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City & Village Tours: 0208 692 1133
Just before Christmas, as the dust settled on another
busy year of day trips I took the short walk from our
office to the National Maritime Museum and the Pepys:
Plague, Fire, Revolution exhibition that opened at the
end of November and runs until 28 March 2016. Last
year marked the 350th anniversary of the Great Plague
and this year we mark the 350th anniversary of the
Great Fire of London - the two events for which
Samuel Pepys’ famous diaries are best known.
Pepys is always an entertaining subject - a gossip,
socialite and a lover of music, theatre, fine living and
women. Using 200 paintings and objects from museums,
galleries and private collections across Britain and
beyond this attractive and engaging exhibition at
Greenwich tells us about the plague and fire and looks
at some of the other tumultuous events that shaped
Stuart Britain during the life and times of Mr Pepys.
It shows how many pies this extraordinary man had
a finger in. Through a mixture of patronage (a well
connected rich uncle), graft and talent (some might say
cunning) Pepys worked his way up from his first humble
posting as a government clerk to become the Navy’s most
senior civil servant, work which would bring him into
contact with pretty much all the major players of his day.
Pepys witnessed, and in some cases influenced, some of
the defining events of the mid 17th century from the
execution of Charles I to the Glorious Revolution. The
show also covers some lesser known historical themes
- what do you know, for example, about the Second
Anglo-Dutch War? No, me neither. We lost. Having
defeated the English Navy at sea the Dutch sailed up the
Thames into the Medway and pinched one of the Navy’s
most important ships. A link or two of a massive chain
that was strung across the river at Gillingham in an
optimistic attempt of Ealing Comedy proportions to
fend off the Dutch is on show at Greenwich. This is the
joy of this well constructed exhibition - it draws the
inquisitive mind from the familiar towards lesser known
aspects of the 17th century story.
I really enjoyed this exhibition and the twelve other
people milling around at dusk on a Thursday in
December seemed equally absorbed. What has stayed
with me most came at the very beginning. In January
1649 the fifteen year old Pepys bunked off school to go
and see the execution of King Charles I on Whitehall.
He is the Forest Gump of the mid 17th century for sure!
A huge contemporary oil painting (above) on loan from
the National Galleries of Scotland recounts the events
of that extraordinary day. Each panel within the painting
is illuminated in sequence with an audio presentation.
Cold day, extra shirt so shivering wouldn’t be mistaken
for fear etc. So far, so familiar. What stopped me in my
tracks was this. As the King’s head rolled from his body
we are told that the crowd surged forward to dip their
handkerchiefs in his blood. Some wanted the royal blood
by way of a macabre souvenir but for many it was to be
medicine! Oh my. If anything brought into sharp focus
the fearsome and brutal reality of life in Pepys day it was
this little nugget. The past really is a different country.
While demonising the so called savages of the New
World in America for alleged cases of cannibalism and
condemning the Catholics at home for their body and
Mummies, Skull Moss & Bladder Stones
the Size of Billiard Balls
