Born in 1633, Samuel Pepys (pronounced “peeps”) was the son of a tailor who brought the family to London when Samuel was a boy. In 1660, just months after Pepys began his diary, Admiral Edward Montagu, a well-connected cousin by marriage, invited the young man to sail as his secretary on a historic journey to the Netherlands, where Montagu was to join the party escorting King Charles II back to England. Pepys thus enjoyed a personal part in the Restoration, the event that ended 18 years of Puritan rule and royal exile (the Interregnum) and returned the monarchy to power in England. During the 1660s, helped by his powerful cousin, Pepys won a series of important positions in the office of naval administration. By the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67), Pepys’s valuable service had earned the trust of both King Charles II and his brother James, the duke of York and Lord High Admiral (later King James II). Though poor eyesight forced him to discontinue his diary in 1669, Pepys’s career continued to flourish, culminating in his appointment as Secretary of the Admiralty in 1684 under Charles II, a position he retained after James II succeeded to the throne in 1685.
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