PEPYS DIARIES

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12254, 9 April 1935, Page 3

PEPYS DIARIES

NEW SET DiSCOYKRED

REVELATIONS .01' ENGLISH history; NEW FACTS MADE KNOWN. LONDON, March 16. Now facts just brought tb light •about tbO'- newly discovered Pepys “diaries” snsgest that pari ..of the Mstory of England may ‘have to ho .rewritten. They colour the picture of an England -‘ dominated by political gangsters who lived by intrigue and oormption to'which Tammany Hall at its worst--has never come near. Uncertainties that for 250 years have remained in-.vs.terie.-r> of histniy are now solved. This much was made error by Mr Arthur Bryant, the historical writer who discovered the new volumes. Mr Bryant gave a precis of the contents of Ills finds at the Fcpys dinner at Magdalene. College' It has long been known that Lor 1 - 1 Shaftesbury’s fiction exaggerated the so-called Popish plots during the reign of Charles If for their political ends. It is no,w established beyond doubt that the charges, made against Life Catholics and testified. to by Titus Oates’s “confession’’ of scheming to overthrew -tlio Covornment to kill, the King, to invade Ireland' and join in, a general massacre- of the Pi*e test-ants were fabricated Rom beginning tin end. The diarist lots also cleared himself of implication. Tic solves what has long been a nivsfery of history—tho death of Sir Edmund Godfrey. H : was to Sit' Edmund, a justice of the peace, that Titus Oates “revealed” the so-called plot. The magistrate was soon afterwards found' dead. ATTACKS ON PEPYS The new Pepys volume dealing with this period may accurately he caked a diary. It was written from day 1o day. It reveals the full extent i° which attacks were made upon Hie author.. It made, according to Air. Bryant, very like a story of Chicago Gangsters, an c | opens a window °n to an underground of politics which i s almost unbelievable It- was written eawlv in 1680. at a time when its author had a char'-e of high treason hanging over him. ITe was on bail, charged with selling naval secrets and plotting the Kino’s death. He had just, .spent some weeks in the Tower of London during 1679 arrested by Shaftesbury s faction, his bitter enemies. For "Peers was the personal friend' of .James fT, then Duke of York and formerly Lord High Admiral This volume of Iff) folio paves, hound jin acid-s-potl'ep vnlf leather and bearing Pepys’s coat, of arms in gold is written in longhand—unlike tho diaries proper which were m shorthand. The second new volume was written in 1669-70 just allot the diaries ended, on March 31. 1669 If. deals with the inquiry into the conduct of the Nary Office. It P Pepys’.s defence. PART OF CHARLES U ! The book reveals that Charles li ' played' a- 'loading part in the Privy Council’s investigation, and that tho King had a deep knowledge of and enthusiasm for the Navy. Six Of tho 14 volumes of Admiralty Letters, : tAfagdalcne CoK.cge, have never before boon even catalogued. Thousands of documents' in the Bodicjan Libra i.v at Oxford have, now been used i nr the first'time. Letters from various sources, written centuries after Pepys's death; show, for instance, that the machinery of the Admiralty that the diarist built up while secretary of the Navy Office was still unchanged then The diarist- was first to insist that every ship’s, captain keep a log with entries for each day, and that- the log bo presented to tho Admiralty at the end of every voyage. Nelson’s navy, it is now known, was run upon the Pepys pram The official procedure, rules of discipline administration of the fleet fhat won Trafalgar, had been evolved 150 years before by a little diarist, son of a tailor, who was called “the vainest man of his time.