30.980 --> 00:30:32.900 I want to dig into this famous correspondence 00:30:32.900 --> 00:30:35.839 with Isaac Newton. It's 1693. Pepys is retired. 00:30:36.220 --> 00:30:38.980 Newton is, well, he's Isaac Newton. And Pepys 00:30:38.980 --> 00:30:42.319 writes to him about dice. This isn't just, hey, 00:30:42.339 --> 00:30:44.140 want to play craps, right? This was a serious 00:30:44.140 --> 00:30:46.799 question. No, it was a very specific probability 00:30:46.799 --> 00:30:49.599 query. This is now known as the Newton -Pepys 00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:52.039 problem. Pepys was likely asking on behalf of 00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:53.900 a gambling friend who was a bit of a high roller. 00:30:54.299 --> 00:30:56.869 The question is essentially this. Which of these 00:30:56.869 --> 00:30:59.529 three scenarios offers you the best odds of winning? 00:30:59.690 --> 00:31:02.710 Okay, lay it on me. Scenario A, rolling at least 00:31:02.710 --> 00:31:06.029 one six when you toss six dice. Scenario B, rolling 00:31:06.029 --> 00:31:08.849 at least two sixes when you toss 12 dice. Or 00:31:08.849 --> 00:31:10.910 scenario C, rolling at least three sixes when 00:31:10.910 --> 00:31:14.670 you toss 18 dice. Okay, so my intuition says 00:31:14.670 --> 00:31:17.009 they are all the same, right? One required success 00:31:17.009 --> 00:31:19.869 in six dice, two in 12, three in 18. It's all 00:31:19.869 --> 00:31:23.049 a one -sixth ratio. That's exactly what Peeps 00:31:23.049 --> 00:31:25.720 thought. He was a man of simple arithmetic, and 00:31:25.720 --> 00:31:27.960 he assumed the probability was identical for 00:31:27.960 --> 00:31:30.440 all three. But Newton wrote back and said, no, 00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:32.819 you are completely wrong. Because probability 00:31:32.819 --> 00:31:34.819 isn't linear like that. It gets more complicated. 00:31:35.039 --> 00:31:37.539 Correct. Newton explained that with six dice, 00:31:37.700 --> 00:31:40.140 the odds of getting at least one six are actually 00:31:40.140 --> 00:31:43.869 quite high. It's about 66 .5%. But as you add 00:31:43.869 --> 00:31:45.970 more dice and require more specific outcomes, 00:31:46.170 --> 00:31:48.549 like two sixes or three sixes, the difficulty 00:31:48.549 --> 00:31:50.589 scales up much faster than the number of dice 00:31:50.589 --> 00:31:52.869 helps you. He showed that scenario A was the 00:31:52.869 --> 00:31:55.650 best bet. Did Peaks understand the math? Because 00:31:55.650 --> 00:31:58.029 I'm not sure I do. Not really. Newton tried to 00:31:58.029 --> 00:32:00.789 explain it with pages of arithmetic, but Pips 00:32:00.789 --> 00:32:03.289 kept writing back saying, essentially, I still 00:32:03.289 --> 00:32:06.029 don't get it. Eventually, Newton basically said, 00:32:06.130 --> 00:32:08.549 look, just trust me on this. Take the first bet. 00:32:09.119 --> 00:32:11.779 It's weirdly comforting to know that even Samuel 00:32:11.779 --> 00:32:14.400 Pepys, the man who organized the entire British 00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:17.079 Navy, couldn't wrap his head around high -level 00:32:17.079 --> 00:32:19.740 statistics. It highlights the massive intellectual 00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:22.839 shift happening in that era. Pepys was a man 00:32:22.839 --> 00:32:26.000 of lists and catalogs, an accumulator of facts. 00:32:26.339 --> 00:32:29.259 Newton was a man of abstract principles and universal 00:32:29.259 --> 00:32:32.180 laws. You see the old world trying to organize 00:32:32.180 --> 00:32:34.519 itself and the new world of modern science emerging. 00:32:34.940 --> 00:32:38.700 So Pepys lives until 1703. He retires to a place 00:32:38.700 --> 00:32:41.259 called Clapham. A nice country retreat just outside 00:32:41.259 --> 00:32:43.859 London back then. And when he dies, he leaves 00:32:43.859 --> 00:32:46.599 behind this incredible library, his life's passion. 00:32:46.819 --> 00:32:49.700 3 ,000 volumes, all perfectly preserved. And 00:32:49.700 --> 00:32:51.980 he was so incredibly particular about them, he 00:32:51.980 --> 00:32:54.099 didn't just leave them to his old college, Magdalene. 00:32:54.220 --> 00:32:56.599 He left pages of instructions on how they should 00:32:56.599 --> 00:32:58.859 be shelved. I read this. It's amazing. He wanted 00:32:58.859 --> 00:33:01.859 them arranged by size, right? Not by subject. 00:33:02.319 --> 00:33:05.519 Yes, purely for aesthetics. He specified that 00:33:05.519 --> 00:33:07.880 little books should be placed on top of big books 00:33:07.880 --> 00:33:10.099 if necessary to make the tops of all the books 00:33:10.099 --> 00:33:12.839 level. And he had special wooden blocks made 00:33:12.839 --> 00:33:16.099 almost like little high heels to put behind the 00:33:16.099 --> 00:33:18.319 shorter books so the spines would all line up 00:33:18.319 --> 00:33:21.140 perfectly flush at the front of the shelf. That 00:33:21.140 --> 00:33:24.019 is some serious type A personality right there. 00:33:24.380 --> 00:33:28.259 obsessive it is but that obsessive nature that 00:33:28.259 --> 00:33:31.359 need to catalog and control and preserve everything 00:33:31.359 --> 00:33:34.740 perfectly is exactly why the diary survived he 00:33:34.740 --> 00:33:37.160 treated his life like he treated his books it 00:33:37.160 --> 00:33:39.940 had to be organized cataloged and preserved for 00:33:39.940 --> 00:33:42.160 posterity and the diary volumes are still there 00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:44.640 in the original bookcases he designed at cambridge 00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:47.019 you can go and see them today exactly as he left 00:33:47.019 --> 00:33:49.079 them that's incredible so we've looked at the 00:33:49.079 --> 00:33:51.859 man the stone the fire the affairs and the ships 00:33:52.299 --> 00:33:54.460 It's been quite a journey. It really has. Let's 00:33:54.460 --> 00:33:57.200 try to sum this up. If you had to describe him 00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:00.640 in a sentence, who is Samuel Peeves? He is a 00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:03.819 man of profound contradictions. He's a diligent, 00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:06.299 brilliant bureaucrat who built the modern Navy, 00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:09.619 but he's also a corrupt official taking bribes. 00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:12.059 He's a devoted husband who clearly loves his 00:34:12.059 --> 00:34:15.179 wife, but he's a serial philanderer and, by our 00:34:15.179 --> 00:34:17.760 standards, a predator. He's a man terrified of 00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:19.920 the plague, yet he stays in London and makes 00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:23.659 a fortune from it. He's human. messy, brilliant, 00:34:23.940 --> 00:34:27.840 flawed, and deeply recognizably human. And that's 00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:29.780 why we're still talking about him 300 years later. 00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:32.760 Most historical figures, we only see the statue 00:34:32.760 --> 00:34:34.940 in the park. We see the great man on a pedestal 00:34:34.940 --> 00:34:37.280 with peeps. We see the guy in his nightgown worried 00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:39.139 about his bladder, fighting with his wife and 00:34:39.139 --> 00:34:41.360 burying his cheese. It brings history down to 00:34:41.360 --> 00:34:43.760 a human level. It does. It makes it real. So 00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:46.039 here is the final thought I want to leave everyone 00:34:46.039 --> 00:34:49.000 with. Peeps wrote this diary for himself. but 00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:51.219 he cataloged it for the future. He made a conscious 00:34:51.219 --> 00:34:54.000 choice to let it survive. He wanted to be remembered, 00:34:54.119 --> 00:34:56.139 warts and all. There is a really uncomfortable 00:34:56.139 --> 00:34:58.639 question for us, I think. If you recorded your 00:34:58.639 --> 00:35:01.289 daily life with total honesty, every weakness, 00:35:01.429 --> 00:35:03.769 every shady deal, every embarrassing thought, 00:35:03.869 --> 00:35:06.710 every hand -under -coats moment, would you want 00:35:06.710 --> 00:35:09.150 history to read it? It's a terrifying thought. 00:35:09.250 --> 00:35:11.710 Most of us would hit delete. We would. So is 00:35:11.710 --> 00:35:13.610 Pepsi unique simply because he possessed the 00:35:13.610 --> 00:35:16.610 ego to believe that his life, his tennis ball 00:35:16.610 --> 00:35:19.269 stone, his wig anxiety, and his buried Parmesan 00:35:19.269 --> 00:35:22.570 cheese were actually worth remembering? Maybe 00:35:22.570 --> 00:35:25.300 that's his greatest legacy. Just the sheer audacity 00:35:25.300 --> 00:35:27.980 to believe his own flawed, complicated life mattered. 00:35:28.179 --> 00:35:29.880 I think you might be right. The courage to be 00:35:29.880 --> 00:35:32.239 seen. Thanks for listening to this deep dive 00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:34.079 into Samuel Pipps. We'll see you next time.