Volume II Part 23 (2/2)
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 a.s.sa.s.sins, 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 j.a.pan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, braseras, etc., all of ma.s.sy 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 G.o.ds, 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 Ess.e.x; but he being gone to Cas.h.i.+obury, 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 _a 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 plas.h.i.+ng 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 n.o.ble 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.
5th December, 1683. I was this day invited to a wedding of one Mrs.
Castle, to whom I had some obligation, and it was to her fifth husband, a lieutenant-colonel of the city. She was the daughter of one Burton, a broom-man, by his wife, who sold kitchen stuff in Kent Street, whom G.o.d so blessed that the father became a very rich, and was a very honest man; he was sheriff of Surrey, where I have sat on the bench with him.
Another of his daughters was married to Sir John Bowles; and this daughter was a jolly friendly woman. There was at the wedding the Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, several Aldermen and persons of quality; above all, Sir George Jeffreys, newly made Lord Chief Justice of England, with Mr.
Justice Withings, danced with the bride, and were exceedingly merry.
These great men spent the rest of the afternoon, till eleven at night, in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of judges, who had but a day or two before condemned Mr.
Algernon Sidney, who was executed the 7th on Tower Hill, on the single witness of that monster of a man, Lord Howard of Escrick, and some sheets of paper taken in Mr. Sidney's study, pretended to be written by him, but not fully proved, nor the time when, but appearing to have been written before his Majesty's Restoration, and then pardoned by the Act of Oblivion; so that though Mr. Sidney was known to be a person obstinately averse to government by a monarch (the subject of the paper was in answer to one by Sir E. Filmer), yet it was thought he had very hard measure. There is this yet observable, that he had been an inveterate enemy to the last king, and in actual rebellion against him; a man of great courage, great sense, great parts, which he showed both at his trial and death; for, when he came on the scaffold, instead of a speech, he told them only that he had made his peace with G.o.d, that he came not thither to talk, but to die; put a paper into the sheriff's hand, and another into a friend's; said one prayer as short as a grace, laid down his neck, and bid the executioner do his office.
The Duke of Monmouth, now having his pardon, refuses to acknowledge there was any treasonable plot; for which he is banished Whitehall. This is a great disappointment to some who had prosecuted Trenchard, Hampden, etc., that for want of a second witness were come out of the Tower upon their _habeas corpus_.
The King had now augmented his guards with a new sort of dragoons, who carried also grenades, and were habited after the Polish manner, with long peaked caps, very fierce and fantastical.
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