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Empire of the Seas
technology, dockyards to service them and sound financial method behind them. He went some way towards achieving that in his lifetime, allowing for an imperfect world and his own imperfect character. He gave up his diary in 1669, fearing he was going blind, and Elizabeth died the following year. He became involved with Mary Skinner, whose brother had worked for the puritan John Milton – thus the two key women in his life represented the opposite poles of the day, Catholic and puritan. But they were not his only women; he had numerous affairs, including one with his maid. In addition he loved the theatre, music and good food and found time away from his work to enjoy them to the full. When the Duke of York fell from office in 1673, the King took much of the running of the Admiralty into his own hands with Pepys as the Secretary. Pepys increased his power through election to the House of Commons. He supported the Royal Society, Trinity House and the Royal Mathematical School, but his main achievements were to set up a regular career structure for officers in 1677, and to steer an act through parliament for building thirty new ships. In 1679, during the scare known as the ‘Popish plot’, he and Deane were accused of leaking naval secrets to the French, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for a year until they could clear their names. Pepys returned to government work in 1683 when he helped to wind up business in the evacuated colony of Tangier. In 1684 he was reappointed as Secretary to the
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