Chapter IX: Part 9

The Turks were likewise in hostility against the German Emperor, almost masters of the Upper Hungary, and drawing toward Vienna. On the other side, the French King (who it is believed brought in the infidels) disturbing his Spanish and Dutch neighbors, having swallowed up almost all Flanders, pursuing his ambition of a fifth universal monarchy; and all this blood and disorder in Christendom had evidently its rise from our defections at home, in a wanton peace, minding nothing but luxury, ambition, and to procure money for our vices. To this add our irreligion and atheism, great ingratitude, and self-interest; the apostacy of some, and the suffering the French to grow so great, and the Hollanders so weak. In a word, we were wanton, mad, and surfeiting with prosperity; every moment unsettling the old foundations, and never constant to anything. The Lord in mercy avert the sad omen, and that we do not provoke him till he bear it no longer!

This summer did we suffer twenty French men-of-war to pass our Channel toward the Sound, to help the Danes against the Swedes, who had abandoned the French interest, we not having ready sufficient to guard our coasts, or take cognizance of what they did; though the nation never had more, or a better navy, yet the sea had never so slender a fleet.

19th July, 1683. George, Prince of Denmark, who had landed this day, came to marry the Lady Anne, daughter to the Duke; so I returned home, having seen the young gallant at dinner at Whitehall.

20th July, 1683. Several of the conspirators of the lower form were executed at Tyburn; and the next day,

[Sidenote: LONDON]

21st July, 1683. Lord Russell was beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the executioner giving him three butcherly strokes. The speech he made, and the paper which he gave the Sheriff declaring his innocence, the nobleness of the family, the piety and worthiness of the unhappy gentleman, wrought much pity, and occasioned various discourses on the plot.

25th July, 1683. I again saw Prince George of Denmark: he had the Danish countenance, blonde, of few words, spoke French but ill, seemed somewhat heavy, but reported to be valiant, and indeed he had bravely rescued and brought off his brother, the King of Denmark, in a battle against the Swedes, when both these Kings were engaged very smartly.

28th July, 1683. He was married to the Lady Anne at Whitehall. Her Court and household to be modeled as the Duke's, her father, had been, and they to continue in England.

1st August, 1683. Came to see me Mr. Flamsted, the famous astronomer, from his Observatory at Greenwich, to draw the meridian from my pendule, etc.

2d August, 1683. The Countesses of Bristol and Sunderland, aunt and cousin-german of the late Lord Russell, came to visit me, and condole his sad fate. The next day, came Colonel Russell, uncle to the late Lord Russell, and brother to the Earl of Bedford, and with him Mrs. Middleton, that famous and indeed incomparable beauty, daughter to my relation, Sir Robert Needham.

19th August, 1683. I went to Bromley to visit our Bishop, and excellent neighbor, and to congratulate his now being made Archbishop of York. On the 28th, he came to take his leave of us, now preparing for his journey and residence in his province.

28th August, 1683. My sweet little grandchild, Martha Maria, died, and on the 29th was buried in the parish church.

2d September, 1683. This morning, was read in the church, after the office was done, the Declaration setting forth the late conspiracy against the King's person.

3d September, 1683. I went to see what had been done by the Duke of Beaufort on his lately purchased house at Chelsea, which I once had the selling of for the Countess of Bristol, he had made great alterations, but might have built a better house with the materials and the cost he had been at.

Saw the Countess of Monte Feltre, whose husband I had formerly known, he was a subject of the Pope's, but becoming a Protestant he resided in England, and married into the family of the Savilles, of Yorkshire. The Count, her late husband, was a very learned gentleman, a great politician, and a goodly man. She was accompanied by her sister, exceedingly skilled in painting, nor did they spare for color on their own faces. They had a great deal of wit.

9th September, 1683. It being the day of public thanksgiving for his Majesty's late preservation, the former Declaration was again read, and there was an office used, composed for the occasion. A loyal sermon was preached on the divine right of Kings, from Psalm cxliv. 10. "Thou hast preserved David from the peril of the sword."

15th September, 1683. Came to visit me the learned anatomist, Dr. Tyson,[52] with some other Fellows of our Society.

[Footnote 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.]

16th September, 1683. At the elegant villa and garden of Mr. Bohun, at Lee. He showed me the zinnar tree, or platanus, and told me that since they had planted this kind of tree about the city of Ispahan, in Persia, the plague, which formerly much infested the place, had exceedingly abated of its mortal effects, and rendered it very healthy.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

18th September, 1683. I went to London to visit the Duchess of Grafton, now great with child, a most virtuous and beautiful lady. Dining with her at my Lord Chamberlain's, met my Lord of St. Alban's, now grown so blind, that he could not see to take his meat. He has lived a most easy life, in plenty even abroad, while his Majesty was a sufferer; he has lost immense sums at play, which yet, at about eighty years old, he continues, having one that sits by him to name the spots on the cards. He ate and drank with extraordinary appetite. He is a prudent old courtier, and much enriched since his Majesty's return.

After dinner, I walked to survey the sad demolition of Clarendon House, that costly and only sumptuous palace of the late Lord Chancellor Hyde, where I have often been so cheerful with him, and sometimes so sad: happening to make him a visit but the day before he fled from the angry Parliament, accusing him of maladministration, and being envious at his grandeur, who from a private lawyer came to be father-in-law to the Duke of York, and as some would suggest, designing his Majesty's marriage with the Infanta of Portugal, not apt to breed. To this they imputed much of our unhappiness; and that he, being sole minister and favorite at his Majesty's restoration, neglected to gratify the King's suffering party, preferring those who were the cause of our troubles. But perhaps as many of these things were injuriously laid to his charge, so he kept the government far steadier than it has proved since. I could name some who I think contributed greatly to his ruin,--the buffoons and the MISSIS, to whom he was an eye-sore. It is true he was of a jolly temper, after the old English fashion; but France had now the ascendant, and we were become quite another nation. The Chancellor gone, and dying in exile, the Earl his successor sold that which cost £50,000 building, to the young Duke of Albemarle for £25,000, to pay debts which how contracted remains yet a mystery, his son being no way a prodigal. Some imagine the Duchess his daughter had been chargeable to him. However it were, this stately palace is decreed to ruin, to support the prodigious waste the Duke of Albemarle had made of his estate, since the old man died. He sold it to the highest bidder, and it fell to certain rich bankers and mechanics, who gave for it and the ground about it, £35,000; they design a new town, as it were, and a most magnificent piazza [square]. It is said they have already materials toward it with what they sold of the house alone, more worth than what they paid for it. See the vicissitudes of earthly things! I was astonished at this demolition, nor less at the little army of laborers and artificers leveling the ground, laying foundations, and contriving great buildings at an expense of £200,000, if they perfect their design.

19th September, 1683. In my walks I stepped into a goldbeater's workhouse, where he showed me the wonderful ductility of that spreading and oily metal. He said it must be finer than the standard, such as was old angel-gold, and that of such he had once to the value of £100 stamped with the _agnus dei_, and coined at the time of the holy war; which had been found in a ruined wall somewhere in the North, near to Scotland, some of which he beat into leaves, and the rest sold to the curiosi in antiquities and medals.

23d September, 1683. We had now the welcome tidings of the King of Poland raising the siege of Vienna, which had given terror to all Europe, and utmost reproach to the French, who it is believed brought in the Turks for diversion, that the French King might the more easily swallow Flanders, and pursue his unjust conquest on the empire, while we sat unconcerned and under a deadly charm from somebody.

There was this day a collection for rebuilding Newmarket, consumed by an accidental fire, which removing his Majesty thence sooner than was intended, put by the assassins, who were disappointed of their rendezvous and expectation by a wonderful providence. This made the King more earnest to render Winchester the seat of his autumnal field diversions for the future, designing a palace there, where the ancient castle stood; infinitely indeed preferable to Newmarket for prospects, air, pleasure, and provisions. The surveyor has already begun the foundation for a palace, estimated to cost £35,000, and his Majesty is purchasing ground about it to make a park, etc.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

4th October, 1683. I went to London, on receiving a note from the Countess of Arlington, of some considerable charge or advantage I might obtain by applying myself to his Majesty on this signal conjuncture of his Majesty entering up judgment against the city charter; the proposal made me I wholly declined, not being well satisfied with these violent transactions, and not a little sorry that his Majesty was so often put upon things of this nature against so great a city, the consequence whereof may be so much to his prejudice; so I returned home. At this time, the Lord Chief-Justice Pemberton was displaced. He was held to be the most learned of the judges, and an honest man. Sir George Jeffreys was advanced, reputed to be most ignorant, but most daring. Sir George Treby, Recorder of London, was also put by, and one Genner, an obscure lawyer, set in his place. Eight of the richest and chief aldermen were removed and all the rest made only justices of the peace, and no more wearing of gowns, or chains of gold; the Lord Mayor and two sheriffs holding their places by new grants as _custodes_, at the King's pleasure. The pomp and grandeur of the most august city in the world thus changed face in a moment; which gave great occasion of discourse and thoughts of hearts, what all this would end in. Prudent men were for the old foundations.

Following his Majesty this morning through the gallery, I went with the few who attended him, into the Duchess of Portmouth's DRESSING ROOM within her bedchamber, where she was in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of her bed, his Majesty and the gallants standing about her; but that which engaged my curiosity, was the rich and splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice pulled down and rebuilt to satisfy her prodigal and expensive pleasures, while her Majesty's does not exceed some gentlemen's ladies in furniture and accommodation. Here I saw the new fabric of French tapestry, for design, tenderness of work, and incomparable imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything I had ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germains, and other palaces of the French King, with huntings, figures, and landscapes, exotic fowls, and all to the life rarely done. Then for Japan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, braseras, etc., all of massy silver and out of number, besides some of her Majesty's best paintings.

Surfeiting of this, I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's and went contented home to my poor, but quiet villa. What contentment can there be in the riches and splendor of this world, purchased with vice and dishonor?

10th October, 1683. Visited the Duchess of Grafton, not yet brought to bed, and dining with my Lord Chamberlain (her father), went with them to see Montague House, a palace lately built by Lord Montague, who had married the most beautiful Countess of Northumberland. It is a stately and ample palace. Signor Verrio's fresco paintings, especially the funeral pile of Dido, on the staircase, the labors of Hercules, fight with the Centaurs, his effeminacy with Dejanira, and Apotheosis or reception among the gods, on the walls and roof of the great room above,--I think exceeds anything he has yet done, both for design, coloring, and exuberance of invention, comparable to the greatest of the old masters, or what they so celebrate at Rome. In the rest of the chamber are some excellent paintings of Holbein, and other masters. The garden is large, and in good air, but the fronts of the house not answerable to the inside. The court at entry, and wings for offices seem too near the street, and that so very narrow and meanly built, that the corridor is not in proportion to the rest, to hide the court from being overlooked by neighbors; all which might have been prevented, had they placed the house further into the ground, of which there was enough to spare. But on the whole it is a fine palace, built after the French pavilion-way, by Mr. Hooke, the Curator of the Royal Society. There were with us my Lady Scroope, the great wit, and Monsieur Chardine, the celebrated traveler.

13th October, 1683. Came to visit me my old and worthy friend, Mr. Packer, bringing with him his nephew Berkeley, grandson to the honest judge. A most ingenious, virtuous, and religious gentleman, seated near Worcester, and very curious in gardening.

17th October, 1683. I was at the court-leet of this manor, my Lord Arlington his Majesty's High Steward.

26th October, 1683. Came to visit and dine with me, Mr. Brisbane, Secretary to the Admiralty, a learned and agreeable man.

30th October, 1683. I went to Kew to visit Sir Henry Capell, brother to the late Earl of Essex; but he being gone to Cashiobury, after I had seen his garden and the alterations therein, I returned home. He had repaired his house, roofed his hall with a kind of cupola, and in a niche was an artificial fountain; but the room seems to me over-melancholy, yet might be much improved by having the walls well painted _á fresco_. The two green houses for oranges and myrtles, communicating with the rooms below, are very well contrived. There is a cupola made with pole-work between two elms at the end of a walk, which being covered by plashing the trees to them, is very pretty; for the rest there are too many fir trees in the garden.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

17th November, 1683. I took a house in Villiers Street, York Buildings, for the winter, having many important concerns to dispatch, and for the education of my daughters.

23d November, 1683. The Duke of Monmouth, till now proclaimed traitor on the pretended plot for which Lord Russell was lately beheaded, came this evening to Whitehall and rendered himself, on which were various discourses.

26th November, 1683. I went to compliment the Duchess of Grafton, now lying-in of her first child, a son, which she called for, that I might see it. She was become more beautiful, if it were possible, than before, and full of virtue and sweetness. She discoursed with me of many particulars, with great prudence and gravity beyond her years.

29th November, 1683. Mr. Forbes showed me the plot of the garden making at Burleigh, at my Lord Exeter's, which I looked on as one of the most noble that I had seen.

The whole court and town in solemn mourning for the death of the King of Portugal, her Majesty's brother.

30th November, 1683. At the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society the King sent us two does. Sir Cyril Wych was elected President.

5th December, 1683. I was this day invited to a wedding of one Mrs. Castle, to whom I had some obligation, and it was to her fifth husband, a lieutenant-colonel of the city. She was the daughter of one Burton, a broom-man, by his wife, who sold kitchen stuff in Kent Street, whom God so blessed that the father became a very rich, and was a very honest man; he was sheriff of Surrey, where I have sat on the bench with him. Another of his daughters was married to Sir John Bowles; and this daughter was a jolly friendly woman. There was at the wedding the Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, several Aldermen and persons of quality; above all, Sir George Jeffreys, newly made Lord Chief Justice of England, with Mr. Justice Withings, danced with the bride, and were exceedingly merry. These great men spent the rest of the afternoon, till eleven at night, in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of judges, who had but a day or two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sidney, who was executed the 7th on Tower Hill, on the single witness of that monster of a man, Lord Howard of Escrick, and some sheets of paper taken in Mr. Sidney's study, pretended to be written by him, but not fully proved, nor the time when, but appearing to have been written before his Majesty's Restoration, and then pardoned by the Act of Oblivion; so that though Mr. Sidney was known to be a person obstinately averse to government by a monarch (the subject of the paper was in answer to one by Sir E. Filmer), yet it was thought he had very hard measure. There is this yet observable, that he had been an inveterate enemy to the last king, and in actual rebellion against him; a man of great courage, great sense, great parts, which he showed both at his trial and death; for, when he came on the scaffold, instead of a speech, he told them only that he had made his peace with God, that he came not thither to talk, but to die; put a paper into the sheriff's hand, and another into a friend's; said one prayer as short as a grace, laid down his neck, and bid the executioner do his office.

The Duke of Monmouth, now having his pardon, refuses to acknowledge there was any treasonable plot; for which he is banished Whitehall. This is a great disappointment to some who had prosecuted Trenchard, Hampden, etc., that for want of a second witness were come out of the Tower upon their _habeas corpus_.

The King had now augmented his guards with a new sort of dragoons, who carried also grenades, and were habited after the Polish manner, with long peaked caps, very fierce and fantastical.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

7th December, 1683. I went to the Tower, and visited the Earl of Danby, the late Lord High Treasurer, who had been imprisoned four years: he received me with great kindness. I dined with him, and stayed till night. We had discourse of many things, his Lady railing sufficiently at the keeping her husband so long in prison. Here I saluted the Lord Dumblaine's wife, who before had been married to Emerton, and about whom there was that scandalous business before the delegates.

23d December, 1683. The smallpox very prevalent and mortal; the Thames frozen.

26th December, 1683. I dined at Lord Clarendon's, where I was to meet that ingenious and learned gentleman, Sir George Wheeler, who has published the excellent description of Africa and Greece, and who, being a knight of a very fair estate and young, had now newly entered into holy orders.

27th December, 1683. I went to visit Sir John Chardin, a French gentleman, who traveled three times by land into Persia, and had made many curious researches in his travels, of which he was now setting forth a relation. It being in England this year one of the severest frosts that has happened of many years, he told me the cold in Persia was much greater, the ice of an incredible thickness; that they had little use of iron in all that country, it being so moist (though the air admirably clear and healthy) that oil would not preserve it from rusting, so that they had neither clocks nor watches; some padlocks they had for doors and boxes.

30th December, 1683. Dr. Sprat, now made Dean of Westminster, preached to the King at Whitehall, on Matt. vi. 24. Recollecting the passages of the past year, I gave God thanks for his mercies, praying his blessing for the future.

1st January, 1683-84. The weather continuing intolerably severe, streets of booths were set up on the Thames; the air was so very cold and thick, as of many years there had not been the like. The smallpox was very mortal.

2d January, 1684. I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's: after dinner came a fellow who ate live charcoal, glowingly ignited, quenching them in his mouth, and then champing and swallowing them down. There was a dog also which seemed to do many rational actions.

6th January, 1684. The river quite frozen.

9th January, 1684. I went across the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to bear not only streets of booths, in which they roasted meat, and had divers shops of wares, quite across as in a town, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over. So I went from Westminster stairs to Lambeth, and dined with the Archbishop: where I met my Lord Bruce, Sir George Wheeler, Colonel Cooke, and several divines. After dinner and discourse with his Grace till evening prayers, Sir George Wheeler and I walked over the ice from Lambeth stairs to the Horse-ferry.

10th January, 1684. I visited Sir Robert Reading, where after supper we had music, but not comparable to that which Mrs. Bridgeman made us on the guitar with such extraordinary skill and dexterity.

16th January, 1684. The Thames was filled with people and tents selling all sorts of wares as in the city.

24th January, 1684. The frost continues more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streets, all sorts of trades and shops furnished, and full of commodities, even to a printing press, where the people and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed, and the day and year set down when printed on the Thames: this humor took so universally, that it was estimated that the printer gained £5 a day, for printing a line only, at sixpence a name, besides what he got by ballads, etc. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs to and fro, as in the streets, sleds, sliding with skates, a bull-baiting, horse and coach-races, puppet-plays and interludes, cooks, tippling, and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water, while it was a severe judgment on the land, the trees not only splitting as if the lightning struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers places, and the very seas so locked up with ice, that no vessels could stir out or come in. The fowls, fish, and birds, and all our exotic plants and greens, universally perishing. Many parks of deer were destroyed, and all sorts of fuel so dear, that there were great contributions to preserve the poor alive. Nor was this severe weather much less intense in most parts of Europe, even as far as Spain and the most southern tracts. London, by reason of the excessive coldness of the air hindering the ascent of the smoke, was so filled with the fuliginous steam of the sea-coal, that hardly could one see across the street, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles, exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one could scarcely breathe. Here was no water to be had from the pipes and engines, nor could the brewers and divers other tradesmen work, and every moment was full of disastrous accidents.

4th February, 1684. I went to Sayes Court to see how the frost had dealt with my garden, where I found many of the greens and rare plants utterly destroyed. The oranges and myrtles very sick, the rosemary and laurels dead to all appearance, but the cypress likely to endure it.

5th February, 1684. It began to thaw, but froze again. My coach crossed from Lambeth, to the Horse-ferry at Milbank, Westminster. The booths were almost all taken down; but there was first a map or landscape cut in copper representing all the manner of the camp, and the several actions, sports, and pastimes thereon, in memory of so signal a frost.

7th February, 1684. I dined with my Lord Keeper, [North], and walking alone with him some time in his gallery, we had discourse of music. He told me he had been brought up to it from a child, so as to sing his part at first sight. Then speaking of painting, of which he was also a great lover, and other ingenious matters, he desired me to come oftener to him.

8th February, 1684. I went this evening to visit that great and knowing virtuoso, Monsieur Justell. The weather was set in to an absolute thaw and rain; but the Thames still frozen.

10th February, 1684. After eight weeks missing the foreign posts, there came abundance of intelligence from abroad.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

12th February, 1684. The Earl of Danby, late Lord-Treasurer, together with the Roman Catholic Lords impeached of high treason in the Popish Plot, had now their _habeas corpus_, and came out upon bail, after five years' imprisonment in the Tower. Then were also tried and deeply fined Mr. Hampden and others, for being supposed of the late plot, for which Lord Russell and Colonel Sidney suffered; as also the person who went about to prove that the Earl of Essex had his throat cut in the Tower by others; likewise Mr. Johnson, the author of that famous piece called Julian.

15th February, 1684. News of the Prince of Orange having accused the Deputies of Amsterdam of _crimen læsæ Majestatis_, and being pensioners to France.

Dr. Tenison communicated to me his intention of erecting a library in St. Martin's parish, for the public use, and desired my assistance, with Sir Christopher Wren, about the placing and structure thereof, a worthy and laudable design. He told me there were thirty or forty young men in Orders in his parish, either governors to young gentlemen or chaplains to noblemen, who being reproved by him on occasion for frequenting taverns or coffeehouses, told him they would study or employ their time better, if they had books. This put the pious Doctor on this design; and indeed a great reproach it is that so great a city as London should not have a public library becoming it. There ought to be one at St. Paul's; the west end of that church (if ever finished) would be a convenient place.

23d February, 1684. I went to Sir John Chardin, who desired my assistance for the engraving the plates, the translation, and printing his History of that wonderful Persian Monument near Persepolis, and other rare antiquities, which he had caused to be drawn from the originals in his second journey into Persia, which we now concluded upon. Afterward, I went with Sir Christopher Wren to Dr. Tenison, where we made the drawing and estimate of the expense of the library, to be begun this next spring near the Mews.

Great expectation of the Prince of Orange's attempts in Holland to bring those of Amsterdam to consent to the new levies, to which we were no friends, by a pseudo-politic adherence to the French interest.

26th February, 1684. Came to visit me Dr. Turner, our new Bishop of Rochester.

28th February, 1684. I dined at Lady Tuke's, where I heard Dr. Walgrave (physician to the Duke and Duchess) play excellently on the lute.

7th March, 1684. Dr. Meggot, Dean of Winchester, preached an incomparable sermon (the King being now gone to Newmarket), on Heb. xii. 15, showing and pathetically pressing the care we ought to have lest we come short of the grace of God. Afterward, I went to visit Dr. Tenison at Kensington, whither he was retired to refresh, after he had been sick of the smallpox.

15th March, 1684. At Whitehall preached Mr. Henry Godolphin, a prebend of St. Paul's, and brother to my dear friend Sydney, on Isaiah 1v. 7. I dined at the Lord Keeper's, and brought him to Sir John Chardin, who showed him his accurate drafts of his travels in Persia.

28th March, 1684. There was so great a concourse of people with their children to be touched for the Evil, that six or seven were crushed to death by pressing at the chirurgeon's door for tickets. The weather began to be more mild and tolerable; but there was not the least appearance of any spring.

30th March, 1684. Easter day. The Bishop of Rochester preached before the King; after which his Majesty, accompanied with three of his natural sons, the Dukes of Northumberland, Richmond, and St. Alban (sons of Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Nelly), went up to the altar; the three boys entering before the King within the rails, at the right hand, and three bishops on the left: London (who officiated), Durham, and Rochester, with the subdean, Dr. Holder. The King, kneeling before the altar, making his offering, the Bishops first received, and then his Majesty; after which he retired to a canopied seat on the right hand. Note, there was perfume burned before the office began. I had received the Sacrament at Whitehall early with the Lords and household, the Bishop of London officiating. Then went to St. Martin's, where Dr. Tenison preached (recovered from the smallpox); then went again to Whitehall as above. In the afternoon, went to St. Martin's again.

4th April, 1684. I returned home with my family to my house at Sayes Court, after five months' residence in London; hardly the least appearance of any spring.

30th April, 1684. A letter of mine to the Royal Society concerning the terrible effects of the past winter being read, they desired it might be printed in the next part of their "Transactions."

[Sidenote: SURREY]

10th May, 1684. I went to visit my brother in Surrey. Called by the way at Ashted, where Sir Robert Howard (Auditor of the Exchequer) entertained me very civilly at his newly-built house, which stands in a park on the Down, the avenue south; though down hill to the house, which is not great, but with the outhouses very convenient. The staircase is painted by Verrio with the story of Astrea; among other figures is the picture of the painter himself, and not unlike him; the rest is well done, only the columns did not at all please me; there is also Sir Robert's own picture in an oval; the whole in _fresco_. The place has this great defect, that there is no water but what is drawn up by horses from a very deep well.

11th May, 1684. Visited Mr. Higham, who was ill, and died three days after. His grandfather and father (who christened me), with himself, had now been rectors of this parish 101 years, viz, from May, 1583.

12th May, 1684. I returned to London, where I found the Commissioners of the Admiralty abolished, and the office of Admiral restored to the Duke, as to the disposing and ordering all sea business; but his Majesty signed all petitions, papers, warrants, and commissions, that the Duke, not acting as admiral by commission or office, might not incur the penalty of the late Act against Papists and Dissenters holding offices, and refusing the oath and test. Every one was glad of this change, those in the late Commission being utterly ignorant in their duty, to the great damage of the Navy.

The utter ruin of the Low Country was threatened by the siege of Luxemburg, if not timely relieved, and by the obstinacy of the Hollanders, who refused to assist the Prince of Orange, being corrupted by the French.

16th May, 1684. I received £600 of Sir Charles Bickerstaff for the fee farm of Pilton, in Devon.

26th May, 1684. Lord Dartmouth was chosen Master of the Trinity Company, newly returned with the fleet from blowing up and demolishing Tangier. In the sermon preached on this occasion, Dr. Can observed that, in the 27th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the casting anchor out of the fore ship had been caviled at as betraying total ignorance: that it is very true our seamen do not do so; but in the Mediterranean their ships were built differently from ours, and to this day it was the practice to do so there.

Luxemburg was surrendered to the French, which makes them master of all the Netherlands, gives them entrance into Germany, and a fair game for universal monarchy; which that we should suffer, who only and easily might have hindered, astonished all the world. Thus is the poor Prince of Orange ruined, and this nation and all the Protestant interest in Europe following, unless God in his infinite mercy, as by a miracle, interpose, and our great ones alter their counsels. The French fleet were now besieging Genoa, but after burning much of that beautiful city with their bombs, went off with disgrace.

11th June, 1684. My cousin, Verney, to whom a very great fortune was fallen, came to take leave of us, going into the country; a very worthy and virtuous young gentleman.

12th June, 1684. I went to advise and give directions about the building of two streets in Berkeley Garden, reserving the house and as much of the garden as the breadth of the house. In the meantime, I could not but deplore that sweet place (by far the most noble gardens, courts, and accommodations, stately porticos, etc., anywhere about the town) should be so much straitened and turned into tenements. But that magnificent pile and gardens contiguous to it, built by the late Lord Chancellor Clarendon, being all demolished, and designed for piazzas and buildings, was some excuse for my Lady Berkeley's resolution of letting out her ground also for so excessive a price as was offered, advancing near £1,000 per annum in mere ground rents; to such a mad intemperance was the age come of building about a city, by far too disproportionate already to the nation:[53] I having in my time seen it almost as large again as it was within my memory.

[Footnote 53: What would Evelyn think if he could see what is now
called London?]

22d June, 1684. Last Friday, Sir Thomas Armstrong was executed at Tyburn for treason, without trial, having been outlawed and apprehended in Holland, on the conspiracy of the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Russell, etc., which gave occasion of discourse to people and lawyers, in regard it was on an outlawry that judgment was given and execution.[54]

[Footnote 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.]

[Sidenote: GREENWICH]

2d July, 1684. I went to the Observatory at Greenwich, where Mr. Flamsted took his observations of the eclipse of the sun, now almost three parts obscured.

There had been an excessively hot and dry spring, and such a drought still continued as never was in my memory.

13th July, 1684. Some small sprinkling of rain; the leaves dropping from the trees as in autumn.

25th July, 1684. I dined at Lord Falkland's, Treasurer of the Navy, where after dinner we had rare music, there being among others, Signor Pietro Reggio, and Signor John Baptist, both famous, one for his voice, the other for playing on the harpsichord, few if any in Europe exceeding him. There was also a Frenchman who sung an admirable bass.

26th July, 1684. I returned home, where I found my Lord Chief Justice [Jefferies], the Countess of Clarendon, and Lady Catherine Fitzgerald, who dined with me.

10th August, 1684. We had now rain after such a drought as no man in England had known.

24th August, 1684. Excessively hot. We had not had above one or two considerable showers, and those storms, these eight or nine months. Many trees died for the want of refreshment.

31st August, 1684. Mr. Sidney Godolphin was made Baron Godolphin.

26th September, 1684. The King being returned from Winchester, there was a numerous Court at Whitehall.

At this time the Earl of Rochester was removed from the Treasury to the Presidentship of the Council; Lord Godolphin was made first Commissioner of the Treasury in his place, Lord Middleton (a Scot) made Secretary of State, in the room of Lord Godolphin. These alterations being very unexpected and mysterious, gave great occasion of discourse.

There was now an Ambassador from the King of Siam, in the East Indies, to his Majesty.

22d October, 1684. I went with Sir William Godolphin to see the rhinoceros, or unicorn, being the first that I suppose was ever brought into England. She belonged to some East India merchants, and was sold (as I remember) for above £2,000. At the same time, I went to see a crocodile, brought from some of the West India Islands, resembling the Egyptian crocodile.

24th October, 1684. I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's with the Duke of Northumberland. He seemed to be a young gentleman of good capacity, well bred, civil and modest: newly come from travel, and had made his campaign at the siege of Luxemburg. Of all his Majesty's children (of which he had now six Dukes) this seemed the most accomplished and worth the owning. He is extraordinarily handsome and well shaped. What the Dukes of Richmond and St. Alban's will prove, their youth does not yet discover; they are very pretty boys.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

26th October, 1684. Dr. Goodman preached before the King on James ii. 12, concerning the law of liberty: an excellent discourse and in good method. He is author of "The Prodigal Son," a treatise worth reading, and another of the old religion.

27th October, 1684. I visited the Lord Chamberlain, where dined the BLACK BARON and Monsieur Flamerin, who had so long been banished from France for a duel.

28th October, 1684. I carried Lord Clarendon through the city amid all the squibs and bacchanalia of the Lord Mayor's show, to the Royal Society, where he was proposed a member; and then treated him at dinner.

I went to St. Clement's, that prettily built and contrived church where a young divine gave us an eloquent sermon on 1 Cor. vi. 20, inciting to gratitude and glorifying God for the fabric of our bodies and the dignity of our nature.

2d November, 1684. A sudden change from temperate warm weather to an excessive cold rain, frost, snow, and storm, such as had seldom been known. This winter weather began as early and fierce as the past did late; till about Christmas there then had been hardly any winter.

4th November, 1684. Dr. Turner, now translated from Rochester to Ely upon the death of Dr. Peter Gunning, preached before the King at Whitehall on Romans iii. 8, a very excellent sermon, vindicating the Church of England against the pernicious doctrines of the Church of Rome. He challenged the producing but of five clergymen who forsook our Church and went over to that of Rome, during all the troubles and rebellion in England, which lasted near twenty years; and this was to my certain observation a great truth.

15th November, 1684. Being the Queen's birthday, there were fireworks on the Thames before Whitehall, with pageants of castles, forts, and other devices of girandolas, serpents, the King and Queen's arms and mottoes, all represented in fire, such as had not been seen here. But the most remarkable was the several fires and skirmishes in the very water, which actually moved a long way, burning under the water, now and then appearing above it, giving reports like muskets and cannon, with grenades and innumerable other devices. It is said it cost £1,500. It was concluded with a ball, where all the young ladies and gallants danced in the great hall. The court had not been seen so brave and rich in apparel since his Majesty's Restoration.

30th November, 1684. In the morning, Dr. Fiennes, son of the Lord Say and Seale, preached before the King on Joshua xxi. 11.

3d December, 1684. I carried Mr. Justell and Mr. Slingsby (Master of the Mint), to see Mr. Sheldon's collection of medals. The series of Popes was rare, and so were several among the moderns, especially that of John Huss's martyrdom at Constance; of the Roman Emperors, Consulars some Greek, etc., in copper, gold, and silver; not many truly antique; a medallion of Otho Paulus Æmilius, etc., ancient. They were held at a price of £1,000; but not worth, I judge, above £200.

7th December, 1684. I went to see the new church at St. James's, elegantly built; the altar was especially adorned, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons, in wood: a pelican with her young at her breast; just over the altar in the carved compartment and border environing the purple velvet fringed with I. H. S. richly embroidered, and most noble plate, were given by Sir R. Geere, to the value (as was said) of £200. There was no altar anywhere in England, nor has there been any abroad, more handsomely adorned.

17th December, 1684. Early in the morning I went into St. James's Park to see three Turkish, or Asian horses, newly brought over, and now first shown to his Majesty. There were four, but one of them died at sea, being three weeks coming from Hamburg. They were taken from a Bashaw at the siege of Vienna, at the late famous raising that leaguer. I never beheld so delicate a creature as one of them was, of somewhat a bright bay, two white feet, a blaze; such a head, eyes, ears, neck, breast, belly, haunches, legs, pasterns, and feet, in all regards, beautiful, and proportioned to admiration; spirited, proud, nimble, making halt, turning with that swiftness, and in so small a compass, as was admirable. With all this so gentle and tractable as called to mind what I remember Busbequius, speaks of them, to the reproach of our grooms in Europe, who bring up their horses so churlishly, as makes most of them retain their ill habits. They trotted like does, as if they did not feel the ground. Five hundred guineas was demanded for the first; 300 for the second; and 200 for the third, which was brown. All of them were choicely shaped, but the two last not altogether so perfect as the first.

It was judged by the spectators, among whom was the King, Prince of Denmark, Duke of York, and several of the Court, noble persons skilled in horses, especially Monsieur Faubert and his son (provost masters of the Academy, and esteemed of the best in Europe), that there were never seen any horses in these parts to be compared with them. Add to all this, the furniture consisting of embroidery on the saddle, housings, quiver, bow, arrows, scymitar, sword, mace, or battle-ax, _à la Turcisq_; the Bashaw's velvet mantle furred with the most perfect ermine I ever beheld; all which, ironwork in common furniture being here of silver, curiously wrought and double gilt to an incredible value. Such and so extraordinary was the embroidery, that I never saw anything approaching it. The reins and headstall were of crimson silk, covered with chains of silver gilt. There was also a Turkish royal standard of a horse's tail, together with all sorts of other caparisons belonging to a general's horse, by which one may estimate how gallantly and magnificently those infidels appear in the field; for nothing could be seen more glorious. The gentleman (a German) who rode the horse, was in all this garb. They were shod with iron made round and closed at the heel, with a hole in the middle about as wide as a shilling. The hoofs most entire.

18th December, 1684. I went with Lord Cornwallis to see the young gallants do their exercise. Mr. Faubert having newly railed in a manage, and fitted it for the academy. There were the Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland, Lord Newburgh, and a nephew of (Duras) Earl of Feversham. The exercises were, 1, running at the ring; 2, flinging a javelin at a Moor's head; 3, discharging a pistol at a mark; lastly taking up a gauntlet with the point of a sword; all these performed in full speed. The Duke of Northumberland hardly missed of succeeding in every one, a dozen times, as I think. The Duke of Norfolk did exceeding bravely. Lords Newburgh and Duras seemed nothing so dexterous. Here I saw the difference of what the French call "_bel homme à cheval_," and "_bon homme à cheval_"; the Duke of Norfolk being the first, that is rather a fine person on a horse, the Duke of Northumberland being both in perfection, namely, a graceful person and an excellent rider. But the Duke of Norfolk told me he had not been at this exercise these twelve years before. There were in the field the Prince of Denmark, and the Lord Lansdowne, son of the Earl of Bath, who had been made a Count of the Empire last summer for his service before Vienna.

20th December, 1684. A villainous murder was perpetrated by Mr. St. John, eldest son to Sir Walter St. John, a worthy gentleman, on a knight of quality, in a tavern. The offender was sentenced and reprieved. So many horrid murders and duels were committed about this time as were never before heard of in England; which gave much cause of complaint and murmurings.

1st January, 1684-85. It proved so sharp weather, and so long and cruel a frost, that the Thames was frozen across, but the frost was often dissolved, and then froze again.

11th January, 1685. A young man preached upon St. Luke xiii. 5, after the Presbyterian tedious method and repetition.

24th January, 1685. I dined at Lord Newport's, who had some excellent pictures, especially that of Sir Thomas Hanmer, by Vandyke, one of the best he ever painted; another of our English Dobson's painting; but, above all, Christ in the Virgin's lap, by Poussin, an admirable piece; with something of most other famous hands.

25th January, 1685. Dr. Dove preached before the King. I saw this evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the King in the midst of his three concubines, as I have never before seen--luxurious dallying and profaneness.

27th January, 1685. I dined at Lord Sunderland's, being invited to hear that celebrated voice of Mr. Pordage, newly come from Rome; his singing was after the Venetian recitative, as masterly as could be, and with an excellent voice both treble and bass; Dr. Walgrave accompanied it with his THEORBO LUTE, on which he performed beyond imagination, and is doubtless one of the greatest masters in Europe on that charming instrument. Pordage is a priest, as Mr. Bernard Howard told me in private.

There was in the room where we dined, and in his bedchamber, those incomparable pieces of Columbus, a Flagellation, the Grammar school, the Venus and Adonis of Titian; and of Vandyke's that picture of the late Earl of Digby (father of the Countess of Sunderland), and Earl of Bedford, Sir Kenelm Digby, and two ladies of incomparable performance; besides that of Moses and the burning bush of Bassano, and several other pieces of the best masters. A marble head of M. Brutus, etc.

28th January, 1685. I was invited to my Lord Arundel's, of Wardour (now newly released of his six years' confinement in the Tower on suspicion of the plot called Oates's Plot), where after dinner the same Mr. Pordage entertained us with his voice, that excellent and stupendous artist, Signor John Baptist, playing to it on the harpsichord. My daughter Mary being with us, she also sang to the great satisfaction of both the masters, and a world of people of quality present.

She did so also at my Lord Rochester's the evening following, where we had the French boy so famed for his singing, and indeed he had a delicate voice, and had been well taught. I also heard Mrs. Packer (daughter to my old friend) sing before his Majesty and the Duke, privately, that stupendous bass, Gosling, accompanying her, but hers was so loud as took away much of the sweetness. Certainly never woman had a stronger or better ear, could she possibly have governed it. She would do rarely in a large church among the nuns.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

4th February, 1685. I went to London, hearing his Majesty had been the Monday before (2d February) surprised in his bedchamber with an apoplectic fit, so that if, by God's providence, Dr. King (that excellent chirurgeon as well as physician) had not been accidentally present to let him bleed (having his lancet in his pocket), his Majesty had certainly died that moment; which might have been of direful consequence, there being nobody else present with the King save this Doctor and one more, as I am assured. It was a mark of the extraordinary dexterity, resolution, and presence of mind in the Doctor, to let him bleed in the very paroxysm, without staying the coming of other physicians, which regularly should have been done, and for want of which he must have a regular pardon, as they tell me. This rescued his Majesty for the instant, but it was only a short reprieve. He still complained, and was relapsing, often fainting, with sometimes epileptic symptoms, till Wednesday, for which he was cupped, let bleed in both jugulars, and both vomit and purges, which so relieved him, that on Thursday hopes of recovery were signified in the public "Gazette," but that day about noon, the physicians thought him feverish. This they seemed glad of, as being more easily allayed and methodically dealt with than his former fits; so as they prescribed the famous Jesuit's powder; but it made him worse, and some very able doctors who were present did not think it a fever, but the effect of his frequent bleeding and other sharp operations used by them about his head, so that probably the powder might stop the circulation, and renew his former fits, which now made him very weak. Thus he passed Thursday night with great difficulty, when complaining of a pain in his side, they drew twelve ounces more of blood from him; this was by six in the morning on Friday, and it gave him relief, but it did not continue, for being now in much pain, and struggling for breath, he lay dozing, and, after some conflicts, the physicians despairing of him, he gave up the ghost at half an hour after eleven in the morning, being the sixth of February, 1685, in the 36th year of his reign, and 54th of his age.