The Diary of John Evelyn Volume I Part 37

3d February, 1662. I went to Chelsea, to see Sir Arthur Gorges' house.

11th February, 1662. I saw a comedy acted before the d.u.c.h.ess of York at the c.o.c.kpit. The King was not at it.

17th February, 1662. I went with my Lord of Bristol to see his house at Wimbledon, newly bought of the Queen-Mother, to help contrive the garden after the modern. It is a delicious place for prospect and the thickets, but the soil cold and weeping clay. Returned that evening with Sir Henry Bennett.

This night was buried in Westminster Abbey the Queen of Bohemia, after all her sorrows and afflictions being come to die in the arms of her nephew, the King; also this night and the next day fell such a storm of hail, thunder, and lightning, as never was seen the like in any man's memory, especially the tempest of wind, being southwest, which subverted, besides huge trees, many houses, innumerable chimneys (among others that of my parlor at Sayes Court), and made such havoc at land and sea, that several perished on both. Divers lamentable fires were also kindled at this time; so exceedingly was G.o.d's hand against this ungrateful and vicious nation and Court.

20th February, 1662. I returned home to repair my house, miserably shattered by the late tempest.

24th March, 1662. I returned home with my whole family, which had been most part of the winter, since October, at London, in lodgings near the Abbey of Westminster.

6th April, 1662. Being of the Vestry, in the afternoon we ordered that the communion-table should be set (as usual) altar-wise, with a decent rail in front, as before the Rebellion.

17th April, 1662. The young Marquis of Argyle, whose turbulent father was executed in Scotland, came to see my garden. He seemed a man of parts.

7th May, 1662. I waited on Prince Rupert to our a.s.sembly where were tried several experiments in Mr. Boyle's VACUUM. A man thrusting in his arm, upon exhaustion of the air, had his flesh immediately swelled so as the blood was near bursting the veins: he drawing it out, we found it all speckled.

14th May, 1662. To London, being chosen one of the Commissioners for reforming the buildings, ways, streets, and inc.u.mbrances, and regulating the hackney coaches in the city of London, taking my oath before my Lord Chancellor, and then went to his Majesty's Surveyor's office, in Scotland Yard, about naming and establis.h.i.+ng officers, adjourning till the 16th, when I went to view how St. Martin's Lane might be made more pa.s.sable into the Strand. There were divers gentlemen of quality in this commission.

25th May, 1662. I went this evening to London, in order to our journey to Hampton Court, to see the Queen; who, having landed at Portsmouth, had been married to the King a week before by the Bishop of London.

30th May, 1662. The Queen arrived with a train of Portuguese ladies in their monstrous fardingales, or guard-infantes, their complexions olivader[70] and sufficiently unagreeable. Her Majesty in the same habit, her foretop long and turned aside very strangely. She was yet of the handsomest countenance of all the rest, and, though low of stature, prettily shaped, languis.h.i.+ng and excellent eyes, her teeth wronging her mouth by sticking a little too far out; for the rest, lovely enough.

[Footnote 70: Of a dark olive complexion. It has been noticed in other accounts that Katharine of Braganza's Portuguese Ladies of Honor, who came over with her, were uncommonly ill-favored, and disagreeable in their appearance. See Faithorne's curious print of the Queen in the costume here described.]

31st May, 1662. I saw the Queen at dinner; the Judges came to compliment her arrival, and, after them, the Duke of Ormond brought me to kiss her hand.

2d June, 1662. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen made their addresses to the Queen, presenting her 1,000 in gold. Now saw I her Portuguese ladies, and the Guardadamas, or mother of her maids,[71] and the old knight, a lock of whose hair quite covered the rest of his bald pate, bound on by a thread, very oddly. I saw the rich gondola sent to his Majesty from the State of Venice; but it was not comparable for swiftness to our common wherries, though managed by Venetians.

[Footnote 71: The Maids of Honor had a mother at least as early as the reign of Elizabeth. The office is supposed to have been abolished about the period of the Revolution of 1688.]

4th June, 1662. Went to visit the Earl of Bristol, at Wimbledon.

8th June, 1662. I saw her Majesty at supper privately in her bedchamber.

9th June, 1662. I heard the Queen's Portugal music, consisting of pipes, harps, and very ill voices.

[Sidenote: HAMPTON COURT]

Hampton Court is as n.o.ble and uniform a pile, and as capacious as any Gothic architecture can have made it. There is an incomparable furniture in it, especially hangings designed by Raphael, very rich with gold; also many rare pictures, especially the Caesarean Triumphs of Andrea Mantegna, formerly the Duke of Mantua's; of the tapestries, I believe the world can show nothing n.o.bler of the kind than the stories of Abraham and Tobit.

The gallery of horns is very particular for the vast beams of stags, elks, antelopes, etc. The Queen's bed was an embroidery of silver on crimson velvet, and cost 8,000, being a present made by the States of Holland when his Majesty returned, and had formerly been given by them to our King's sister, the Princess of Orange, and, being bought of her again, was now presented to the King. The great looking-gla.s.s and toilet, of beaten and ma.s.sive gold, was given by the Queen-Mother. The Queen brought over with her from Portugal such Indian cabinets as had never before been seen here. The great hall is a most magnificent room. The chapel roof excellently fretted and gilt. I was also curious to visit the wardrobe and tents, and other furniture of state. The park, formerly a flat and naked piece of ground, now planted with sweet rows of lime trees; and the ca.n.a.l for water now near perfected; also the air-park. In the garden is a rich and n.o.ble fountain, with Sirens, statues, etc., cast in copper, by Fanelli; but no plenty of water. The cradle-work of horn beam in the garden is, for the perplexed twining of the trees, very observable. There is a parterre which they call Paradise, in which is a pretty banqueting-house set over a cave, or cellar. All these gardens might be exceedingly improved, as being too narrow for such a palace.

10th June, 1662. I returned to London, and presented my "History of Chalcography" (dedicated to Mr. Boyle) to our Society.[72]

[Footnote 72: See Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings."]

19 June, 1662. I went to Albury, to visit Mr. Henry Howard, soon after he had procured the Dukedom to be restored. This gentleman had now compounded a debt of 200,000, contracted by his grandfather. I was much obliged to that great virtuoso, and to this young gentleman, with whom I stayed a fortnight.

2d July, 1662. We hunted and killed a buck in the park, Mr. Howard inviting most of the gentlemen of the country near him.

3d July, 1662. My wife met me at Woodcot, whither Mr. Howard accompanied me to see my son John, who had been much brought up among Mr. Howard's children at Arundel House, till, for fear of their perverting him in the Catholic religion, I was forced to take him home.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

8th July, 1662. To London, to take leave of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Ormond, going then into Ireland with an extraordinary retinue.

13th July, 1662. Spent some time with the Lord Chancellor, where I had discourse with my Lord Willoughby, Governor of Barbadoes, concerning divers particulars of that colony.

28th July, 1662. His Majesty going to sea to meet the Queen-Mother, now coming again for England, met with such ill weather as greatly endangered him. I went to Greenwich, to wait on the Queen, now landed.

30th July, 1662. To London, where was a meeting about Charitable Uses, and particularly to inquire how the city had disposed of the revenues of Gresham College, and why the salaries of the professors there were no better improved. I was on this commission, with divers Bishops and Lords of the Council; but little was the progress we could make.

31st July, 1662. I sat with the Commissioners about reforming buildings and streets of London, and we ordered the paving of the way from St.

James's North, which was a quagmire, and also of the Haymarket about Piqudillo [Piccadilly], and agreed upon instructions to be printed and published for the better keeping the streets clean.

1st August, 1662. Mr. H. Howard, his brothers Charles, Edward, Bernard, Philip,[73] now the Queen's Almoner (all brothers of the Duke of Norfolk, still in Italy), came with a great train, and dined with me; Mr. H.

Howard leaving with me his eldest and youngest sons, Henry and Thomas, for three or four days, my son, John, having been sometime bred up in their father's house.

[Footnote 73: Since Cardinal at Rome. "Evelyn's Note."]

4th August, 1662. Came to see me the old Countess of Devons.h.i.+re, with that excellent and worthy person, my Lord her son, from Roehampton.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

5th August, 1662. To London, and next day to Hampton Court, about my purchase, and took leave of Sir R. Fanshawe, now going Amba.s.sador to Portugal.

13th August, 1662. Our Charter being now pa.s.sed under the broad Seal, const.i.tuting us a corporation under the name of the Royal Society for the improvement of natural knowledge by experiment, was this day read and was all that was done this afternoon, being very large.

14th August, 1662. I sat on the commission for Charitable Uses, the Lord Mayor and others of the Mercers' Company being summoned, to answer some complaints of the Professors, grounded on a clause in the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder.

This afternoon, the Queen-Mother, with the Earl of St. Alban's and many great ladies and persons, was pleased to honor my poor villa with her presence, and to accept of a collation. She was exceedingly pleased, and staid till very late in the evening.

15th August, 1662. Came my Lord Chancellor (the Earl of Clarendon) and his lady, his purse and mace borne before him, to visit me. They were likewise collationed with us, and were very merry. They had all been our old acquaintance in exile, and indeed this great person had ever been my friend. His son, Lord Cornbury, was here, too.

17th August, 1662. Being the Sunday when the Common Prayer Book, reformed and ordered to be used for the future, was appointed to be read, and the solemn League and Covenant to be abjured by all the inc.u.mbents of England under penalty of losing their livings; our vicar read it this morning.

20th August, 1662. There were strong guards in the city this day, apprehending some tumults, many of the Presbyterian ministers not conforming. I dined with the Vice-Chamberlain, and then went to see the Queen-Mother, who was pleased to give me many thanks for the entertainment she received at my house, when she recounted to me many observable stories of the sagacity of some dogs she formerly had.

21st August, 1662. I was admitted and then sworn one of the Council of the Royal Society, being nominated in his Majesty's original grant to be of this Council for the regulation of the Society, and making laws and statutes conducible to its establishment and progress, for which we now set apart every Wednesday morning till they were all finished. Lord Viscount Brouncker (that excellent mathematician) was also by his Majesty, our founder, nominated our first President. The King gave us the arms of England to be borne in a canton in our arms, and sent us a mace of silver gilt, of the same fas.h.i.+on and size as those carried before his Majesty, to be borne before our president on meeting days. It was brought by Sir Gilbert Talbot, master of his Majesty's jewel house.

22d August, 1662. I dined with my Lord Brouncker and Sir Robert Murray, and then went to consult about a newly modeled s.h.i.+p at Lambeth, the intention being to reduce that art to as certain a method as any other part of architecture.

23d August, 1662. I was spectator of the most magnificent triumph that ever floated on the Thames, considering the innumerable boats and vessels, dressed and adorned with all imaginable pomp, but, above all, the thrones, arches, pageants, and other representations, stately barges of the Lord Mayor and companies, with various inventions, music, and peals of ordnance both from the vessels and the sh.o.r.e, going to meet and conduct the new Queen from Hampton Court to Whitehall, at the first time of her coming to town. In my opinion, it far exceeded all the Venetian Bucentoras, etc., on the Ascension, when they go to espouse the Adriatic.

His Majesty and the Queen came in an antique-shaped open vessel, covered with a state, or canopy, of cloth of gold, made in form of a cupola, supported with high Corinthian pillars, wreathed with flowers, festoons and garlands. I was in our newly built vessel, sailing among them.

29th August, 1662. The Council and Fellows of the Royal Society went in a body to Whitehall, to acknowledge his Majesty's royal grace in granting our Charter, and vouchsafing to be himself our founder; when the President made an eloquent speech, to which his Majesty gave a gracious reply and we all kissed his hand. Next day we went in like manner with our address to my Lord Chancellor, who had much promoted our patent: he received us with extraordinary favor. In the evening I went to the Queen-Mother's Court, and had much discourse with her.

1st September, 1662. Being invited by Lord Berkeley, I went to Durdans, where dined his Majesty, the Queen, Duke, d.u.c.h.ess, Prince Rupert, Prince Edward, and abundance of n.o.blemen. I went, after dinner, to visit my brother of Woodcot, my sister having been delivered of a son a little before, but who had now been two days dead.