The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

1689 JOHN EVELYN

nth July, 1689. I dined at Lord Clarendon's, it being
his lady's wedding day, when about three in the after-
noon there was an unusual and violent storm of thunder,
rain, and wind; many boats on the Thames were over-
whelmed, and such was the impetuosity of the wind as
to carry up the waves in pillars and spouts most dread-
ful to behold, rooting up trees and ruining some
houses. The Countess of Sunderland afterward told me
that it extended as far as Althorpe at the very time,
which is seventy miles from London. It did no
harm at Deptford, but at Greenwich it did much mis-
chief.

i6th July, 1689. I went to Hampton Court about busi-
ness, the Council being there. A great apartment and
spacious garden with fountains was beginning in the park
at the head of the canal.

19th July, 1689. The Marshal de Schomberg went now
as General toward Ireland, to the relief of Londonderry.
Our fleet lay before Brest. The Confederates passing the
Rhine, besiege Bonn and Mayence, to obtain a passage
into France. A great victory gotten by the Muscovites,
taking and burning Perecop. A new rebel against the
Turks threatens the destruction of that tyranny. All
Europe in arms against France, and hardly to be found
in history so universal a face of war.

The Convention (or Parliament as some called it) sit-
ting, exempt the Duke of Hanover from the succession
to the crown, which they seem to confine to the present
new King, his wife, and Princess Anne of Denmark, who
is so monstrously swollen, that it is doubted whether her
being thought with child may prove a TYMPANY only, so
that the unhappy family of the Stuarts seems to be ex-
tinguishing; and then what government is likely to be
next set up is unknown, whether regal and by elec-
tion, or otherwise, the Republicans and Dissenters
from the Church of England evidently looking that
way.

The Scots have now again voted down Episcopacy
there. Great discontents through this nation at the slow
proceedings of the King, and the incompetent instruments
and officers he advances to the greatest and most neces-
sary charges.

23d August, 1689. Came to visit me Mr, Firmin.more masterly manner. them in a creek as they were land-