Year: 1641 (Page 7 of 7)

On the 27th of April, came over out of Holland the young Prince of Orange, with a splendid equipage, to make love to his Majesty’s eldest daughter, the now Princess Royal.

That evening, was celebrated the pompous funeral of the Duke of Richmond, who was carried in effigy, with all the ensigns of that illustrious family, in an open chariot, in great solemnity, through London to Westminster Abbey.

I repaired to London to hear and see the famous trial of the Earl of Strafford, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, who, on the 22d of March, had been summoned before both Houses of Parliament, and now appeared in Westminster-hall ((On the 15th of April Strafford made his eloquent defense, which it seems to have been Evelyn’s good fortune to be present at. And here the reader may remark the fact, not without significance, that between the entries on this page of the Diary which relate to Lord Strafford, the young Prince of Orange came over to make love to the Princess Royal, then twelve years old; and that the marriage was subsequently celebrated amid extraordinary Court rejoicings and festivities, in which the King took a prominent part, during the short interval which elapsed between the sentence and execution of the King‘s great and unfortunate minister. – Footnote by Austin Dobson)) which was prepared with scaffolds for the Lords and Commons, who, together with the King, Queen, Prince, and flower of the noblesse, were spectators and auditors of the greatest malice and the greatest innocency that ever met before so illustrous an assembly.

It was Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Earl Marshal of England, who was made High Steward upon this occasion; and the sequel is too well known to need any notice of the event.

I gave a visit to my cousin Hatton, of Ditton ((Thames Ditton -GS)).

1641.  It was a sad and lugubrious beginning of the year, when on the 2d of January, 1640-1, we at night followed the mourning hearse to the church at Wotton; when, after a sermon and funeral oration by the minister, my father was interred (( On the north wall of the Wotton Dormitory. His epitaph says he died on the 20th December.  – Footnote by Austin Dobson )) near his formerly erected monument, and mingled with the ashes of our mother, his dear wife. Thus we were bereft of both our parents in a period when we most of all stood in need of their counsel and assistance, especially myself, of a raw, vain, uncertain, and very unwary inclination: but so it pleased God to make trial of my conduct in a conjuncture of the greatest and most prodigious hazard that ever the youth of England saw; and, if I did not amidst all this impeach my liberty nor my virtue with the rest who made shipwreck of both, it was more the infinite goodness and mercy of God than the least providence or discretion of mine own, who now thought of nothing but the pursuit of vanity, and the confused imaginations of young men.