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THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

f?rf>m fin otrt painting

[E DIARY OF

JOHN EVELYN

EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS BY

WILLIAM BRAY

Fellow of the Antiquarian Society

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION
BY THE EDITOR

AND A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY

RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D

M.WALTER DUNNE, PUBLISHER
NEW YORK ,V LONDON

COPYRIGHT, 1901,

M. WALTER DUNNE,
PUBLISHER

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I.

CHARLES I. IN PRISON Frontispiece

Photogravure after De La Roche.

LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL TAKING LEAVE OF His CHILDREN, 1683. 180
Photogravure after a painting by Bridges.

OLIVER CROMWELL DICTATING TO JOHN MILTON .... 284

The letter to the Duke of Savoy to stop the persecution
of the Protestants of Piedmont, 1655.

Photogravure from an engraving by Sartain after New-
enham.

VOLUME II.

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM Frontispiece

From an old painting.

NELL GWYNNE 64

Photogravure after Sir Peter Lely.

VOLUME I.
1620-1664

VOLUME II.
1665-1706

THE DIARY OF JOHN EVELYN.

2d January, 1665.

THIS day was published by me that part of (< The Mys-
tery of Jesuitism M translated and collected by me,
though without my name, containing the Imaginary
Heresy, with four letters and other pieces.

4th January, 1665. I went in a coach, it being excessive
sharp frost and snow, toward Dover and other parts of
Kent, to settle physicians, chirurgeons, agents, marshals,
and other officers in all the sea ports, to take care of such
as should be set on shore, wounded, sick, or prisoners, in
pursuance of our commission reaching from the North
Foreland, in Kent, to Portsmouth, in Hampshire. The rest
of the ports in England were allotted to the other Com-
missioners. That evening I came to Rochester, where I
delivered the Privy Council's letter to the Mayor to receive
orders from me.

5th January, 1665. I arrived at Canterbury, and went
to the cathedral, exceedingly well repaired since his Maj-
esty's return.

6th January, 1665. To Dover, where Colonel Stroode,
Lieutenant of the Castle, having received the letter I
brought him from the Duke of Albemarle, made me lodge
in it, and I was splendidly treated, assisting me from place
to place. Here I settled my first Deputy. The Mayor
and officers of the Customs were very civil to me.

pth January, 1665. To Deal loth. To Sandwich, a
pretty town, about two miles from the sea. The Mayor
and officers of the Customs were very dilligent to serve
me. I visited the forts in the way, and returned that night
to Canterbury.

nth January, 1665. To Rochester, when I took order
to settle officers at Chatham.

i ath January, 1665. To Gravesend, and returned home.
A cold, busy, but not unpleasant journey.

25th January, 1665. This night being at Whitehall, his
Majesty came to me standing in the withdrawing-room,
i (i)

2 DIARY OF LONDON

and gave me thanks for publishing (< The Mysteries of
Jesuitism," which he said he had carried two days in his
pocket, read it, and encouraged me; at which I did not a
little wonder: I suppose Sir Robert Murray had given it
to him.

ayth January, 1665. Dined at the Lord Chancellor's,
who caused me after dinner to sit two or three hours alone
with him in his bedchamber.

2d February, 1665. I saw a Masque performed at
Court, by six gentlemen and six ladies, suprising his
Majesty, it being Candlemas day.

8th February, Ash Wednesday, 1665. I visited our
prisoners at Chelsea College, and to examine how the
marshal and sutlers behaved. These were prisoners taken
in the war; they only complained that their bread was
too fine. I dined at Sir Henry Herbert's, Master of the
Revels.

9th February, 1665. Dined at my Lord Treasurer's,
the Earl of Southampton, in Bloomsbury, where he was
building a noble square or piazza,* a little town; his own
house stands too low, some noble rooms, a pretty cedar
chapel, a naked garden to the north, but good air. I had
much discourse with his Lordship, whom I found to be a
person of extraordinary parts, but a valetudinarian. I
went to St. James's Park, where I saw various animals,
and examined the throat of the Onocrotylus, or pelican, a
fowl between a stork and a swan; a melancholy water-
fowl, brought from Astrakhan by the Russian Ambassador;
it was diverting to see how he would toss up and turn
a flat fish, plaice, or flounder, to get it right into his
gullet at its lower beak, which, being filmy, stretches to a
prodigious wideness when it devours a great fish. Here
was also a small water-fowl, not bigger than a moorhen,
that went almost quite erect, like the penguin of America ;
it would eat as much fish as its whole body weighed; I
never saw so unsatiable a devourer, yet the body did not
appear to swell the bigger. The solan geese here are
also great devourers, and are said soon to exhaust all the
fish in a pond. Here was a curious sort of poultry not
much exceeding the size of a tame pigeon, with legs so
short as their crops seemed to touch the earth; a milk-

* The Italians mean simply a square by their piazzas.

1 665 JOHN EVELYN 3

white raven; a stork, which was a rarity at this season,
seeing he was loose, and could fly loftily; two Balearian
cranes, one of which having had one of his legs broken
and cut off above the knee, had a wooden or boxen leg
and thigh, with a joint so accurately made that the
creature could walk and use it as well as if it had been
natural; it was made by a soldier. The park was at this
time stored with numerous flocks of several sorts of ordi-
nary and extraordinary wild fowl, breeding about the
Decoy, which for being near so great a city, and among
such a concourse of soldiers and people, is a singular and
diverting thing. There were also deer of several coun-
tries, white; spotted like leopards; antelopes, an elk, red
deer, roebucks, stags, Guinea goats, Arabian sheep, etc.
There were withy-pots, or nests, for the wild fowl to lay
their eggs in, a little above the surface of the water.

23d February, 1665. I was invited to a great feast at
Mr. Rich's (a relation of my wife's, now reader at Lin-
coln's Inn) ; where was the Duke of Monmouth, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishops of London and Win-
chester, the Speaker of the House of Commons, divers of
the Judges, and several other great men.

24th February, 1665. Dr. Fell, Canon of Christ Church,
preached before the King, on 15 ch. Romans, v. 2, a very
formal discourse, and in blank verse, according to his man-
ner; however, he is a good man. Mr. Philips, preceptor
to my son, went to be with the Earl of Pembroke's son,
my Lord Herbert.

2d March, 1665. I went with his Majesty into the
lobby behind the House of Lords, where I saw the King
and the rest of the Lords robe themselves, and got into
the House of Lords in a corner near the woolsack, on which
the Lord Chancellor sits next below the throne : the King
sat in all the regalia, the crown-imperial on his head, the
sceptre and globe, etc. The Duke of Albemarle bore the
sword, the Duke of Ormond, the cap of dignity. The rest
of the Lords robed in their places: a most splendid and
august convention. Then came the Speaker and the
House of Commons, and at the bar made a speech, and
afterward presented several bills, a nod only passing
them, the clerk saying, Le Roy le veult, as to public bills,
as to private, Soit faite commeilest desirt. Then, his Majesty
made a handsome but short speech, commanding my Lord

4 DIARY OF LONDON

Privy Seal to prorogue the Parliament, which he did, the
Chancellor being ill and absent. I had not before seen
this ceremony.

9th March, 1665. I went to receive the poor creatures
that were saved out of the London frigate, blown up by
accident, with above 200 men.

2pth March, 1665. Went to Goring House, now Mr.
Secretary Bennet's, ill-built, but the place capable of being
made a pretty villa. His Majesty was now finishing the
Decoy in the Park.

2d April, 1665. Took order about some prisoners sent
from Captain Allen's ship, taken in the Solomon, viz, the
brave men who defended her so gallantly.

5th April, 1665. Was a day of public humiliation and
for success of this terrible war, begun doubtless at secret
instigation of the French to weaken the States and Prot-
estant interest. Prodigious preparations on both sides.

6th April, 1665. In the afternoon, I saw acted *Mus-
tapha* a tragedy written by the Earl of Orrery.

nth April, 1665. To London, being now left the only
Commissioner to take all necessary orders how to exchange,
remove, and keep prisoners, dispose of hospitals, etc. ; the
rest of the Commissioners being gone to their several dis-
tricts, in expectation of a sudden engagement.

igth April, 1665. Invited to a great dinner at the
Trinity House, where I had business with the Commis-
sioners of the Navy, 'and to receive the second .5,000,
impressed for the service of the sick and wounded pris-
oners.

2oth April, 1665. To Whitehall, to the King, who called
me into his bedchamber as he was dressing, to whom ,1
showed the letter written to me from the Duke of York
from the fleet, giving me notice of young Evertzen, and
some considerable commanders newly taken in fight with
the Dartmouth and Diamond frigates, whom he had sent
me as prisoners at war; I went to know of his Majesty
how he would have me treat them, when he commanded
me to bring the young captain to him, and to take the
word of the Dutch Ambassador (who yet remained here)
for the other, that he should render himself to me when-
ever I called on him, and not stir without leave. Upon
which I desired more guards, the prison being Chelsea
House. I went also to Lord Arlington (the Secretary

1665 JOHN EVELYN 5

Bennet lately made a Lord ) about other business. Dined
at my Lord Chancellor's; none with him but Sir Sackville
Crowe, formerly Ambassador at Constantinople; we were
very cheerful and merry.

24th April, 1665 I presented young Captain Evertzen
(eldest son of Cornelius, Vice-Admiral of Zealand and
nephew of John, now Admiral, a most valiant person) to
his Majesty in his bed-chamber. The King gave him his
hand to kiss, and restored him his liberty; asked many
questions concerning the fight (it being the first blood
drawn), his Majesty remembering the many civilities he
had formerly received from his relations abroad, who had
now so much interest in that considerable Province. Then,
I was commanded to go with him to the Holland Ambas-
sador, where he was to stay for his passport, and I was
to give him fifty pieces in broad gold. Next day I had
the Ambassador's parole for the other Captain, taken in
Captain Allen's fight before Calais. I gave the King an
account of what I had done, and afterward asked the same
favor for another Captain, which his Majesty gave me.

28th April, 1665. I went to Tunbridge, to see a solemn
exercise at the free-school there.

Having taken orders with my marshal about my prison-
ers, and with the doctor and chirurgeon to attend the
wounded enemies, and of our own men, I went to Lon-
don again, and visited my charge, several with legs and
arms off; miserable objects, God knows.

1 6th May, 1665. To London, to consider of the poor
orphans and widows made by this bloody beginning, and
whose husbands and relations perished in the London
frigate, of which there were fifty widows, and forty-five
of them with child.

26th May, 1665. To treat with the Holland Ambassador
at Chelsea, for release of divers prisoners of war in Hol-
land on exchange here. After dinner, being called into
the Council-Chamber at Whitehall, I gave his Majesty an
account of what I had done, informing him of the vast
charge upon us, now amounting to no less than ^1,000
weekly.

2pth May, 1665. I went with my little boy to my dis-
trict in Kent, to make up accounts with my officers.
Visited the Governor at Dover Castle, where were some
of my prisoners.

6 DIARY OF LONDON

3d June, 1665. In my return went to Gravesend; the
fleets being just now engaged, gave special orders for my
officers to be ready to receive the wounded and prisoners.

5th June, 1665. To London, to speak with his Majesty
and the Duke of Albemarle for horse and foot guards
for the prisoners at war, committed more particularly to
my charge by a commission apart.

8th June, 1665. I went again to his Grace, thence to
the Council, and moved for another privy seal for 20,-
ooo, and that I might have the disposal of the Savoy
Hospital for the sick and wounded ; all which was granted.
Hence to the Royal Society, to refresh among the phi-
losophers.

Came news of his highness's victory, which indeed
might have been a complete one, and at once ended the
war, had it been pursued, but the cowardice of some, or
treachery, or both, frustrated that. We had, however,
bonfires, bells, and rejoicing in the city. Next day, the
pth, I had instant orders to repair to the Downs, so as I
got to Rochester this evening. Next day I lay at Deal,
where I found all in readiness: but, the fleet being hin-
dered by contrary winds, I came away on the izth, and
went to Dover, and returned to Deal; and on the i3th,
hearing the fleet was at Solbay, I went homeward, and
lay at Chatham, and on the i4th, I got home. On the
1 5th, came the eldest son of the present Secretary of
State to the French King, with much other company, to
dine with me. After dinner, I went with him to London,
to speak to my Lord General for more guards, and gave
his Majesty an account of my journey to the coasts under
my inspection. I also waited on his Royal Highness,
now come triumphant from the fleet, gotten into repair.
See the whole history of this conflict in my <( History of
the Dutch War.

2oth June, 1665. To London, and represented the state
of the sick and wounded to His Majesty in Council, for
want of money, he ordered I should apply to My Lord
Treasurer and Chancellor of the Exchequer, upon what
funds to raise the money promised. We also presented to
his Majesty divers expedients for retrenchment of the
charge.

This evening making my court to the Duke, I spake to
Monsieur Comminges, the French Ambassador, and his

1665 JOHN EVELYN 7

Highness granted me six prisoners, Embdeners, who were
desirous to go to the Barbadoes with a merchant.

22d June, 1665. We waited on the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and got an Order of Council for our money
to be paid to the Treasurer of the Navy for our Receivers.

23d June, 1665. I dined with Sir Robert Paston, since
Earl of Yarmouth, and saw the Duke of Verneuille, base
brother to the Queen-Mother, a handsome old man, a
great hunter.

The Duke of York told us that, when we were in fight,
his dog sought out absolutely the very securest place in
all the vessel. In the afternoon, I saw the pompous
reception and audience of El Conde de Molino, the Span-
ish Ambassador, in the Banqueting - house, both their
Majesties sitting together under the canopy of state.

3oth June, 1665. To Chatham; and, ist July, to the
fleet with Lord Sandwich, now Admiral, with whom I
went in a pinnace to the Buoy of the Nore, where the
whole fleet rode at anchor; went on board the Prince, of
ninety brass ordnance, haply the best ship in the world,
both for building and sailing; she had 700 men. They
made a great huzza, or shout, at our approach, three
times. Here we dined with many noblemen, gentlemen,
and volunteers, served in plate and excellent meat of all
sorts. After dinner, came his Majesty, the Duke, and
Prince ^Rupert. Here I saw the King knight Captain
Custance for behaving so bravely in the late fight. It
was surprising to behold the good order, decency, and
plenty of all things in a vessel so full of men. The ship
received a hundred cannon shot in her body. Then I
went on board the Charles, to which after a gun was shot
off, came all the flag officers to his Majesty, who there
held a General Council, which determined that his Royal
Highness should adventure himself no more this summer.
I came away late, having seen the most glorious fleet that
ever spread sails. We returned in his Majesty's yacht
with my Lord Sandwich and Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, landing
at Chatham on Sunday morning.

5th July, 1665. I took order for 150 men, who had been
recovered of their wounds, to be carried on board the
Clove Tree, Carolus Quintus, and Zealand, ships that had
been taken by us in the fight; and so returned home.

7th July, 1665. To London, to Sir William Coventry;

8 DIARY OF CHATHAM

and so to Sion, where his Majesty sat at Council during
the contagion : when business was over, I viewed that seat
belonging to the Earl of Northumberland, built out of an
old nunnery, of stone, and fair enough, but more celebrated
for the garden than it deserves; yet there is excellent
wall-fruit, and a pretty fountain; nothing else extraor-
dinary.

9th July, 1665. I went to Hampton-Court, where now
the whole Court was, to solicit for money ; to carry inter-
cepted letters; confer again with Sir William Coventry,
the Duke's secretary; and so home, having dined with
Mr. Secretary Morice.

1 6th July, 1665. There died of the plague in London
this week 1,100; and in the week following, above 2,000.
Two houses were shut up in our parish.

2d August, 1665. A solemn fast through England to
deprecate God's displeasure against the land by pestilence
and war; our Doctor preaching on 26 Levit. v. 41, 42, that
the means to obtain remission of punishment was not to
repine at it; but humbly to submit to it.

3d August, 1665. Came his Grace the Duke of Albe-
marle, Lord General of all his Majesty's forces, to visit
me, and carried me to dine with him.

4th August, 1665. I went to Wotton with my Son and
his tutor, Mr. Bohun, Fellow of New College (recom-
mended to me by Dr. Wilkins, and the President of New
College, Oxford), for fear of the pestilence, still increasing
in London and its environs. On my return, I called at
Durdans, where I found Dr. Wilkins, Sir William Petty,
and Mr. Hooke, contriving chariots, new rigging for ships,
a wheel for one to run races in, and other mechanical in-
ventions ; perhaps three such persons together were not to
be found elsewhere in Europe, for parts and ingenuity.

8th August, 1665. I waited on the Duke of Albemarle,
who was resolved to stay at the Cock-pit, in St. James's
Park. Died this week in London, 4,000.

i5th August, 1665. There perished this week 5,000.

28th August, 1665. The contagion still increasing, and
growing now all about us, I sent my wife and whole
family (two or three necessary servants excepted) to my
brother's at Wotton, being resolved to stay at my house
myself, and to look after my charge, trusting in the provi-
dence and goodness of God.

1665 JOHN EVELYN ^ 9

5th September, 1665. To Chatham, to inspect my
charge, with ^900 in my coach.

7th September, 1665. Came home, there perishing near
10,000 poor creatures weekly; however, I went all along
the city and suburbs from Kent Street to St. James's, a
dismal passage, and dangerous to see so many coffins
exposed in the streets, now thin of people ; the shops shut
up, and all in mournful silence, not knowing whose turn
might be next. I went to the Duke of Albemarle for a
pest-ship, to wait on our infected men, who were not
a few.

i4th September, 1665. I went to Wotton; and on i6th
September, to visit old Secretary Nicholas, being now at
his new purchase of West Horsley, once mortgaged to me
by Lord Viscount Montague: a pretty dry seat on the
Down. Returned to Wotton.

1 7th September, 1665. Receiving a letter from Lord
Sandwich of a defeat given to the Dutch, I was forced
to travel all Sunday. I was exceedingly perplexed to
find that near 3,000 prisoners were sent to me to dispose
of, being more than I had places fit to receive and
guard.

25th September, 1665. My Lord Admiral being come
from the fleet to Greenwich, I went thence with him to
the Cock-pit, to consult with the Duke of Albemarle. I
was peremptory that, unless we had ^10,000 immediately,
the prisoners would starve, and it was proposed it should
be raised out of the East India prizes now taken by Lord
Sandwich. They being but two of the commission, and
so not empowered to determine, sent an express to his
Majesty and Council, to know what they should do. In
the meantime, I had five vessels, with competent guards,
to keep the prisoners in for the present, to be placed as
I should think best. After dinner (which was at the
General's) I went over to visit his Grace, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, at Lambeth.

28th September, 1665. To the General again, to acquaint
him of the deplorable state of our men for want of pro-
visions; returned with orders.

29th September, 1665. To Erith, to quicken the sale of
the prizes 'lying there, with order to the commissioner who
lay on board till they should be disposed of, ^"5,000 being
proportioned for my quarter. Then I delivered the Dutch

io DIARY OF LONDON

Vice-Admiral, who was my prisoner, to Mr. Lo. . . .
*of the Marshalsea, he giving me bond in ^500 to produce
him at my call. I exceedingly pitied this brave unhappy
person, who had lost with these prizes ^40,000 after
twenty years' negotiation [trading] in the East Indies.
I dined in one of these vessels, of 1,200 tons, full of riches.

ist October, 1665. This afternoon, while at evening
prayers, tidings were brought me of the birth of a daughter
at Wotton, after six sons, in the same chamber I had first
taken breath in, and at the first day of that month, as I
was on the last, forty-five years before.

4th October, 1665. The monthly fast.

nth October, 1665. To London, and went through the
whole city, having occasion to alight out of the coach in
several places about business of money, when I was en-
vironed with multitudes of poor, pestiferous creatures
begging alms; the shops universally shut up, a dreadful
prospect ! I dined with my Lord General ; was to receive
;i 0,000, and had guards to convey both myself and it,
and so returned home, through God's infinite mercy.

1 7th October, 1665. I went to Gravesend; next day to
Chatham; thence to Maidstone, in order to the march of
500 prisoners to Leeds Castle, which I had hired of Lord
Culpeper. I was earnestly desired by the learned Sir
Roger Twisden, and Deputy-Lieutenants, to spare Maid-
stone from quartering any of my sick flock. Here, Sir
Edward Brett sent me some horse to bring up the rear.
This country, from Rochester to Maidstone and the Downs,
is very agreeable for the prospect.

2ist October, 1665. I came from Gravesend, where Sir
J. Griffith, the Governor of the Fort, entertained me very
handsomely.

3ist October, 1665. I was this day forty-five years
of age wonderfully preserved; for which I blessed God
for his infinite goodness toward me.

23d November, 1665. Went home, the contagion hav-
ing now decreased considerably.

27th November, 1665. The Duke of Albemarle was
going to Oxford, where both Court and Parliament had
been most part of the summer. There was no small sus-
picion of my Lord Sandwich having permitted divers
commanders, who were at the taking of the East India

*Mr. Lowman.

i66s-66 JOHN EVELYN 11

prizes, to break bulk, and to take to themselves jewels,
silks, etc. : though I believe some whom I could name filled
their pockets, my Lord Sandwich himself had the least
share. However, he underwent the blame, and it created
him enemies, and prepossessed the Lord General, for
he spoke to me of it with much zeal and concern, and I
believe laid load enough on Lord Sandwich at Ox-
ford.

8th December, 1665. To my Lord of Albemarle (now
returned from Oxford), who was declared General at Sea,
to the no small mortification of that excellent person, the
Earl of Sandwich, whom the Duke of Albemarle not
only suspected faulty about the prizes, but less valiant;
himself imagining how easy a thing it were to confound
the Hollanders, as well now as heretofore he fought
against them upon a more disloyal interest.

25th December, 1665. Kept Christmas with my hospit-
able brother, at Wotton.

3oth December, 1665. To Woodcot, where I supped at
my Lady Mordaunt's at Ashsted, where was a room hung
with pintado, full of figures great and small, prettily
representing sundry trades and occupations of the Indians,
with their habits; here supped also Dr. Duke, a learned
and facetious gentleman.

3ist December, 1665. Now blessed be God for his
extraordinary mercies and preservation of me this year,
when thousands, and ten thousands, perished, and were
swept away on each side of me, there dying in our parish
this year 406 of the pestilence !

3d January, 1665-66. I supped in Nonesuch House, *
whither the office of the Exchequer was transferred
during the plague, at my good friend Mr. Packer's, and
took an exact view of the plaster statues and bass-relievos
inserted between the timbers and puncheons of the out-
side walls of the Court; which must needs have been the
work of some celebrated Italian. I much admired how
they had lasted so well and entire since the time of Henry
VIII., exposed as they are to the air; and pity it is they
are not taken out and preserved in some dry place; a
gallery would become them. There are some mezzo-
relievos as big as the life; the story is of the Heathen

* Of this famous summer residence of Queen Elizabeth not a ves-
tige remains.

12 DIARY OF LONDON

Gods, emblems, compartments, etc. The palace consists
of two courts, of which the first is of stone, castle like,
by the Lord Lumleys (of whom it was purchased), the
other of timber, a Gothic fabric, but these walls incom-
parably beautiful. I observed that the appearing timber-
puncheons, entrelices, etc., were all so covered with scales
of slate, that it seemed carved in the wood and painted,
the slate fastened on the timber in pretty figures, that
has, like a coat of armor, preserved it from rotting.
There stand in the garden two handsome stone pyramids,
and the avenue planted with rows of fair elms, but the
rest of these goodly trees, both of this and of Worcester
Park adjoining, were felled by those destructive and ava-
ricious rebels in the late war, which defaced one of the
stateliest seats his Majesty had.

i ath January, 1666. After much, and indeed extraor-
dinary mirth and cheer, all my brothers, our wives, and
children, being together, and after much sorrow and
trouble during this contagion, which separated our fam-
ilies as well as others, I returned to my house, but my
wife went back to Wotton. I, not as yet willing to
adventure her, the contagion, though exceedingly abated,
not as yet wholly extinguished among us.

2Qth January, 1666. I went to wait on his Majesty,
now returned from Oxford to Hampton- Court, where the
Duke of Albemarle presented me to him; he ran toward
me, and in a most gracious manner gave me his hand to
kiss, with many thanks for my care and faithfulness in
his service in a time of such great danger, when every-
body fled their employments; he told me he was much
obliged to me, and said he was several times concerned
for me, and the peril I underwent, and did receive my
service most acceptably (though in truth I did but do my
duty, and O that I had performed it as I ought ! ) After
this, his Majesty was pleased to talk with me alone, near
an hour, of several particulars of my employment, and
ordered me to attend him again on the Thursday follow-
ing at Whitehall. Then the Duke came toward me, and
embraced me with much kindness, telling me if he had
thought my danger would have been so great, he would
not have suffered his Majesty to employ me in that
station. Then came to salute me my Lord of St. Albans,
Lord Arlington, Sir William Coventry, and several great

1 666 JOHN EVELYN 13

persons; after which, I got home, not being very well in
health.

The Court was now in deep mourning for the French
Queen- Mother.

2d February, 1666. To London; his Majesty now come
to Whitehall, where I heard and saw my Lord Mayor
(and brethren) make his speech of welcome, and the two
Sheriffs were knighted.

6th February, 1666. My wife and family returned to
me from the country, where they had been since August,
by reason of the contagion, now almost universally ceas-
ing. Blessed be God for his infinite mercy in preserving
us! I, having gone through so much danger, and lost so
many of my poor officers, escaping still myself that I might
live to recount and magnify his goodness to me.

8th February, 1666. I had another gracious reception
by his Majesty, who called me into his bed-chamber, to
lay before and describe to him my project of an Infirmary,
which I read to him, who with great approbation, recom-
mended it to his Royal Highness.

2oth February, 1666. To the Commissioners of the Navy
who, having seen the project of the Infirmary, encouraged
the work, and were very earnest it should be set about
immediately ; but I saw no money, though a very moderate
expense would have saved thousands to his Majesty, and
been much more commodious for the cure and quartering
of our sick and wounded, than the dispersing them into
private houses, where many more chirurgeons and attend-
ants were necessary, and the people tempted to debauch-
ery.

2ist February, 1666. Went to my Lord Treasurer for
an assignment of ^40,000 upon the last two quarters for
support of the next year's charge. Next day, to Duke of
Albemarle and Secretary of State, to desire them to pro-
pose it to the Council.

ist March, 1666; To London, and presented his Majesty
my book intitled, (< The Pernicious Consequences of the
new Heresy of the Jesuits against Kings and States. w

7th March, 1666. Dr. Bancroft, since Archbishop of
Canterbury, preached before the King about the identity
and immutability of God, on Psalm cii. 27.

1 3th March, 1666. To Chatham, to view a place designed
for an Infirmary.

14 DIARY OF LONDON

1 5th March, 1666. My charge now amounted to near
^7,000 [weekly].

22d March, 1666. The Royal Society reassembled, after
the dispersion from the contagion.

24th March, 1666. Sent ^2,000 to Chatham.

ist April, 1666. To London, to consult about ordering
the natural rarities belonging to the repository of the Royal
Society; referred to a Committee.

loth April, 1666. Visited Sir William D'Oyly, surprised
with a fit of apoplexy, and in extreme danger.

nth April, 1666. Dr. Bathurst preached before the
King, from <( I say unto you all, watch w a seasonable and
most excellent discourse. When his Majesty came from
chapel, he called to me in the lobby, and told me he must
now have me sworn for a Justice of Peace (having long
since made me of the Commission); which I declined as
inconsistent with the other service I was engaged in, and
humbly desired to be excused. After dinner, waiting on
him, I gave him the first notice of the Spaniards referring
the umpirage of the peace between them and Portugal to
the French King, which came to me in a letter from France
before the Secretaries of State had any news of it. After
this, his Majesty again asked me if I had found out any
able person about our parts that might supply my place
of Justice of Peace (the office in the world I had most
industriously avoided, in regard of the perpetual trouble
thereof in these numerous parishes) ; on which I nominated
one, whom the King commanded me to give immediate
notice of to my Lord Chancellor, and I should be excused ;
for which I rendered his Majesty many thanks. From
thence, I went to the Royal Society, where I was chosen
by twenty-seven voices to be one of their Council for the
ensuing year; but, upon my earnest suit in respect of my
other affairs, I got to be excused and so home.

1 5th April, 1666. Our parish was now more infected
with the plague than ever, and so was all the country
about, though almost quite ceased at London.

24th April, 1666. To London about our Mint-Commis-
sion, and sat in the inner Court of Wards.

8th May, 1666. To Queensborough, where finding the
Richmond frigate, I sailed to the buoy of the Nore to my
Lord-General and Prince Rupert, where was the Rendez-
vous of the most glorious fleet in the world, now prepar-

1666 JOHN EVELYN 15

ing to meet the Hollander. Went to visit my cousin,
Hales, at a sweetly-watered place at Chilston, near Bock-
ton. The next morning, to Leeds Castle, once a famous
hold, now hired by me of my Lord Culpeper for a prison.
Here I flowed the dry moat, made a new drawbridge,
brought spring water into the court of the Castle to an
old fountain, and took order for the repairs.

22d May, 1666. Waited on my Lord Chancellor at his
new palace; and Lord Berkeley's built next to it.

24th May, 1666. Dined with Lord Cornbury, now made
Lord Chamberlain to the Queen; who kept a very honor-
able table.

ist June, 1666. Being in my garden at 6 o'clock in the
evening, and hearing the great guns go thick off, I took
horse and rode that night to Rochester; thence next day
toward the Downs and seacoast, but meeting the Lieu-
tenant of the Hampshire frigate, who told me what
passed, or rather what had not passed, I returned to Lon-
don, there being no noise, or appearance at Deal, or on
that coast of any engagement Recounting this to his
Majesty, whom I found at St. James's Park, impatiently
expecting, and knowing that Prince Rupert was loose
about three at St. Helen's Point at N. of the Isle of
Wight, it greatly rejoiced him; but he was astonished
when I assured him they heard nothing of the guns in
the Downs, nor did the Lieutenant who landed there by
five that morning.

3d June, 1666. Whitsunday. After sermon came news
that the Duke of Albemarle was still in fight, and had
been all Saturday, and that Captain Harman's ship (the
Henry) was like to be burnt. Then a letter from Mr.
Bertie that Prince Rupert was come up with his squadron
(according to my former advice of his being loose and in
the way), and put new courage into our fleet, now in a
manner yielding ground; so that now we were chasing
the chasers; that the Duke of Albemarle was slightly
wounded, and the rest still in great danger. So, having
been much wearied with my journey, I slipped home, the
guns still roaring very fiercely.

5th June, 1666. I went this morning to London, where
came several particulars of the fight.

6th June, 1666. Came Sir Daniel Harvey from the
General and related the dreadful encounter, on which his

1 6 DIARY OF LONDON

Majesty commanded me to dispatch an extraordinary
physician and more chirurgeons. It was on the solemn
Fast-day when the news came; his Majesty being in the
chapel made a sudden stop to hear the relation, which
being with much advantage on our side, his Majesty com-
manded that public thanks should immediately be given
as for a victory. The Dean of the chapel going down to
give notice of it to the other Dean officiating; and notice
was likewise sent to St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey.
But this was no sooner over, than news came that our
loss was very great both in ships and men; that the
Prince frigate was burnt, and as noble a vessel of ninety
brass guns lost; and the taking of Sir George Ayscue,
and exceeding shattering of both fleets; so as both being
obstinate, both parted rather for want of ammunition and
tackle than courage; our General retreating like a lion;
which exceedingly abated of our former joy. There were,
however, orders given for bonfires and bells; but, God
knows, it was rather a deliverance than a triumph. So
much it pleased God to humble our late overconfidence
that nothing could withstand the Duke of Albemarle,
who, in good truth, made too forward a reckoning of his
success now, because he had once beaten the Dutch in
another quarrel ; and being ambitious to outdo the Earl of
Sandwich, whom he had prejudicated as deficient in courage.

7th June, 1666. I sent more chirurgeons, linen, medica-
ments, etc., to the several ports in my district.

8th June, 1666. Dined with me Sir Alexander Fraser,
prime physician to his Majesty; afterward, went on board
his Majesty's pleasure-boat, when I saw the London frigate
launched, a most stately ship, built by the City to supply
that which was burnt by accident some time since; the
King, Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, being there with great
banquet.

nth June, 1666. Trinity Monday, after a sermon,
applied to the remeeting of the Corporation of the Trinity-
House, after the late raging and wasting pestilence: I
dined with them in their new room in Deptford, the first
time since it was rebuilt.

1 5th June, 1666. I went to Chatham. i6th. In the
Jemmy yacht (an incomparable sailer) to sea, arrived by
noon at the fleet at the Buoy at the Nore, dined with
Prince Rupert and the General.

1666 JOHN EVELYN 17

i yth June, 1666. Came his Majesty, the Duke, and many
Noblemen. After Council, we went to prayers. My busi-
ness being dispatched, I returned to Chatham, having lain
but one night in the Royal Charles; we had a tempestu-
ous sea. I went on shore at Sheerness, where they were
building an arsenal for the fleet, and designing a royal
fort with a receptacle for great ships to ride at anchor;
but here I beheld the sad spectacle, more than half that
gallant bulwark of the kingdom miserably shattered, hardly
a vessel entire, but appearing rather so many wrecks and
hulls, so cruelly had the Dutch mangled us. The loss of
the Prince, that gallant vessel, had been a loss to be uni-
versally deplored, none knowing for what reason we first
engaged in this ungrateful war; we lost besides nine or
ten more, and near 600 men slain and 1,100 wounded,
2,000 prisoners; to balance which, perhaps we might de-
stroy eighteen or twenty of the enemy's ships, and 700 or
800 poor men.

1 8th June, 1666. Weary of this sad sight, I returned
home.

zd July, 1666. Came Sir John Duncomb and Mr. Thomas
Chicheley, both Privy Councillors and Commissioners of
His Majesty's Ordnance, to visit me, and let me know
that his Majesty had in Council, nominated me to be one
of the Commissioners for regulating the farming and making
of saltpetre through the whole kingdom, and that we were
to sit in the Tower the next day. When they were gone,
came to see me Sir John Cotton, heir to the famous
antiquary, Sir Robert Cotton: a pretended great Grecian,
but had by no means the parts, or genius of his grand-
father.

3d July, 1666. I went to sit with the Commissioners at
the Tower, where our commission being read, we made
some progress in business, our Secretary being Sir George
Wharton, that famous mathematician who wrote the yearly
Almanac during his Majesty's troubles. Thence, to
Painters' Hall, to our other commission, and dined at my
Lord Mayor's.

4th July, 1666. The solemn Fast-day. Dr. Meggot
preached an excellent discourse before the King on the
terrors of God's judgments. After sermon, I waited on
my Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Win-
chester, where the Dean of Westminster spoke to me

1 8 DIARY OP LONDON

about putting into my hands the disposal of fifty pounds,
which the charitable people of Oxford had sent to be
distributed among the sick and wounded seamen since the
battle. Hence, I went to the Lord Chancellor's to joy
him of his Royal Highness's second son, now born at St.
James's; and to desire the use of the Star-chamber for
our Commissioners to meet in, Painters' Hall not being
so convenient.

i zth July, 1666. We sat the first time in the Star-
chamber. There was now added to our commission Sir
George Downing (one that had been a great
against his Majesty, but now insinuated into his favor;
and, from a pedagogue and fanatic preacher, not worth a
groat, had become excessively rich), to inspect the hospi-
tals and treat about prisons.

1 4th July, 1666. Sat at the Tower with Sir J. Duncomb
and Lord Berkeley, to sign deputations for undertakers to
furnish their proportions of saltpetre.

1 7th July, 1666. To London, to prepare for the next
engagement of the fleets, now gotten to sea again.

22d July, 1666. Our parish still infected with the
contagion.

25th July, 1666. The fleets engaged. I dined at Lord
Berkeley's, at St. James's, where dined my Lady Harri-
etta Hyde, Lord Arlington, and Sir John Duncomb.

29th July, 1666. The pestilence now fresh increasing in
our parish, I forbore going to church. In the afternoon
came tidings of our victory over the Dutch, sinking some,
and driving others aground, and into their ports.

ist August, 1666. I went to Dr. Keffler, who married
the daughter of the famous chemist, Drebbell,* inventor
of the bodied scarlet. I went to see his iron ovens, made
portable (formerly) for the Prince of Orange's army: sup-
ped at the Rhenish Wine-House with divers Scots gen-
tlemen.

6th August, 1666. Dined with Mr. Povey, and then went

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

1666 JOHN EVELYN 19

with him to see a country house he had bought near Brent-
ford; returning by Kensington; which house stands to a
very graceful avenue of trees, but it is an ordinary build-
ing, especially one part.

8th August, 1666. Dined at Sir Stephen Fox's with sev-
eral friends and, on the loth, with Mr. Odart, Secretary of
the Latin tongue.

1 7th August, 1666. Dined with the Lord Chancellor,
whom I entreated to visit the Hospital of the Savoy, and
reduce it ( after the great abuse that had been continued )
to its original institution for the benefit of the poor, which
he promised to do.

25th August, 1666. Waited on Sir William D'Oyly, now
recovered, as it were, miraculously. In the afternoon, vis-
ited the Savoy Hospital, where I stayed to see the miserably
dismembered and wounded men dressed, and gave some
necessary orders. Then to my Lord Chancellor, who had,
with the Bishop of London and others in the commission,
chosen me one of the three surveyors of the repairs of
Paul's, and to consider of a model for the new building,
or, if it might be, repairing of the steeple, which was most
decayed.

26th August, 1666. The contagion still continuing, we
had the Church service at home.

27th August, 1666. I went to St. Paul's church, where,
with Dr. Wren, Mr. Pratt, Mr. May, Mr. Thomas Chicheley,
Mr. Slingsby, the Bishop of London, the Dean of St. Paul's,
and several expert workmen, we went about to survey the
general decays of that ancient and venerable church, and
to set down in writing the particulars of what was fit to
be done, with the charge thereof, giving our opinion from
article to article. Finding the main building to recede
outward it was the opinion of Chicheley and Mr. Pratt
that it had been so built ab origine for an effect in per-
spective, in regard of the height; but I was, with Dr.
Wren, quite of another judgment, and so we entered it;
we plumbed the uprights in several places. When we
came to the steeple, it was deliberated whether it were
not well enough to repair it only on its old foundation,
with reservation to the four pillars ; this Mr. Chicheley and
Mr. Pratt were also for, but we totally rejected it, and per-
sisted that it required a new foundation , not only in regard
of the necessity, but for that the shape of what stood was

20 DIARY OF LONDON

very mean, and we had a mind to build it with a noble
cupola, a form of church-building not as yet known in
England, but of wonderful grace. For this purpose, we
offered to bring in a plan and estimate, which after much
contest, was at last assented to, and that we should nom-
inate a committee of able workmen to examine the present
foundation. This concluded, we drew all up in writing,
and so went with my Lord Bishop to the Dean's.

28th August, 1666. Sat at the Star-chamber. Next day,
to the Royal Society, where one Mercator, an excellent
mathematician, produced his rare clock and new motion
to perform the equations, and Mr. Rooke, his new pen-
dulum.

2d September, 1666. This fatal night, about ten,
began the deplorable fire, near Fish street, in London.

3d September, 1666. I had public prayers at home.
The fire continuing, after dinner, I took coach with my
wife and son, and went to the Bankside in Southwark,
where we beheld that dismal spectacle, the whole city in
dreadful flames near the waterside; all the houses from
the Bridge, all Thames street, and upward toward
Cheapside, down to the Three Cranes, were now consumed ;
and so returned, exceedingly astonished what would become
of the rest.

The fire having continued all this night (if I may call
that night which was light as day for ten miles round
about, after a dreadful manner), when conspiring with a
fierce eastern wind in a very dry season, I went on foot
to the same place; and saw the whole south part of the
city burning from Cheapside to the Thames, and all along
Cornhill (for it likewise kindled back against the wind as
well as forward), Tower street, Fenchurch street, Gracious
street, and so along to Baynard's Castle, and was now
taking hold of St. Paul's church, to which the scaffolds
contributed exceedingly. The conflagration was so uni-
versal, and the people so astonished, that, from the begin-
ning, I know not by what despondency, or fate, they
hardly stirred to quench it; so that there was nothing
heard, or seen, but crying out and lamentation, running
about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting
to save even their goods; such a strange consternation
there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth and
length, the churches, public halls, Exchange, hospitals,

1666 JOHN EVELYN 21

monuments, and ornaments; leaping after a prodigious
manner, from house to house, and street to street, at great
distances one from the other. For the heat, with a long
set of fair and warm weather, had even ignited the air,
and prepared the materials to conceive the fire, which
devoured, after an incredible manner, houses, furniture,
and every thing. Here, we saw the Thames covered with
goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what
some had time and courage to save, as, on the other side,
the carts, etc., carrying out to the fields, which for many
miles were strewn with movables of all sorts, and tents
erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could
get away. Oh, the miserable and calamitous spectacle!
such as haply the world had not seen since the foundation
of it, nor can be outdone till the universal conflagration
thereof. All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of
a burning oven, and the light seen above forty miles
round about for many nights. God grant mine eyes may
never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses
all in one flame ! The noise and cracking and thunder of
the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and chil-
dren, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and
churches, was like a hideous storm; and the air all
about so hot and inflamed, that at the last one was not
able to approach it, so that they were forced to stand
still, and let the flames burn on, which they did, for near
two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds also
of smoke were dismal, and reached, upon computation,
near fifty miles in length. Thus, I left it this afternoon
burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. It
forcibly called to my mind that passage <( non enim hie
habemus stabilem civitatem w / the ruins resembling the
picture of Troy. London was, but is no more ! Thus, I
returned.

4th September, 1666. The burning still rages, and it is
now gotten as far as the Inner Temple. All Fleet street,
the Old Bailey, Ludgate hill, Warwick lane, Newgate,
Paul's chain, Watling street, now flaming, and most of it
reduced to ashes; the stones of Paul's flew like grenades,
the melting lead running down the streets in a stream,
and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so
as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them, and the
demolition had stopped all the passages, so that no help

22 DIARY OF LONDON

could be applied. The eastern wind still more impetu-
ously driving the flames forward. Nothing but the
Almighty power of God was able to stop them; for vain
was the help of man.

5th September, 1666. It crossed toward Whitehall;
but oh! the confusion there was then at that Court! It
pleased his Majesty to command me, among the rest, to
look after the quenching of Fetter-lane end, to preserve (if
possible) that part of Holborn, while the rest of the
gentlemen took their several posts, some at one part, and
some at another (for now they began to bestir themselves,
and not till now, who hitherto had stood as men intoxi-
cated, with their hands across), and began to consider
that nothing was likely to put a stop but the blowing up
of so many houses as might make a wider gap than any
had yet been made by the ordinary method of pulling
them down with engines. This some stout seamen pro-
posed early enough to have saved near the whole city,
but this some tenacious and avaricious men, aldermen,
etc., would not permit, because their houses must have
been of the first. It was, therefore, now commended to
be practiced; and my concern being particularly for the
Hospital of St. Bartholomew, near Smithfield, where I had
many wounded and sick men, made me the more diligent
to promote it; nor was my care for the Savoy less. It
now pleased God, by abating the wind, and by the
industry of the people, when almost all was lost infusing
a new spirit into them, that the fury of it began sensibly
to abate about noon, so as it came no farther than the
Temple westward, nor than the entrance of Smithfield,
north: but continued al^ this day and night so impetuous
toward Cripplegate and the Tower, as made us all de-
spair. It also broke out again in the temple; but the
courage of the multitude persisting, and many houses
being blown up, such gaps and desolations were soon made,
as, with the former three days' consumption, the back fire
did not so vehemently urge upon the rest as formerly.
There was yet no standing near the burning and glowing
ruins by near a furlong's space.

The coal and wood wharfs, and magazines of oil, rosin,
etc. , did infinite mischief, so as the invective which a little
before I had dedicated to his Majesty and published,*

*The Fumifugiunt.

1 666 JOHN EVELYN 23

giving warning what probably might be the issue of suf-
fering those shops to be in the city was looked upon as
a prophecy.

The poor inhabitants were dispersed about St. George's
Fields, and Moorfields, as far as Highgate, and several
miles in circle, some under tents, some under miserable
huts and hovels, many without a rag, or any necessary
utensils, bed or board, who from delicateness, riches, and
easy accommodations in stately and well-furnished houses,
were now reduced to extreme misery and poverty.

In this calamitous condition, I returned with a sad heart
to my house, blessing and adoring the distinguishing mercy
of God to me and mine, who, in the midst of all this ruin,
was like Lot, in my little Zoar, safe and sound.

6th September, 1666. Thursday. I represented to his
Majesty the case of the French prisoners at war in my
custody, and besought him that there might be still the
same care of watching at all places contiguous to unseized
houses. It is not indeed imaginable how extraordinary
the vigilance and activity of the King and the Duke was,
even laboring in person, and being present to command,
order, reward, or encourage workmen ; by which he showed
his affection to his people, and gained theirs. Having,
then, disposed of some under cure at the Savoy, I returned
to Whitehall, where I dined at Mr. Offley's, the groom-
porter, who was my relation.

7th September, 1666. I went this morning on foot from
Whitehall as far as London Bridge, through the late Fleet
street, Ludgate hill by St. Paul's, Cheapside, Exchange,
Bishops-gate, Aldersgate, and out to Moorfields, thence
through Cornhill, etc., with extraordinary difficulty, clam-
bering over heaps of yet smoking rubbish, and frequently
mistaking where I was ; the ground under my feet so hot,
that it even burnt the soles of my shoes. In the mean-
time, his Majesty got to the Tower by water, to demolish
the houses about the graff, which, being built entirely
about it, had they taken fire and attacked the White
Tower, where the magazine of powder lay, would undoubt-
edly not only have beaten down and destroyed all the
bridge, but sunk and torn the vessels in the river, and
rendered the demolition beyond all expression for several
miles about the country.

At my return, I was infinitely concerned to find that

24 DIARY OF LONDON

goodly Church, St. Paul's now a sad ruin, and that
beautiful portico (for structure comparable to any in
Europe, as not long before repaired by the late King) now
rent in pieces, flakes of large stones split asunder, and
nothing remaining entire but the inscription in the archi-
trave showing by whom it was built, which had not one
letter of it defaced! It was astonishing to see what im-
mense stones the heat had in a manner calcined, so that all
the ornaments, columns, friezes, capitals, and projectures of
massy Portland stone, flew off, even to the very roof, where
a sheet of lead covering a great space (no less than six
acres by measure) was totally melted. The ruins of the
vaulted roof falling, broke into St. Faith's, which being
filled with the magazines of books belonging to the Sta-
tioners, and carried thither for safety, they were all con-
sumed, burning for a week following. It is also observable
that the lead over the altar at the east end was untouched,
and among the divers monuments the body of one bishop
remained entire. Thus lay in ashes that most venerable
church, one of the most ancient pieces of early piety in
the Christian world, besides near one hundred more. The
lead, ironwork, bells, plate, etc., melted, the exquisitely
wrought Mercers' Chapel, the sumptuous Exchange, the
august fabric of Christ Church, all the rest of the Com-
panies' Halls, splendid buildings, arches, entries, all in dust ;
the fountains dried up and ruined, while the very waters
remained boiling; the voragos of subterranean cellars,
wells, and dungeons, formerly warehouses, still burning in
stench and dark clouds of smoke; so that in five or six
miles traversing about I did not see one load of timber
unconsumed, nor many stones but what were calcined
white as snow.

The people, who now walked about the ruins, appeared
like men in some dismal desert, or rather, in some great
city laid waste by a cruel enemy; to which was added
the stench that came from some poor creatures' bodies,
beds, and other combustible goods. Sir Thomas Gresham's
statue, though fallen from its niche in the Royal Ex-
change, remained entire, when all those of the Kings since
the Conquest were broken to pieces. Also the standard
in Cornhill, and Queen Elizabeth's effigies, with some arms
on Ludgate, continued with but little detriment, while the
vast iron chains of the city streets, hinges, bars, and gates

i666 JOHN EVELYN 25

of prisons, were many of them melted and reduced to
cinders by the vehement heat. Nor was I yet able to pass
through any of the narrow streets, but kept the widest;
the ground and air, smoke and fiery vapor, continued so
intense, that my hair was almost singed, and my feet in-
sufferably surbated. The by-lanes and narrow streets
were quite filled up with rubbish; nor could one have
possibly known where he was, but by the ruins of some
Church, or Hall, that had some remarkable tower, or pin-
nacle remaining.

I then went towards Islington and Highgate, where one
might have seen 200,000 people of all ranks and degrees
dispersed, and lying along by their heaps of what they
could save from the fire, deploring their loss; and, though
ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking
one penny for relief, which to me appeared a stranger
sight than any I had yet beheld. His Majesty and Coun-
cil indeed took all imaginable care for their relief, by pro-
clamation for the country to come in, and refresh them
with provisions.

In the midst of all this calamity and confusion, there
was, I know not how, an alarm begun that the French
and Dutch, with whom we were now in hostility, were not
only landed, but even entering the city. There was, in
truth, some days before, great suspicion of those two
nations joining; and now that they had been the occasion
of firing the town. This report did so terrify, that on a
sudden there was such an uproar and tumult that they
ran from their goods, and, taking what weapons they could
come at, they could not be stopped from falling on some
of those nations whom they casually met, without sense
or reason. The clamor and peril grew so excessive, that
it made the whole Court amazed, and they did with
infinite pains and great difficulty, reduce and appease the
people, sending troops of soldiers and guards, to cause
them to retire into the fields again, where they were
watched all this night. I left them pretty quiet, and
came home sufficiently weary and broken. Their spirits
thus a little calmed, and the affright abated, they now
began to repair into the suburbs about the city, where
such as had friends, or opportunity, got shelter for the
present to which his Majesty's proclamation also invited
them.

26 DIARY OF LONDON

Still, the plague continuing in our parish, I could not,
without danger, adventure to our church.

loth September, 1666. I went again to the ruins; for it
was now no longer a city.

1 3th September, 1666. I presented his Majesty with a
survey of the ruins, and a plot for a new city, with a
discourse on it ; whereupon, after dinner, his Majesty sent
for me into the Queen's bed-chamber, her Majesty and
the Duke only being present. They examined each par-
ticular, and discoursed on them for near an hour, seeming
to be extremely pleased with what I had so early thought
on. The Queen was now in her cavalier riding-habit,
hat and feather, and horseman's coat, going to take
the air.

1 6th September, 1666. I went to Greenwich Church,
where Mr. Plume preached very well from this text:
Seeing, then, all these things shall be dissolved, }) etc:
taking occasion from the late unparalleled conflagration to
remind us how we ought to walk more holy in all manner
of conversation.

27th September, 1666. Dined at Sir William D'Oyly's,
with that worthy gentleman, Sir John Holland, of Suffolk.

loth October, 1666. This day was ordered a general
Fast through the Nation, to humble us on the late dread-
ful conflagration, added to the plague and war, the most
dismal judgments that could be inflicted ; but which indeed
we highly deserved for our prodigious ingratitude, burning
lusts, dissolute court, profane and abominable lives, under
such dispensations of God's continued favor in restoring
Church, Prince, and People from our late intestine calam-
ities, of which we were altogether unmindful, even to
astonishment. This made me resolve to go to our parish
assembly, where our Doctor preached on Luke, xix, 41 :
piously applying it to the occasion. After which, was a
collection for the distressed losers in the late fire.

1 8th October, 1666. To Court. It being the first time
his Majesty put himself solemnly into the Eastern
fashion of vest, changing doublet, stiff collar, bands and
cloak, into a comely dress, after the Persian mode, with
girdles or straps, and shoestrings and garters into buckles,
of which some were set with precious stones* resolving

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

1666 JOHN EVELYN 27

never to alter it, and to leave the French mode, which had
hitherto obtained to our great expense and reproach.
Upon which, divers courtiers and gentlemen gave his
Majesty gold by way of wager that he would not persist
in this resolution. I had sometime before presented an
invective against that unconstancy, and our so much
affecting the French fashion, to his Majesty; in which I
took occasion to describe the comeliness and usefulness of
the Persian clothing, in the very same manner his Majesty
now clad himself. This pamphlet I entitled <( Tyrannus, or
the Mode, w and gave it to the King to read. I do not im-
pute to this discourse the change which soon happened,
but it was an identity that I could not but take
notice of.

This night was acted my Lord Broghill's tragedy, called
w Mustapha, * before their Majesties at Court, at which I was
present ; very seldom going to the public theatres for many
reasons now, as they were abused to an atheistical liberty;
foul and indecent women now (and never till now) per-
mitted to appear and act, who inflaming several young
noblemen and gallants, became their misses, and to some,
their wives. Witness the Earl of Oxford, Sir R. Howard,
Prince Rupert, the Earl of Dorset, and another greater
person than any of them, who fell into their snares, to
the reproach of their noble families, and ruin of both body
and soul.* I was invited by my Lord Chamberlain to see
this tragedy, exceedingly well written, though in my mind
I did not approve of any such pastime in a time of such
judgments and calamities.

2ist October, 1666. This season, after so long and
extraordinary a drought in August and September, as if
preparatory for the dreadful fire, was so very wet and
rainy as many feared an ensuing famine.

28th October, 1666. The pestilence, through God's
mercy, began now to abate considerably in our town.

3oth October, 1666. To London to our office, and now
had I on the vest and surcoat, or tunic, as it was called,

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

28 DIARY OF LONDON

after his Majesty had brought the whole court to it. It
was a comely and manly habit, too good to hold, it being
impossible for us in good earnest to leave the Monsieurs'
vanities long.

3ist October, 1666. I heard the signal cause of my
Lord Cleveland pleaded before the House of Lords; and
was this day forty-six years of age, wonderfully protected
by the mercies of God, for which I render him immortal
thanks.

i4th November, 1666. I went my winter circle through
my district, Rochester and other places, where I had men
quartered, and in custody.

1 5th November, 1666. To Leeds Castle.

1 6th November, 1666. I mustered the prisoners, being
about 600 Dutch and French, ordered their proportion of
bread to be augmented and provided clothes and fuel.
Monsieur Colbert, Ambassador at the Court of England,
this day sent money from his master, the French King,
to every prisoner of that nation under my guard.

1 7th November, 1666. I returned to Chatham, my
chariot overturning on the steep of Bexley Hill, wounded
me in two places on the head ; my son, Jack, being with
me, was like to have been worse cut by the glass; but I
thank God we both escaped without much hurt, though
not without exceeding danger.

1 8th November, 1666. At Rochester.

1 9th November, 1666. Returned home.

23d November, 1666. At London, I heard an extraor-
dinary case before a Committee of the whole House of
Commons, in the Commons' House of Parliament, between
one Captain Taylor and my Lord Viscount Mordaunt,
where, after the lawyers had pleaded and the witnesses
been examined, such foul and dishonorable things were
produced against his Lordship, of tyranny during his
government of Windsor Castle, of which he was Constable,
incontinence, and suborning witnesses (of which last, one
Sir Richard Breames was most concerned), that I was ex-
ceedingly interested for his Lordship, who was my special
friend, and husband of the most virtuous lady in the world.
We sat till near ten at night, and yet but half the counsel
had done on behalf of the plaintiff. The question then
was put for bringing in of lights to sit longer. This lasted
so long before it was determined, and raised such a con-

1666-67 JOHN EVELYN 29

fused noise among the members, that a stranger would
have been astonished at it. I admire that there is not a
rationale to regulate such trifling accidents, which consume
much time, and is a reproach to the gravity of so great an
assembly of sober men.

27th November, 1666. Sir Hugh Pollard, Comptroller
of the Household, died at Whitehall, and his Majesty con-
ferred the white staff on my brother Commissioner for
sick and wounded, Sir Thomas Clifford, a bold young gen-
tleman, of a small fortune in Devon, but advanced by
Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, to the great astonish-
ment of all the Court. This gentleman was somewhat
related to me by the marriage of his mother to my nearest
kinsman, Gregory Coale, and was ever my noble friend, a
valiant and daring person, but by no means fit for a sup-
ple and flattering courtier.

28th November, 1666. Went to see Clarendon House,
now almost finished, a goodly pile to see, but had many
defects as to the architecture, yet placed most gracefully.
After this, I waited on the Lord Chancellor, who was now
at Berkshire House, since the burning of London.

2d December, 1666. Dined with me Monsieur Kiviet, a
Dutch gentleman -pensioner of Rotterdam, who came over
for protection, being of the Prince of Orange's party, now
not welcome in Holland. The King knighted him for some
merit in the Prince's behalf. He should, if caught, have
been beheaded with Monsieur Buat, and was brother-in-law
to Van Tromp, the sea-general. With him came Mr.
Gabriel Sylvius, and Mr. Williamson, secretary to Lord
Arlington; M. Kiviet came to examine whether the soil
about the river of Thames would be proper to make clinker
bricks, and to treat with me about some accommodation
in order to it.

gth January, 1666-67. To the Royal Society, which since
the 'sad conflagration were invited by Mr. Howard to sit
at Arundel- House in the Strand, who at my instigation
likewise bestowed on the Society that noble library which
his grandfather especially, and his ancestors had collected.
This gentleman had so little inclination to books, that it
was the preservation of them from embezzlement.

24th January, 1667. Visited my Lord Clarendon, and
presented my son, John, to him, now preparing to go to
Oxford, of which his Lordship was Chancellor. This even-

30 DIARY OP LONDON

ing I heard rare Italian voices, two eunuchs and one
woman, in his Majesty's green chamber, next his
cabinet.

29th January, 1667. To London, in order to my son's
Oxford journey, who, being very early entered both in
Latin and Greek, and prompt to learn beyond most of his
age, I was persuaded to trust him under the tutorage of
Mr. Bohun, Fellow of New College, who had been his
preceptor in my house some years before ; but, at Oxford,
under the inspection of Dr. Bathurst, President of Trinity
College, where I placed him, not as yet thirteen years
old. He was newly out of long coats.*

1 5th February, 1667. My little book, in answer to Sir
George Mackenzie on Solitude, was now published, entitled
"Public Employment, and an active Life with its Appan-
ages, preferred to Solitude, "f

1 8th February, 1667. I was present at a magnificent
ball, or masque, in the theatre at the Court, where their
Majesties and all the great lords and ladies danced, in-
finitely gallant, the men in their richly embroidered, most
becoming vests.

ipth February, 1667. I saw a comedy acted at Court.
In the afternoon, I witnessed a wrestling match for ^1,000
in St. James's Park, before his Majesty, a vast assemblage
of lords and other spectators, between the western and
northern men, Mr. Secretary Morice and Lord Gerard
being the judges. The western men won. Many great
sums were betted.

6th March, 1667. I proposed to my Lord Chancellor,
Monsieur Kiviet's undertaking to wharf the whole river of
Thames, or quay, from the Temple to the Tower, as far as
the fire destroyed, with brick, without piles, both lasting
and ornamental. Great frosts, snow and winds, prodigious

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

f Reprinted in Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 501-509. In a letter to
Cowley, 1 2th March, 1666, Evelyn apologises for having written against
that life which he had joined with Mr. Cowley in so much admiring,
assuring him he neither was nor could be serious in avowing such a
preference.

166; JOHN EVELYN 31

at the vernal equinox ; indeed it had been a year of prodi-
gies in this nation, plague, war, fire, rain, tempest and comet.

i4th March, 1667. Saw (< The Virgin Queen,** a play
written by Mr. Dryden.

22d March, 1667. Dined at Mr. Secretary Morice's, who
showed me his library, which was a well chosen collec-
tion. This afternoon, I had audience of his Majesty, con-
cerning the proposal I had made of building the quay.

26th March, 1667. Sir John Kiviet dined with me.
We went to search for brick-earth, in order to a great
undertaking.

4th April, 1667. The cold so intense, that there was
hardly a leaf on a tree.

1 8th April, 1667. I went to make court to the Duke
and Duchess of Newcastle, at their house in Clerkenwell,
being newly come out of the north. They received me
with great kindness, and I was much pleased with the
extraordinary fanciful habit, garb, and discourse of the
Duchess.

22d April, 1667. Saw the sumptuous supper in the
banqueting-house at Whitehall, on the eve of St. George's
day, where were all the companions of the Order of the
Garter.

23d April, 1667. In the morning, his Majesty went to
chapel with the Knights of the Garter, all in their habits
and robes, ushered by the heralds; after the first service,
they went in procession, the youngest first, the Sovereign
last, with the Prelate of the Order and Dean, who had
about his neck the book of the Statutes of the Order; and
then the Chancellor of the Order (old Sir Henry de Vic),
who wore the purse about his neck; then the Heralds
and Garter King-at-Arms, Clarencieux, Black Rod. But
before the Prelate and Dean of Windsor went the gentle-
men of the chapel and choristers, singing as they marched ;
behind them two doctors of music in damask robes; this
procession was about the courts at Whitehall. Then,
returning to their stalls and seats in the chapel, placed
under each knight's coat-armor and titles, the second

* The VIRGIN QUEEN which Evelyn saw was Dryden's MAIDEN QUEEN.
Pepys saw it on the night of its first production (twelve day's before
Evelyn's visit) ; and was charmed by Nell Gwynne's Florimell. (< So
great a performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world
before.*

32 DIARY OF LONDON

service began. Then, the King offered at the altar, an
anthem was sung; then, the rest of the Knights offered,
and lastly proceeded to the banqueting-house to a great
feast. The King sat on an elevated throne at the upper
end at a table alone; the Knights at a table on the right
hand, reaching all the length of the room; over against
them a cupboard of rich gilded plate; at the lower end,
the music; on the balusters above, wind music, trumpets,
and kettle-drums. The King was served by the lords and
pensioners who brought up the dishes. About the middle
of the dinner, the Knights drank the King's health, then
the King, theirs, when the trumpets and music played and
sounded, the guns going off at the Tower. At the Ban-
quet, came in the Queen, and stood by the King's left
hand, but did not sit. Then was the banqueting-stuff
flung about the room profusely. In truth, the crowd was
so great, that though I stayed all the supper the day
before, I now stayed no longer than this sport began, for
fear of disorder. The cheer was extraordinary, each
Knight having forty dishes to his mess, piled up five or
six high; the room hung with the richest tapestry.

25th April, 1667. Visited again the Duke of Newcastle,
with whom I had been acquainted long before in France,
where the Duchess had obligation to my wife's mother for
her marriage there; she was sister to Lord Lucas, and
maid of honor then to the Queen-Mother; married in our
chapel at Paris. My wife being with me, the Duke and
Duchess both would needs bring her to the very Court.

26th April, 1667. My Lord Chancellor showed me all
his newly finished and furnished palace and library; then,
we went to take the air in Hyde-Park.

27th April, 1667. I had a great deal of discourse with
his Majesty at dinner. In the afternoon, I went again
with my wife to the Duchess of Newcastle, who received
her in a kind of transport, suitable to her extravagant
humor and dress, which was very singular.

8th May, 1667. Made up accounts with our Receiver,
which amounted to ,33,936 is. 4d. Dined at Lord Corn-
bury's, with Don Francisco de Melos, Portugal Ambassador,
and kindred to the Queen : Of the party were Mr. Henry
Jermyn and Sir Henry Capel. Afterward I went to
Arundel House, to salute Mr. Howard's sons, newly re-
turned out of France.

1667 JOHN EVELYN 33

nth May, 1667. To London; dined with the Duke of
Newcastle, and sat discoursing with her Grace in her bed-
chamber after dinner, till my Lord Marquis of Dorchester,
with other company came in, when I went away.

3oth May, 1667. To London, to wait on the Duchess of
Newcastle (who was a mighty pretender to learning,
poetry, and philosophy, and had in both published divers
books) to the Royal Society, whither she came in great
pomp, and being received by our Lord President at the
door of our meeting- room, the mace, etc., carried before
him, had several experiments shown to her. I conducted
her Grace to her coach, and returned home.

ist June, 1667. I went to Greenwich, where his Majesty
was trying divers grenadoes shot out of cannon at the
Castlehill, from the house in the park; they broke not till
they hit the mark, the forged ones broke not at all, but
the cast ones very well. The inventor was a German there
present. At the same time, a ring was shown to the
King, pretended to be a projection of mercury, and mal-
leable, and said by the gentlemen to be fixed by the juice
of a plant.

8th June, 1667. To London, alarmed by the Dutch,
who were fallen on our fleet at Chatham, by a most
audacious enterprise, entering the very river with part of
their fleet, doing us not only disgrace, but incredible mis-
chief in burning several of our best men-of-war lying at
anchor and moored there, and all this through our unac-
countable negligence in not setting out our fleet in due
time. This alarm caused me, fearing the enemy might
venture up the Thames even to London (which they
might have done with ease, and fired all the vessels in
the river, too), to send away my best goods, plate, etc.,
from my house to another place. The alarm was so great
that it put both country and city into fear, panic, and
consternation, such as I hope I shall never see more;
everybody was flying, none knew why or whither. Now,
there were land forces dispatched with the Duke of Albe-
marle, Lord Middleton, Prince Rupert, and the Duke, to
hinder the Dutch coming to Chatham, fortifying Upnor
Castle, and laying chains and bombs; but the resolute
enemy broke through all, and set fire on our ships, and
retreated in spite, stopping up the Thames, the rest of the
fleet lying before the mouth of it.
3

34 DIARY OF CHATHAM

i4th June, 1667. I went to see the work at Woolwich,
a battery to prevent them coming up to London, which
Prince Rupert commanded, and sunk some ships in the
river.

1 7th June, 1667. This night, about two o'clock, some
chips and combustible matter prepared for some fire-
ships, taking flame in Deptford-yard, made such a blaze,
and caused such an uproar in the Tower (it being given
out that the Dutch fleet was come up, and had landed
their men and fired the Tower), as had liked to have
done more mischief before people would be persuaded
to the contrary and believe the accident. Everybody
went to their arms. These were sad and troublesome times.

24th June, 1667. The Dutch fleet still continuing to
stop up the river, so as nothing could stir out or come in,
I was before the Council, and commanded by his Majesty
to go with some others and search about the environs of
the city, now exceedingly distressed for want of fuel,
whether there could be any peat, or turf, found fit for use.
The next day, I went and discovered enough, and made
my report that there might be found a great deal; but
nothing further was done in it.

28th June, 1667. I went to Chatham, and thence to view
not only what mischief the Dutch had done ; but how tri-
umphantly their whole fleet lay within the very mouth of
the Thames, all from the North Fore-land, Margate, even
to the buoy of the Nore a dreadful spectacle as ever
Englishmen saw, and a dishonor never to be wiped off!
Those who advised his Majesty to prepare no fleet this
spring deserved I know what but*

Here in the river off Chatham, just before the town, lay
the carcase of the London w (now the third time burnt),
the (< Royal Oak," the <( James,* etc., yet smoking; and now,
when the mischief was done, we were making trifling
forts on the brink of the river. Here were yet forces,
both of horse and foot, with General Middleton continually
expecting the motions of the enemy's fleet. I had much

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

i66; JOHN EVELYN 35

discourse with him, who was an experienced commander.
I told him I wondered the King did not fortify Sheerness*
and the Ferry; both abandoned.

2d July, 1667. Called upon my Lord Arlington, as from
his Majesty, about the new fuel. The occasion why I was
mentioned, was from what I said in my Sylva three years
before, about a sort of fuel for a need, which obstructed a
patent of Lord Carlingford, who had been seeking for it
himself; he was endeavoring to bring me into the pro-
ject, and proffered me a share. I met my Lord; and, on
the Qth, by an order of Council, went to my Lord Mayor,
to be assisting. In the meantime they had made an ex-
periment of my receipt of hoidlies, which I mention in my
book to be made at Maestricht, with a mixture of charcoal
dust and loam, and which was tried with success at Gresham
College (then being the exchange for the meeting of the
merchants since the fire) for everybody to see. This
done, I went to the Treasury for ; 12,000 for the sick and
wounded yet on my hands.

Next day, we met again about the fuel at Sir J. Ar-
mourer's in the Mews.

8th July, 1667. My Lord Brereton and others dined at
my house, where I showed them proof of my new fuel,
which was very glowing, and without smoke or ill
smell.

loth July, 1667. I went to see Sir Samuel Morland's
inventions and machines, arithmetical wheels, quench-fires,
and new harp.

1 7th July, 1667. The master of the mint and his lady,
Mr. Williamson, Sir Nicholas Armourer, Sir Edward Bow-
yer, Sir Anthony Auger, and other friends dined with
me.

zpth July, 1667. I went to Gravesend; the Dutch fleet
still at anchor before the river, where I saw five of his
Majesty's men-at-war encounter above twenty of the
Dutch, in the bottom of the Hope, chasing them with
many broadsides given and returned toward the buoy of
the Nore, where the body of their fleet lay, which lasted
till about midnight. One of their ships was fired, sup-
posed by themselves, she being run on ground. Having
seen this bold action, and their braving us so far up the
river, I went home the next day, not without indignation

* Since done. Evelyn's note.

36 DIARY OF LONDON

at our negligence, and the nation's reproach. It is well
known who of the Commissioners of the Treasury gave
advice that the charge of setting forth a fleet this year
might be spared, Sir W. C. (William Coventry) by
name.

ist August, 1667. I received the sad news of Abraham
Cowley's death, that incomparable poet and virtuous man,
my very dear friend, and was greatly deplored.

3d August, 1667. Went to Mr. Cowley's funeral, whose
corpse lay at Wallingford House, and was thence conveyed
to Westminster Abbey in a hearse with six horses and all
funeral decency, near a hundred coaches of noblemen and
persons of quality following; among these, all the wits of
the town, divers bishops and clergymen. He was interred
next Geoffry Chaucer, and near Spenser. A goodly mon-
ument is since erected to his memory.

Now did his Majesty again dine in the presence, in
ancient state, with music and all the court ceremonies,
which had been interrupted since the late war.

8th August, 1667. Visited Mr. Oldenburg, a close
prisoner in the Tower, being suspected of writing intel-
ligence. I had an order from Lord Arlington, Secretary
of State, which caused me to be admitted. This gentle-
man was secretary to our Society, and I am confident
will prove an innocent person.

1 5th August, 1667. Finished my account, amounting to
^25,000.

i7th August 1667. To the funeral of Mr. Farringdon,
a relation of my wife's.

There was now a very gallant horse to be baited to
death with dogs; but he fought them all, so as the fiercest
of them could not fasten on him, till the men run him
through with their swords. This wicked and barbarous
sport deserved to have been punished in the cruel con-
trivers to get money, under pretense that the horse had
killed a man, which was false. I would not be persuaded
to be a spectator.

2ist August, 1667. Saw the famous Italian puppet-play,
for it was no other.

24th August, 1667. I was appointed, with the rest of
my brother commissioners, to put in execution an order
of Council for freeing the prisoners at war in my custody
at Leeds Castle, and taking off his Majesty's extraordinary

i66; JOHN EVELYN 37

charge, having called before us the French and Dutch
agents. The peace was now proclaimed, in the usual form,
by the heralds-at-arms.

25th August, 1667. After evening service, I went to
visit Mr. Vaughan, who lay at Greenwich, a very wise and
learned person, one of Mr. Selden's executors and intimate
friends.

27th August, 1667. Visited the Lord Chancellor, to whom
his Majesty had sent for the seals a few days before; I
found him in his bedchamber, very sad. The Parliament
had accused him, and he had enemies at Court, especially
the buffoons and ladies of pleasure, because he thwarted
some of them, and stood in their way ; I could name some
of the chief. The truth is, he made few friends during
his grandeur among the royal sufferers, but advanced the
old rebels. He was, however, though no considerable law-
yer, one who kept up the form and substance of things
in the Nation with more solemnity than some would have
had. He was my particular kind friend, on all occasions.
The cabal, however, prevailed, and that party in Parlia-
ment. Great division at Court concerning him, and divers
great persons interceding for him.

aSth August, 1667. I dined with my late Lord Chan-
cellor, where also dined Mr. Ashburnham, and Mr. W.
Legge, of the bedchamber; his Lordship pretty well in
heart, though now many of his friends and sycophants
abandoned him.

In the afternoon, to the Lords Commissioners for money,
and thence to the audience of a Russian Envoy in the
Queen's presence-chamber, introduced with much state,
the soldiers, pensioners, and guards in their order. His
letters of credence brought by his secretary in a scarf
of sarsenet, their vests sumptuous, much embroidered with
pearls. He delivered his speech in the Russ language,
but without the least action, or motion, of his body, which
was immediately interpreted aloud by a German that spoke
good English: half of it consisted in repetition of the
Czar's titles, which were very haughty and oriental: the
substance of the rest was, that he was only sent to see the
King and Queen, and know how they did, with much com-
pliment and frothy language. Then, they kissed their
Majesties' hands, and went as they came; but their real
errand was to get money.

38 DIARY OF LONDON

29th August, 1667. We met at the Star-chamber about
exchange and release of prisoners.

7th September, 1667. Came Sir John Kiviet, to article
with me about his brickwork.

i3th September, 1667. Between the hours of twelve and
one, was born my second daughter, who was afterward
christened Elizabeth.

ipth September, 1667. To London, with Mr. Henry
Howard, of Norfolk, of whom I obtained the gift of his
Amndelian marbles, those celebrated and famous inscrip-
tions, Greek and Latin, gathered with so much cost and
industry from Greece, by his illustrious grandfather, the
magnificent Earl of Arundel, my noble friend while he
lived. When I saw these precious monuments miseratly
neglected, and scattered up and down about the garden,
and other parts of Arundel House, and how exceedingly
the corrosive air of London impaired them, I procured
him to bestow them on the University of Oxford. This
he was pleased to grant me; and now gave me the key
of the gallery, with leave to mark all those stones, urns,
altars, etc., and whatever I found had inscriptions on
them, that were not statues. This I did ; and getting them
removed and piled together, with those which were in-
crusted in the garden walls, I sent immediately letters to
the Vice-Chancellor of what I had procured, and that if
they esteemed it a service to the University (of which I
had been a member), they should take order for their
transportation.

This done zist, I accompanied Mr. Howard to his villa
at Albury, where I designed for him the plot of his canal
and garden, with a crypt through the hill.

24th September, 1667. Returned to London, where I
had orders to deliver the possession of Chelsea College
(used as my prison during the war with Holland for such
as were sent from the fleet to London) to our Society, as
a gift of his Majesty, our founder.

8th October, 1667. Came to dine with me Dr. Bathurst,
Dean of Wells, President of Trinity College, sent by the
Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, in the name both of him and
the whole University, to thank me for procuring the in-
scriptions, and to receive my directions what was to be
done to show their gratitude to Mr. Howard.

nth October, 1667. I went to see Lord Clarendon, late

i66; JOHN EVELYN 39

Lord Chancellor and greatest officer in England, in con-
tinual apprehension what the Parliament would determine
concerning him.

i ;th October, 1667. Came Dr. Barlow, Provost of
Queen's College and Protobibliothecus of the Bodleian
library, to take order about the transportation of the
marbles.

25th October, 1667. There were delivered to me two
letters from the Vice- Chancellor of Oxford, with the
Decree of the Convocation, attested by the Public Notary,
ordering four Doctors of Divinity and Law to acknowledge
the obligation the University had to me for procuring the
Marmora Arundeliana, which was solemnly done by Dr.
Barlow, Dr. Jenkins, Judge of the Admiralty, Dr. Lloyd,
and Obadiah Walker, of University College, who having
made a large compliment from the University, delivered
me the decree fairly written:

Gesta venerabili domo Convocationis Universitatis Oxon.; . . 17.
1667. Quo die retulit ad Senatum Academicum Domimis Vicecancel-
larius, quantum Universitas deberet singulari benevolentice Johannis
Evelini Armigeri, qui pro ed pietate qud Altnam Matrem prosequitur
non solum Suasu et Consilio apud inclytum Heroem Henricum Howard,
Ducis NorfolcicB Jiceredem, intercessit, et Universitati pretiosissimum
erudites antiquitatis tftesaurum Marmora Arundeliana largiretur; sed
egregium insuper in ijs colligendis asservandisq;navavitoperam : Qua-
propter unanimi sujfragio Venerabilis Domds decretum est, ut eidem
publica: gratia per delegates ad Honoratissimum Dominum Henricum
Howard propediem mittendos solemnit^r reddantur.

Concordant superscripta cum originali collatione fdcta per me Ben.
Cooper,

Notarium Publicum et Registarium Universitat Oxon.

SlR:

<( We intend also a noble inscription, in which also honorable mention
shall be made of yourself ; but Mr. Vice-Chancellor commands me to
tell you that that was not sufficient for your merits ; but, that if your
occasions would permit you to come down at the Act (when we intend
a dedication of our new Theater), some other testimony should be given
both of your own worth and affection to this your old mother ; for we
are all very sensible that this great addition of learning and reputation
to the University is due as well to your industrious care for the Univer-
sity, and interest with my Lord Howard, as to his great nobleness and
generosity of spirit.

I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

OBADIAH WALKER, Univ. Coll."

The Vice-Chancellor's letter to the same effect was too
vainglorious to insert, with divers copies of verses that

40 DIARY OF LONDON

were also sent me. Their mentioning me in the inscrip-
tion I totally declined, when I directed the titles of Mr.
Howard, now made Lord, upon his Ambassage to
Morocco.

These four doctors, having made me this compliment,
desired me to carry and introduce them to Mr. Howard,
at Arundel House; which I did, Dr. Barlow (Provost of
Queen's ) after a short speech, delivering a larger letter of
the University's thanks, which was written in Latin, ex-
pressing the great sense they had of the honor done them.
After this compliment handsomely performed and as nobly
received. Mr. Howard accompanied the doctors to their
coach. That evening I supped with them.

26th October, 1667. My late Lord Chancellor was ac-
cused by Mr. Seymour in the House of Commons; and,
in the evening, I returned home.

3ist October, 1667. My birthday blessed be God for
all his mercies! I made the Royal Society a present of
the Table of Veins, Arteries, and Nerves, which great
curiosity I had caused to be made in Italy, out of the
natural human bodies, by a learned physician, and the help
of Veslingius (professor at Padua), from whence I brought
them in 1646. For this I received the public thanks of
the Society; and they are hanging up in their repository
with an inscription.

9th December, 1667. To visit the late Lord Chancellor.*
I found him in his garden at his new-built palace, sitting
in his gout wheel-chair, and seeing the gates setting up
toward the north and the fields. He looked and spake
very disconsolately. After some while deploring his con-
dition to me, I took my leave. Next morning, I heard he
was gone; though I am persuaded that, had he gone
sooner, though but to Cornbury, and there lain quiet, it
would have satisfied the Parliament. That which exas-
perated them was his presuming to stay and contest the

*This entry of the gth December, 1667, is a mistake. Evelyn could
not have visited the late Lord Chancellor on that day. Lord Clar-
endon fled on Saturday, the 2gth of November, 1667, and his letter
resigning the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford is dated from
Calais on the 7th of December. That Evelyn's book is not, in every
respect, strictly a diary, is shown by this and several similar passages
already adverted to in the remarks prefixed to the present edition. If
the entry of the iSthof August. 1683, is correct, the date of Evelyn's
last visit to Lord Clarendon was the 28th of November, 1667.

1667-68 JOHN EVELYN 41

accusation as long as it was possible: and they were on
the point of sending him to the Tower.

loth December, 1667, I wert to the funeral of Mrs.
Heath, wife of my worthy friend and schoolfellow.

zist December, 1667. I saw one Carr pilloried at Char-
ing-cross for a libel, which was burnt before him by the
hangman.

8th January, 1667-68. I saw deep and prodigious gam-
ing at the Groom- Porter's, vast heaps of gold squandered
away in a vain and profuse manner. This I looked on as
a horrid vice, and unsuitable in a Christian Court.

gth January, 1668. Went to see the revels at the Middle
Temple, which is also an old riotous custom, and has rela-
tion neither to virtue nor policy.

loth January, 1668. To visit Mr. Povey, where were
divers great Lords to see his well-contrived cellar, and other
elegancies.

24th January, 1668. We went to stake out ground for
building a college for the Royal Society at Arundel-House,
but did not finish it, which we shall repent of.

4th February, 1668. I saw the tragedy of a Horace *
(written by the VIRTUOUS Mrs. Philips) acted before their
Majesties. Between each act a masque and antique dance.
The excessive gallantry of the ladies was infinite, those
especially on that . . . Castlemaine, esteemed at ^40,-
ooo and more, far outshining the Queen.

1 5th February, 1668. I saw the audience of the Swedish
Ambassador Count Donna, in great state in the banquet-
ing house.

3d March, 1668. Was launched at Deptford, that goodly
vessel, (< The Charles. M I was near his Majesty. She is
longer than the (< Sovereign, B and carries no brass cannon;
she was built by old Shish, a plain, honest carpenter,
master-builder of this dock, but one who can give very-
little account of his art by discourse, and is hardly capable
of reading, yet of great ability in his calling. The family
have been ship carpenters in this yard above 300
years.

1 2th March, 1668. Went to visit Sir John Cotton, who
had me into his library, full of good MSS. , Greek and Latin,
but most famous for those of the Saxon and English
antiquities, collected by his grandfather.

2d April 1668. To the Royal Society, where I sub-

42 DIARY OF LONDON

scribed 50,000 bricks, toward building a college. Among
other libertine libels, there was one now printed and

thrown about, a bold petition of the poor w s to Lady

Castlemaine.*

pth April, 1668. To London, about finishing my grand
account of the sick and wounded, and prisoners at war,
amounting to above ^34,000.

I heard Sir R. Howard impeach Sir William Penn, in
the House of Lords, for breaking bulk, and taking away
rich goods out of the East India prizes, formerly taken
by Lord Sandwich.

28th April, 1668. To London, about the purchase of
Ravensbourne Mills, and land around it, in Upper Dept-
ford, of one Mr. Becher.

3oth April, 1668. We sealed the deeds in Sir Edward
Thurland's chambers in the Inner Temple. I pray God
bless it to me, it being a dear pennyworth; but the pas-
sion Sir R. Browne had for it, and that it was contiguous
to our other grounds, engaged me!

1 3th May, 1668. Invited by that expert commander,
Captain Cox, master of the lately built * Charles II.,"
now the best vessel of the fleet, designed for the Duke of
York, I went to Erith, where we had a great dinner.

1 6th May, 1668. Sir Richard Edgecombe, of Mount
Edgecombe, by Plymouth, my relation, came to visit me;
a very virtuous and worthy gentleman.

ipth June, 1668. To a new play with several of my
relations, <( The Evening Lover, " a foolish plot, and very
profane; it afflicted me to see how the stage was degen-
erated and polluted by the licentious times.

ad July, 1668. Sir Samuel Tuke, Bart, and the lady he
had married this day, came and bedded at night at my
house, many friends accompanying the bride.

23d July, 1668. At the Royal Society, were presented
divers glossa petras, and other natural curiosities, found in
digging to build the fort at Sheerness. They were just
the same as they bring from Malta, pretending them to
be viper's teeth, whereas, in truth, they are of a shark, as
we found by comparing them with one in our reposi-
tory.

3d August, 1668. Mr. Bramstone (son to Judge B.),
my old fellow-traveler, now reader at the Middle Temple,

* Evelyn has been supposed himself _to have written this piece.

1668 JOHN EVELYN 43

invited me to his feast, which was so very extravagant
and great as the like had not been seen at any time.
There were j,the Duke of Ormond, Privy Seal, Bedford,
Belasis, Halifax, and a world more of Earls and Lords.

1 4th August, 1668. His Majesty was pleased to grant
me a lease of a slip of ground out of Brick Close, to
enlarge my fore-court, for which I now gave him thanks;
then, entering into other discourse, he talked to me of a
new varnish for ships, instead of pitch, and of the gilding
with which his new yacht was beautified. I showed his
Majesty the perpetual motion sent to me by Dr. Stokes,
from Cologne; and then came in Monsieur Colbert, the
French Ambassador.

1 9th August, 1668. I saw the magnificent entry of the
French Ambassador Colbert, received in the banqueting
house. I had never seen a richer coach than that which
he came in to Whitehall. Standing by his Majesty at
dinner in the presence, there was of that rare fruit called
the king-pine, growing in Barbadoes and the West Indies;
the first of them I had ever seen. His Majesty having
cut it up, was pleased to give me a piece off his own
plate to taste of; but, in my opinion, it falls short of those
ravishing varieties of deliciousness described in Captain
Ligon's history, and others; but possibly it might, or cer-
tainly was, much impaired in coming so far; it has yet a
grateful acidity, but tastes more like the quince and melon
than of any other fruit he mentions.

28th August, 1668. Published my book on "The Per-
fection of Painting, }> dedicated to Mr. Howard.

1 7th September, 1668. I entertained Signer Muccinigo,
the Venetian Ambassador, of one of the noblest families
of the State, this being the day of making his public
entry, setting forth from my house with several gentle-
men of Venice and others in a very glorious train. He
staid with me till the Earl of Anglesea and Sir Charles
Cotterell (master of the ceremonies) came with the King's
barge to carry him to the Tower, where the guns were
fired at his landing; he then entered his Majesty's coach,
followed by many others of the nobility. I accompanied
him to his house, where there was a most noble supper
to all the company, of course. After the extraordinary
compliments to me and my wife, for the civilities he
received at my house, I took leave and returned. He is

44 DIARY OF LONDON

a very accomplished person. He is since Ambassador at
Rome.

2gth September, 1668. I had much discourse with Sig-
nor Pietro Cisij, a Persian gentleman, about the affairs of
Turkey, to my great satisfaction. I went to see Sir Elias
Leighton's project of a cart with iron axletrees.

8th November, 1668. Being at dinner, my sister Evelyn
sent for me to come up to London to my continuing
sick brother.

1 4th November, 1668. To London, invited to the con-
secration of that excellent person, the Dean of Ripon,
Dr. Wilkins, now made Bishop of Chester; it was at
Ely House, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cosin,
Bishop of Durham, the Bishops of Ely, Salisbury, Roch-
ester, and others officiating. Dr. Tillotson preached.
Then, we went to a sumptuous dinner in the hall, where
were the Duke of Buckingham, Judges, Secretaries of
State, Lord-Keeper, Council, Noblemen, and innumera-
ble other company, who were honorers of this incom-
parable man, universally beloved by all who knew him.

This being the Queen's birthday, great was the gal-
lantry at Whitehall, and the night celebrated with very
fine fireworks.

My poor brother continuing ill, I went not from him
till the i yth, when, dining at the Groom Porters, I heard
Sir Edward Sutton play excellently on the Irish harp;
he performs genteelly, but not approaching my worthy
friend, Mr. Clark, a gentleman of Northumberland, who
makes it execute lute, viol, and all the harmony an in-
strument is capable of; pity it is that it is not more in
use; but, indeed, to play well, takes up the whole man,
as Mr. Clark has assured me, who, though a gentleman
of quality and parts, was yet brought up to that instru-
ment from five years old, as I remember he told me.

25th November, 1668. I waited on Lord Sandwich,
who presented me with a Sembrador he brought out of
Spain, showing me his two books of observations made
during his embassy and stay at Madrid, in which were
several rare things he promised to impart to me.

27th November, 1668. I dined at my Lord Ashley's
(since Earl of Shaftesbury), when the match of my niece
was proposed for his only son, in which my assistance
was desired for my Lord.

i668-6 9 JOHN EVELYN 45

28th November, 1668. Dr. Patrick preached at Convent
Garden, on Acts xvii. 31, the certainty of Christ's com-
ing to judgment, it being Advent; a most suitable dis-
course.

1 9th December, 1668. I went to see the old play of
"Cataline" acted, having been now forgotten almost
forty years.

2oth December, 1668. I dined with my Lord Corn-
bury, at Clarendon House, now bravely furnished, espe-
cially with the pictures of most of our ancient and
modern wits, poets, philosophers, famous and learned
Englishmen; which collection of the Chancellor's I much
commended, and gave his Lordship a catalogue of more
to be added.

3ist December, 1668. I entertained my kind neigh-
bors, according to custom, giving Almighty God thanks
for his gracious mercies to me the past year.

ist January, 1669. Imploring his blessing for the year
entering, I went to church, where our Doctor preached
on Psalm Ixv. 12, apposite to the season, and beginning
a new year.

3d January, 1669. About this time one of Sir William
Penn's sons had published a blasphemous book against
the Deity of our Blessed Lord.

29th January, 1669. I went to see a tall gigantic woman
who measured 6 feet 10 inches high, at 21 years old, born
in the Low Countries.

1 3th February, 1669. I presented his Majesty with my
<( History of the Four Impostors ; w * he told me of other
like cheats. I gave my book to Lord Arlington, to whom
I dedicated it. It was now that he began to tempt me
about writing <( The Dutch War. w

1 5th February, 1669. Saw Mrs. Phillips' (< Horace*
acted again.

1 8th February, 1669. To the Royal Society, when
Signer Malpighi, an Italian physician and anatomist, sent
this learned body the incomparable <( History of the Silk-
worm. w

ist March, 1669. Dined at Lord Arlington's at Goring
House, with the Bishop of Hereford.

4th March, 1669. To the Council of the Royal Society,
about disposing my Lord Howard's library, now given to us.

* Reprinted in Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings.

46 DIARY OF LONDON

1 6th March, 1669. To London, to place Mr. Chris-
topher Wase about my Lord Arlington.

1 8th March, 1669. I went with Lord Howard of Nor-
folk, to visit Sir William Ducie at Charlton, where we
dined; the servants made our coachmen so drunk, that
they both fell off their boxes on the heath, where we
were fain to leave them, and were driven to London
by two servants of my Lord's. This barbarous custom
of making the masters welcome by intoxicating the
servants, had now the second time happened to my
coachmen.

My son finally came from Oxford.

2d April, 1669. Dined at Mr. Treasurer's, where was
(with many noblemen) Colonel Titus of the bedchamber,
author of the famous piece against Cromwell, <( Killing
no Murder. )J

I now placed Mr. Wase with Mr. Williamson, Secretary
to the Secretary of State, and Clerk of the Papers.

i4th April, 1669. I dined with the Archbishop of Can-
terbury, at Lambeth, and saw the library, which was not
very considerable.

1 9th May, 1669. At a Council of the Royal Society
our grant was finished, in which his Majesty gives us
Chelsea College, and some land about it. It was ordered
that five should be a quorum for a Council. The Vice-
President was then sworn for the first time, and it was
proposed how we should receive the Prince of Tuscany,
who desired to visit the Society.

zoth May, 1669. This evening, at 10 o'clock, was born
my third daughter, who was baptized on the 25th by the
name of Susannah.

3d June, 1669. Went to take leave of Lord Howard,
going Ambassador to Morocco. Dined at Lord Arling-
ton's, where were the Earl of Berkshire, Lord Saint John,
Sir Robert Howard, and Sir R. Holmes.

xoth June, 1669. Came my Lord Cornbury, Sir William
Pulteney, and others to visit me. I went this evening to
London, to carry Mr. Pepys to my brother Richard, now
exceedingly afflicted with the stone, who had been suc-
cessfully cut, and carried the stone as big as a tennis
ball to show him, and encourage his resolution to go
through the operation.

3oth June, 1669. My wife went a journey of pleasure

i66 9 JOHN EVELYN 47

down the river as far as the sea, with Mrs. Howard and
her daughter, the Maid of Honor, and others, among
whom that excellent creature, Mrs. Blagg.*

7th July, 1669. I went toward Oxford; lay at Little
Wycomb.

8th July, 1669. Oxford.

9th July, 1669. In the morning was celebrated the
Encaenia of the New Theater, so magnificently built by
the munificence of Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of
Canterbury, in which was spent ^25,000, as Sir Christo-
pher Wren, the architect (as I remember), told me; and
yet it was never seen by the benefactor, my Lord Arch-
bishop having told me that he never did or ever would
see it. It is, in truth, a fabric comparable to any of this
kind of former ages, and doubtless exceeding any of the
present, as this University does for colleges, libraries,
schools, students, and order, all the universities in the
world. To the theater is added the famous Sheldonian
printing house. This being at the Act and the first time
of opening the Theater (Acts being formerly kept in St.
Mary's Church, which might be thought indecent, that
being a place set apart for the immediate worship of
God, and was the inducement for building this noble
pile), it was now resolved to keep the present Act in it,
and celebrate its dedication with the greatest splendor and
formality that might be; and, therefore, drew a world of
strangers, and other company, to the University, from all
parts of the nation.

The Vice-Chancellor, Heads of Houses, and Doctors,
being seated in magisterial seats, the Vice-Chancellor's
chair and desk, Proctors, etc., covered with brocatelle (a
kind of brocade) and cloth of gold; the University Reg-
istrar read the founder's grant and gift of it to the Uni-
versity for their scholastic exercises upon these solemn
occasions. Then followed Dr. South, the University's
orator, in an eloquent speech, which was very long, and
not without some malicious and indecent reflections on
the Royal Society, as underminers of the University;
which was very foolish and untrue, as well as unseason-

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

48 DIARY OF OXFORD

able. But, to let that pass from an ill-natured man, the
rest was in praise of the Archbishop and the ingenious
architect. This ended, after loud music from the corri-
dor above, where an organ was placed, there followed
divers panegyric speeches, both in prose and verse, inter-
changeably pronounced by the young students placed in
the rostrums, in Pindarics, Eclogues, Heroics, etc.,
mingled with excellent music, vocal and instrumental, to
entertain the ladies and the rest of the company. A
speech was then made in praise of academical learning.
This lasted from eleven in the morning till seven at
night, which was concluded with ringing of bells, and
universal joy and feasting.

loth July, 1669. The next day began the more solemn
lectures in all the faculties, which were performed in the
several schools, where all the Inceptor-Doctors did their
exercises, the Professors having first ended their read-
ing. The assembly now returned to the Theater, where
the Terra filius ( the University Buffoon ) entertained the
auditory with a tedious, abusive, sarcastical rhapsody,
most unbecoming the gravity of the University, and that
so grossly, that unless it be suppressed, it will be of ill
consequence, as I afterward plainly expressed my sense
of it both to the Vice-Chancellor and several Heads of
Houses, who were perfectly ashamed of it, and resolved
to take care of it in future. The old facetious way of
rallying upon the questions was left off, falling wholly
upon persons, so that it was rather licentious lying and
railing than genuine and noble wit. In my life, I was
never witness of so shameful an entertainment.

After this ribaldry, the Proctors made their speeches.
Then began the music art, vocal and instrumental, above
in the balustrade corridor opposite to the Vice-Chancellor's
seat. Then Dr. Wallis, the mathematical Professor,
made his oration, and created one Doctor of music ac-
cording to the usual ceremonies of gown (which was of
white damask), cap, ring, kiss, etc. Next followed the
disputations of the Inceptor-Doctors in Medicine, the
speech of their Professor, Dr. Hyde, and so in course
their respective creations. Then disputed the Inceptors of
Law, the speech of their Professor, and creation. Lastly,
Inceptors of Theology: Dr. Compton (brother of the Earl
of Northampton ) being junior, began with great modesty

1669 JOHN EVELYN 49

and applause; so the rest. After which, Dr. Tillotson,
Dr. Sprat, etc., and then Dr. Allestree's speech, the
King's Professor, and their respective creations. Last of
all, the Vice-Chancellor, shutting up the whole in a pane-
gyrical oration, celebrating their benefactor and the rest,
apposite to the occasion.

Thus was the Theater dedicated by the scholastic exer-
cises in all the Faculties with great solemnity; and the
night, as the former, entertaining the new Doctor's
friends in feasting and music. I was invited by Dr.
Barlow, the worthy and learned Professor of Queen's
College.

nth July, 1669. The Act sermon was this forenoon
preached by Dr. Hall, in St. Mary's, in an honest, prac-
tical discourse against atheism. In the afternoon, the
church was so crowded, that, not coming early, I could
not approach to hear.

1 2th July, 1669. Monday. Was held the Divinity Act
in the Theater again, when proceeded seventeen Doc-
tors, in all Faculties some.

1 3th July, 1669. I dined at the Vice-Chancellor's, and
spent the afternoon in seeing the rarities of the public li-
braries, and visiting the noble marbles and inscriptions, now
inserted in the walls that compass the area of the
Theater, which were 150 of the most ancient and worthy
treasures of that kind in the learned world. Now, ob-
serving that people approach them too near, some idle
persons began to scratch and injure them, I advised that
a hedge of holly should be planted at the foot of the
wall, to be kept breast-high only to protect them;
which the Vice-Chancellor promised to do the next sea-
son.

i4th July, 1669. Dr. Fell, Dean of Christ Church and
Vice-Chancellor, with Dr. Allestree, Professor, with bea-
dles and maces before them, came to visit me at my lodg-
ing. I went to visit Lord Howard's sons at Magdalen
College.

1 5th July, 1669. Having two days before had notice
that the University intended me the honor of Doctor-
ship, I was this morning attended by the beadles be-
longing to the Law, who conducted me to the Theater,
where I found the Duke of Ormond (now Chancellor of
the University) with the Earl of Chesterfield and Mr.
4

So DIARY OF OXFORD

Spencer (brother to the late Earl of Sunderland) . Thence,
we marched to the Convocation House, a convocation
having been called on purpose; here, being all of us
robed in the porch, in scarlet with caps and hoods, we
were led in by the Professor of Laws, and presented re-
spectively by name, with a short eulogy, to the Vice-
Chancellor, who sat in the chair, with all the Doctors
and Heads of Houses and masters about the room, which
was exceedingly full. Then, began the Public Orator his
speech, directed chiefly to the Duke of Ormond, the
Chancellor ; but in which I had my compliment, in course.
This ended, we were called up, and created Doctors ac-
cording to the form, and seated by the Vice-Chancellor
among the Doctors, on his right hand; then, the Vice-
Chancellor made a short speech, and so, saluting our
brother Doctors, the pageantry concluded, and the con-
vocation was dissolved. So formal a creation of honor-
ary Doctors had seldom been seen, that a convocation
should be called on purpose, and speeches made by the
Orator; but they could do no less, their Chancellor be-
ing to receive, or rather do them, this honor. I should
have been made Doctor with the rest at the public Act,
but their expectation of their Chancellor made them de-
fer it. I was then led with my brother Doctors to an
extraordinary entertainment at Doctor Mewes's, head
of St. John's College, and, after abundance of feasting
and compliments, having visited the Vice-Chancellor and
other Doctors, and given them thanks for the honor
done me, I went toward home the i6th, and got as far
as Windsor, and so to my house the next day.

4th August, 1669. I was invited by Sir Henry Peck-
ham to his reading feast in the Middle Temple, a pom-
pous entertainment, where were the Archbishop of
Canterbury, all the great Earls and Lords, etc. I had
much discourse with my Lord Winchelsea, a prodigious
talker; and the Venetian Ambassador.

iyth August, 1669. To London, spending almost the
entire day in surveying what progress was made in re-
building the ruinous city, which now began a little to
revive after its sad calamity.

2oth August, 1669. I saw the splendid audience of
the Danish Ambassador in the Banqueting House at
Whitehall.

1669-70 JOHN EVELYN 51

23d August, 1669. I went to visit my most excellent
and worthy neighbor, the Lord Bishop of Rochester, at
Bromley, which he was now repairing, after the delapi-
dations of the late Rebellion.

zd September, 1669. I was this day very ill of a pain
in my limbs, which continued most of this week, and
was increased by a visit I made to my old acquaintance,
the Earl of Norwich, at his house in Epping Forest,
where are many good pictures put into the wainscot of
the rooms, which Mr. Baker, his Lordship's predecessor
there, brought out of Spain; especially the History of
Joseph, a picture of the pious and learned Picus Mirandula,
and an incomparable one of old Breugel. The gardens
were well understood, I mean the potager. I returned
late in the evening, ferrying over the water at Green-
wich.

26th September. 1669. To church, to give God thanks
for my recovery.

3d October, 1669. I received the Blessed Eucharist,
to my unspeakable joy.

aist October, 1669. To the Royal Society, meeting for
the first time after a long recess, during vacation, accord-
ing to custom; where was read a description of the pro-
digious eruption of Mount Etna ; and our English itinerant
presented an account of his autumnal peregrination about
England, for which we hired him, bringing dried fowls,
fish, plants, animals, etc.

26th October, 1669. My dear brother continued ex-
tremely full of pain, the Lord be gracious to him!

3d November, 1669. This being the day of meeting
for the poor, we dined neighborly together.

26th November, 1669. I heard an excellent discourse
by Dr. Patrick, on the Resurrection; and afterward,
visited the Countess of Kent, my kinswoman.

8th December, 1669. To London, upon the second
edition of my "Sylva,* which I presented to the Royal
Society.

6th February, 1669-70. Dr. John Breton, Master of
Emmanuel College, in Cambridge (uncle to our vicar),
preached on John i. 27; "whose shoe-latchet I am not
worthy to unloose, w etc., describing the various fashions
of shoes, or sandals, worn by the Jews, and other nations :
of the ornaments of the feet: how great persons had

52 DIARY OP LONDON

servants that took them off when they came to their
houses, and bore them after them : by which pointing the
dignity of our Savior, when such a person as St. John
Baptist acknowledged his unworthiness even of that mean
office. The lawfulness, decentness, and necessity, of
subordinate degrees and ranks of men and servants, as
well in the Church as State: against the late levelers,
and others of that dangerous rabble, who would have all
alike.

3d March, 1670. Finding my brother [Richard] in
such exceeding torture, and that he now began to fall
into convulsion-fits, I solemnly set the next day apart to
beg of God to mitigate his sufferings, and prosper the
only means which yet remained for his recovery, he being
not only much wasted, but exceedingly and all along
averse from being cut (for the stone); but, when he at
last consented, and it came to the operation, and all
things prepared, his spirit and resolution failed.

6th March, 1670. Dr. Patrick preached in Covent Gar-
den Church. I participated of the Blessed Sacrament,
recommending to God the deplorable condition of my
dear brother, who was almost in the last agonies of death.
I watched late with him this night. It pleased God to
deliver him out of this miserable life, toward five o'clock
this Monday morning, to my unspeakable grief. He was
a brother whom I most dearly loved, for his many vir-
tues; but two years younger than myself, a sober, pru-
dent, worthy gentleman. He had married a great fortune,
and left one only daughter, and a noble seat at Woodcot,
near Epsom. His body was opened, and a stone taken
out of his bladder, not much bigger than a nutmeg. I
returned home on the 8th, full of sadness, and to bemoan
my loss.

aoth March, 1670. A stranger preached at the Savoy
French church; the Liturgy of the Church of England
being now used altogether, as translated into French by
Dr. Durell.

zist March, 1670. We all accompanied the corpse of
my dear brother to Epsom Church, where he was de-
cently interred in the chapel belonging to Woodcot House.
A great number of friends and gentlemen of the country
attended, about twenty coaches and six horses, and in-
numerable people.

1670 JOHN EVELYN 53

22d March, 1670. I went to Westminster, where in the
House of Lords I saw his Majesty sit on his throne, but
without his robes, all the peers sitting with their hats
on; the business of the day being the divorce of my
Lord Ross. Such an occasion and sight had not been
seen in England since the time of Henry VIII.*

5th May, 1670. To London, concerning the office of
Latin Secretary to his Majesty, a place of more honor
and dignity than profit, the reversion of which he had
promised me.

2ist May, 1670. Came to visit me Mr. Henry Saville,
and Sir Charles Scarborough.

z6th May, 1670. Receiving a letter from Mr. Philip
Howard, Lord Almoner to the Queen, that Monsieur
Evelin, first physician to Madame (who was now come to
Dover to visit the King her brother), was come to town,
greatly desirous to see me; but his stay so short, that he
could not come to me, I went with my brother to meet
him at the Tower, where he was seeing the magazines
and other curiosities, having never before been in Eng-
land: we renewed our alliance and friendship, with much
regret on both sides that, he being to return toward
Dover that evening, we could not enjoy one another
any longer. How this French family, Ivelin, of Evelin,
Normandy, a very ancient and noble house is grafted
into our pedigree, see in the collection brought from
Paris, 1650.

1 6th June, 1670. I went with some friends to the Bear
Garden, where was cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear and
bull-baiting, it being a famous day for all these butch-
erly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties. The bulls did

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

54 DIARY OF LONDON

exceedingly well, but the Irish wolf dog exceeded, which
was a tall greyhound, a stately creature indeed, who
beat a cruel mastiff. One of the bulls tossed a dog full
into a lady's lap as she sat in one of the boxes at a con-
siderable height from the arena. Two poor dogs were
killed, and so all ended with the ape on horseback, and
I most heartily weary of the rude and dirty pastime,
which I had not seen, I think, in twenty years before.

i8th June, 1670. Dined at Goring House, whither my
Lord Arlington carried me from Whitehall with the Mar-
quis of Worcester; there, we found Lord Sandwich, Vis-
count Stafford,* the Lieutenant of the Tower, and others.
After dinner, my Lord communicated to me his Maj-
esty'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.

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.

2pth 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 Mon-
tague, which was celebrated at Southampton- House chapel,
after which a magnificent entertainment, feast, and danc-
ing, 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, gen-

* 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.

1670 JOHN EVELYN 55

tleman-usher to her Majesty, and uncle to the Earl of
Chesterfield, a very fine man, with my Lady Hutcheson.

ipth July, 1670. I accompanied my worthy friend, that
excellent man, Sir Robert Murray, with Mr. Slingsby,
master of the mint, to k 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.

2oth July, 1670. We went to dine at Lord Arlington'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.

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 chim-
neys 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

56 DIARY OF NEWMARKET

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 them-
selves with the hopes of a rich harvest of hemp and cole-
seed, 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 breath-
ing 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 ob-
scure bottom. The cellars and galleries are very stately.

1670 JOHN EVELYN 57

It has a river by it, a pretty avenue of limes, and in a
park.

This is in Saffron Walden parish, famous for that use-
ful plant, with which all the country is covered.

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