carried me from Whitehall with the Marquis of Worcester; there, we found
Lord Sandwich, Viscount Stafford,[18] the Lieutenant of the Tower, and
others. After dinner, my Lord communicated to me his Majesty's desire
that I would engage to write the history of our late war with the
Hollanders, which I had hitherto declined; this I found was ill taken,
and that I should disoblige his Majesty, who had made choice of me to do
him this service, and, if I would undertake it, I should have all the
assistance the Secretary's office and others could give me, with other
encouragements, which I could not decently refuse.
[Footnote 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.]
Lord Stafford rose from the table, in some disorder, because there were
roses stuck about the fruit when the dessert was set on the table; such
an antipathy, it seems, he had to them as once Lady Selenger also had,
and to that degree that, as Sir Kenelm Digby tells us, laying but a rose
upon her cheek when she was asleep, it raised a blister: but Sir Kenelm
was a teller of strange things.
24th June, 1670. Came the Earl of Huntington and Countess, with the Lord
Sherard, to visit us.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
29th June, 1670. To London, in order to my niece's marriage, Mary,
daughter to my late brother Richard, of Woodcot, with the eldest son of
Mr. Attorney Montague, which was celebrated at Southampton-House chapel,
after which a magnificent entertainment, feast, and dancing, dinner and
supper, in the great room there; but the bride was bedded at my sister's
lodging, in Drury-Lane.
6th July, 1670. Came to visit me Mr. Stanhope, gentleman-usher to her
Majesty, and uncle to the Earl of Chesterfield, a very fine man, with my
Lady Hutcheson.
19th July, 1670. I accompanied my worthy friend, that excellent man, Sir
Robert Murray, with Mr. Slingsby, master of the mint, to see the
latter's seat and estate at Burrow-Green in Cambridgeshire, he desiring
our advice for placing a new house, which he was resolved to build. We
set out in a coach and six horses with him and his lady, dined about
midway at one Mr. Turner's, where we found a very noble dinner, venison,
music, and a circle of country ladies and their gallants. After dinner,
we proceeded, and came to Burrow-Green that night. This had been the
ancient seat of the Cheekes (whose daughter Mr. Slingsby married),
formerly tutor to King Henry VI. The old house large and ample, and
built for ancient hospitality, ready to fall down with age, placed in a
dirty hole, a stiff clay, no water, next an adjoining church-yard, and
with other inconveniences. We pitched on a spot of rising ground,
adorned with venerable woods, a dry and sweet prospect east and west,
and fit for a park, but no running water; at a mile distance from the
old house.
20th July, 1670. We went to dine at Lord Allington's, who had newly
built a house of great cost, I believe a little less than £20,000. His
architect was Mr. Pratt. It is seated in a park, with a sweet prospect
and stately avenue; but water still defective; the house has also its
infirmities. Went back to Mr. Slingsby's.
[Sidenote: NEWMARKET]
22d July, 1670. We rode out to see the great mere, or level, of
recovered fen land, not far off. In the way, we met Lord Arlington going
to his house in Suffolk, accompanied with Count Ogniati, the Spanish
minister, and Sir Bernard Gascoigne; he was very importunate with me to
go with him to Euston, being but fifteen miles distant; but, in regard
of my company, I could not. So, passing through Newmarket, we alighted
to see his Majesty's house there, now new-building; the arches of the
cellars beneath are well turned by Mr. Samuel, the architect, the rest
mean enough, and hardly fit for a hunting house. Many of the rooms above
had the chimneys in the angles and corners, a mode now introduced by his
Majesty, which I do at no hand approve of. I predict it will spoil many
noble houses and rooms, if followed. It does only well in very small and
trifling rooms, but takes from the state of greater. Besides, this house
is placed in a dirty street, without any court or avenue, like a common
one, whereas it might and ought to have been built at either end of the
town, upon the very carpet where the sports are celebrated; but, it
being the purchase of an old wretched house of my Lord Thomond's, his
Majesty was persuaded to set it on that foundation, the most improper
imaginable for a house of sport and pleasure.
We went to see the stables and fine horses, of which many were here kept
at a vast expense, with all the art and tenderness imaginable.
Being arrived at some meres, we found Lord Wotton and Sir John Kiviet
about their draining engines, having, it seems, undertaken to do wonders
on a vast piece of marsh-ground they had hired of Sir Thomas Chicheley
(master of the ordnance). They much pleased themselves with the hopes of
a rich harvest of hemp and coleseed, which was the crop expected.
Here we visited the engines and mills both for wind and water, draining
it through two rivers or graffs, cut by hand, and capable of carrying
considerable barges, which went thwart one the other, discharging the
water into the sea. Such this spot had been the former winter; it was
astonishing to see it now dry, and so rich that weeds grew on the banks,
almost as high as a man and horse. Here, my Lord and his partner had
built two or three rooms, with Flanders white bricks, very hard. One of
the great engines was in the kitchen, where I saw the fish swim up, even
to the very chimney hearth, by a small cut through the room, and running
within a foot of the very fire.
Having, after dinner, ridden about that vast level, pestered with heat
and swarms of gnats, we returned over Newmarket Heath, the way being
mostly a sweet turf and down, like Salisbury Plain, the jockeys
breathing their fine barbs and racers and giving them their heats.
23d July, 1670. We returned from Burrow Green to London, staying some
time at Audley End to see that fine palace. It is indeed a cheerful
piece of Gothic building, or rather _antico moderno_, but placed in an
obscure bottom. The cellars and galleries are very stately. It has a
river by it, a pretty avenue of limes, and in a park.
This is in Saffron Walden parish, famous for that useful plant, with
which all the country is covered.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
Dining at Bishop Stortford, we came late to London.
5th August, 1670. There was sent me by a neighbor a servant maid, who,
in the last month, as she was sitting before her mistress at work, felt
a stroke on her arm a little above the wrist for some height, the smart
of which, as if struck by another hand, caused her to hold her arm
awhile till somewhat mitigated; but it put her into a kind of
convulsion, or rather hysteric fit. A gentleman coming casually in,
looking on her arm, found that part powdered with red crosses, set in
most exact and wonderful order, neither swelled nor depressed, about
this shape,
x
x x
x x x
x x
x
not seeming to be any way made by artifice, of a reddish color, not so
red as blood, the skin over them smooth, the rest of the arm livid and
of a mortified hue, with certain prints, as it were, of the stroke of
fingers. This had happened three several times in July, at about ten
days' interval, the crosses beginning to wear out, but the successive
ones set in other different, yet uniform order. The maid seemed very
modest, and came from London to Deptford with her mistress, to avoid the
discourse and importunity of curious people. She made no gain by it,
pretended no religious fancies; but seemed to be a plain, ordinary,
silent, working wench, somewhat fat, short, and high-colored. She told
me divers divines and physicians had seen her, but were unsatisfied;
that she had taken some remedies against her fits, but they did her no
good; she had never before had any fits; once since, she seemed in her
sleep to hear one say to her that she should tamper no more with them,
nor trouble herself with anything that happened, but put her trust in
the merits of Christ only.
This is the substance of what she told me, and what I saw and curiously
examined. I was formerly acquainted with the impostorious nuns of
Loudun, in France, which made such noise among the Papists; I therefore
thought this worth the notice. I remember Monsieur Monconys[19] (that
curious traveler and a Roman Catholic) was by no means satisfied with
the _stigmata_ of those nuns, because they were so shy of letting him
scrape the letters, which were Jesus, Maria, Joseph (as I think),
observing they began to scale off with it, whereas this poor wench was
willing to submit to any trial; so that I profess I know not what to
think of it, nor dare I pronounce it anything supernatural.
[Footnote 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.]
20th August, 1670. At Windsor I supped with the Duke of Monmouth; and,
the next day, invited by Lord Arlington, dined with the same Duke and
divers Lords. After dinner my Lord and I had a conference of more than
an hour alone in his bedchamber, to engage me in the History. I showed
him something that I had drawn up, to his great satisfaction, and he
desired me to show it to the Treasurer.
28th August, 1670. One of the Canons preached; then followed the
offering of the Knights of the Order, according to custom; first the
poor Knights, in procession, then, the Canons in their formalities, the
Dean and Chancellor, then his Majesty (the Sovereign), the Duke of York,
Prince Rupert; and, lastly, the Earl of Oxford, being all the Knights
that were then at Court.
I dined with the Treasurer, and consulted with him what pieces I was to
add; in the afternoon the King took me aside into the balcony over the
terrace, extremely pleased with what had been told him I had begun, in
order to his commands, and enjoining me to proceed vigorously in it. He
told me he had ordered the Secretaries of State to give me all necessary
assistance of papers and particulars relating to it and enjoining me to
make it a LITTLE KEEN, for that the Hollanders had very unhandsomely
abused him in their pictures, books, and libels.
Windsor was now going to be repaired, being exceedingly ragged and
ruinous. Prince Rupert, the Constable, had begun to trim up the keep or
high round Tower, and handsomely adorned his hall with furniture of
arms, which was very singular, by so disposing the pikes, muskets,
pistols, bandoleers, holsters, drums, back, breast, and headpieces, as
was very extraordinary. Thus, those huge steep stairs ascending to it
had the walls invested with this martial furniture, all new and bright,
so disposing the bandoleers, holsters, and drums, as to represent
festoons, and that without any confusion, trophy-like. From the hall we
went into his bedchamber, and ample rooms hung with tapestry, curious
and effeminate pictures, so extremely different from the other, which
presented nothing but war and horror.
The King passed most of his time in hunting the stag, and walking in the
park, which he was now planting with rows of trees.
13th September, 1670. To visit Sir Richard Lashford, my kinsman, and Mr.
Charles Howard, at his extraordinary garden, at Deepden.
15th September, 1670. I went to visit Mr. Arthur Onslow, at West
Clandon, a pretty dry seat on the Downs, where we dined in his great
room.
17th September, 1670. To visit Mr. Hussey, who, being near Wotton, lives
in a sweet valley, deliciously watered.
23d September, 1670. To Albury, to see how that garden proceeded, which
I found exactly done to the design and plot I had made, with the crypta
through the mountain in the park, thirty perches in length. Such a
Pausilippe[20] is nowhere in England. The canal was now digging, and the
vineyard planted.
[Footnote 20: A word adopted by Evelyn for a subterranean passage,
from the famous grot of Pausilippo, at Naples.]
14th October, 1670. I spent the whole afternoon in private with the
Treasurer who put into my hands those secret pieces and transactions
concerning the Dutch war, and particularly the expedition of Bergen, in
which he had himself the chief part, and gave me instructions, till the
King arriving from Newmarket, we both went up into his bedchamber.
21st October, 1670. Dined with the Treasurer; and, after dinner, we
were shut up together. I received other [further] advices, and ten paper
books of dispatches and treaties; to return which again I gave a note
under my hand to Mr. Joseph Williamson, Master of the Paper office.
31st October, 1670. I was this morning fifty years of age; the Lord
teach me to number my days so as to apply them to his glory! Amen.
4th November, 1670. Saw the Prince of Orange, newly come to see the
King, his uncle; he has a manly, courageous, wise countenance,
resembling his mother and the Duke of Gloucester, both deceased.
I now also saw that famous beauty, but in my opinion of a childish,
simple, and baby face, Mademoiselle Querouaille,[21] lately Maid of
Honor to Madame, and now to be so to the Queen.
[Footnote 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.]
23d November, 1670. Dined with the Earl of Arlington, where was the
Venetian Ambassador, of whom I now took solemn leave, now on his return.
There were also Lords Howard, Wharton, Windsor, and divers other great
persons.
24th November, 1670. I dined with the Treasurer, where was the Earl of
Rochester, a very profane wit.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
15th December, 1670. It was the thickest and darkest fog on the Thames
that was ever known in the memory of man, and I happened to be in the
very midst of it. I supped with Monsieur Zulestein, late Governor to the
late Prince of Orange.
10th January, 1670-71. Mr. Bohun, my son's tutor, had been five years in
my house, and now Bachelor of Laws, and Fellow of New College, went from
me to Oxford to reside there, having well and faithfully performed his
charge.
18th January, 1671. This day I first acquainted his Majesty with that
incomparable young man, Gibbon,[22] whom I had lately met with in an
obscure place by mere accident, as I was walking near a poor solitary
thatched house, in a field in our parish, near Sayes Court. I found him
shut in; but looking in at the window, I perceived him carving that
large cartoon, or crucifix, of Tintoretto, a copy of which I had myself
brought from Venice, where the original painting remains. I asked if I
might enter; he opened the door civilly to me, and I saw him about such
a work as for the curiosity of handling, drawing, and studious
exactness, I never had before seen in all my travels. I questioned him
why he worked in such an obscure and lonesome place; he told me it was
that he might apply himself to his profession without interruption, and
wondered not a little how I found him out. I asked if he was unwilling
to be made known to some great man, for that I believed it might turn to
his profit; he answered, he was yet but a beginner, but would not be
sorry to sell off that piece; on demanding the price, he said £100. In
good earnest, the very frame was worth the money, there being nothing in
nature so tender and delicate as the flowers and festoons about it, and
yet the work was very strong; in the piece was more than one hundred
figures of men, etc. I found he was likewise musical, and very civil,
sober, and discreet in his discourse. There was only an old woman in the
house. So, desiring leave to visit him sometimes, I went away.
[Footnote 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.]
Of this young artist, together with my manner of finding him out, I
acquainted the King, and begged that he would give me leave to bring him
and his work to Whitehall, for that I would adventure my reputation with
his Majesty that he had never seen anything approach it, and that he
would be exceedingly pleased, and employ him. The King said he would
himself go see him. This was the first notice his Majesty ever had of
Mr. Gibbon.
20th January, 1671. The King came to me in the Queen's withdrawing-room
from the circle of ladies, to talk with me as to what advance I had made
in the Dutch History. I dined with the Treasurer, and afterward we went
to the Secretary's Office, where we conferred about divers particulars.
21st January, 1671. I was directed to go to Sir George Downing, who
having been a public minister in Holland, at the beginning of the war,
was to give me light in some material passages.
This year the weather was so wet, stormy, and unseasonable, as had not
been known in many years.
9th February, 1671. I saw the great ball danced by the Queen and
distinguished ladies at Whitehall Theater. Next day; was acted there the
famous play, called, "The Siege of Granada," two days acted
successively; there were indeed very glorious scenes and perspectives,
the work of Mr. Streeter, who well understands it.[23]
[Footnote 23: Evelyn here refers to Dryden's "Conquest of Granada".]
19th February, 1671. This day dined with me Mr. Surveyor, Dr.
Christopher Wren, and Mr. Pepys, Clerk of the Acts, two extraordinary,
ingenious, and knowing persons, and other friends. I carried them to see
the piece of carving which I had recommended to the King.
25th February, 1671. Came to visit me one of the Lords Commissioners of
Scotland for the Union.
28th February, 1671. The Treasurer acquainted me that his Majesty was
graciously pleased to nominate me one of the Council of Foreign
Plantations, and give me a salary of £500 per annum, to encourage me.
29th February, 1671. I went to thank the Treasurer, who was my great
friend and loved me; I dined with him and much company, and went thence
to my Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, in whose favor I likewise was
upon many occasions, though I cultivated neither of their friendships by
any mean submissions. I kissed his Majesty's hand, on his making me one
of the new-established Council.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
1st March, 1671. I caused Mr. Gibbon to bring to Whitehall his
excellent piece of carving, where being come, I advertised his Majesty,
who asked me where it was; I told him in Sir Richard Browne's (my
father-in-law) chamber, and that if it pleased his Majesty to appoint
whither it should be brought, being large and though of wood, heavy, I
would take care for it. "No," says the King, "show me the way, I'll go
to Sir Richard's chamber," which he immediately did, walking along the
entries after me; as far as the ewry, till he came up into the room,
where I also lay. No sooner was he entered and cast his eyes on the
work, but he was astonished at the curiosity of it; and having
considered it a long time, and discoursed with Mr. Gibbon, whom I
brought to kiss his hand, he commanded it should be immediately carried
to the Queen's side to show her. It was carried up into her bedchamber,
where she and the King looked on and admired it again; the King, being
called away, left us with the Queen, believing she would have bought it,
it being a crucifix; but, when his Majesty was gone, a French peddling
woman, one Madame de Boord, who used to bring petticoats and fans, and
baubles, out of France to the ladies, began to find fault with several
things in the work, which she understood no more than an ass, or a
monkey, so as in a kind of indignation, I caused the person who brought
it to carry it back to the chamber, finding the Queen so much governed
by an ignorant Frenchwoman, and this incomparable artist had his labor
only for his pains, which not a little displeased me; and he was fain to
send it down to his cottage again; he not long after sold it for £80,
though well worth £100, without the frame, to Sir George Viner.
His Majesty's Surveyor, Mr. Wren, faithfully promised me to employ
him.[24] I having also bespoke his Majesty for his work at Windsor,
which my friend, Mr. May, the architect there, was going to alter, and
repair universally; for, on the next day, I had a fair opportunity of
talking to his Majesty about it, in the lobby next the Queen's side,
where I presented him with some sheets of my history. I thence walked
with him through St. James's Park to the garden, where I both saw and
heard a very familiar discourse between ... and Mrs. Nelly,[25] as they
called an impudent comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace
at the top of the wall, and ... standing on the green walk under it. I
was heartily sorry at this scene. Thence the King walked to the Duchess
of Cleveland, another lady of pleasure, and curse of our nation.
[Footnote 24: The carving in the choir, etc., of St. Paul's
Cathedral was executed by Gibbon.]
[Footnote 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.]
5th March, 1671. I dined at Greenwich, to take leave of Sir Thomas
Linch, going Governor of Jamaica.
10th March, 1671. To London, about passing my patent as one of the
standing Council for Plantations, a considerable honor, the others in
the Council being chiefly noblemen and officers of state.
[Illustration: _NELL GWYNNE_
_Photogravure after Sir Peter Lely_]
2d April, 1671. To Sir Thomas Clifford, the Treasurer, to condole with
him on the loss of his eldest son, who died at Florence.
2d May, 1671. The French King, being now with a great army of 28,000 men
about Dunkirk, divers of the grandees of that Court, and a vast number
of gentlemen and cadets, in fantastical habits, came flocking over to
see our Court and compliment his Majesty. I was present, when they first
were conducted into the Queen's withdrawing-room, where saluted their
Majesties the Dukes of Guise, Longueville, and many others of the first
rank.
10th May, 1671. Dined at Mr. Treasurer's,[26] in company with Monsieur
De Grammont and several French noblemen, and one Blood, that impudent,
bold fellow who had not long before attempted to steal the imperial
crown itself out of the Tower, pretending only curiosity of seeing the
regalia there, when, stabbing the keeper, though not mortally, he boldly
went away with it through all the guards, taken only by the accident of
his horse falling down. How he came to be pardoned, and even received
into favor, not only after this, but several other exploits almost as
daring both in Ireland and here, I could never come to understand. Some
believed he became a spy of several parties, being well with the
sectaries and enthusiasts, and did his Majesty services that way, which
none alive could do so well as he; but it was certainly the boldest
attempt, so the only treason of this sort that was ever pardoned. This
man had not only a daring but a villanous, unmerciful look, a false
countenance, but very well-spoken and dangerously insinuating.
[Footnote 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.]
11th May, 1671. I went to Eltham, to sit as one of the commissioners
about the subsidy now given by Parliament to his Majesty.
17th May, 1671. Dined at Mr. Treasurer's [Sir Thomas Clifford] with
the Earl of Arlington, Carlingford, Lord Arundel of Wardour, Lord
Almoner to the Queen, a French Count and two abbots, with several more
of French nobility; and now by something I had lately observed of Mr.
Treasurer's conversation on occasion, I suspected him a little warping
to Rome.
25th May, 1671. I dined at a feast made for me and my wife by the
Trinity Company, for our passing a fine of the land which Sir R. Browne,
my wife's father, freely gave to found and build their college, or
almshouses on, at Deptford, it being my wife's after her father's
decease. It was a good and charitable work and gift, but would have been
better bestowed on the poor of that parish, than on the seamen's widows,
the Trinity Company being very rich, and the rest of the poor of the
parish exceedingly indigent.
[Sidenote: LONDON]