Part 32

7th May, 1691. I went to visit the Archbishop of Canterbury [Sancroft] yet at Lambeth. I found him alone, and discoursing of the times, especially of the newly designed Bishops; he told me that by no canon or divine law they could justify the removing of the present incumbents; that Dr. Beveridge, designed Bishop of Bath and Wells, came to ask his advice; that the Archbishop told him, though he should give it, he believed he would not take it; the Doctor said he would; why then, says the Archbishop, when they come to ask, say "_Nolo_," and say it from the heart; there is nothing easier than to resolve yourself what is to be done in the case: the Doctor seemed to deliberate. What he will do I know not, but Bishop Ken, who is to be put out, is exceedingly beloved in his diocese; and, if he and the rest should insist on it, and plead their interest as freeholders, it is believed there would be difficulty in their case, and it may endanger a schism and much disturbance, so as wise men think it had been better to have let them alone, than to have proceeded with this rigor to turn them out for refusing to swear against their consciences. I asked at parting, when his Grace removed; he said that he had not yet received any summons, but I found the house altogether disfurnished and his books packed up.

1st June, 1691. I went with my son, and brother-in-law, Glanville, and his son, to Wotton, to solemnize the funeral of my nephew, which was performed the next day very decently and orderly by the herald in the afternoon, a very great appearance of the country being there. I was the chief mourner; the pall was held by Sir Francis Vincent, Sir Richard Onslow, Mr. Thomas Howard (son to Sir Robert, and Captain of the King's Guard), Mr. Hyldiard, Mr. James, Mr. Herbert, nephew to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and cousin-german to my deceased nephew. He was laid in the vault at Wotton Church, in the burying place of the family. A great concourse of coaches and people accompanied the solemnity.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

10th June, 1691. I went to visit Lord Clarendon, still prisoner in the Tower, though Lord Preston being pardoned was released.

17th June, 1691. A fast.

11th July, 1691. I dined with Mr. Pepys, where was Dr. Cumberland, the new Bishop of Norwich,[77] Dr. Lloyd having been put out for not acknowledging the Government. Cumberland is a very learned, excellent man. Possession was now given to Dr. Tillotson, at Lambeth, by the Sheriff; Archbishop Sancroft was gone, but had left his nephew to keep possession; and he refusing to deliver it up on the Queen's message, was dispossessed by the Sheriff, and imprisoned. This stout demeanor of the few Bishops who refused to take the oaths to King William, animated a great party to forsake the churches, so as to threaten a schism; though those who looked further into the ancient practice, found that when (as formerly) there were Bishops displaced on secular accounts, the people never refused to acknowledge the new Bishops, provided they were not heretics. The truth is, the whole clergy had till now stretched the duty of passive obedience, so that the proceedings against these Bishops gave no little occasion of exceptions; but this not amounting to heresy, there was a necessity of receiving the new Bishops, to prevent a failure of that order in the Church. I went to visit Lord Clarendon in the Tower, but he was gone into the country for air by the Queen's permission, under the care of his warden.

[Footnote 77: A mistake. Dr. Cumberland was made Bishop of Peterborough and Dr. John Moore succeeded Dr. Lloyd in the see of Norwich.]

18th July, 1691. To London to hear Mr. Stringfellow preach his first sermon in the newly erected Church of Trinity, in Conduit Street; to which I did recommend him to Dr. Tenison for the constant preacher and lecturer. This Church, formerly built of timber on Hounslow-Heath by King James for the mass priests, being begged by Dr. Tenison, rector of St. Martin's, was set up by that public-minded, charitable, and pious man near my son's dwelling in Dover Street, chiefly at the charge of the Doctor. I know him to be an excellent preacher and a fit person. This Church, though erected in St. Martin's, which is the Doctor's parish, he was not only content, but was the sole industrious mover, that it should be made a separate parish, in regard of the neighborhood having become so populous. Wherefore to countenance and introduce the new minister, and take possession of a gallery designed for my son's family, I went to London, where,

19th July, 1691. In the morning Dr. Tenison preached the first sermon, taking his text from Psalm xxvi. 8. "Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth." In concluding, he gave that this should be made a parish church so soon as the Parliament sat, and was to be dedicated to the Holy Trinity, in honor of the three undivided persons in the Deity; and he minded them to attend to that faith of the church, now especially that Arianism, Socinianism, and atheism began to spread among us. In the afternoon, Mr. Stringfellow preached on Luke vii. 5. "The centurion who had built a synagogue." He proceeded to the due praise of persons of such public spirit, and thence to such a character of pious benefactors in the person of the generous centurion, as was comprehensive of all the virtues of an accomplished Christian, in a style so full, eloquent, and moving, that I never heard a sermon more apposite to the occasion. He modestly insinuated the obligation they had to that person who should be the author and promoter of such public works for the benefit of mankind, especially to the advantage of religion, such as building and endowing churches, hospitals, libraries, schools, procuring the best editions of useful books, by which he handsomely intimated who it was that had been so exemplary for his benefaction to that place. Indeed, that excellent person, Dr. Tenison, had also erected and furnished a public library [in St. Martin's]; and set up two or three free schools at his own charges. Besides this, he was of an exemplary, holy life, took great pains in constantly preaching, and incessantly employing himself to promote the service of God both in public and private. I never knew a man of a more universal and generous spirit, with so much modesty, prudence, and piety.

The great victory of King William's army in Ireland was looked on as decisive of that war. The French General, St. Ruth, who had been so cruel to the poor Protestants in France, was slain, with divers of the best commanders; nor was it cheap to us, having 1,000 killed, but of the enemy 4,000 or 5,000.

26th July, 1691. An extraordinary hot season, yet refreshed by some thundershowers.

28th July, 1691. I went to Wotton.

2d August, 1691. No sermon in the church in the afternoon, and the curacy ill-served.

16th August, 1691. A sermon by the curate; an honest discourse, but read without any spirit, or seeming concern; a great fault in the education of young preachers. Great thunder and lightning on Thursday, but the rain and wind very violent. Our fleet come in to lay up the great ships; nothing done at sea, pretending that we cannot meet the French.

13th September, 1691. A great storm at sea; we lost the "Coronation" and "Harwich," above 600 men perishing.

14th October, 1691. A most pleasing autumn. Our navy come in without having performed anything, yet there has been great loss of ships by negligence, and unskillful men governing the fleet and Navy board.

7th November, 1691. I visited the Earl of Dover, who having made his peace with the King, was now come home. The relation he gave of the strength of the French King, and the difficulty of our forcing him to fight, and any way making impression into France, was very wide from what we fancied.

8th to 30th November, 1691. An extraordinary dry and warm season, without frost, and like a new spring; such as had not been known for many years. Part of the King's house at Kensington was burned.

6th December, 1691. Discourse of another PLOT, in which several great persons were named, but believed to be a sham.--A proposal in the House of Commons that every officer in the whole nation who received a salary above £500 or otherwise by virtue of his office, should contribute it wholly to the support of the war with France, and this upon their oath.

25th December, 1691. My daughter-in-law was brought to bed of a daughter.

26th December, 1691. An exceedingly dry and calm winter; no rain for many past months.

28th December, 1691. Dined at Lambeth with the new Archbishop. Saw the effect of my greenhouse furnace, set up by the Archbishop's son-in-law.

30th December, 1691. I again saw Mr. Charlton's collection of spiders, birds, scorpions, and other serpents, etc.

1st January, 1691-92. This last week died that pious, admirable Christian, excellent philosopher, and my worthy friend, Mr. Boyle, aged about 65,--a great loss to all that knew him, and to the public.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

6th January, 1692. At the funeral of Mr. Boyle, at St. Martin's, Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, preached on Eccles. ii. 26. He concluded with an eulogy due to the deceased, who made God and religion the scope of all his excellent talents in the knowledge of nature, and who had arrived to so high a degree in it, accompanied with such zeal and extraordinary piety, which he showed in the whole course of his life,

## particularly in his exemplary charity on all occasions,--that he gave

£1,000 yearly to the distressed refugees of France and Ireland; was at the charge of translating the Scriptures into the Irish and Indian tongues, and was now promoting a Turkish translation, as he had formerly done of Grotius "on the Truth of the Christian Religion" into Arabic, which he caused to be dispersed in the eastern countries; that he had settled a fund for preachers who should preach expressly against Atheists, Libertines, Socinians, and Jews; that he had in his will given £8,000 to charitable uses; but that his private charities were extraordinary. He dilated on his learning in Hebrew and Greek, his reading of the fathers, and solid knowledge in theology, once deliberating about taking Holy Orders, and that at the time of restoration of King Charles II., when he might have made a great figure in the nation as to secular honor and titles, his fear of not being able to discharge so weighty a duty as the first, made him decline that, and his humility the other. He spoke of his civility to strangers, the great good which he did by his experience in medicine and chemistry, and to what noble ends he applied himself to his darling studies; the works, both pious and useful, which he published; the exact life he led, and the happy end he made. Something was touched of his sister, the Lady Ranelagh, who died but a few days before him. And truly all this was but his due, without any grain of flattery.

This week a most execrable murder was committed on Dr. Clench, father of that extraordinary learned child whom I have before noticed. Under pretense of carrying him in a coach to see a patient, they strangled him in it; and, sending away the coachman under some pretense, they left his dead body in the coach, and escaped in the dusk of the evening.

12th January, 1692. My granddaughter was christened by Dr. Tenison, now Bishop of Lincoln, in Trinity Church, being the first that was christened there. She was named Jane.

24th January, 1692. A frosty and dry season continued; many persons die of apoplexy, more than usual. Lord Marlborough, Lieutenant-General of the King's army in England, gentleman of the bedchamber, etc., dismissed from all his charges, military and other, for his excessive taking of bribes, covetousness, and extortion on all occasions from his inferior officers. Note, this was the Lord who was entirely advanced by King James, and was the first who betrayed and forsook his master. He was son of Sir Winston Churchill of the Greencloth.

7th February, 1692. An extraordinary snow fell in most parts.

13th February, 1692. Mr. Boyle having made me one of the trustees for his charitable bequests, I went to a meeting of the Bishop of Lincoln, Sir Rob.... wood, and serjeant, Rotheram, to settle that clause in the will which related to charitable uses, and especially the appointing and electing a minister to preach one sermon the first Sunday in the month, during the four summer months, expressly against Atheists, Deists, Libertines, Jews, etc., without descending to any other controversy whatever, for which £50 per annum is to be paid quarterly to the preacher; and, at the end of three years, to proceed to a new election of some other able divine, or to continue the same, as the trustees should judge convenient. We made choice of one Mr. Bentley, chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester (Dr. Stillingfleet). The first sermon was appointed for the first Sunday in March, at St. Martin's; the second Sunday in April, at Bow Church, and so alternately.

28th February, 1692. Lord Marlborough having used words against the King, and been discharged from all his great places, his wife was forbidden the Court, and the Princess of Denmark was desired by the Queen to dismiss her from her service; but she refusing to do so, goes away from Court to Sion house. Divers new Lords made: Sir Henry Capel, Sir William Fermor, etc. Change of Commissioners in the Treasury. The Parliament adjourned, not well satisfied with affairs. The business of the East India Company, which they would have reformed, let fall. The Duke of Norfolk does not succeed in his endeavor to be divorced.[78]

[Footnote 78: See _post_ pp. 351-52.]

20th March, 1692. My son was made one of the Commissioners of the Revenue and Treasury of Ireland, to which employment he had a mind, far from my wishes. I visited the Earl of Peterborough, who showed me the picture of the Prince of Wales, newly brought out of France, seeming in my opinion very much to resemble the Queen his mother, and of a most vivacious countenance.

April, 1692. No spring yet appearing. The Queen Dowager went out of England toward Portugal, as pretended, against the advice of all her friends.

4th April, 1692. Mr. Bentley preached Mr. Boyle's lecture at St. Mary-le-Bow. So excellent a discourse against the Epicurean system is not to be recapitulated in a few words. He came to me to ask whether I thought it should be printed, or that there was anything in it which I desired to be altered. I took this as a civility, and earnestly desired it should be printed, as one of the most learned and convincing discourses I had ever heard.

6th April, 1692. A fast. King James sends a letter written and directed by his own hand to several of the Privy Council, and one to his daughter, the Queen Regent, informing them of the Queen being ready to be brought to bed, and summoning them to be at the birth by the middle of May, promising as from the French King, permission to come and return in safety.

24th April, 1692. Much apprehension of a French invasion, and of an universal rising. Our fleet begins to join with the Dutch. Unkindness between the Queen and her sister. Very cold and unseasonable weather, scarce a leaf on the trees.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

5th May, 1692. Reports of an invasion were very hot, and alarmed the city, Court, and people; nothing but securing suspected persons, sending forces to the seaside, and hastening out the fleet. Continued discourse of the French invasion, and of ours in France. The eastern wind so constantly blowing, gave our fleet time to unite, which had been so tardy in preparation, that, had not God thus wonderfully favored, the enemy would in all probability have fallen upon us. Many daily secured, and proclamations out for more conspirators.

8th May, 1692. My kinsman, Sir Edward Evelyn, of Long Ditton, died suddenly.

12th May, 1692. A fast.

13th May, 1692. I dined at my cousin Cheny's, son to my Lord Cheny, who married my cousin Pierpoint.

15th May, 1692. My niece, M. Evelyn, was now married to Sir Cyril Wyche, Secretary of State for Ireland. After all our apprehensions of being invaded, and doubts of our success by sea, it pleased God to give us a great naval victory, to the utter ruin of the French fleet, their admiral and all their best men-of-war, transport-ships, etc.

29th May, 1692. Though this day was set apart expressly for celebrating the memorable birth, return, and restoration of the late King Charles II., there was no notice taken of it, nor any part of the office annexed to the Common Prayer Book made use of, which I think was ill done, in regard his restoration not only redeemed us from anarchy and confusion, but restored the Church of England as it were miraculously.

9th June, 1692. I went to Windsor to carry my grandson to Eton School, where I met my Lady Stonehouse and other of my daughter-in-law's relations, who came on purpose to see her before her journey into Ireland. We went to see the castle, which we found furnished and very neatly kept, as formerly, only that the arms in the guard chamber and keep were removed and carried away. An exceeding great storm of wind and rain, in some places stripping the trees of their fruit and leaves as if it had been winter; and an extraordinary wet season, with great floods.

23d July, 1692. I went with my wife, son, and daughter, to Eton, to see my grandson, and thence to my Lord Godolphin's, at Cranburn, where we lay, and were most honorably entertained. The next day to St. George's Chapel, and returned to London late in the evening.

25th July, 1692. To Mr. Hewer's at Clapham, where he has an excellent, useful, and capacious house on the Common, built by Sir Den. Gauden, and by him sold to Mr. Hewer, who got a very considerable estate in the Navy, in which, from being Mr. Pepys's clerk, he came to be one of the principal officers, but was put out of all employment on the Revolution, as were all the best officers, on suspicion of being no friends to the change; such were put in their places, as were most shamefully ignorant and unfit. Mr. Hewer lives very handsomely and friendly to everybody. Our fleet was now sailing on their long pretense of a descent on the French coast; but, after having sailed one hundred leagues, returned, the admiral and officers disagreeing as to the place where they were to land, and the time of year being so far spent,--to the great dishonor of those at the helm, who concerted their matters so indiscreetly, or, as some thought, designedly.

This whole summer was exceedingly wet and rainy, the like had not been known since the year 1648; while in Ireland they had not known so great a drought.

26th July, 1692. I went to visit the Bishop of Lincoln, when, among other things, he told me that one Dr. Chaplin, of University College in Oxford, was the person who wrote the "Whole Duty of Man"; that he used to read it to his pupil, and communicated it to Dr. Sterne, afterward Archbishop of York, but would never suffer any of his pupils to have a copy of it.

9th August, 1692. A fast. Came the sad news of the hurricane and earthquake, which has destroyed almost the whole Island of Jamaica, many thousands having perished.

11th August, 1692. My son, his wife, and little daughter, went for Ireland, there to reside as one of the Commissioners of the Revenue.

14th August, 1692. Still an exceedingly wet season.

15th September, 1692. There happened an earthquake, which, though not so great as to do any harm in England, was universal in all these parts of Europe. It shook the house at Wotton, but was not perceived by any save a servant or two, who were making my bed, and another in a garret. I and the rest being at dinner below in the parlor, were not sensible of it. The dreadful one in Jamaica this summer was profanely and ludicrously represented in a puppet play, or some such lewd pastime, in the fair of Southwark, which caused the Queen to put down that idle and vicious mock show.

1st October, 1692. This season was so exceedingly cold, by reason of a long and tempestuous northeast wind, that this usually pleasant month was very uncomfortable. No fruit ripened kindly. Harbord dies at Belgrade; Lord Paget sent Ambassador in his room.

6th November, 1692. There was a vestry called about repairing or new building of the church [at Deptford], which I thought unseasonable in regard of heavy taxes, and other improper circumstances, which I there declared.

10th November, 1692. A solemn Thanksgiving for our victory at sea, safe return of the King, etc.

20th November, 1692. Dr. Lancaster, the new Vicar of St. Martin's, preached.

A signal robbery in Hertfordshire of the tax money bringing out of the north toward London. They were set upon by several desperate persons, who dismounted and stopped all travelers on the road, and guarding them in a field, when the exploit was done, and the treasure taken, they killed all the horses of those whom they stayed, to hinder pursuit, being sixteen horses. They then dismissed those that they had dismounted.

14th December, 1692. With much reluctance we gratified Sir J. Rotherham, one of Mr. Boyle's trustees, by admitting the Bishop of Bath and Wells to be lecturer for the next year, instead of Mr. Bentley, who had so worthily acquitted himself. We intended to take him in again the next year.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

January, 1692-93. Contest in Parliament about a self-denying Act, that no Parliament man should have any office; it wanted only two or three voices to have been carried. The Duke of Norfolk's bill for a divorce thrown out, he having managed it very indiscreetly. The quarrel between Admiral Russell and Lord Nottingham yet undetermined.

4th February, 1693. After five days' trial and extraordinary contest, the Lord Mohun was acquitted by the Lords of the murder of Montford, the player, notwithstanding the judges, from the pregnant witnesses of the fact, had declared him guilty; but whether in commiseration of his youth, being not eighteen years old, though exceedingly dissolute, or upon whatever other reason, the King himself present some part of the trial, and satisfied, as they report, that he was culpable. 69 acquitted him, only 14 condemned him.