1663: Pepys fornicates with his mistress in a wine-house

In June 1663, English diarist Samuel Pepys reported a bout of public sexual intercourse with his mistress, Betty Lane, apparently in return for a lobster:

“With one word [I] got her to go with me and to meet me at the further Rhenish wine-house, where I did give her a Lobster and towse her [have intercourse] and feel her all over, making her believe how fair and good a skin she had… And indeed she hath a very white thigh and leg, but monstrous fat.”

According to Pepys, someone outside the inn happened to spy their liaison through a window:

“When weary I did give over, and somebody having seen some of our dalliance, called aloud in the street, “Sir! why do you kiss the gentlewoman so?” and flung a stone at the window, which vexed me… but I believe they could not see my towsing her; and so we broke up and went out the back way, without being observed I think.”

Pepys continued his affair with Betty Lane after her 1664 marriage, when she became Betty Martin. He also had at least two sexual encounters with her younger sister, Doll, in public houses.

Source: The diary of Samuel Pepys, June 29th 1663. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.