The Diary of John Evelyn Volume I Part 2

13th February, 1637: I was especially admitted (and, as I remember, my other brother) into the Middle Temple, London, though absent, and as yet at school. There were now large contributions to the distressed Palatinates.

The 10th of December my father sent a servant to bring us necessaries, and the plague beginning now to cease, on the 3d of April, 1637, I left school, where, till about the last year, I have been extremely remiss in my studies; so as I went to the University rather out of shame of abiding longer at school, than for any fitness, as by sad experience I found: which put me to re-learn all that I had neglected, or but perfunctorily gained.

[Sidenote: OXFORD]

10th May, 1637. I was admitted a Fellow-commoner of Baliol College, Oxford; and, on the 29th, I was matriculated in the vestry of St. Mary's, where I subscribed the Articles, and took the oaths: Dr. Baily, head of St. John's, being vice-chancellor, afterward bishop. It appears by a letter of my father's, that he was upon treaty with one Mr. Bathurst (afterward Doctor and President), of Trinity College, who should have been my tutor; but, lest my brother's tutor, Dr. Hobbs, more zealous in his life than industrious to his pupils, should receive it as an affront, and especially for that Fellow-commoners in Baliol were no more exempt from exercise than the meanest scholars there, my father sent me thither to one Mr. George Bradshaw (_nomen invisum!_ yet the son of an excellent father, beneficed in Surrey). I ever thought my tutor had parts enough; but as his ambition made him much suspected of the College, so his grudge to Dr. Lawrence, the governor of it (whom he afterward supplanted), took up so much of his time, that he seldom or never had the opportunity to discharge his duty to his scholars. This I perceiving, a.s.sociated myself with one Mr. James Thicknesse (then a young man of the foundation, afterward a Fellow of the house), by whose learned and friendly conversation I received great advantage. At my first arrival, Dr.

Parkhurst was master: and after his decease, Dr. Lawrence, a chaplain of his Majesty's and Margaret Professor, succeeded, an acute and learned person; nor do I much reproach his severity, considering that the extraordinary remissness of discipline had (till his coming) much detracted from the reputation of that College.

There came in my time to the College one Nathaniel Conopios, out of Greece, from Cyrill, the patriarch of Constantinople, who, returning many years after, was made (as I understand) Bishop of Smyrna. He was the first I ever saw drink coffee; which custom came not into England till thirty years after.[7]

[Footnote 7: Evelyn should have said "till twenty years after," not thirty. Coffee was introduced into England, and coffee-houses set up, in 1658.]

After I was somewhat settled there in my formalities (for then was the University exceedingly regular, under the exact discipline of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, then Chancellor), I added, as benefactor to the library of the College, these books--"_ex dono Johannis Evelyni, hujus Coll. Socio-Commensalis, filii Richardi Evelyni, e com. Surriae, armig^r_."--

"_Zanchii Opera_," vols. 1, 2, 3.

"_Granado in Thomam Aquinatem_," vols. 1, 2, 3.

"_Novarini Electa Sacra_" and "_Cresolii Anthologia Sacra_"; authors, it seems, much desired by the students of divinity there.

Upon the 2d of July, being the first Sunday of the month, I first received the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the college chapel, one Mr. Cooper, a Fellow of the house, preaching; and at this time was the Church of England in her greatest splendor, all things decent, and becoming the Peace, and the persons that governed. The most of the following week I spent in visiting the Colleges, and several rarities of the University, which do very much affect young comers.

18th July, 1637. I accompanied my eldest brother, who then quitted Oxford, into the country; and, on the 9th of August, went to visit my friends at Lewes, whence I returned the 12th to Wotton. On the 17th of September, I received the blessed Sacrament at Wotton church, and 23d of October went back to Oxford.

5th November, 1637. I received again the Holy Communion in our college chapel, one Prouse, a Fellow (but a mad one), preaching.

9th December, 1637. I offered at my first exercise in the Hall, and answered my opponent; and, upon the 11th following, declaimed in the chapel before the Master, Fellows, and Scholars, according to the custom.

The 15th after, I first of all opposed in the Hall.

The Christmas ensuing, being at a Comedy which the gentlemen of Exeter College presented to the University, and standing, for the better advantage of seeing, upon a table in the Hall, which was near to another, in the dark, being constrained by the extraordinary press to quit my station, in leaping down to save myself I dashed my right leg with such violence against the sharp edge of the other board, as gave me a hurt which held me in cure till almost Easter, and confined me to my study.

22d January, 1638. I would needs be admitted into the dancing and vaulting schools; of which late activity one Stokes, the master, did afterward set forth a pretty book, which was published, with many witty elogies before it.

4th February, 1638. One Mr. Wariner preached in our chapel; and, on the 25th, Mr. Wentworth, a kinsman of the Earl of Strafford; after which followed the blessed Sacrament.

13th April, 1638. My father ordered that I should begin to manage my own expenses, which till then my tutor had done; at which I was much satisfied.

[Sidenote: PORTSMOUTH]

9th July, 1638. I went home to visit my friends, and, on the 26th, with my brother and sister to Lewes, where we abode till the 31st; and thence to one Mr. Michael's, of Houghton, near Arundel, where we were very well treated; and, on the 2d of August, to Portsmouth, and thence, having surveyed the fortifications (a great rarity in that blessed halcyon time in England), we pa.s.sed into the Isle of Wight, to the house of my Lady Richards, in a place called Yaverland; but were turned the following day to Chichester, where, having viewed the city and fair cathedral, we returned home.

About the beginning of September, I was so afflicted with a quartan ague, that I could by no means get rid of it till the December following. This was the fatal year wherein the rebellious Scots opposed the King, upon the pretense of the introduction of some new ceremonies and the Book of Common Prayer, and madly began our confusions, and their own destruction, too, as it proved in event.

14th January, 1639. I came back to Oxford, after my tedious indisposition, and to the infinite loss of my time; and now I began to look upon the rudiments of music, in which I afterward arrived to some formal knowledge, though to small perfection of hand, because I was so frequently diverted with inclinations to newer trifles.

20th May, 1639. Accompanied with one Mr. J. Crafford (who afterward being my fellow-traveler in Italy, there changed his religion), I took a journey of pleasure to see the Somersets.h.i.+re baths, Bristol, Cirencester, Malmesbury, Abington, and divers other towns of lesser note; and returned the 25th.

8th October, 1639. I went back to Oxford.

14th December, 1639. According to injunctions from the Heads of Colleges, I went (among the rest) to the Confirmation at St. Mary's, where, after sermon, the Bishop of Oxford laid his hands upon us, with the usual form of benediction prescribed: but this received (I fear) for the more part out of curiosity, rather than with that due preparation and advice which had been requisite, could not be so effectual as otherwise that admirable and useful inst.i.tution might have been, and as I have since deplored it.

21st January, 1640. Came my brother, Richard, from school, to be my chamber-fellow at the University. He was admitted the next day and matriculated the 31st.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

11th April, 1640. I went to London to see the solemnity of his Majesty's riding through the city in state to the Short Parliament, which began the 13th following,--a very glorious and magnificent sight, the King circled with his royal diadem and the affections of his people: but the day after I returned to Wotton again, where I stayed, my father's indisposition suffering great intervals, till April 27th, when I was sent to London to be first resident at the Middle Temple: so as my being at the University, in regard of these avocations, was of very small benefit to me. Upon May the 5th following, was the Parliament unhappily dissolved; and, on the 20th I returned with my brother George to Wotton, who, on the 28th of the same month, was married at Albury to Mrs. Caldwell (an heiress of an ancient Leicesters.h.i.+re family, where part of the nuptials were celebrated).

10th June, 1640. I repaired with my brother to the term, to go into our new lodgings (that were formerly in Ess.e.x-court), being a very handsome apartment just over against the Hall-court, but four pair of stairs high, which gave us the advantage of the fairer prospect; but did not much contribute to the love of that impolished study, to which (I suppose) my father had designed me, when he paid 145 to purchase our present lives, and a.s.signments afterward.

London, and especially the Court, were at this period in frequent disorders, and great insolences were committed by the abused and too happy City: in particular, the Bishop of Canterbury's Palace at Lambeth was a.s.saulted by a rude rabble from Southwark, my Lord Chamberlain imprisoned and many scandalous libels and invectives scattered about the streets, to the reproach of Government, and the fermentation of our since distractions: so that, upon the 25th of June, I was sent for to Wotton, and the 27th after, my father's indisposition augmenting, by advice of the physicians he repaired to the Bath.

7th July, 1640. My brother George and I, understanding the peril my father was in upon a sudden attack of his infirmity, rode post from Guildford toward him, and found him extraordinary weak; yet so as that, continuing his course, he held out till the 8th of September, when I returned home with him in his litter.

15th October, 1640. I went to the Temple, it being Michaelmas Term.

30th December, 1640. I saw his Majesty (coming from his Northern Expedition) ride in pomp and a kind of ovation, with all the marks of a happy peace, restored to the affections of his people, being conducted through London with a most splendid cavalcade; and on the 3d of November following (a day never to be mentioned without a curse), to that long ungrateful, foolish, and fatal Parliament, the beginning of all our sorrows for twenty years after, and the period of the most happy monarch in the world: _Quis talia fando!_

But my father being by this time entered into a dropsy, an indisposition the most unsuspected, being a person so exemplarily temperate, and of admirable regimen, hastened me back to Wotton, December the 12th; where, the 24th following, between twelve and one o'clock at noon, departed this life that excellent man and indulgent parent, retaining his senses and piety to the last, which he most tenderly expressed in blessing us, whom he now left to the world and the worst of times, while he was taken from the evil to come.

1641. It was a sad and lugubrious beginning of the year, when on the 2d of January, 1640-1, we at night followed the mourning hea.r.s.e to the church at Wotton; when, after a sermon and funeral oration by the minister, my father was interred near his formerly erected monument, and mingled with the ashes of our mother, his dear wife. Thus we were bereft of both our parents in a period when we most of all stood in need of their counsel and a.s.sistance, especially myself, of a raw, vain, uncertain, and very unwary inclination: but so it pleased G.o.d to make trial of my conduct in a conjuncture of the greatest and most prodigious hazard that ever the youth of England saw; and, if I did not amidst all this impeach my liberty nor my virtue with the rest who made s.h.i.+pwreck of both, it was more the infinite goodness and mercy of G.o.d than the least providence or discretion of mine own, who now thought of nothing but the pursuit of vanity, and the confused imaginations of young men.

15th April, 1641. I repaired to London to hear and see the famous trial of the Earl of Strafford, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, who, on the 22d of March, had been summoned before both Houses of Parliament, and now appeared in Westminster-hall,[8] which was prepared with scaffolds for the Lords and Commons, who, together with the King, Queen, Prince, and flower of the n.o.blesse, were spectators and auditors of the greatest malice and the greatest innocency that ever met before so ill.u.s.trous an a.s.sembly. It was Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Earl Marshal of England, who was made High Steward upon this occasion; and the sequel is too well known to need any notice of the event.

[Footnote 8: On the 15th of April Strafford made his eloquent defense, which it seems to have been Evelyn's good fortune to be present at. And here the reader may remark the fact, not without significance, that between the entries on this page of the Diary which relate to Lord Strafford, the young Prince of Orange came over to make love to the Princess Royal, then twelve years old; and that the marriage was subsequently celebrated amid extraordinary Court rejoicings and festivities, in which the King took a prominent part, during the short interval which elapsed between the sentence and execution of the King's great and unfortunate minister.]

On the 27th of April, came over out of Holland the young Prince of Orange, with a splendid equipage, to make love to his Majesty's eldest daughter, the now Princess Royal.

That evening, was celebrated the pompous funeral of the Duke of Richmond, who was carried in effigy, with all the ensigns of that ill.u.s.trious family, in an open chariot, in great solemnity, through London to Westminster Abbey.

On the 12th of May, I beheld on Tower-hill the fatal stroke which severed the wisest head in England from the shoulders of the Earl of Strafford, whose crime coming under the cognizance of no human law or statute, a new one was made, not to be a precedent, but his destruction. With what reluctancy the King signed the execution, he has sufficiently expressed; to which he imputes his own unjust suffering--to such exorbitancy were things arrived.

On the 24th of May, I returned to Wotton; and, on the 28th of June, I went to London with my sister, Jane, and the day after sat to one Vanderborcht for my picture in oil, at Arundel-house, whose servant that excellent painter was, brought out of Germany when the Earl returned from Vienna (whither he was sent Amba.s.sador-extraordinary, with great pomp and charge, though without any effect, through the artifice of the Jesuited Spaniard who governed all in that conjuncture). With Vanderborcht, the painter, he brought over Winceslaus Hollar, the sculptor, who engraved not only the unhappy Deputy's trial in Westminster-hall, but his decapitation; as he did several other historical things, then relating to the accidents happening during the Rebellion in England, with great skill; besides many cities, towns, and landscapes, not only of this nation, but of foreign parts, and divers portraits of famous persons then in being; and things designed from the best pieces of the rare paintings and masters of which the Earl of Arundel was possessor, purchased and collected in his travels with incredible expense: so as, though Hollar's were but etched in aquafortis, I account the collection to be the most authentic and useful extant. Hollar was the son of a gentleman near Prague, in Bohemia, and my very good friend, perverted at last by the Jesuits at Antwerp to change his religion; a very honest, simple, well-meaning man, who at last came over again into England, where he died. We have the whole history of the king's reign, from his trial in Westminster-hall and before, to the restoration of King Charles II., represented in several sculptures, with that also of Archbishop Laud, by this indefatigable artist; besides innumerable sculptures in the works of Dugdale, Ashmole, and other historical and useful works. I am the more particular upon this for the fruit of that collection, which I wish I had entire.

This picture[9] I presented to my sister, being at her request, on my resolution to absent myself from this ill face of things at home, which gave umbrage to wiser than myself that the medal was reversing, and our calamities but yet in their infancy: so that, on the 15th of July, having procured a pa.s.s at the Custom-house, where I repeated my oath of allegiance, I went from London to Gravesend, accompanied with one Mr.

Caryll, a Surrey gentleman, and our servants, where we arrived by six o'clock that evening, with a purpose to take the first opportunity of a pa.s.sage for Holland. But the wind as yet not favorable, we had time to view the Block-house of that town, which answered to another over against it at Tilbury, famous for the rendezvous of Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1588, which we found stored with twenty pieces of cannon, and other ammunition proportionable. On the 19th of July, we made a short excursion to Rochester, and having seen the cathedral went to Chatham to see the Royal Sovereign, a glorious vessel of burden lately built there, being for defense and ornament, the richest that ever spread cloth before the wind. She carried an hundred bra.s.s cannon, and was 1,200 tons; a rare sailer, the work of the famous Phineas Pett, inventor of the frigate-fas.h.i.+on of building, to this day practiced. But what is to be deplored as to this vessel is, that it cost his Majesty the affections of his subjects, perverted by the malcontent of great ones, who took occasion to quarrel for his having raised a very slight tax for the building of this, and equipping the rest of the navy, without an act of Parliament; though, by the suffrages of the major part of the Judges the King might legally do in times of imminent danger, of which his Majesty was best apprised. But this not satisfying a jealous party, it was condemned as unprecedented, and not justifiable as to the Royal prerogative; and, accordingly, the Judges were removed out of their places, fined, and imprisoned.[10]

[Footnote 9: His own portrait.]

[Footnote 10: In such manner Evelyn refers to the tax of s.h.i.+p-money.

But compare this remarkable pa.s.sage, now first printed from the original, with the tone in which, eight years later, he spoke of the only chance by which monarchy in England might be saved; namely, that of "doing nothing as to government but what shall be approved by the old way of a free parliament, and the known laws of the land."]

We returned again this evening, and on the 21st of July embarked in a Dutch frigate, bound for Flus.h.i.+ng, convoyed and accompanied by five other stout vessels, whereof one was a man-of-war. The next day at noon, we landed at Flus.h.i.+ng.

[Sidenote: DE VERE]

Being desirous to overtake the Leagure,[11] which was then before Genep, ere the summer should be too far spent, we went this evening from Flus.h.i.+ng to Middleburg, another fine town in this island, to De Vere, whence the most ancient and ill.u.s.trious Earls of Oxford derive their family, who have spent so much blood in a.s.sisting the state during their wars. From De Vere we pa.s.sed over many towns, houses, and ruins of demolished suburbs, etc., which have formerly been swallowed up by the sea; at what time no less than eight of those islands had been irrecoverably lost.

[Footnote 11: The meaning of this expression is, that they should be in time to witness the siege.]