Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In

by Henry B. Wheatley

In later life, when Pepys had risen greatly in social importance, the relations were not so much associated with, and a more distinguished circle of friends make their appearance. This gradual dropping away of the relations may have been caused by decrease of the family, for the Diarist on one occasion writes: “It is a sad consideration how the Pepys’s decay, and nobody almost that I know in a present way of increasing them.”[163]

The members of Pepys’s immediate family have already been alluded to, and we have seen how his father, John Pepys, the tailor, retired to Brampton in 1661. The old man died in 1680, and desired by his will that all the lands and goods left him by his brother Robert should be delivered up to his eldest son. He also left £5 to the poor of Brampton, and 40s. to the poor of Ellington, and the remainder of his property to be divided amongst his three children—Samuel and John and Paulina Jackson. John, however, died before him.

Of the numerous cousins who figure in the “Diary,” the Turners and the Joyces are the most frequently referred to. Serjeant John Turner and his wife Jane, who lived in Salisbury Court, were not very highly esteemed by Sir William Baker, who called the one a false fellow and the other a false woman, and Pepys does not appear altogether to have disliked hearing him say so.[164]

Their daughter Theophila was, however, a favourite with Pepys, and on March 3, 1662–63, she showed him his name on her breast as her valentine, “which,” he observes, “will cost me 20s.” Four days afterwards he bought her a dozen pairs of white gloves.

The Joyces were never much liked by Pepys, but at one time he thought it well to be friends with them, as he writes on the 6th of August, 1663,—“I think it convenient to keep in with the Joyces against a bad day, if I should have occasion to make use of them.” William Joyce was good-natured, but Pepys wearied of his company because he was “an impertinent coxcomb” and too great a talker. As is often the case with our Diarist, he gives a different character of the man on another occasion. He writes, “A cunning, crafty fellow he is, and dangerous to displease, for his tongue spares nobody.”[165]

Anthony Joyce was in business, and on one occasion he supplied Pepys with some tallow, payment for which he was unduly anxious about, so that the purchaser was vexed.[166] Anthony gave over trade in 1664, but was ruined by the Fire; and afterwards kept the “Three Stags” at Holborn Conduit. William was greatly disgusted when his brother became a publican. Pepys says he ranted about it “like a prince, calling him hosteller and his sister hostess.”[167]

In January, 1667–68, Anthony threw himself into a pond at Islington, but being seen by a poor woman, he was got out before life was extinct. “He confessed his doing the thing, being led by the devil; and do declare his reason to be, his trouble in having forgot to serve God as he ought since he came to this new employment.”[168] He died soon after this, and his friends were in great fear that his goods would be seized upon on the ground that he was a suicide. Pepys used all his influence to save the estate, and obtained the King’s promise that it should not be taken from the widow and children. Those who were likely to benefit by the confiscation gave much trouble, and managed to stop the coroner’s verdict for a time. At last, however, the widow’s friends on the jury saved her from further anxiety by giving a verdict that her husband died of a fever. “Some opposition there was, the foreman pressing them to declare the cause of the fever, thinking thereby to obstruct it; but they did adhere to their verdict, and would give no reason.”[169]

Kate Joyce (Anthony’s widow) was a pretty woman, and caused Pepys some trouble. She had many offers of marriage, and after a short period of widowhood she married one Hollingshed, a tobacconist.[170] Pepys was disgusted, and left her to her own devices with the expression, “As she brews let her bake.”

Mrs. Kite, the butcher, was another of Pepys’s aunts whose company he did not greatly appreciate. He was, however, her executor, and at her death he calls her daughter ugly names, thus: “Back again with Peg Kite, who will be I doubt a troublesome carrion to us executors.”[171] A few days after she is called “a slut,”[172] and when she declares her firm intention to marry “the beggarly rogue the weaver,” the executors are “resolved neither to meddle nor make with her.”[173]