The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

Diary, Feb. 11th, 1667⁠–⁠68. ↩

Sir Robert Brooke, Lord of the Manor of Wanstead from 1662 to 1667, M.P. for Aldborough 1660, 1661⁠–⁠69. He retired to France in bad circumstances, and from a letter among the Pepys MSS. it appears that he was drowned in the river at Lyons. ↩

“The House then proceeding upon the debate touching the Election for Castle Rising, between Mr. Pepys and Mr. Offley, did, in the first place, take into consideration what related personally to Mr. Pepys. Information being given to the House that they had received an account from a person of quality, that he saw an Altar with a Crucifix upon it, in the house of Mr. Pepys; Mr. Pepys, standing up in his place, did heartily and flatly deny that he ever had any Altar or Crucifix, or the image or picture of any Saint whatsoever in his house, from the top to the bottom of it; and the Members being called upon to name the person that gave them the information, they were unwilling to declare it without the order of the House; which, being made, they named the Earl of Shaftesbury; and the House being also informed that Sir J. Banks did likewise see the Altar, he was ordered to attend the Bar of the House, to declare what he knew of this matter. ‘Ordered that Sir William Coventry, Sir Thomas Meeres, and Mr. Garraway do attend Lord Shaftesbury on the like occasion, and receive what information his Lordship, can give on this matter.’ ”

“13th February, Sir W. Coventry reports that they attended the Earl of Shaftesbury, and received from him the account which they had put in writing. The Earl of Shaftesbury denieth that he ever saw an Altar in Mr. Pepys’s house or lodgings; as to the Crucifix, he saith he hath, some imperfect memory of seeing somewhat which he conceived to be a Crucifix. When his Lordship was asked the time, he said it was before the burning of the Office of the Navy. Being asked concerning the manner, he said he could not remember whether it were painted or carved, or in what manner the thing was; and that his memory was so very imperfect in it, that if he were upon his oath he could give no testimony.”

“16th February⁠—Sir John Banks was called in⁠—The Speaker desired him to answer what acquaintance he had with; Mr. Pepys, and whether he used to have recourse to him to his house and had ever seen there any Altar or Crucifix, or whether he knew of his being a Papist, or Popishly inclined. Sir J. Banks said that he had known and had been acquainted with Mr. Pepys several years, and had often visited him and conversed with him at the Navy Office, and at his house there upon several occasions, and that he never saw in his house there any Altar or Crucifix, and that he does not believe him to be a Papist, or that way inclined in the least, nor had any reason or ground to think or believe it.”

↩

Christie’s Life of the First Earl of Shaftesbury, 1871, vol. ii, pp. 195⁠–⁠197. ↩

The office generally known as Secretary of the Admiralty dates back many years, but the officer who filled it was sometimes Secretary to the Lord High Admiral, and sometimes to the Commission for that office. “His Majesties Letters Patent for ye erecting the office of Secretary of ye Admiralty of England, and creating Samuel Pepys, Esq., first Secretary therein,” is dated June 10th, 1684. ↩

Jesse’s Stuarts, vol. iii, p. 326. ↩

Raikes’s Hon. Artillery Company, vol. i, p. 196. ↩

Cobbett’s Parliamentary History, vol. iv, cols. 975, 976. ↩

In Sir G. F. Duckett’s Naval Commissioners, 1660⁠–⁠1760 (privately printed, 1889), there are several particulars as to the life of Samuel Atkins. He was the son of “a colonel on the Parliament side in the late Rebellion,” and from 1670 to 1672 was clerk to Colonel Middleton, one of the Commissioners of the Navy, who died in the latter year. He was then clerk in Chatham Dockyard, and in 1674 “he went as junior clerk⁠ ⁠… under Mr. Hewer,” and afterwards chief or head-clerk under Pepys, to whom he is said to have been devoted. He was examined before a Committee of the House of Lords, and several times remanded back to Newgate touching the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey. He was eventually acquitted, and having influential friends he subsequently obtained several good appointments. He was a Commissioner of the Navy from 1694 to 1702, and in 1700 he was one of five Commissioners appointed by the House of Lords to state the accounts due to the Army. He died in 1706. An account of Atkins’s case, and other documents connected with Godfrey’s murder, will be found among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library, A. 173. References to Atkins are given in the House of Lords MSS. (“Historical MSS. Commission,” 11th Report, Appendix, part 2, pp. 49⁠–⁠151). Mr. J. R. Tanner communicated an interesting article on “Pepys and the Popish Plot” to the April number (1892) of the English Historical Review. He shows how the alibi which caused the jury to acquit Atkins without leaving the box was prepared by Pepys himself. ↩

Scull’s Dorothea Scott, pp. 16, 17. ↩

In connection with this period of disgrace the following is of interest:

[Endorsed⁠—“The Coffeehouse-Paper, wherein ye scandalous intelligence touching Mr Pepys.”]

“On Tuesday last, Mr Peeps went to Windsor, having ye confidence yt he might kisse ye