Volume II Part 23 (1/2)
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 ingrat.i.tude, 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.bleness 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 Yorks.h.i.+re. 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, Somersets.h.i.+re, 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 plata.n.u.s, 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 appet.i.te. 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 fas.h.i.+on; 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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.