The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

190 DIARY OF LONDON

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

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

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

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

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

3oth November, 1683. At the anniversary dinner of the
Royal Society the King sent us two does. Sir Cyril Wych
was elected President.

5th December, 1683. I was this day invited to a wed-
ding of one Mrs. Castle, to whom I had some obligation,
and it was to her fifth husband, a lieutenant-colonel of
the city. She was the daughter of one Burton, a broom-
man, by his wife, who sold kitchen stuff in Kent Street,
whom God so blessed that the father became a very rich,
and was a very honest man; he was sheriff of Surrey, where
I have sat on the bench with him. Another of his
daughters was married to Sir John Bowles; and this
daughter was a jolly friendly woman. There was at the
wedding the Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, several Aldermen
and persons of quality; above all, Sir George Jeffreys,
newly made Lord Chief Justice of England, with Mr.
Justice Withings, danced with the bride, and were ex-
ceedingly merry. These great men spent the rest of the
afternoon, till eleven at night, in drinking healths, taking
tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of judges,
who had but a day or two before condemned Mr. Al-
gernon Sidney, who was executed the yth on Tower Hill,
on the single witness of that monster of a man, Lordors of Hercules, fight with the Centaurs,