the Restoration
Pleasure palaces and hidden gems
Theatre buildings are seriously interesting – as I ought to have appreciated sooner in the course of 25 years writing…
![Portrait of Pepys, after John Hayls. The Diary for 17 March 1666 reads: ‘This day I begin to sit [for Hayls], and he will make me, I think, a very fine picture.... I sit to have it full of shadows, and do almost break my neck looking over my shoulder to make the posture for him to work by.’](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/pepys1.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
The joy of an unexpurgated Pepys — without the bother of reading it oneself
We all know about Samuel Pepys witnessing the Great Fire in his Diaries, but how many have read the definitive…
Colonel Blood: thief turned spy and Royal pensioner
In the words of one of his contemporaries ‘a man of down look, lean-faced and full of pock holes’, the…
