Stuff You Missed in History Class · iHeartPodcasts

SYMHC Classics: Samuel Pepys

February 7, 2026·33 min·3 clips

Pepys' wife caught him with their maid, leading to a major marital crisis.

Samuel Pepys does more than watch from the side here. He sits inside working systems, where a committee, a colony, naval administration, and ambition all pile onto one busy diarist. The Navy work grows, and Pepys takes on more roles, including secretary work for the committee running the English colony at Tangier, which the transcript connects to Catherine of Braganza's dowry. Order matters to him. His push to make the work run better annoys colleagues, and that gives the history a nicely human little edge. Then war arrives. The Second Anglo-Dutch War leaves Pepys handling a large share of wartime Navy administration, including a centralized provisioning system. That is a lot. The office detail sits right beside the disasters, because the diary is doing both jobs at once. London is afraid. In 1665, Pepys records the Great Plague through reports, dread, and death tolls that he thinks may leave out the poor, Quakers, and others. The numbers are grim. One cited week lists 7,496 dead in the city, with 6,102 attributed to plague, while Pepys worries the true figure may be nearer 10,000. Relief does not arrive cleanly. Even when he notes a thanksgiving for the plague's end on November 20, people are still dying. Then comes fire. On September 2, 1666, while plague is in its last months, Pepys starts chronicling the Great Fire of London with the same practical eye for fear, damage, and response. The aftermath sticks around. The excerpt notes that the fire still affects him months later, which keeps the story from turning into a neat row of famous calamities. What comes through is a diary under pressure: administrative, personal, and civic all at once.

As heard by us

A vivid Restoration portrait of Samuel Pepys as Navy administrator, diarist, and witness to plague and fire.

Samuel Pepys emerges here as a capable, detail-minded administrator whose private diary caught London at one of its most strained moments. The episode sketches his growing public responsibilities, from work tied to Tangier and the Royal Society to a heavy role in Navy…

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