Part 19
The fatal news coming to Hicks's Hall upon the article of my Lord Russell's trial, was said to have had no little influence on the Jury and all the Bench to his prejudice. Others said that he had himself on some occasions hinted that in case he should be in danger of having his life taken from him by any public misfortune, those who thirsted for his estate should miss of their aim; and that he should speak favorably of that Earl of Northumberland,[51] and some others, who made away with themselves; but these are discourses so unlike his sober and prudent conversation that I have no inclination to credit them. What might instigate him to this devilish act, I am not able to conjecture. My Lord Clarendon, his brother-in-law, who was with him but the day before, assured me he was then very cheerful, and declared it to be the effect of his innocence and loyalty; and most believe that his Majesty had no severe intentions against him, though he was altogether inexorable as to Lord Russell and some of the rest. For my part, I believe the crafty and ambitious Earl of Shaftesbury had brought them into some dislike of the present carriage of matters at Court, not with any design of destroying the monarchy (which Shaftesbury had in confidence and for unanswerable reasons told me he would support to his last breath, as having seen and felt the misery of being under mechanic tyranny), but perhaps of setting up some other whom he might govern, and frame to his own platonic fancy, without much regard to the religion established under the hierarchy, for which he had no esteem; but when he perceived those whom he had engaged to rise, fail of his expectations, and the day past, reproaching his accomplices that a second day for an exploit of this nature was never successful, he gave them the slip, and got into Holland, where the fox died, three months before these unhappy Lords and others were discovered or suspected. Every one deplored Essex and Russell, especially the last, as being thought to have been drawn in on pretense only of endeavoring to rescue the King from his present councilors, and secure religion from Popery, and the nation from arbitrary government, now so much apprehended; while the rest of those who were fled, especially Ferguson and his gang, had doubtless some bloody design to get up a Commonwealth, and turn all things topsy-turvy. Of the same tragical principles is Sydney.
[Footnote 51: Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, shot himself in the Tower, to which he had been committed on a charge of high treason in June, 1585.]
I had this day much discourse with Monsieur Pontaq, son to the famous and wise prime President of Bordeaux. This gentleman was owner of that excellent _vignoble_ of Pontaq and O'Brien, from whence come the choicest of our Bordeaux wines; and I think I may truly say of him, what was not so truly said of St. Paul, that much learning had made him mad. He had studied well in philosophy, but chiefly the Rabbins, and was exceedingly addicted to cabalistical fancies, an eternal hablador [romancer], and half distracted by reading abundance of the extravagant Eastern Jews. He spoke all languages, was very rich, had a handsome person, and was well bred, about forty-five years of age.
14th July, 1683. I visited Mr. Fraser, a learned Scotch gentleman, whom I had formerly recommended to Lord Berkeley for the instruction and government of his son, since dead at sea. He had now been in Holland at the sale of the learned Heinsius's library, and showed me some very rare and curious books, and some MSS., which he had purchased to good value. There were three or four Herbals in miniature, accurately done, divers Roman antiquities of Verona, and very many books of Aldus's impression.
15th July, 1683. A stranger, an old man, preached on Jerem. vi. 8, the not hearkening to instruction, portentous of desolation to a people; much after Bishop Andrew's method, full of logical divisions, in short and broken periods, and Latin sentences, now quite out of fashion in the pulpit, which is grown into a far more profitable way, of plain and practical discourses, of which sort this nation, or any other, never had greater plenty or more profitable (I am confident); so much has it to answer for thriving no better on it.
The public was now in great consternation on the late plot and conspiracy; his Majesty very melancholy, and not stirring without double guards; all the avenues and private doors about Whitehall and the Park shut up, few admitted to walk in it. The Papists, in the meantime, very jocund; and indeed with reason, seeing their own plot brought to nothing, and turned to ridicule, and now a conspiracy of Protestants, as they called them.
The Turks were likewise in hostility against the German Emperor, almost masters of the Upper Hungary, and drawing toward Vienna. On the other side, the French King (who it is believed brought in the infidels) disturbing his Spanish and Dutch neighbors, having swallowed up almost all Flanders, pursuing his ambition of a fifth universal monarchy; and all this blood and disorder in Christendom had evidently its rise from our defections at home, in a wanton peace, minding nothing but luxury, ambition, and to procure money for our vices. To this add our irreligion and atheism, great ingratitude, and self-interest; the apostacy of some, and the suffering the French to grow so great, and the Hollanders so weak. In a word, we were wanton, mad, and surfeiting with prosperity; every moment unsettling the old foundations, and never constant to anything. The Lord in mercy avert the sad omen, and that we do not provoke him till he bear it no longer!
This summer did we suffer twenty French men-of-war to pass our Channel toward the Sound, to help the Danes against the Swedes, who had abandoned the French interest, we not having ready sufficient to guard our coasts, or take cognizance of what they did; though the nation never had more, or a better navy, yet the sea had never so slender a fleet.
19th July, 1683. George, Prince of Denmark, who had landed this day, came to marry the Lady Anne, daughter to the Duke; so I returned home, having seen the young gallant at dinner at Whitehall.
20th July, 1683. Several of the conspirators of the lower form were executed at Tyburn; and the next day,
[Sidenote: LONDON]
21st July, 1683. Lord Russell was beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the executioner giving him three butcherly strokes. The speech he made, and the paper which he gave the Sheriff declaring his innocence, the nobleness of the family, the piety and worthiness of the unhappy gentleman, wrought much pity, and occasioned various discourses on the plot.
25th July, 1683. I again saw Prince George of Denmark: he had the Danish countenance, blonde, of few words, spoke French but ill, seemed somewhat heavy, but reported to be valiant, and indeed he had bravely rescued and brought off his brother, the King of Denmark, in a battle against the Swedes, when both these Kings were engaged very smartly.
28th July, 1683. He was married to the Lady Anne at Whitehall. Her Court and household to be modeled as the Duke's, her father, had been, and they to continue in England.
1st August, 1683. Came to see me Mr. Flamsted, the famous astronomer, from his Observatory at Greenwich, to draw the meridian from my pendule, etc.
2d August, 1683. The Countesses of Bristol and Sunderland, aunt and cousin-german of the late Lord Russell, came to visit me, and condole his sad fate. The next day, came Colonel Russell, uncle to the late Lord Russell, and brother to the Earl of Bedford, and with him Mrs. Middleton, that famous and indeed incomparable beauty, daughter to my relation, Sir Robert Needham.
19th August, 1683. I went to Bromley to visit our Bishop, and excellent neighbor, and to congratulate his now being made Archbishop of York. On the 28th, he came to take his leave of us, now preparing for his journey and residence in his province.
28th August, 1683. My sweet little grandchild, Martha Maria, died, and on the 29th was buried in the parish church.
2d September, 1683. This morning, was read in the church, after the office was done, the Declaration setting forth the late conspiracy against the King's person.
3d September, 1683. I went to see what had been done by the Duke of Beaufort on his lately purchased house at Chelsea, which I once had the selling of for the Countess of Bristol, he had made great alterations, but might have built a better house with the materials and the cost he had been at.
Saw the Countess of Monte Feltre, whose husband I had formerly known, he was a subject of the Pope's, but becoming a Protestant he resided in England, and married into the family of the Savilles, of Yorkshire. The Count, her late husband, was a very learned gentleman, a great politician, and a goodly man. She was accompanied by her sister, exceedingly skilled in painting, nor did they spare for color on their own faces. They had a great deal of wit.
9th September, 1683. It being the day of public thanksgiving for his Majesty's late preservation, the former Declaration was again read, and there was an office used, composed for the occasion. A loyal sermon was preached on the divine right of Kings, from Psalm cxliv. 10. "Thou hast preserved David from the peril of the sword."
15th September, 1683. Came to visit me the learned anatomist, Dr. Tyson,[52] with some other Fellows of our Society.
[Footnote 52: Doctor Edward Tyson, a learned physician, born at Clevedon, Somersetshire, in 1649, who became reader of the anatomical lecture in Surgeons' Hall, and physician to the hospitals of Bethlehem and Bridewell, which offices he held at his death, Aug. 1, 1708. He was an ingenious writer, and has left various Essays in the Philosophical Transactions and Hook's Collections. He published also "The Anatomy of a Porpoise Dissected at Gresham College," and "The Anatomy of a Pigmy Compared with a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man," 4to., 1698-99.]
16th September, 1683. At the elegant villa and garden of Mr. Bohun, at Lee. He showed me the zinnar tree, or platanus, and told me that since they had planted this kind of tree about the city of Ispahan, in Persia, the plague, which formerly much infested the place, had exceedingly abated of its mortal effects, and rendered it very healthy.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
18th September, 1683. I went to London to visit the Duchess of Grafton, now great with child, a most virtuous and beautiful lady. Dining with her at my Lord Chamberlain's, met my Lord of St. Alban's, now grown so blind, that he could not see to take his meat. He has lived a most easy life, in plenty even abroad, while his Majesty was a sufferer; he has lost immense sums at play, which yet, at about eighty years old, he continues, having one that sits by him to name the spots on the cards. He ate and drank with extraordinary appetite. He is a prudent old courtier, and much enriched since his Majesty's return.
After dinner, I walked to survey the sad demolition of Clarendon House, that costly and only sumptuous palace of the late Lord Chancellor Hyde, where I have often been so cheerful with him, and sometimes so sad: happening to make him a visit but the day before he fled from the angry Parliament, accusing him of maladministration, and being envious at his grandeur, who from a private lawyer came to be father-in-law to the Duke of York, and as some would suggest, designing his Majesty's marriage with the Infanta of Portugal, not apt to breed. To this they imputed much of our unhappiness; and that he, being sole minister and favorite at his Majesty's restoration, neglected to gratify the King's suffering party, preferring those who were the cause of our troubles. But perhaps as many of these things were injuriously laid to his charge, so he kept the government far steadier than it has proved since. I could name some who I think contributed greatly to his ruin,--the buffoons and the MISSIS, to whom he was an eye-sore. It is true he was of a jolly temper, after the old English fashion; but France had now the ascendant, and we were become quite another nation. The Chancellor gone, and dying in exile, the Earl his successor sold that which cost £50,000 building, to the young Duke of Albemarle for £25,000, to pay debts which how contracted remains yet a mystery, his son being no way a prodigal. Some imagine the Duchess his daughter had been chargeable to him. However it were, this stately palace is decreed to ruin, to support the prodigious waste the Duke of Albemarle had made of his estate, since the old man died. He sold it to the highest bidder, and it fell to certain rich bankers and mechanics, who gave for it and the ground about it, £35,000; they design a new town, as it were, and a most magnificent piazza [square]. It is said they have already materials toward it with what they sold of the house alone, more worth than what they paid for it. See the vicissitudes of earthly things! I was astonished at this demolition, nor less at the little army of laborers and artificers leveling the ground, laying foundations, and contriving great buildings at an expense of £200,000, if they perfect their design.
19th September, 1683. In my walks I stepped into a goldbeater's workhouse, where he showed me the wonderful ductility of that spreading and oily metal. He said it must be finer than the standard, such as was old angel-gold, and that of such he had once to the value of £100 stamped with the _agnus dei_, and coined at the time of the holy war; which had been found in a ruined wall somewhere in the North, near to Scotland, some of which he beat into leaves, and the rest sold to the curiosi in antiquities and medals.
23d September, 1683. We had now the welcome tidings of the King of Poland raising the siege of Vienna, which had given terror to all Europe, and utmost reproach to the French, who it is believed brought in the Turks for diversion, that the French King might the more easily swallow Flanders, and pursue his unjust conquest on the empire, while we sat unconcerned and under a deadly charm from somebody.
There was this day a collection for rebuilding Newmarket, consumed by an accidental fire, which removing his Majesty thence sooner than was intended, put by the assassins, who were disappointed of their rendezvous and expectation by a wonderful providence. This made the King more earnest to render Winchester the seat of his autumnal field diversions for the future, designing a palace there, where the ancient castle stood; infinitely indeed preferable to Newmarket for prospects, air, pleasure, and provisions. The surveyor has already begun the foundation for a palace, estimated to cost £35,000, and his Majesty is purchasing ground about it to make a park, etc.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
4th October, 1683. I went to London, on receiving a note from the Countess of Arlington, of some considerable charge or advantage I might obtain by applying myself to his Majesty on this signal conjuncture of his Majesty entering up judgment against the city charter; the proposal made me I wholly declined, not being well satisfied with these violent transactions, and not a little sorry that his Majesty was so often put upon things of this nature against so great a city, the consequence whereof may be so much to his prejudice; so I returned home. At this time, the Lord Chief-Justice Pemberton was displaced. He was held to be the most learned of the judges, and an honest man. Sir George Jeffreys was advanced, reputed to be most ignorant, but most daring. Sir George Treby, Recorder of London, was also put by, and one Genner, an obscure lawyer, set in his place. Eight of the richest and chief aldermen were removed and all the rest made only justices of the peace, and no more wearing of gowns, or chains of gold; the Lord Mayor and two sheriffs holding their places by new grants as _custodes_, at the King's pleasure. The pomp and grandeur of the most august city in the world thus changed face in a moment; which gave great occasion of discourse and thoughts of hearts, what all this would end in. Prudent men were for the old foundations.
Following his Majesty this morning through the gallery, I went with the few who attended him, into the Duchess of Portmouth's DRESSING ROOM within her bedchamber, where she was in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of her bed, his Majesty and the gallants standing about her; but that which engaged my curiosity, was the rich and splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice pulled down and rebuilt to satisfy her prodigal and expensive pleasures, while her Majesty's does not exceed some gentlemen's ladies in furniture and accommodation. Here I saw the new fabric of French tapestry, for design, tenderness of work, and incomparable imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything I had ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germains, and other palaces of the French King, with huntings, figures, and landscapes, exotic fowls, and all to the life rarely done. Then for Japan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, braseras, etc., all of massy silver and out of number, besides some of her Majesty's best paintings.
Surfeiting of this, I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's and went contented home to my poor, but quiet villa. What contentment can there be in the riches and splendor of this world, purchased with vice and dishonor?
10th October, 1683. Visited the Duchess of Grafton, not yet brought to bed, and dining with my Lord Chamberlain (her father), went with them to see Montague House, a palace lately built by Lord Montague, who had married the most beautiful Countess of Northumberland. It is a stately and ample palace. Signor Verrio's fresco paintings, especially the funeral pile of Dido, on the staircase, the labors of Hercules, fight with the Centaurs, his effeminacy with Dejanira, and Apotheosis or reception among the gods, on the walls and roof of the great room above,--I think exceeds anything he has yet done, both for design, coloring, and exuberance of invention, comparable to the greatest of the old masters, or what they so celebrate at Rome. In the rest of the chamber are some excellent paintings of Holbein, and other masters. The garden is large, and in good air, but the fronts of the house not answerable to the inside. The court at entry, and wings for offices seem too near the street, and that so very narrow and meanly built, that the corridor is not in proportion to the rest, to hide the court from being overlooked by neighbors; all which might have been prevented, had they placed the house further into the ground, of which there was enough to spare. But on the whole it is a fine palace, built after the French pavilion-way, by Mr. Hooke, the Curator of the Royal Society. There were with us my Lady Scroope, the great wit, and Monsieur Chardine, the celebrated traveler.
13th October, 1683. Came to visit me my old and worthy friend, Mr. Packer, bringing with him his nephew Berkeley, grandson to the honest judge. A most ingenious, virtuous, and religious gentleman, seated near Worcester, and very curious in gardening.
17th October, 1683. I was at the court-leet of this manor, my Lord Arlington his Majesty's High Steward.
26th October, 1683. Came to visit and dine with me, Mr. Brisbane, Secretary to the Admiralty, a learned and agreeable man.
30th October, 1683. I went to Kew to visit Sir Henry Capell, brother to the late Earl of Essex; but he being gone to Cashiobury, after I had seen his garden and the alterations therein, I returned home. He had repaired his house, roofed his hall with a kind of cupola, and in a niche was an artificial fountain; but the room seems to me over-melancholy, yet might be much improved by having the walls well painted _á fresco_. The two green houses for oranges and myrtles, communicating with the rooms below, are very well contrived. There is a cupola made with pole-work between two elms at the end of a walk, which being covered by plashing the trees to them, is very pretty; for the rest there are too many fir trees in the garden.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
17th November, 1683. I took a house in Villiers Street, York Buildings, for the winter, having many important concerns 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 Whitehall and rendered himself, on which were various discourses.
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.
30th November, 1683. At the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society the King sent us two does. Sir Cyril Wych was elected President.