The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 2 of 2)

11th March, 1690. I went again to see Mr. Charlton's curiosities, both of art and nature, and his full and rare collection of medals, which taken altogether, in all kinds, is doubtless one of the most perfect assemblages of rarities that can be any where seen. I much admired the contortions of the Thea root, which was so perplexed, large, and intricate, and withal hard as box, that it was wonderful to consider. The French have landed in Ireland.

16th March, 1690. A public fast.

24th May, 1690. City charter restored. Divers exempted from pardon.

4th June, 1690. King William set forth on his Irish expedition, leaving the Queen Regent.

10th June, 1690. Mr. Pepys read to me his Remonstrance, showing with what malice and injustice he was suspected with Sir Anthony Deane about the timber, of which the thirty ships were built by a late Act of Parliament, with the exceeding danger which the fleet would shortly be in, by reason of the tyranny and incompetency of those who now managed the Admiralty and affairs of the Navy, of which he gave an accurate state, and showed his great ability.

18th June, 1690. Fast day. Visited the Bishop of St. Asaph; his conversation was on the Vaudois in Savoy, who had been thought so near destruction and final extirpation by the French, being totally given up to slaughter, so that there were no hopes for them; but now it pleased God that the Duke of Savoy, who had hitherto joined with the French in their persecution, being now pressed by them to deliver up Saluzzo and Turin as cautionary towns, on suspicion that he might at last come into the Confederacy of the German Princes, did secretly concert measures with, and afterward declared for, them. He then invited these poor people from their dispersion among the mountains whither they had fled, and restored them to their country, their dwellings, and the exercise of their religion, and begged pardon for the ill usage they had received, charging it on the cruelty of the French who forced him to it. These being the remainder of those persecuted Christians which the Bishop of St. Asaph had so long affirmed to be the two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation, who should be killed and brought to life again, it was looked on as an extraordinary thing that this prophesying Bishop should persuade two fugitive ministers of the Vaudois to return to their country, and furnish them with £20 toward their journey, at that very time when nothing but universal destruction was to be expected, assuring them and showing them from the Apocalypse, that their countrymen should be returned safely to their country before they arrived. This happening contrary to all expectation and appearance, did exceedingly credit the Bishop's confidence how that prophecy of the witnesses should come to pass, just at the time, and the very month, he had spoken of some years before.

I afterward went with him to Mr. Boyle and Lady Ranelagh his sister, to whom he explained the necessity of it so fully, and so learnedly made out, with what events were immediately to follow, viz, the French King's ruin, the calling of the Jews to be near at hand, but that the Kingdom of Antichrist would not yet be utterly destroyed till thirty years, when Christ should begin the Millenium, not as personally and visibly reigning on earth, but that the true religion and universal peace should obtain through all the world. He showed how Mr. Brightman, Mr. Mede, and other interpreters of these events failed, by mistaking and reckoning the year as the Latins and others did, to consist of the present calculation, so many days to the year, whereas the Apocalypse reckons after the Persian account, as Daniel did, whose visions St. John all along explains as meaning only the Christian Church.

24th June, 1690. Dined with Mr. Pepys, who the next day was sent to the Gatehouse,74 and several great persons to the Tower, on suspicion of being affected to King James; among them was the Earl of Clarendon, the Queen's uncle. King William having vanquished King James in Ireland, there was much public rejoicing. It seems the Irish in King James's army would not stand, but the English-Irish and French made great resistance. Schomberg was slain, and Dr. Walker, who so bravely defended Londonderry. King William received a slight wound by the grazing of a cannon bullet on his shoulder, which he endured with very little interruption of his pursuit. Hamilton, who broke his word about Tyrconnel, was taken. It is reported that King James is gone back to France. Drogheda and Dublin surrendered, and if King William be returning, we may say of him as Cæsar said, "Veni, vidi, vici." But to alloy much of this, the French fleet rides in our channel, ours not daring to interpose, and the enemy threatening to land.

LONDON

27th June, 1690. I went to visit some friends in the Tower, when asking for Lord Clarendon, they by mistake directed me to the Earl of Torrington, who about three days before had been sent for from the fleet, and put into the Tower for cowardice and not fighting the French fleet, which having beaten a squadron of the Hollanders, while Torrington did nothing, did now ride masters of the sea, threatening a descent.

20th July, 1690. This afternoon a camp of about 4,000 men was begun to be formed on Blackheath.

30th July, 1690. I dined with Mr. Pepys, now suffered to return to his house, on account of indisposition.

1st August, 1690. The Duke of Grafton came to visit me, going to his ship at the mouth of the river, in his way to Ireland (where he was slain).

3d August, 1690. The French landed some soldiers at Teignmouth, in Devon, and burned some poor houses. The French fleet still hovering about the western coast, and we having 300 sail of rich merchant-ships in the bay of Plymouth, our fleet began to move toward them, under three admirals. The country in the west all on their guard. A very extraordinary fine season; but on the 12th was a very great storm of thunder and lightning, and on the 15th the season much changed to wet and cold. The militia and trained bands, horse and foot, which were up through England, were dismissed. The French King having news that King William was slain, and his army defeated in Ireland, caused such a triumph at Paris, and all over France, as was never heard of; when, in the midst of it, the unhappy King James being vanquished, by a speedy flight and escape, himself brought the news of his own defeat.

15th August, 1690. I was desired to be one of the bail of the Earl of Clarendon, for his release from the Tower, with divers noblemen. The Bishop of St. Asaph expounds his prophecies to me and Mr. Pepys, etc. The troops from Blackheath march to Portsmouth. That sweet and hopeful youth, Sir Charles Tuke, died of the wounds he received in the fight of the Boyne, to the great sorrow of all his friends, being (I think) the last male of that family, to which my wife is related. A more virtuous young gentleman I never knew; he was learned for his age, having had the advantage of the choicest breeding abroad, both as to arts and arms; he had traveled much, but was so unhappy as to fall in the side of his unfortunate King.

The unseasonable and most tempestuous weather happening, the naval expedition is hindered, and the extremity of wet causes the siege of Limerick to be raised, King William returned to England. Lord Sidney left Governor of what is conquered in Ireland, which is near three parts [in four].

17th August, 1690. A public feast. An extraordinary sharp, cold, east wind.

12th October, 1690. The French General, with Tyrconnel and their forces, gone back to France, beaten out by King William. Cork delivered on discretion. The Duke of Grafton was there mortally wounded and dies. Very great storms of wind. The 8th of this month Lord Spencer wrote me word from Althorpe, that there happened an earthquake the day before in the morning, which, though short, sensibly shook the house. The "Gazette" acquainted us that the like happened at the same time, half-past seven, at Barnstaple, Holyhead, and Dublin. We were not sensible of it here.

26th October, 1690. Kinsale at last surrendered, meantime King James's party burn all the houses they have in their power, and among them that stately palace of Lord Ossory's, which lately cost, as reported, £40,000. By a disastrous accident, a third-rate ship, the Breda, blew up and destroyed all on board; in it were twenty-five prisoners of war. She was to have sailed for England the next day.

3d November, 1690. Went to the Countess of Clancarty, to condole with her concerning her debauched and dissolute son, who had done so much mischief in Ireland, now taken and brought prisoner to the Tower.

16th November, 1690. Exceeding great storms, yet a warm season.

23d November, 1690. Carried Mr. Pepys's memorials to Lord Godolphin, now resuming the commission of the Treasury, to the wonder of all his friends.

1st December, 1690. Having been chosen President of the Royal Society, I desired to decline it, and with great difficulty devolved the election on Sir Robert Southwell, Secretary of State to King William in Ireland.

20th December, 1690. Dr. Hough, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, who was displaced with several of the Fellows for not taking the oath imposed by King James, now made a Bishop. Most of this month cold and frost. One Johnson, a Knight, was executed at Tyburn for being an accomplice with Campbell, brother to Lord Argyle, in stealing a young heiress.

4th January, 1690-91. This week a PLOT was discovered for a general rising against the new Government, for which (Henry) Lord Clarendon and others were sent to the Tower. The next day, I went to see Lord Clarendon. The Bishop of Ely searched for. Trial of Lord Preston, as not being an English Peer, hastened at the Old Bailey.

LONDON

18th January, 1691. Lord Preston condemned about a design to bring in King James by the French. Ashton executed. The Bishop of Ely, Mr. Graham, etc., absconded.

13th March, 1691. I went to visit Monsieur Justell and the Library at St. James's, in which that learned man had put the MSS. (which were in good number) into excellent order, they having lain neglected for many years. Divers medals had been stolen and embezzled.

21st March, 1691. Dined at Sir William Fermor's, who showed me many good pictures. After dinner, a French servant played rarely on the lute. Sir William had now bought all the remaining statues collected with so much expense by the famous Thomas, Earl of Arundel, and sent them to his seat at Easton, near Towcester.75

25th March, 1691. Lord Sidney, principal Secretary of State, gave me a letter to Lord Lucas, Lieutenant of the Tower, to permit me to visit Lord Clarendon; which this day I did, and dined with him.

LONDON

10th April, 1691. This night, a sudden and terrible fire burned down all the buildings over the stone gallery at Whitehall to the water side, beginning at the apartment of the late Duchess of Portsmouth (which had been pulled down and rebuilt no less than three times to please her), and consuming other lodgings of such lewd creatures, who debauched both King Charles II. and others, and were his destruction.

The King returned out of Holland just as this accident happened – Proclamation against the Papists, etc.

16th April, 1691. I went to see Dr. Sloane's curiosities, being an universal collection of the natural productions of Jamaica, consisting of plants, fruits, corals, minerals, stones, earth, shells, animals, and insects, collected with great judgment; several folios of dried plants, and one which had about 80 several sorts of ferns, and another of grasses; the Jamaica pepper, in branch, leaves, flower, fruit, etc. This collection,76 with his Journal and other philosophical and natural discourses and observations, indeed very copious and extraordinary, sufficient to furnish a history of that island, to which I encouraged him.

19th April, 1691. The Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishops of Ely, Bath and Wells, Peterborough, Gloucester, and the rest who would not take the oaths to King William, were now displaced; and in their rooms, Dr. Tillotson, Dean of St. Paul's, was made Archbishop: Patrick removed from Chichester to Ely; Cumberland to Gloucester.

22d April, 1691. I dined with Lord Clarendon in the Tower.

24th April, 1691. I visited the Earl and Countess of Sunderland, now come to kiss the King's hand after his return from Holland. This is a mystery. The King preparing to return to the army.

7th May, 1691. I went to visit the Archbishop of Canterbury [Sancroft] yet at Lambeth. I found him alone, and discoursing of the times, especially of the newly designed Bishops; he told me that by no canon or divine law they could justify the removing of the present incumbents; that Dr. Beveridge, designed Bishop of Bath and Wells, came to ask his advice; that the Archbishop told him, though he should give it, he believed he would not take it; the Doctor said he would; why then, says the Archbishop, when they come to ask, say "Nolo," and say it from the heart; there is nothing easier than to resolve yourself what is to be done in the case: the Doctor seemed to deliberate. What he will do I know not, but Bishop Ken, who is to be put out, is exceedingly beloved in his diocese; and, if he and the rest should insist on it, and plead their interest as freeholders, it is believed there would be difficulty in their case, and it may endanger a schism and much disturbance, so as wise men think it had been better to have let them alone, than to have proceeded with this rigor to turn them out for refusing to swear against their consciences. I asked at parting, when his Grace removed; he said that he had not yet received any summons, but I found the house altogether disfurnished and his books packed up.

1st June, 1691. I went with my son, and brother-in-law, Glanville, and his son, to Wotton, to solemnize the funeral of my nephew, which was performed the next day very decently and orderly by the herald in the afternoon, a very great appearance of the country being there. I was the chief mourner; the pall was held by Sir Francis Vincent, Sir Richard Onslow, Mr. Thomas Howard (son to Sir Robert, and Captain of the King's Guard), Mr. Hyldiard, Mr. James, Mr. Herbert, nephew to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and cousin-german to my deceased nephew. He was laid in the vault at Wotton Church, in the burying place of the family. A great concourse of coaches and people accompanied the solemnity.

LONDON

10th June, 1691. I went to visit Lord Clarendon, still prisoner in the Tower, though Lord Preston being pardoned was released.

17th June, 1691. A fast.

11th July, 1691. I dined with Mr. Pepys, where was Dr. Cumberland, the new Bishop of Norwich,77 Dr. Lloyd having been put out for not acknowledging the Government. Cumberland is a very learned, excellent man. Possession was now given to Dr. Tillotson, at Lambeth, by the Sheriff; Archbishop Sancroft was gone, but had left his nephew to keep possession; and he refusing to deliver it up on the Queen's message, was dispossessed by the Sheriff, and imprisoned. This stout demeanor of the few Bishops who refused to take the oaths to King William, animated a great party to forsake the churches, so as to threaten a schism; though those who looked further into the ancient practice, found that when (as formerly) there were Bishops displaced on secular accounts, the people never refused to acknowledge the new Bishops, provided they were not heretics. The truth is, the whole clergy had till now stretched the duty of passive obedience, so that the proceedings against these Bishops gave no little occasion of exceptions; but this not amounting to heresy, there was a necessity of receiving the new Bishops, to prevent a failure of that order in the Church. I went to visit Lord Clarendon in the Tower, but he was gone into the country for air by the Queen's permission, under the care of his warden.

18th July, 1691. To London to hear Mr. Stringfellow preach his first sermon in the newly erected Church of Trinity, in Conduit Street; to which I did recommend him to Dr. Tenison for the constant preacher and lecturer. This Church, formerly built of timber on Hounslow-Heath by King James for the mass priests, being begged by Dr. Tenison, rector of St. Martin's, was set up by that public-minded, charitable, and pious man near my son's dwelling in Dover Street, chiefly at the charge of the Doctor. I know him to be an excellent preacher and a fit person. This Church, though erected in St. Martin's, which is the Doctor's parish, he was not only content, but was the sole industrious mover, that it should be made a separate parish, in regard of the neighborhood having become so populous. Wherefore to countenance and introduce the new minister, and take possession of a gallery designed for my son's family, I went to London, where,

19th July, 1691. In the morning Dr. Tenison preached the first sermon, taking his text from Psalm xxvi. 8. "Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth." In concluding, he gave that this should be made a parish church so soon as the Parliament sat, and was to be dedicated to the Holy Trinity, in honor of the three undivided persons in the Deity; and he minded them to attend to that faith of the church, now especially that Arianism, Socinianism, and atheism began to spread among us. In the afternoon, Mr. Stringfellow preached on Luke vii. 5. "The centurion who had built a synagogue." He proceeded to the due praise of persons of such public spirit, and thence to such a character of pious benefactors in the person of the generous centurion, as was comprehensive of all the virtues of an accomplished Christian, in a style so full, eloquent, and moving, that I never heard a sermon more apposite to the occasion. He modestly insinuated the obligation they had to that person who should be the author and promoter of such public works for the benefit of mankind, especially to the advantage of religion, such as building and endowing churches, hospitals, libraries, schools, procuring the best editions of useful books, by which he handsomely intimated who it was that had been so exemplary for his benefaction to that place. Indeed, that excellent person, Dr. Tenison, had also erected and furnished a public library [in St. Martin's]; and set up two or three free schools at his own charges. Besides this, he was of an exemplary, holy life, took great pains in constantly preaching, and incessantly employing himself to promote the service of God both in public and private. I never knew a man of a more universal and generous spirit, with so much modesty, prudence, and piety.

The great victory of King William's army in Ireland was looked on as decisive of that war. The French General, St. Ruth, who had been so cruel to the poor Protestants in France, was slain, with divers of the best commanders; nor was it cheap to us, having 1,000 killed, but of the enemy 4,000 or 5,000.

26th July, 1691. An extraordinary hot season, yet refreshed by some thundershowers.

28th July, 1691. I went to Wotton.

2d August, 1691. No sermon in the church in the afternoon, and the curacy ill-served.

16th August, 1691. A sermon by the curate; an honest discourse, but read without any spirit, or seeming concern; a great fault in the education of young preachers. Great thunder and lightning on Thursday, but the rain and wind very violent. Our fleet come in to lay up the great ships; nothing done at sea, pretending that we cannot meet the French.

13th September, 1691. A great storm at sea; we lost the "Coronation" and "Harwich," above 600 men perishing.

14th October, 1691. A most pleasing autumn. Our navy come in without having performed anything, yet there has been great loss of ships by negligence, and unskillful men governing the fleet and Navy board.

7th November, 1691. I visited the Earl of Dover, who having made his peace with the King, was now come home. The relation he gave of the strength of the French King, and the difficulty of our forcing him to fight, and any way making impression into France, was very wide from what we fancied.

8th to 30th November, 1691. An extraordinary dry and warm season, without frost, and like a new spring; such as had not been known for many years. Part of the King's house at Kensington was burned.

6th December, 1691. Discourse of another PLOT, in which several great persons were named, but believed to be a sham. – A proposal in the House of Commons that every officer in the whole nation who received a salary above £500 or otherwise by virtue of his office, should contribute it wholly to the support of the war with France, and this upon their oath.

25th December, 1691. My daughter-in-law was brought to bed of a daughter.

26th December, 1691. An exceedingly dry and calm winter; no rain for many past months.

28th December, 1691. Dined at Lambeth with the new Archbishop. Saw the effect of my greenhouse furnace, set up by the Archbishop's son-in-law.

30th December, 1691. I again saw Mr. Charlton's collection of spiders, birds, scorpions, and other serpents, etc.

1st January, 1691-92. This last week died that pious, admirable Christian, excellent philosopher, and my worthy friend, Mr. Boyle, aged about 65, – a great loss to all that knew him, and to the public.

LONDON

6th January, 1692. At the funeral of Mr. Boyle, at St. Martin's, Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, preached on Eccles. ii. 26. He concluded with an eulogy due to the deceased, who made God and religion the scope of all his excellent talents in the knowledge of nature, and who had arrived to so high a degree in it, accompanied with such zeal and extraordinary piety, which he showed in the whole course of his life, particularly in his exemplary charity on all occasions, – that he gave £1,000 yearly to the distressed refugees of France and Ireland; was at the charge of translating the Scriptures into the Irish and Indian tongues, and was now promoting a Turkish translation, as he had formerly done of Grotius "on the Truth of the Christian Religion" into Arabic, which he caused to be dispersed in the eastern countries; that he had settled a fund for preachers who should preach expressly against Atheists, Libertines, Socinians, and Jews; that he had in his will given £8,000 to charitable uses; but that his private charities were extraordinary. He dilated on his learning in Hebrew and Greek, his reading of the fathers, and solid knowledge in theology, once deliberating about taking Holy Orders, and that at the time of restoration of King Charles II., when he might have made a great figure in the nation as to secular honor and titles, his fear of not being able to discharge so weighty a duty as the first, made him decline that, and his humility the other. He spoke of his civility to strangers, the great good which he did by his experience in medicine and chemistry, and to what noble ends he applied himself to his darling studies; the works, both pious and useful, which he published; the exact life he led, and the happy end he made. Something was touched of his sister, the Lady Ranelagh, who died but a few days before him. And truly all this was but his due, without any grain of flattery.

This week a most execrable murder was committed on Dr. Clench, father of that extraordinary learned child whom I have before noticed. Under pretense of carrying him in a coach to see a patient, they strangled him in it; and, sending away the coachman under some pretense, they left his dead body in the coach, and escaped in the dusk of the evening.

12th January, 1692. My granddaughter was christened by Dr. Tenison, now Bishop of Lincoln, in Trinity Church, being the first that was christened there. She was named Jane.

24th January, 1692. A frosty and dry season continued; many persons die of apoplexy, more than usual. Lord Marlborough, Lieutenant-General of the King's army in England, gentleman of the bedchamber, etc., dismissed from all his charges, military and other, for his excessive taking of bribes, covetousness, and extortion on all occasions from his inferior officers. Note, this was the Lord who was entirely advanced by King James, and was the first who betrayed and forsook his master. He was son of Sir Winston Churchill of the Greencloth.

7th February, 1692. An extraordinary snow fell in most parts.

13th February, 1692. Mr. Boyle having made me one of the trustees for his charitable bequests, I went to a meeting of the Bishop of Lincoln, Sir Rob… wood, and serjeant, Rotheram, to settle that clause in the will which related to charitable uses, and especially the appointing and electing a minister to preach one sermon the first Sunday in the month, during the four summer months, expressly against Atheists, Deists, Libertines, Jews, etc., without descending to any other controversy whatever, for which £50 per annum is to be paid quarterly to the preacher; and, at the end of three years, to proceed to a new election of some other able divine, or to continue the same, as the trustees should judge convenient. We made choice of one Mr. Bentley, chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester (Dr. Stillingfleet). The first sermon was appointed for the first Sunday in March, at St. Martin's; the second Sunday in April, at Bow Church, and so alternately.