Life of Samuel Pepys Trivia Quiz

Answer: Salisbury Court in London

Samuel Pepys was born on Feb. 23, 1633 in Salisbury Court, near Fleet Street, in London, England.

Answer: He was orphaned as a baby and raised by his uncle, a Whitechapel butcher.

Samuel Pepys was the fifth, and eldest surviving child, of John Pepys, a tailor, and his wife, Margaret Kite Pepys, a former washmaid, whose brother was a Whitechapel butcher. Of eleven children born to the couple, only Samuel, Tom, John, and Pauline survived childhood. Music and singing were a part of their daily lives. John Pepys played the bass viol, and they owned a virginal and other musical instruments, including a lute.

Answer: Yes

When Samuel Pepys was ten, he was sent to live with his father's eldest brother, Robert Pepys. Pepys was the steward for the Montagus, distant Pepys relatives, at Hitchingbrooke, in Huntingsdonshire. Robert Pepys owned land and a house near the village of Brampton, about a mile from Hitchingbrooke. For the next two years, Samuel lived with his uncle and attended the Free Grammar School in Huntington, whose alumni included Oliver Cromwell.

When Pepys was twelve, he returned home and attended St. Paul's School in London, and did well there.

He was admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge, on a scholarship in March of 1651 and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1654, but he was not offered a fellowship.

Answer: She was a young, pretty girl whose father was a penniless Frenchman.

It was expected of young men starting out in life to marry well, but Pepys married for love. Pepys was a steward for the Montagu family, living in their servants' quarters at Whitehall, when he meet fourteen-year old Elizabeth de St. Michel. Not as much is known about Elizabeth Pepys as is known about her famous husband. Pepys was proud of her beauty, but he was very jealous if other men singled her out for admiration.

She spoke fluent French and had a continental upbringing. Her father was a Frenchman, Alexandre le Marchant de St. Michel and her mother, Dorothea Kingsmill, was English.

They both came from aristocratic backgrounds, but the family was virtually destitute. Elizabeth shared Pepys' love of music and dancing, and he was proud of her efforts when she took up painting.

The couple wed in a civil ceremony at St. Margaret's in Westminster, on Dec. 1, 1655, but it is thought that they also had a religious ceremony on Oct. 10, 1655, two weeks before Elizabeth's fifteenth birthday.

Answer: A stone was removed from his bladder.

Pepys had suffered from kidney stones from childhood. As a young man, a large stone moved into his bladder, and his condition finally became so painful that he underwent surgery on Mar. 26, 1658. Surgery during Pepys' day was not a matter decided on lightly. Surgeons told their patients to get their estates in order before going under the knife. Pepys' surgeon, Thomas Hollier, had performed thirty successful operations that year, and Pepys was fully recovered in about a month.

In the following year, Dr. Hollier's first several patients died.

His instruments must have picked up an infection, so Pepys was truly fortunate in his timing.

Answer: True

Pepys had his hair cut and began wearing a periwig in November of 1663. Except for a brief time in 1665, when he was afraid that barbers might use the hair of plague victims to make periwigs, Pepys continued the practice. Pepys wore a periwig when sitting for all his portraits.

Answer: Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich

Pepys started his career in 1655 as a steward for Sir Edward Montagu, living in the servants' quarters at Whitehall. Pepys was faithful in his service to the family, and as Montagu's fortunes rose, first under Cromwell, then under King Charles II, so did Pepys'.

In 1660, when Admiral Montagu took the British fleet to return the king to England, Pepys was with him as his secretary. In 1660, Montagu was made the 1st Earl of Sandwich, and Pepys was appointed as a clerk of acts on the Navy Board at a salary of £350 a year. Pepys was industrious and diligent and his fortunes, with the help of the Earl of Sandwich, grew.

In 1673, King Charles II appointed Pepys as the first secretary of the Admiralty. It was under Pepys that the English navy became the strongest in the world.

Answer: 1660

Pepys began his diary in 1660 and continued faithfully to record his life, giving it up nearly ten years later, because he feared his sight was failing. Pepys' diary was a candid record of the Restoration era from a man who lived the events, but his diary is not only valuable from a historic point of view.

It is valuable for the insights and times and day-to-day life of the complex man who wrote it, also.

Answer: Elizabeth Pepys (his wife)

Elizabeth Pepys was only twenty-nine when she died. In the late summer of 1669, the Pepys made a trip to France, and Elizabeth caught a fever on the voyage home. She was seriously ill by the time she reached their home in Seething Lane on Oct. 20, 1669.

Her condition continued to worsen, and she died on Nov. 10 and was buried at St. Olave's Church on Nov. 13, 1669. Robert Pepys died in Jan. 1661, leaving Samuel Pepys his Brompton farm house and property. Tom Pepys died of tuberculosis in March of 1664. Margaret Kite Pepys died in 1667.

Answer: He lost John Pepys, his father, to the plague.

Pepys had a very happy year in 1665 despite the Great Plague. Along with his position as clerk for the Navy Board, Pepys was appointed surveyor general responsible for supplying the navy and by the end of 1665, his personal fortune was worth £10,000. By the end of August of 1665, the Navy Board was evacuated to Greenwich, but Pepys kept finding reasons to return to his house on Seething Lane.

In his diary and letters, Pepys told of over 6,000 dying of the plague in one week and of the constant tolling of bells.

He had difficulty finding food for fear of contaminated meat, and his brewer and baker had closed. A kind of morbid curiousity compelled him to visit a plague pit at Moorfields. His father, John Pepys, along with Elizabeth Pepys, was safely out of London. 1665 also was the year that Pepys became a member of the Royal Society.

Answer: Yes

On the morning of Sept. 2, 1666, Pepys rented a boat and went by river to the Tower of London to check on the fire's progress. Pepys became worried because the weather was dry, and a strong wind was blowing the fire to the east. He then went on to Whitehall and told King Charles II of the blaze. Pepys returned to Seething Lane, and started sending his valuables to safety. Luckily for Pepys, the fire did not spread to his house.

The house on Seething Lane did burn when a fire broke out in the Navy Offices in January, 1763, and Pepys lost many of his possessions though his diary and books were saved.

Answer: Being a Catholic and selling naval secrets to the French.

There were powerful men who did not want James, Duke of York, to follow his brother, King Charles II on the throne, because James was a Catholic. The Earl of Shaftesbury was one of them, and he plotted Pepys' downfall, because Pepys was loyal to James.

Although Pepys was soon out of the Tower on bail, the charges of high treason were very serious and if convicted, Pepys could have been executed. Pepys was cleared of all charges, but he lost his job as secretary of the Admiralty. He was finally reinstated in 1684 by King James II. 1684 was also the year Pepys became president of the Royal Society.

The old charges came back to haunt Pepys in 1689, when Pepys resigned and refused to swear an oath of allegiance to King William III and Queen Mary II, but as in 1679, the charges were soon dismissed as groundless.

Answer: Their coach was robbed by highwaymen.

Pepys and his party, which included Mary Skinner and his nephew, John Jackson, were out for a ride in Pepys' carriage in the countryside near Chelsea, when they were robbed by three armed men on horseback. Pepys lost his wallet, but a quick thinking Mary Skinner hid her money underneath her skirts. Two of the men were later convicted of the crime and hung, though Pepys testified that he could not identify them for sure as they wore masks during the robbery.

Answer: False

Pepys did not remarry after the death of Elizabeth in 1669, but he did find a caring companion in Mary Skinner for the last thirty-three years of his life. Why Pepys did not marry Mary is unknown. She was certainly socially accceptable. She had been raised as a gentlewoman by her aunt Elizabeth and her husband, Sir Richard Boteler, in Hertfordshire, and her father, Daniel Skinner, was a respectable merchant who attended Pepys' church. Two weeks before his death, Pepys rewrote his will leaving Mary a substantial lifetime annuity.

Answer: Magdalene College, Cambridge

Pepys resigned his post as secretary of the Admiralty in 1688 when King James II left the throne. For the most part, the rest of his life was lived out of the public eye. He enjoyed his music, adding to his library, and remained active in the Royal Society.

When Pepys died on May 26, 1703, the principal beneficiaries under his will were John Jackson, his nephew, and Mary Skinner. To Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys left his manuscripts, his books (valued at £4,000), and the six volumes that comprised his diary. I hope you have enjoyed my quiz on the life of Samuel Pepys.