Samuel Pepys
![](/Images/godic/202502/02/Samuel_Pepys3937.jpg")
![Bookplate c.1680–1690 with arms of Samuel Pepys: Quarterly 1st & 4th: Sable, on a bend or between two nag's heads erased argent three fleurs-de-lis of the field (Pepys[3]); 2nd & 3rd: Gules, a lion rampant within a bordure engrailed or (Talbot[4]). Samuel Pepys was descended from John Pepys who married Elizabeth Talbot, the heiress of Cottenham in Cambridgeshire.[5] The Pepys arms are borne by the Pepys family, Earls of Cottenham[6]](/Images/godic/202502/02/PepysQuarteringTalbot3937.jpg")
![Elisabeth de St Michel, Pepys' wife. Stipple engraving by James Thomson, after a 1666 painting (now destroyed) by John Hayls.[13]](/Images/godic/202502/02/Elizabeth_Pepys3937.jpg")
![Samuel Pepys' bookplate. The motto reads](/Images/godic/202502/02/Samuel_Pepys_bookplate_13937.jpg")
Samuel Pepys (/ˈpiːps/ PEEPS) PRS, MP, JP (23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703), was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work, and his talent for administration to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.