Carey Verney and Samuel Pepys

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My parents were Sir Edmund and Lady Margaret Verney of Claydon House in Buckinghamshire. I had six brothers and five sisters.

When I was 16, I married Captain Thomas Gardiner. In the same year, a terrible war started. It was a war between people in England. They were fighting about who should rule the country.

The war divided families. My husband, my father and three of my brothers joined one side, but my oldest brother and my uncle joined the other. I loved them all and they loved each other, but they had to fight for their beliefs. My husband, my father, my uncle and my second brother were all killed in the war. I was a widow at 18.

For most of my life I worked in London for the Government. I am most famous for writing a secret diary from 1660 to 1669. I wrote all about my family and myself. I also wrote about all the important people and events of my time. I told the story of the Great Plague that killed 70,000 people in London.

Then I wrote an eyewitness description of the Great Fire of London, which destroyed 14,000 houses, 89 churches and St Paul's Cathedral. I wrote my diary in a special code. More than 150 years later, somebody worked it out and my diary could be read.