chapel, on Psalm iv. 6, 7. This gentleman is a very excellent and
universal scholar, a good and wise man; but he had not the popular way
of preaching, nor is in any measure fit for our plain and vulgar
auditory, as his predecessor was. There was, however, no comparison
between their parts for profound learning. But time and experience may
form him to a more practical way than that he is in of University
lectures and erudition; which is now universally left off for what is
much more profitable.
15th March, 1673. I heard the speech made to the Lords in their House by
Sir Samuel Tuke, in behalf of the Papists, to take off the penal laws;
and then dined with Colonel Norwood.
16th March, 1673. Dr. Pearson, Bishop of Chester, preached on Hebrews
ix. 14; a most incomparable sermon from one of the most learned divines
of our nation. I dined at my Lord Arlington's with the Duke and Duchess
of Monmouth; she is one of the wisest and craftiest of her sex, and has
much wit. Here was also the learned Isaac Vossius.
During Lent there is constantly the most excellent preaching by the most
eminent bishops and divines of the nation.
26th March, 1673. I was sworn a younger brother of the Trinity House,
with my most worthy and long-acquainted noble friend, Lord Ossory
(eldest son to the Duke of Ormond), Sir Richard Browne, my
father-in-law, being now Master of that Society; after which there was a
great collation.
29th March, 1673. I carried my son to the Bishop of Chichester, that
learned and pious man, Dr. Peter Gunning, to be instructed by him before
he received the Holy Sacrament, when he gave him most excellent advice,
which I pray God may influence and remain with him as long as he lives;
and O that I had been so blessed and instructed, when first I was
admitted to that sacred ordinance!
30th March, 1673. Easter day. Myself and son received the blessed
Communion, it being his first time, and with that whole week's more
extraordinary preparation. I beseech God to make him a sincere and good
Christian, while I endeavor to instill into him the fear and love of
God, and discharge the duty of a father.
At the sermon _coram Rege_, preached by Dr. Sparrow, Bishop of Exeter,
to a most crowded auditory; I stayed to see whether, according to
custom, the Duke of York received the Communion with the King; but he
did not, to the amazement of everybody. This being the second year he
had forborne, and put it off, and within a day of the Parliament
sitting, who had lately made so severe an Act against the increase of
Popery, gave exceeding grief and scandal to the whole nation, that the
heir of it, and the son of a martyr for the Protestant religion, should
apostatize. What the consequence of this will be, God only knows, and
wise men dread.
11th April, 1673. I dined with the plenipotentiaries designed for the
treaty of Nimeguen.
17th April, 1673. I carried Lady Tuke to thank the Countess of Arlington
for speaking to his Majesty in her behalf, for being one of the Queen
Consort's women. She carried us up into her new dressing room at Goring
House, where was a bed, two glasses, silver jars, and vases, cabinets,
and other so rich furniture as I had seldom seen; to this excess of
superfluity were we now arrived and that not only at Court, but almost
universally, even to wantonness and profusion.
Dr. Compton, brother to the Earl of Northampton, preached on 1 Corinth.
v. 11-16, showing the Church's power in ordaining things indifferent;
this worthy person's talent is not preaching, but he is likely to make a
grave and serious good man.
I saw her Majesty's rich toilet in her dressing room, being all of massy
gold, presented to her by the King, valued at £4,000.
26th April, 1673. Dr. Lamplugh preached at St. Martin's the Holy
Sacrament following, which I partook of, upon obligation of the late Act
of Parliament, enjoining everybody in office, civil or military, under
penalty of £500, to receive it within one month before two authentic
witnesses; being engrossed on parchment, to be afterward produced in the
Court of Chancery, or some other Court of Record; which I did at the
Chancery bar, as being one of the Council of Plantations and Trade;
taking then also the oath of allegiance and supremacy, signing the
clause in the said Act against Transubstantiation.
25th May, 1673. My son was made a younger brother of the Trinity House.
The new master was Sir J. Smith, one of the Commissioners of the Navy, a
stout seaman, who had interposed and saved the Duke from perishing by a
fire ship in the late war.
28th May, 1673. I carried one Withers, an ingenious shipwright, to the
King to show him some new method of building.
29th May, 1673. I saw the Italian comedy at the Court, this afternoon.
10th June, 1673. Came to visit and dine with me my Lord Viscount
Cornbury and his Lady; Lady Frances Hyde, sister to the Duchess of York;
and Mrs. Dorothy Howard, maid of Honor. We went, after dinner, to see
the formal and formidable camp on Blackheath, raised to invade Holland;
or, as others suspected for another design. Thence, to the Italian
glass-house at Greenwich, where glass was blown of finer metal than that
of Murano, at Venice.
13th June, 1673. Came to visit us, with other ladies of rank, Mrs.
Sedley,[33] daughter to Sir Charles, who was none of the most virtuous,
but a wit.
[Footnote 33: The Duke of York's mistress, afterward created by him
Countess of Dorchester.]
19th June, 1673. Congratulated the new Lord Treasurer, Sir Thomas
Osborne, a gentleman with whom I had been intimately acquainted at
Paris, and who was every day at my father-in-law's house and table
there; on which account I was too confident of succeeding in his favor,
as I had done in his predecessor's; but such a friend shall I never
find, and I neglected my time, far from believing that my Lord Clifford
would have so rashly laid down his staff, as he did, to the amazement of
all the world, when it came to the test of his receiving the Communion,
which I am confident he forbore more from some promise he had entered
into to gratify the Duke, than from any prejudice to the Protestant
religion, though I found him wavering a pretty while.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
23d June, 1673. To London, to accompany our Council who went in a body
to congratulate the new Lord Treasurer, no friend to it because promoted
by my Lord Arlington, whom he hated.
26th June, 1673. Came visitors from Court to dine with me and see the
army still remaining encamped on Blackheath.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
6th July, 1673. This evening I went to the funeral of my dear and
excellent friend, that good man and accomplished gentleman, Sir Robert
Murray, Secretary of Scotland. He was buried by order of his Majesty in
Westminster Abbey.
25th July, 1673. I went to Tunbridge Wells, to visit my Lord Clifford,
late Lord Treasurer, who was there to divert his mind more than his
body; it was believed that he had so engaged himself to the Duke, that
rather than take the Test, without which he was not capable of holding
any office, he would resign that great and honorable station. This, I am
confident, grieved him to the heart, and at last broke it; for, though
he carried with him music, and people to divert him, and, when I came to
see him, lodged me in his own apartment, and would not let me go from
him, I found he was struggling in his mind; and being of a rough and
ambitious nature, he could not long brook the necessity he had brought
on himself, of submission to this conjuncture. Besides, he saw the Dutch
war, which was made much by his advice, as well as the shutting up of
the Exchequer, very unprosperous. These things his high spirit could not
support. Having stayed here two or three days, I obtained leave of my
Lord to return.
In my way, I saw my Lord of Dorset's house at Knowle, near Sevenoaks, a
great old-fashioned house.
30th July, 1673. To Council, where the business of transporting wool was
brought before us.
31st July, 1673. I went to see the pictures of all the judges and
eminent men of the Long Robe, newly painted by Mr. Wright, and set up in
Guildhall, costing the city £1,000. Most of them are very like the
persons they represent, though I never took Wright to be any
considerable artist.
13th August, 1673. I rode to Durdans, where I dined at my Lord
Berkeley's of Berkeley Castle, my old and noble friend, it being his
wedding anniversary, where I found the Duchess of Albemarle, and other
company, and returned home on that evening late.
15th August, 1673. Came to visit me my Lord Chancellor, the Earl of
Shaftesbury.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
18th August, 1673. My Lord Clifford, being about this time returned
from Tunbridge, and preparing for Devonshire, I went to take my leave of
him at Wallingford House; he was packing up pictures, most of which were
of hunting wild beasts and vast pieces of bull-baiting, bear-baiting,
etc. I found him in his study, and restored to him several papers of
state, and others of importance, which he had furnished me with, on
engaging me to write the "History of the Holland War," with other
private letters of his acknowledgments to my Lord Arlington, who from a
private gentleman of a very noble family, but inconsiderable fortune,
had advanced him from almost nothing. The first thing was his being in
Parliament, then knighted, then made one of the Commissioners of sick
and wounded, on which occasion we sat long together; then, on the death
of Hugh Pollard, he was made Comptroller of the Household and Privy
Councillor, yet still my brother Commissioner; after the death of Lord
Fitz-Harding, Treasurer of the Household, he, by letters to Lord
Arlington, which that Lord showed me, begged of his Lordship to obtain
it for him as the very height of his ambition. These were written with
such submissions and professions of his patronage, as I had never seen
any more acknowledging. The Earl of Southampton then dying, he was made
one of the Commissioners of the Treasury. His Majesty inclining to put
it into one hand, my Lord Clifford, under pretense of making all his
interest for his patron, my Lord Arlington, cut the grass under his
feet, and procured it for himself, assuring the King that Lord Arlington
did not desire it. Indeed, my Lord Arlington protested to me that his
confidence in Lord Clifford made him so remiss and his affection to him
was so particular, that he was absolutely minded to devolve it on Lord
Clifford, all the world knowing how he himself affected ease and quiet,
now growing into years, yet little thinking of this go-by. This was the
great ingratitude Lord Clifford showed, keeping my Lord Arlington in
ignorance, continually assuring him he was pursuing his interest, which
was the Duke's into whose great favor Lord Clifford was now gotten; but
which certainly cost him the loss of all, namely, his going so
irrevocably far in his interest.
For the rest, my Lord Clifford was a valiant, incorrupt gentleman,
ambitious, not covetous; generous, passionate, a most constant, sincere
friend, to me in particular, so as when he laid down his office, I was
at the end of all my hopes and endeavors. These were not for high
matters, but to obtain what his Majesty was really indebted to my
father-in-law, which was the utmost of my ambition, and which I had
undoubtedly obtained, if this friend had stood. Sir Thomas Osborn, who
succeeded him, though much more obliged to my father-in-law and his
family, and my long and old acquaintance, being of a more haughty and
far less obliging nature, I could hope for little; a man of excellent
natural parts; but nothing of generous or grateful.
Taking leave of my Lord Clifford, he wrung me by the hand, and, looking
earnestly on me, bid me God-b'ye, adding, "Mr. Evelyn, I shall never see
thee more." "No!" said I, "my Lord, what's the meaning of this? I hope I
shall see you often, and as great a person again." "No, Mr. Evelyn, do
not expect it, I will never see this place, this city, or Court again,"
or words of this sound. In this manner, not without almost mutual tears,
I parted from him; nor was it long after, but the news was that he was
dead, and I have heard from some who I believe knew, he made himself
away, after an extraordinary melancholy. This is not confidently
affirmed, but a servant who lived in the house, and afterward with Sir
Robert Clayton, Lord Mayor, did, as well as others, report it, and when
I hinted some such thing to Mr. Prideaux, one of his trustees, he was
not willing to enter into that discourse.
It was reported with these particulars, that, causing his servant to
leave him unusually one morning, locking himself in, he strangled
himself with his cravat upon the bed-tester; his servant, not liking the
manner of dismissing him, and looking through the keyhole (as I
remember), and seeing his master hanging, broke in before he was quite
dead, and taking him down, vomiting a great deal of blood, he was heard
to utter these words: "Well; let men say what they will, there is a God,
a just God above"; after which he spoke no more. This, if true, is
dismal. Really, he was the chief occasion of the Dutch war, and of all
that blood which was lost at Bergen in attacking the Smyrna fleet, and
that whole quarrel.
This leads me to call to mind what my Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury
affirmed, not to me only, but to all my brethren the Council of Foreign
Plantations, when not long after, this accident being mentioned as we
were one day sitting in Council, his Lordship told us this remarkable
passage: that, being one day discoursing with him when he was only Sir
Thomas Clifford, speaking of men's advancement to great charges in the
nation, "Well," says he, "my Lord, I shall be one of the greatest men in
England. Don't impute what I say either to fancy, or vanity; I am
certain that I shall be a mighty man; but it will not last long; I shall
not hold it, but die a bloody death." "What," says my Lord, "your
horoscope tells you so?" "No matter for that, it will be as I tell you."
"Well," says my Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, "if I were of that opinion,
I either would not be a great man, but decline preferment, or prevent my
danger."
This my Lord affirmed in my hearing before several gentlemen and
noblemen sitting in council at Whitehall. And I the rather am confident
of it, remembering what Sir Edward Walker (Garter King-at-Arms) had
likewise affirmed to me a long time before, even when he was first made
a Lord; that carrying his pedigree to Lord Clifford on his being created
a peer, and, finding him busy, he bade him go into his study and divert
himself there till he was at leisure to discourse with him about some
things relating to his family; there lay, said Sir Edward, on his table,
his horoscope and nativity calculated, with some writing under it, where
he read that he should be advanced to the highest degree in the state
that could be conferred upon him, but that he should not long enjoy it,
but should die, or expressions to that sense; and I think, (but cannot
confidently say) a bloody death. This Sir Edward affirmed both to me and
Sir Richard Browne; nor could I forbear to note this extraordinary
passage in these memoirs.
14th September, 1673. Dr. Creighton, son to the late eloquent Bishop of
Bath and Wells, preached to the Household on Isaiah, lvii. 8.
15th September, 1673. I procured £4,000 of the Lords of the Treasury,
and rectified divers matters about the sick and wounded.
16th September, 1673. To Council, about choosing a new Secretary.
17th September, 1673. I went with some friends to visit Mr. Bernard
Grenville, at Abs Court in Surrey; an old house in a pretty park.
23d September, 1673. I went to see Paradise, a room in Hatton Garden
furnished with a representation of all sorts of animals handsomely
painted on boards or cloth, and so cut out and made to stand, move, fly,
crawl, roar, and make their several cries. The man who showed it, made
us laugh heartily at his formal poetry.
15th October, 1673. To Council, and swore in Mr. Locke, secretary, Dr.
Worsley being dead.
27th October, 1673. To Council, about sending succors to recover New
York: and then we read the commission and instructions to Sir Jonathan
Atkins, the new Governor of Barbadoes.
5th November, 1673. This night the youths of the city burned the Pope in
effigy, after they had made procession with it in great triumph, they
being displeased at the Duke for altering his religion and marrying an
Italian lady.
30th November, 1673. On St. Andrew's day I first saw the new Duchess of
York, and the Duchess of Modena, her mother.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
1st December, 1673. To Gresham College, whither the city had invited the
Royal Society by many of their chief aldermen and magistrates, who gave
us a collation, to welcome us to our first place of assembly, from
whence we had been driven to give place to the City, on their making it
their Exchange on the dreadful conflagration, till their new Exchange
was finished, which it now was. The Society having till now been
entertained and having met at Arundel House.
2d December, 1673. I dined with some friends, and visited the sick;
thence, to an almshouse, where was prayers and relief, some very ill and
miserable. It was one of the best days I ever spent in my life.
3d December, 1673. There was at dinner my Lord Lockhart, designed
Ambassador for France, a gallant and sober person.
9th December, 1673. I saw again the Italian Duchess and her brother, the
Prince Reynaldo.
20th December, 1673. I had some discourse with certain strangers, not
unlearned, who had been born not far from Old Nineveh; they assured me
of the ruins being still extant, and vast and wonderful were the
buildings, vaults, pillars, and magnificent fragments;[34] but they
could say little of the Tower of Babel that satisfied me. But the
description of the amenity and fragrancy of the country for health and
cheerfulness, delighted me; so sensibly they spoke of the excellent air
and climate in respect of our cloudy and splenetic country.
[Footnote 34: The remarkable discoveries of Mr. Layard give now a
curious interest to this notice by Evelyn.]
24th December, 1673. Visited the prisoners at Ludgate, taking orders
about the releasing of some.
30th December, 1673. I gave Almighty God thanks for his infinite
goodness to me the year past, and begged his mercy and protection the
year following; afterward, invited my neighbors to spend the day with
me.
5th January, 1673-74. I saw an Italian opera in music, the first that
had been in England of this kind.
9th January, 1674. Sent for by his Majesty to write something against
the Hollanders about the duty of the Flag and Fishery. Returned with
some papers.
25th March, 1674. I dined at Knightsbridge, with the Bishops of
Salisbury, Chester, and Lincoln, my old friends.
29th May, 1674. His Majesty's birthday and Restoration. Mr. Demalhoy,
Roger L'Estrange, and several of my friends, came to dine with me on the
happy occasion.
27th June, 1674. Mr. Dryden, the famous poet and now laureate, came to
give me a visit. It was the anniversary of my marriage, and the first
day I went into my new little cell and cabinet, which I built below
toward the south court, at the east end of the parlor.
9th July, 1674. Paid £360 for purchase of Dr. Jacombe's son's share in
the mill and land at Deptford, which I bought of the Beechers.
22d July, 1674. I went to Windsor with my wife and son to see my
daughter Mary, who was there with my Lady Tuke and to do my duty to his
Majesty. Next day, to a great entertainment at Sir Robert Holmes's at
Cranbourne Lodge, in the Forest; there were his Majesty, the Queen,
Duke, Duchess, and all the Court. I returned in the evening with Sir
Joseph Williamson, now declared Secretary of State. He was son of a poor
clergyman somewhere in Cumberland, brought up at Queen's College,
Oxford, of which he came to be a fellow; then traveled with ... and
returning when the King was restored, was received as a clerk under Mr.
Secretary Nicholas. Sir Henry Bennett (now Lord Arlington) succeeding,
Williamson is transferred to him, who loving his ease more than business
(though sufficiently able had he applied himself to it) remitted all to
his man Williamson; and, in a short time, let him so into the secret of
affairs, that (as his Lordship himself told me) there was a kind of
necessity to advance him; and so, by his subtlety, dexterity, and
insinuation, he got now to be principal Secretary; absolutely Lord
Arlington's creature, and ungrateful enough. It has been the fate of
this obliging favorite to advance those who soon forgot their original.
Sir Joseph was a musician, could play at _Jeu de Goblets_, exceedingly
formal, a severe master to his servants, but so inward with my Lord
O'Brien, that after a few months of that gentleman's death, he married
his widow,[35] who, being sister and heir of the Duke of Richmond,
brought him a noble fortune. It was thought they lived not so kindly
after marriage as they did before. She was much censured for marrying so
meanly, being herself allied to the Royal family.
[Footnote 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.]
[Sidenote: GROOMBRIDGE]
6th August, 1674. I went to Groombridge, to see my old friend, Mr.
Packer; the house built within a moat, in a woody valley. The old house
had been the place of confinement of the Duke of Orleans, taken by one
Waller (whose house it then was) at the battle of Agincourt, now
demolished, and a new one built in its place, though a far better
situation had been on the south of the wood, on a graceful ascent. At
some small distance, is a large chapel, not long since built by Mr.
Packer's father, on a vow he made to do it on the return of King Charles
I. out of Spain, 1625, and dedicated to St. Charles, but what saint
there was then of that name I am to seek, for, being a Protestant, I
conceive it was not Borromeo.
I went to see my farm at Ripe, near Lewes.
19th August, 1674. His Majesty told me how exceedingly the Dutch were
displeased at my treatise of the "History of Commerce;" that the Holland
Ambassador had complained to him of what I had touched of the Flags and
Fishery, etc., and desired the book might be called in; while on the
other side, he assured me he was exceedingly pleased with what I had
done, and gave me many thanks. However, it being just upon conclusion of
the treaty of Breda (indeed it was designed to have been published some
months before and when we were at defiance), his Majesty told me he must
recall it formally; but gave order that what copies should be publicly
seized to pacify the Ambassador, should immediately be restored to the
printer, and that neither he nor the vender should be molested. The
truth is, that which touched the Hollander was much less than what the
King himself furnished me with, and obliged me to publish, having caused
it to be read to him before it went to press; but the error was, it
should have been published before the peace was proclaimed. The noise of
this book's suppression made it presently to be bought up, and turned
much to the stationer's advantage. It was no other than the preface
prepared to be prefixed to my "History of the Whole War;" which I now
pursued no further.
[Sidenote: LONDON]