Samuel Pepys Saves Widow’s Estate

On January 16, 1667/68, Samuel Pepys’ despondent cousin decided to end it all. He threw himself
into a pond behind an inn, determined to drown. A woman spotted him in the water and alerted farmhands who pulled him out. He was revived but sickened and died at home a few days later.  

Now his widow faced a potentially disastrous financial loss. By law, the estates of suicides were forfeit to the crown. She asked Pepys, a naval bureaucrat, for help. As we can read in his diary entry for January 21, Pepys came through big time:

So, at their entreaty, I presently took coach to White Hall, and there find Sir W. Coventry; and he carried me to the King, the Duke of York being with him, and there told my story which I had told him:1 and the King, without more ado, granted that, if it was found, the estate should be to the widow and children. I presently to each Secretary’s office, and there left caveats, and so away back again to my cozens, leaving a chimney on fire at White Hall, in the King’s closet; but no danger. And so, when I come thither, I find her all in sorrow, but she and the rest mightily pleased with my doing this for them; and, indeed, it was a very great courtesy, for people are looking out for the estate, and the coroner will be sent to, and a jury called to examine his death. This being well done to my and their great joy, I home, and there to my office, and so to supper and to bed.