Longer articles on broader topics.


A Walk with Ferrers

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On one level Sam’s walk today with Captain Ferrers may simply seem to gloss over tidbits of Court gossip, yet two of these stories reflect re-occurring themes that will continue throughout the reign of Charles II and therefore be presented in Sam’s diary…
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Annotators of Sam

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Presented are a bewildered Sam’s lighthearted observations of his diary and the accompanying annotations of 1662. This presentation combines a mixture of editorial accuracy, tongue in cheek interpretation and an ample use of artistic/poetic license.
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The Pepys Sociogram

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It all started with Jeannine’s remark that “it would be interesting to flow-chart [Sam’s] office politics/friendships to see who liked whom, who stuck up for whom, etc…” Now, several weeks later, we are finally in a position to present our “sociogram”. The purpose of this graph is to visualise Sam’s network of professionally important relationships.
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Samuel Pepys and Fleet Street

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Despite the gap of 340 years, a walk through London today can give you a very real sense of the scale and nature of Samuel Pepys’s world in a way that can genuinely bring his diaries to life. His daily world stretched from Westminster Hall in the south west to the Tower in the east. When he didn’t travel by water, he would walk a regular route up King St (now Whitehall)…
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The Banqueting House of Whitehall Palace

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…and in the Banqueting-house saw the King create my Lord Chancellor and several others, Earls, and Mr. Crew and several others, Barons: the first being led up by Heralds and five old Earls to the King, and there the patent is read, and the King puts on his vest, and sword, and coronet, and gives him the patent.
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St Margaret's Church, Westminster

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St Margaret’s Church was one of the ever-present landmarks of Pepys’s life in London, and was where he married Elizabeth in 1655. Other famous peopled married there include John Milton in 1656 and Winston Churchill in 1908. Edward Montagu (later 1st Earl of Sandwich) was also married there in 16421.
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The Bedchamber

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“But I hear that the Queen did prick her out of the list presented her by the King…” Sam’s diary entry referenced above refers to a rather sad black mark in Charles’ reign — the infamous “Bedchamber” incident. Charles’ historians and biographers (Clarendon, Bryant, Hutton, Faulkus, Fraser, Coote, Ollard, Wilson, Ponsonby) and…
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