thought fit to set down. Though all the arguments and objections were
altogether weak, and have a thousand times been answered by our divines;
they are such as their priests insinuate among their proselytes, as if
nothing were Catholic but the Church of Rome, no salvation out of that,
no reformation sufferable, bottoming all their errors on St. Peter's
successors' unerring dictatorship, but proving nothing with any reason,
or taking notice of any objection which could be made against it. Here
all was taken for granted, and upon it a resolution and preference
implied.
I was heartily sorry to see all this, though it was no other than was
to be suspected, by his late Majesty's too great indifference, neglect,
and course of life, that he had been perverted, and for secular respects
only professed to be of another belief, and thereby giving great
advantage to our adversaries, both the Court and generally the youth and
great persons of the nation becoming dissolute and highly profane. God
was incensed to make his reign very troublesome and unprosperous, by
wars, plagues, fires, loss of reputation by an universal neglect of the
public for the love of a voluptuous and sensual life, which a vicious
Court had brought into credit. I think of it with sorrow and pity, when
I consider how good and debonair a nature that unhappy Prince was; what
opportunities he had to have made himself the most renowned King that
ever swayed the British scepter, had he been firm to that Church for
which his martyred and blessed father suffered; and had he been grateful
to Almighty God, who so miraculously restored him, with so excellent a
religion; had he endeavored to own and propagate it as he should have
done, not only for the good of his kingdom, but of all the Reformed
Churches in christendom, now weakened and near ruined through our
remissness and suffering them to be supplanted, persecuted, and
destroyed, as in France, which we took no notice of. The consequence of
this, time will show, and I wish it may proceed no further. The
emissaries and instruments of the Church of Rome will never rest till
they have crushed the Church of England, as knowing that alone to be
able to cope with them, and that they can never answer her fairly, but
lie abundantly open to the irresistible force of her arguments,
antiquity and purity of her doctrine, so that albeit it may move God,
for the punishment of a nation so unworthy, to eclipse again the
profession of her here, and darkness and superstition prevail, I am most
confident the doctrine of the Church of England will never be
extinguished, but remain visible, if not eminent, to the consummation of
the world. I have innumerable reasons that confirm me in this opinion,
which I forbear to mention here.
In the meantime, as to the discourse of his Majesty with Mr. Pepys, and
those papers, as I do exceedingly prefer his Majesty's free and
ingenuous profession of what his own religion is, beyond concealment
upon any politic accounts, so I think him of a most sincere and honest
nature, one on whose word one may rely, and that he makes a conscience
of what he promises, to perform it. In this confidence, I hope that the
Church of England may yet subsist, and when it shall please God to open
his eyes and turn his heart (for that is peculiarly in the Lord's hands)
to flourish also. In all events, whatever does become of the Church of
England, it is certainly, of all the Christian professions on the earth,
the most primitive, apostolical, and excellent.
8th October, 1685. I had my picture drawn this week by the famous
Kneller.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
14th October, 1685. I went to London about finishing my lodgings at
Whitehall.
15th October, 1685. Being the King's birthday, there was a solemn ball
at Court, and before it music of instruments and voices. I happened by
accident to stand the very next to the Queen and the King, who talked
with me about the music.
18th October, 1685. The King was now building all that range from east
to west by the court and garden to the street, and making a new chapel
for the Queen, whose lodgings were to be in this new building, as also a
new Council chamber and offices next the south end of the banqueting
house. I returned home, next morning, to London.
22d October, 1685. I accompanied my Lady Clarendon to her house at
Swallowfield, in Berks, dining by the way at Mr. Graham's lodge at
Bagshot; the house, newly repaired and capacious enough for a good
family, stands in a park.
Hence, we went to Swallowfield; this house is after the ancient
building of honorable gentlemen's houses, when they kept up ancient
hospitality, but the gardens and waters as elegant as it is possible to
make a flat by art and industry, and no mean expense, my lady being so
extraordinarily skilled in the flowery part, and my lord in diligence of
planting; so that I have hardly seen a seat which shows more tokens of
it than what is to be found here, not only in the delicious and rarest
fruits of a garden, but in those innumerable timber trees in the ground
about the seat, to the greatest ornament and benefit of the place. There
is one orchard of 1,000 golden, and other cider pippins; walks and
groves of elms, limes, oaks, and other trees. The garden is so beset
with all manner of sweet shrubs, that it perfumes the air. The
distribution also of the quarters, walks, and parterres, is excellent.
The nurseries, kitchen-garden full of the most desirable plants; two
very noble orangeries well furnished: but, above all, the canal and fish
ponds, the one fed with a white, the other with a black running water,
fed by a quick and swift river, so well and plentifully stored with
fish, that for pike, carp, bream, and tench, I never saw anything
approaching it. We had at every meal carp and pike of a size fit for the
table of a Prince, and what added to the delight was, to see the
hundreds taken by the drag, out of which, the cook standing by, we
pointed out what we had most mind to, and had carp that would have been
worth at London twenty shillings a piece. The waters are flagged about
with _Calámus aromaticus_, with which my lady has hung a closet, that
retains the smell very perfectly. There is also a certain sweet willow
and other exotics: also a very fine bowling-green, meadow, pasture, and
wood; in a word, all that can render a country seat delightful. There is
besides a well-furnished library in the house.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
26th October, 1685. We returned to London, having been treated with all
sorts of cheer and noble freedom by that most religious and virtuous
lady. She was now preparing to go for Ireland with her husband, made
Lord Deputy, and went to this country house and ancient seat of her
father and family, to set things in order during her absence; but never
were good people and neighbors more concerned than all the country (the
poor especially) for the departure of this charitable woman; everyone
was in tears, and she as unwilling to part from them. There was among
them a maiden of primitive life, the daughter of a poor laboring man,
who had sustained her parents (some time since dead) by her labor, and
has for many years refused marriage, or to receive any assistance from
the parish, besides the little hermitage my lady gives her rent-free;
she lives on four pence a day, which she gets by spinning; says she
abounds and can give alms to others, living in great humility and
content, without any apparent affectation, or singularity; she is
continually working, praying, or reading, gives a good account of her
knowledge in religion, visits the sick; is not in the least given to
talk; very modest, of a simple not unseemingly behavior; of a comely
countenance, clad very plain, but clean and tight. In sum, she appears a
saint of an extraordinary sort, in so religious a life, as is seldom met
with in villages now-a-days.
27th October, 1685. I was invited to dine at Sir Stephen Fox's with my
Lord Lieutenant, where was such a dinner for variety of all things as I
had seldom seen, and it was so for the trial of a master-cook whom Sir
Stephen had recommended to go with his Lordship into Ireland; there were
all the dainties not only of the season, but of what art could add,
venison, plain solid meat, fowl, baked and boiled meats, banquet
[dessert], in exceeding plenty, and exquisitely dressed. There also
dined my Lord Ossory and Lady (the Duke of Beaufort's daughter), my Lady
Treasurer, Lord Cornbury, and other visitors.
28th October, 1685. At the Royal Society, an urn full of bones was
presented, dug up in a highway, while repairing it, in a field in
Camberwell, in Surrey; it was found entire with its cover, among many
others, believed to be truly Roman and ancient.
Sir Richard Bulkeley described to us a model of a chariot he had
invented, which it was not possible to overthrow in whatever uneven way
it was drawn, giving us a wonderful relation of what it had performed in
that kind, for ease, expedition, and safety; there were some
inconveniences yet to be remedied--it would not contain more than one
person; was ready to take fire every ten miles; and being placed and
playing on no fewer than ten rollers, it made a most prodigious noise,
almost intolerable. A remedy was to be sought for these inconveniences.
31st October, 1685. I dined at our great Lord Chancellor Jefferies', who
used me with much respect. This was the late Chief-Justice who had newly
been the Western Circuit to try the Monmouth conspirators, and had
formerly done such severe justice among the obnoxious in Westminster
Hall, for which his Majesty dignified him by creating him first a Baron,
and now Lord Chancellor. He had some years past been conversant in
Deptford; is of an assured and undaunted spirit, and has served the
Court interest on all the hardiest occasions; is of nature cruel, and a
slave of the Court.
3d November, 1685. The French persecution of the Protestants raging
with the utmost barbarity, exceeded even what the very heathens used:
innumerable persons of the greatest birth and riches leaving all their
earthly substance, and hardly escaping with their lives, dispersed
through all the countries of Europe. The French tyrant abrogated the
Edict of Nantes which had been made in favor of them, and without any
cause; on a sudden demolishing all their churches, banishing,
imprisoning, and sending to the galleys all the ministers; plundering
the common people, and exposing them to all sorts of barbarous usage by
soldiers sent to ruin and prey on them; taking away their children;
forcing people to the Mass, and then executing them as relapsers; they
burnt their libraries, pillaged their goods, ate up their fields and
substance, banished or sent the people to the galleys, and seized on
their estates. There had now been numbered to pass through Geneva only
(and that by stealth, for all the usual passages were strictly guarded
by sea and land) 40,000 toward Switzerland. In Holland, Denmark, and all
about Germany, were dispersed some hundred thousands; besides those in
England, where, though multitudes of all degree sought for shelter and
welcome as distressed Christians and confessors, they found least
encouragement, by a fatality of the times we were fallen into, and the
uncharitable indifference of such as should have embraced them; and I
prey it be not laid to our charge. The famous Claude fled to Holland;
Allix and several more came to London, and persons of great estates came
over, who had forsaken all. France was almost dispeopled, the bankers so
broken, that the tyrant's revenue was exceedingly diminished,
manufactures ceased, and everybody there, save the Jesuits, abhorred
what was done, nor did the Papists themselves approve it. What the
further intention is, time will show; but doubtless portending some
revolution.
I was shown the harangue which the Bishop of Valentia on Rhone made in
the name of the Clergy, celebrating the French King, as if he was a God,
for persecuting the poor Protestants, with this expression in it, "That
as his victory over heresy was greater than all the conquests of
Alexander and Cæsar, it was but what was wished in England; and that God
seemed to raise the French King to this power and magnanimous action,
that he might be in capacity to assist in doing the same here." This
paragraph is very bold and remarkable; several reflecting on Archbishop
Usher's prophecy as now begun in France, and approaching the orthodox in
all other reformed churches. One thing was much taken notice of, that
the "Gazettes" which were still constantly printed twice a week,
informing us what was done all over Europe, never spoke of this
wonderful proceeding in France; nor was any relation of it published by
any, save what private letters and the persecuted fugitives brought.
Whence this silence, I list not to conjecture; but it appeared very
extraordinary in a Protestant country that we should know nothing of
what Protestants suffered, while great collections were made for them in
foreign places, more hospitable and Christian to appearance.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
5th November, 1685. It being an extraordinarily wet morning, and myself
indisposed by a very great rheum, I did not go to church, to my very
great sorrow, it being the first Gunpowder Conspiracy anniversary that
had been kept now these eighty years under a prince of the Roman
religion. Bonfires were forbidden on this day; what does this portend!
9th November, 1685. Began the Parliament. The King in his speech
required continuance of a standing force instead of a militia, and
indemnity and dispensation to Popish officers from the Test; demands
very unexpected and unpleasing to the Commons. He also required a supply
of revenue, which they granted; but returned no thanks to the King for
his speech, till farther consideration.
12th November, 1685. The Commons postponed finishing the bill for the
Supply, to consider the Test, and Popish officers; this was carried but
by one voice.
14th November, 1685. I dined at Lambeth, my Lord Archbishop carrying me
with him in his barge; there were my Lord Deputy of Ireland, the Bishops
of Ely and St. Asaph, Dr. Sherlock, and other divines; Sir William
Hayward, Sir Paul Rycaut, etc.
20th November, 1685. The Parliament was adjourned to February, several
both of Lords and Commons excepting against some passage of his
Majesty's speech relating to the Test, and continuance of Popish
officers in command. This was a great surprise in a Parliament which
people believed would have complied in all things.
Popish pamphlets and pictures sold publicly; no books nor answers to
them appearing till long after.
21st November, 1685. I resigned my trust for composing a difference
between Mr. Thynn and his wife.
22d November, 1685. Hitherto was a very wet, warm season.
4th December, 1685. Lord Sunderland was declared President of the
Council, and yet to hold his Secretary's place. The forces disposed into
several quarters through the kingdom are very insolent, on which are
great complaints.
Lord Brandon, tried for the late conspiracy, was condemned and pardoned;
so was Lord Grey, his accuser and witness.
Persecution in France raging, the French insolently visit our vessels,
and take away the fugitive Protestants; some escape in barrels.
[Sidenote: GREENWICH]
10th December, 1685. To Greenwich, being put into the new Commission of
Sewers.
13th December, 1685. Dr. Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, preached at
Whitehall, before the Princess of Denmark, who, since his Majesty came
to the Crown, always sat in the King's closet, and had the same bowings
and ceremonies applied to the place where she was, as his Majesty had
when there in person.
Dining at Mr. Pepys's, Dr. Slayer showed us an experiment of a wonderful
nature, pouring first a very cold liquor into a glass, and superfusing
on it another, to appearance cold and clear liquor also; it first
produced a white cloud, then boiling, divers coruscations and actual
flames of fire mingled with the liquor, which being a little shaken
together, fixed divers suns and stars of real fire, perfectly globular,
on the sides of the glass, and which there stuck like so many
constellations, burning most vehemently, and resembling stars and
heavenly bodies, and that for a long space. It seemed to exhibit a
theory of the eduction of light out of the chaos, and the fixing or
gathering of the universal light into luminous bodies. This matter, or
phosphorus, was made out of human blood and urine, elucidating the vital
flame, or heat in animal bodies. A very noble experiment!
16th December, 1685. I accompanied my Lord-Lieutenant as far as St.
Alban's, there going out of town with him near 200 coaches of all the
great officers and nobility. The next morning taking leave, I returned
to London.
18th December, 1685. I dined at the great entertainment his Majesty gave
the Venetian Ambassadors, Signors Zenno and Justiniani, accompanied with
ten more noble Venetians of their most illustrious families, Cornaro,
Maccenigo, etc., who came to congratulate their Majesties coming to the
Crown. The dinner was most magnificent and plentiful, at four tables,
with music, kettledrums, and trumpets, which sounded upon a whistle at
every health. The banquet [dessert] was twelve vast chargers piled up so
high that those who sat one against another could hardly see each other.
Of these sweetmeats, which doubtless were some days piling up in that
exquisite manner, the Ambassadors touched not, but leaving them to the
spectators who came out of curiosity to see the dinner, were exceedingly
pleased to see in what a moment of time all that curious work was
demolished, the comfitures voided, and the tables cleared. Thus his
Majesty entertained them three days, which (for the table only) cost him
£600, as the Clerk of the Greencloth (Sir William Boreman) assured me.
Dinner ended, I saw their procession, or cavalcade, to Whitehall,
innumerable coaches attending. The two Ambassadors had four coaches of
their own, and fifty footmen (as I remember), besides other equipage as
splendid as the occasion would permit, the Court being still in
mourning. Thence, I went to the audience which they had in the Queen's
presence chamber, the Banqueting House being full of goods and furniture
till the galleries on the garden-side, council chamber, and new chapel,
now in the building, were finished. They went to their audience in those
plain black gowns and caps which they constantly wear in the city of
Venice. I was invited to have accompanied the two Ambassadors in their
coach to supper that night, returning now to their own lodgings, as no
longer at the King's expense; but, being weary, I excused myself.
19th December, 1685. My Lord Treasurer made me dine with him, where I
became acquainted with Monsieur Barillon, the French Ambassador, a
learned and crafty advocate.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
20th December, 1685. Dr. Turner, brother to the Bishop of Ely, and
sometime tutor to my son, preached at Whitehall on Mark viii. 38,
concerning the submission of Christians to their persecutors, in which
were some passages indiscreet enough, considering the time, and the rage
of the inhuman French tyrant against the poor Protestants.
22d December, 1685. Our patent for executing the office of Privy Seal
during the absence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, being this day
sealed by the Lord Chancellor, we went afterward to St. James, where the
Court then was on occasion of building at Whitehall; his Majesty
delivered the seal to my Lord Tiviot and myself, the other Commissioners
not being come, and then gave us his hand to kiss. There were the two
Venetian Ambassadors and a world of company; among the rest the first
Popish Nuncio that had been in England since the Reformation; so
wonderfully were things changed, to the universal jealousy.
24th December, 1685. We were all three Commissioners sworn on our knees
by the Clerk of the Crown, before my Lord Chancellor, three several
oaths: allegiance, supremacy, and the oath belonging to the Lord Privy
Seal, which last we took standing. After this, the Lord Chancellor
invited us all to dinner, but it being Christmas eve we desired to be
excused, intending at three in the afternoon to seal divers things which
lay ready at the office; so attended by three of the Clerks of the
Signet, we met and sealed. Among other things was a pardon to West, who
being privy to the late conspiracy, had revealed the accomplices to save
his own neck. There were also another pardon and two indenizations; and
so agreeing to a fortnight's vacation, I returned home.
31st December, 1685. Recollecting the passages of the year past, and
having made up accounts, humbly besought Almighty God to pardon those my
sins which had provoked him to discompose my sorrowful family; that he
would accept of our humiliation, and in his good time restore comfort to
it. I also blessed God for all his undeserved mercies and preservations,
begging the continuance of his grace and preservation. The winter had
hitherto been extraordinarily wet and mild.
1st January, 1685-6. Imploring the continuance of God's providential
care for the year now entered, I went to the public devotions. The Dean
of the Chapel and Clerk of the Closet put out, viz, Bishop of London and
..., and Rochester and Durham put in their places; the former had
opposed the toleration intended, and shown a worthy zeal for the
reformed religion as established.
6th January, 1686. I dined with the Archbishop of York, where was Peter
Walsh, that Romish priest so well known for his moderation, professing
the Church of England to be a true member of the Catholic Church. He is
used to go to our public prayers without scruple, and did not
acknowledge the Pope's infallibility, only primacy of order.
19th January, 1686. Passed the Privy Seal, among others, the creation of
Mrs. Sedley (concubine to ----) Countess of Dorchester, which the Queen
took very grievously, so as for two dinners, standing near her, I
observed she hardly ate one morsel, nor spoke one word to the King, or
to any about her, though at other times she used to be extremely
pleasant, full of discourse and good humor. The Roman Catholics were
also very angry: because they had so long valued the sanctity of their
religion and proselytes.
Dryden, the famous playwriter, and his two sons, and Mrs. Nelly (miss to
the late ----), were said to go to mass; such proselytes were no great
loss to the Church.
This night was burnt to the ground my Lord Montague's palace in
Bloomsbury, than which for painting and furniture there was nothing more
glorious in England. This happened by the negligence of a servant
airing, as they call it, some of the goods by the fire in a moist
season; indeed, so wet and mild a season had scarce been seen in man's
memory.
At this Seal there also passed the creation of Sir Henry Waldegrave to
be a Peer. He had married one of the King's natural daughters by Mrs.
Churchill. These two Seals my brother Commissioners passed in the
morning before I came to town, at which I was not displeased. We
likewise passed Privy Seals for £276,000 upon several accounts,
pensions, guards, wardrobes, privy purse, etc., besides divers pardons,
and one more which I must not forget (and which by Providence I was not
present at) one Mr. Lytcott to be Secretary to the Ambassador to Rome.
We being three Commissioners, any two were a quorum.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
21st January, 1686. I dined at my Lady Arlington's, Groom of the Stole
to the Queen Dowager, at Somerset House, where dined the Countesses of
Devonshire, Dover, etc.; in all eleven ladies of quality, no man but
myself being there.
24th January, 1686. Unheard-of cruelties to the persecuted Protestants
of France, such as hardly any age has seen the like, even among the
Pagans.
6th February, 1686. Being the day on which his Majesty began his reign,
by order of Council it was to be solemnized with a particular office and
sermon, which the Bishop of Ely preached at Whitehall on Numb. xi. 12; a
Court oration upon the regal office. It was much wondered at, that this
day, which was that of his late Majesty's death, should be kept as a
festival, and not the day of the present King's coronation. It is said
to have been formerly the custom, though not till now since the reign of
King James I.
The Duchess of Monmouth, being in the same seat with me at church,
appeared with a very sad and afflicted countenance.
8th February, 1686. I took the test in Westminster Hall, before the Lord
Chief Justice. I now came to lodge at Whitehall, in the Lord Privy
Seal's lodgings.