The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 2 of 2)

LONDON

26-7th November, 1703. The effects of the hurricane and tempest of wind, rain, and lightning, through all the nation, especially London, were very dismal. Many houses demolished, and people killed. As to my own losses, the subversion of woods and timber, both ornamental and valuable, through my whole estate, and about my house the woods crowning the garden mount, the growing along the park meadow, the damage to my own dwelling, farms, and outhouses, is almost tragical, not to be paralleled, with anything happening in our age. I am not able to describe it; but submit to the pleasure of Almighty God.

7th December, 1703. I removed to Dover Street, where I found all well; but houses, trees, garden, etc., at Sayes Court, suffered very much.

31st December, 1703. I made up my accounts, paid wages, gave rewards and New Year's gifts, according to custom.

January, 1703-04. The King of Spain95 landing at Portsmouth, came to Windsor, where he was magnificently entertained by the Queen, and behaved himself so nobly, that everybody was taken with his graceful deportment. After two days, having presented the great ladies, and others, with valuable jewels, he went back to Portsmouth, and immediately embarked for Spain.

16th January, 1704. The Lord Treasurer gave my grandson the office of Treasurer of the Stamp Duties, with a salary of £300 a year.

30th January, 1704. The fast on the Martyrdom of King Charles I. was observed with more than usual solemnity.

May, 1704. Dr. Bathurst, President of Trinity College, Oxford, now died,96 I think the oldest acquaintance now left me in the world. He was eighty-six years of age, stark blind, deaf, and memory lost, after having been a person of admirable parts and learning. This is a serious alarm to me. God grant that I may profit by it! He built a very handsome chapel to the college, and his own tomb. He gave a legacy of money, and a third part of his library, to his nephew, Dr. Bohun, who went hence to his funeral.

LONDON

7th September, 1704. This day was celebrated the thanksgiving for the late great victory,97 with the utmost pomp and splendor by the Queen, Court, great Officers, Lords Mayor, Sheriffs, Companies, etc. The streets were scaffolded from Temple Bar, where the Lord Mayor presented her Majesty with a sword, which she returned. Every company was ranged under its banners, the city militia without the rails, which were all hung with cloth suitable to the color of the banner. The Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen were in their scarlet robes, with caparisoned horses; the Knight Marshal on horseback; the Foot-Guards; the Queen in a rich coach with eight horses, none with her but the Duchess of Marlborough in a very plain garment, the Queen full of jewels. Music and trumpets at every city company. The great officers of the Crown, Nobility, and Bishops, all in coaches with six horses, besides innumerable servants, went to St. Paul's, where the Dean preached. After this, the Queen went back in the same order to St. James's. The city companies feasted all the Nobility and Bishops, and illuminated at night. Music for the church and anthems composed by the best masters. The day before was wet and stormy, but this was one of the most serene and calm days that had been all the year.

October, 1704. The year has been very plentiful.

31st October, 1704. Being my birthday and the 84th year of my life, after particular reflections on my concerns and passages of the year, I set some considerable time of this day apart, to recollect and examine my state and condition, giving God thanks, and acknowledging his infinite mercies to me and mine, begging his blessing, and imploring his protection for the year following.

December, 1704. Lord Clarendon presented me with the three volumes of his father's "History of the Rebellion."

My Lord of Canterbury wrote to me for suffrage for Mr. Clarke's continuance this year in the Boyle Lecture, which I willingly gave for his excellent performance of this year.

9th February, 1704. I went to wait on my Lord Treasurer, where was the victorious Duke of Marlborough, who came to me and took me by the hand with extraordinary familiarity and civility, as formerly he was used to do, without any alteration of his good-nature. He had a most rich George in a sardonyx set with diamonds of very great value; for the rest, very plain. I had not seen him for some years, and believed he might have forgotten me.

21st February, 1704. Remarkable fine weather. Agues and smallpox much in every place.

11th March, 1704. An exceedingly dry season. Great loss by fire, burning the outhouses and famous stable of the Earl of Nottingham, at Burleigh [Rutlandshire], full of rich goods and furniture, by the carelessness of a servant. A little before, the same happened at Lord Pembroke's, at Wilton. The old Countess of Northumberland, Dowager of Algernon Percy, Admiral of the fleet to King Charles I., died in the 83d year of her age. She was sister to the Earl of Suffolk, and left a great estate, her jointure to descend to the Duke of Somerset.

May, 1704. The Bailiff of Westminster hanged himself. He had an ill report.

On the death of the Emperor, there was no mourning worn at Court, because there was none at the Imperial Court on the death of King William.

18th May, 1704. I went to see Sir John Chardin, at Turnham Green, the gardens being very fine, and exceedingly well planted with fruit.

20th May, 1704. Most extravagant expense to debauch and corrupt votes for Parliament members. I sent my grandson with his party of my freeholders to vote for Mr. Harvey, of Combe.

4th January, 1704-05. I dined at Lambeth with the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. King, a sharp and ready man in politics, as well as very learned.

June, 1705. The season very dry and hot. I went to see Dr. Dickinson the famous chemist. We had long conversation about the philosopher's elixir, which he believed attainable, and had seen projection himself by one who went under the name of Mundanus, who sometimes came along among the adepts, but was unknown as to his country, or abode; of this the doctor had written a treatise in Latin, full of very astonishing relations. He is a very learned person, formerly a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, in which city he practiced physic, but has now altogether given it over, and lives retired, being very old and infirm, yet continuing chemistry.

I went to Greenwich hospital, where they now began to take in wounded and worn-out seamen, who are exceedingly well provided for. The buildings now going on are very magnificent.

LONDON

October, 1705. Mr. Cowper made Lord Keeper. Observing how uncertain great officers are of continuing long in their places, he would not accept it, unless £2,000 a year were given him in reversion when he was put out, in consideration of his loss of practice. His predecessors, how little time soever they had the Seal, usually got £100,000 and made themselves Barons. A new Secretary of State. Lord Abington, Lieutenant of the Tower, displaced, and General Churchill, brother to the Duke of Marlborough, put in. An indication of great unsteadiness somewhere, but thus the crafty Whig party (as called) begin to change the face of the Court, in opposition to the High Churchmen, which was another distinction of a party from the Low Churchmen. The Parliament chose one Mr. Smith, Speaker. There had never been so great an assembly of members on the first day of sitting, being more than 450. The votes both of the old, as well as the new, fell to those called Low Churchmen, contrary to all expectation.

31st October, 1705. I am this day arrived to the 85th year of my age. Lord teach me so to number my days to come, that I may apply them to wisdom!

1st January, 1705-06. Making up my accounts for the past year, paid bills, wages, and New Year's gifts, according to custom. Though much indisposed and in so advanced a stage, I went to our chapel [in London] to give God public thanks, beseeching Almighty God to assist me and my family the ensuing year, if he should yet continue my pilgrimage here, and bring me at last to a better life with him in his heavenly kingdom. Divers of our friends and relations dined with us this day.

27th January, 1706. My indisposition increasing, I was exceedingly ill this whole week.

3d February, 1706. Notes of the sermons at the chapel in the morning and afternoon, written with his own hand, conclude this Diary.98

END OF THE DIARY

1

The Italians mean simply a square by their piazzas.

2

Mr. Lowman.

3

Of this famous summer residence of Queen Elizabeth not a vestige remains.

4

Cornelius Van Drebbell, born at Alkmaar, in Holland, in 1572; but in the reign of Charles I. settled in London, where he died in 1634. He was famous for other discoveries in science besides that mentioned by Evelyn – the most important of which was the thermometer. He also made improvements in microscopes and telescopes; and though, like many of his scientific contemporaries, something of an empiric, possessed a considerable knowledge of chemistry and of different branches of natural philosophy.

5

The Fumifugium.

6

This costume was shortly after abandoned, and laid aside; nor does any existing portrait exhibit the King so accoutered.

7

Among the principal offenders here aimed at were Mrs. Margaret Hughes, Mrs. Eleanor Gwynne, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Uphill, Mrs. Davis, and Mrs. Knight. Mrs. Davenport (Roxolana) was "my Lord Oxford's Miss;" Mrs. Uphill was the actress alluded to in connection with Sir R. Howard; Mrs. Hughes ensnared Prince Rupert; and the last of the "misses" referred to by Evelyn was Nell Gwynne.

8

In illustration of the garb which succeeded the "long coats" out of which lads of twelve or thirteen were thus suffered to emerge, it may be mentioned that there hung, some years ago, and perhaps may hang still, upon the walls of the Swan Inn at Leatherhead in Surrey, a picture of four children, dates of birth between 1640 and 1650, of whom a lad of about the age of young Evelyn is represented in a coat reaching to his ankles.

9

Reprinted in "Miscellaneous Writings," pp. 501-509. In a letter to Cowley, 12th March, 1666, Evelyn apologises for having written against that life which he had joined with Mr. Cowley in so much admiring, assuring him he neither was nor could be serious in avowing such a preference.

10

The Virgin Queen which Evelyn saw was Dryden's Maiden Queen. Pepys saw it on the night of its first production (twelve days before Evelyn's visit); and was charmed by Nell Gwynne's Florimell. "So great a performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before."

11

"The Parliament giving but weak supplies for the war, the King, to save charges, is persuaded by the Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, Southampton, the Duke of Albemarle, and the other ministers, to lay up the first and second-rate ships, and make only a defensive war in the next campaign. The Duke of York opposed this, but was overruled." Life of King James II., vol. i., p. 425.

12

Since done. Evelyn's note.

13

This entry of the 9th December, 1667, is a mistake. Evelyn could not have visited the "late Lord Chancellor" on that day. Lord Clarendon fled on Saturday, the 29th of November, 1667, and his letter resigning the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford is dated from Calais on the 7th of December. That Evelyn's book is not, in every respect, strictly a diary, is shown by this and several similar passages already adverted to in the remarks prefixed to the present edition. If the entry of the 18th of August, 1683, is correct, the date of Evelyn's last visit to Lord Clarendon was the 28th of November, 1667.

14

Evelyn has been supposed himself to have written this piece.

15

Reprinted in Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings."

16

Afterward Mrs. Godolphin, whose life, written by Evelyn, has been published under the auspices of the Bishop of Oxford. The affecting circumstances of her death will be found recorded on pp. 126-27 of the present volume.

17

Evelyn subjoins in a note: "When there was a project, 1669, for getting a divorce for the King, to facilitate it there was brought into the House of Lords a bill for dissolving the marriage of Lord Ross, on account of adultery, and to give him leave to marry again. This Bill, after great debates, passed by the plurality of only two votes, and that by the great industry of the Lord's friends, as well as the Duke's enemies, who carried it on chiefly in hopes it might be a precedent and inducement for the King to enter the more easily into their late proposals; nor were they a little encouraged therein, when they saw the King countenance and drive on the Bill in Lord Ross's favor. Of eighteen bishops that were in the House, only two voted for the bill, of which one voted through age, and one was reputed Socinian." The two bishops favorable to the bill were Dr. Cosin, Bishop of Durham, and Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester.

18

Sir William Howard, created in November, 1640, Viscount Stafford. In 1678, he was accused of complicity with the Popish Plot, and upon trial by his Peers in Westminster Hall, was found guilty, by a majority of twenty-four. He was beheaded, December 29, 1680, on Tower Hill.

19

Balthasar de Monconys, a Frenchman, celebrated for his travels in the East, which he published in three volumes. His object was to discover vestiges of the philosophy of Trismegistus and Zoroaster; in which, it is hardly necessary to add, he was not very successful.

20

A word adopted by Evelyn for a subterranean passage, from the famous grot of Pausilippo, at Naples.

21

Henrietta, the King's sister, married to Philip, Duke of Orleans, was then on a visit here. Madame Querouaille came over in her train, on purpose to entice Charles into an union with Louis XIV.; a design which unhappily succeeded but too well. She became the King's mistress, was made Duchess of Portsmouth, and was his favorite till his death.

22

Better known by the name of Grinling Gibbon; celebrated for his exquisite carving. Some of his most astonishing work is at Chatsworth and at Petworth.

23

Evelyn here refers to Dryden's "Conquest of Granada".

24

The carving in the choir, etc., of St. Paul's Cathedral was executed by Gibbon.

25

Nell Gwynne: there can be no doubt as to the name with which we are to fill up these blanks. This familiar interview of Nelly and the King has afforded a subject for painters.

26

This entry of 10th May, 1671, so far as it relates to Blood, and the stealing of the crown, etc., is a mistake. Blood stole the crown on the 9th of May, 1671 – the very day before; and the "not long before" of Evelyn, and the circumstance of his being "pardoned," which Evelyn also mentions, can hardly be said to relate to only the day before.

27

Sir Matthew Hale, so famous as one of the justices of the bench in Cromwell's time. After the Restoration, he became Chief Baron of the Exchequer; then Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and died in 1676. The author of numerous works, not only on professional subjects, but on mathematics and philosophy.

28

He died in 1687, at the great age of 90 years and 6 months. Constantine and his son, Christian Huygens, were both eminent for scientific knowledge and classical attainments; Christian, particularly so; for he was the inventor of the pendulum, made an improvement in the air-pump, first discovered the ring and one of the satellites of Saturn, and ascertained the laws of collision of elastic bodies. He died in 1695. Constantine, the father, was a person of influence and distinction in Holland, and held the post of secretary to the Prince of Orange.

29

The well-known play of "The Rehearsal" is meant.

30

The King's engagement, under his hand, is now at Wotton.

31

Mrs. Blagg whom Evelyn never tires of instancing and characterizing as a rare example of piety and virtue, in so rare a wit, beauty, and perfection, in a licentious court, and depraved age. She was afterward married to Mr. Godolphin, and her life, written by Evelyn, has been edited and published by the Bishop of Oxford.

32

She was then only fifteen years old.

33

The Duke of York's mistress, afterward created by him Countess of Dorchester.

34

The remarkable discoveries of Mr. Layard give now a curious interest to this notice by Evelyn.

35

Lady Catherine Stuart, sister and heir to Charles Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, the husband of Mrs. Frances Stuart, one of the most admired beauties of the Court, with whom Charles II. was so deeply in love that he never forgave the Duke for marrying her, having already, it is thought, formed some similar intention himself. He took the first opportunity of sending the Duke into an honorable exile, as Ambassador to Denmark, where he shortly after died, leaving no issue by the Duchess.

36

Now the British Museum.

37

Evelyn makes a slip here. The Duke of Monmouth's mother was, it is well known, Lucy Walters, sometimes called Mrs. Barlow, and heretofore mentioned in the "Diary." Nor is he more correct as to the Countess of Sussex. Lady Anne Fitzroy, as she is called in the Peerage books, was married to Lennard Dacre, Earl of Sussex, by whom she left a daughter only, who succeeded on her father's death to the Barony of Dacre. On the other hand, the Duke of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton, and the Duke of Northumberland, were all of them children of Charles II. by the Duchess of Cleveland.

38

Doubtless Philip Rotière, who introduced the figure of Britannia into the coinage, taking for his model the King's favorite, Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond.

39

Ezrael Tonge was bred in University College, Oxford, and being puritanically inclined, quitted the University; but in 1648 returned, and was made a Fellow. He had the living of Pluckley, in Kent, which he resigned in consequence of quarrels with his parishioners and Quakers. In 1657, he was made fellow of the newly-erected College at Durham, and that being dissolved in 1660, he taught school at Islington. He then went with Colonel Edward Harley to Dunkirk, and subsequently took a small living in Herefordshire (Lentwardine); but quitted it for St. Mary Stayning, in London, which, after the fire in 1666, was united to St. Michael, Wood Street. These he held till his death, in 1680. He was a great opponent of the Roman Catholics. Wood mentions several publications of his, among which are, "The Jesuits Unmasked," 1678; "Jesuitical Aphorisms," 1678; and "The Jesuits' Morals," 1680 (1670); the two latter translated from the French. (Wood's "Athenæ, Oxon." vol. ii. p. 502.) Evelyn speaks of the last of these translations as having been executed by his desire: and it figures in a notable passage of Oates's testimony. Oates said, for example, "that Thomas Whitbread, a priest, on 13th of June, 16. did tell the rector of St. Omer's that a Minister of the Church of England had scandalously put out the 'Jesuits' Morals' in English, and had endeavored to render them odious, and had asked the Rector whether he thought Oates might know him? and the Rector called, the deponent, who heard these words as he stood at the chamber door, and when he went into the chamber of the Provincial, he asked him 'If he knew the author of the "Jesuits' Morals?"' deponent answered, 'His person, but not his name.' Whitbread then demanded, whether he would undertake to poison, or assassinate the author; which deponent undertook, having £50 reward promised him, and appointed to return to England."

40

Padrè Oliva, General of the Order of Jesuits.

41

He returned the day before, the 12th of September. This is another of the indications that the entries of this Diary were not always made on the precise days they refer to.

42

Now the British Museum.

43

Pope Alexander VII., of the family of Chighi, at Sienna.

44

Probably to the King's household, very early in the morning, as the custom was.

45

Sherbet and chocolate.

46

Who became his successor, and was created a baronet in 1713.

47

Denys Papin, a French physician and mathematician, who possessed so remarkable a knowledge of mathematics, that he very nearly brought the invention of the steam engine into working order. He assisted Mr. Boyle in his pneumatic experiments, and was afterward mathematical professor at Marburg. He died in 1710.

48

For President of the Royal Society.

49

Notice was taken of this in a previous passage of the "Diary." The different counties were bound to supply provisions of various kinds, and these were collected by officers called purveyors, whose extortions often excited the attention of Parliament.

50

Evelyn adds a note: "400 feet in length, 9 feet high, 5 in diameter, in my now ruined garden, thanks to the Czar of Muscovy." – "Sylva," book ii. chap. vi.

51

Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, shot himself in the Tower, to which he had been committed on a charge of high treason in June, 1585.

52

Doctor Edward Tyson, a learned physician, born at Clevedon, Somersetshire, in 1649, who became reader of the anatomical lecture in Surgeons' Hall, and physician to the hospitals of Bethlehem and Bridewell, which offices he held at his death, Aug. 1, 1708. He was an ingenious writer, and has left various Essays in the Philosophical Transactions and Hook's Collections. He published also "The Anatomy of a Porpoise Dissected at Gresham College," and "The Anatomy of a Pigmy Compared with a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man," 4to., 1698-99.

53

What would Evelyn think if he could see what is now called London?

54

When brought up for judgment, Armstrong insisted on his right to a trial, the act giving that right to those who came in within a year, and the year not having expired. Jefferies refused it; and when Armstrong insisted that he asked nothing but law, Jefferies told him he should have it to the full, and ordered his execution in six days. When Jefferies went to the King at Windsor soon after, the King took a ring from his finger and gave it to Jefferies. Burnet, ii. 989.

55

The account given of this by Charles's brother and successor, is, that when the King's life was wholly despaired of, and it was time to prepare for another world, two Bishops came to do their function, who reading the prayers appointed in the Common Prayer Book on that occasion, when they came to the place where usually they exhort a sick person to make a confession of his sins, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who was one of them, advertised him, IT WAS NOT OF OBLIGATION; and after a short exhortation, asked him if he was sorry for his sins? which the King saying he was, the Bishop pronounced the absolution, and then, asked him if he pleased to receive the Sacrament? to which the King made no reply; and being pressed by the Bishop several times, gave no other answer but that it was time enough, or that he would think of it.

King James adds, that he stood all the while by the bedside, and seeing the King would not receive the Sacrament from them, and knowing his sentiments, he desired the company to stand a little from the bed, and then asked the King whether he should send for a priest, to which the King replied: "For God's sake, brother, do, and lose no time." The Duke said he would bring one to him; but none could be found except Father Huddleston, who had been so assistant in the King's escape from Worcester; he was brought up a back staircase, and the company were desired to withdraw, but he (the Duke of York) not thinking fit that he should be left alone with the King, desired the Earl of Bath, a Lord of the Bedchamber, and the Earl of Feversham, Captain of the Guard, should stay; the rest being gone, Father Huddleston was introduced, and administered the Sacrament. – "Life of James II."