John Aubrey: My Own Life (20 page)

. . .

I borrowed money from Captain Stumpe of Malmesbury. I will repay the bond.

. . .

Earlier this month
⁶
I bought – by fortunate accident – a curious Turkey, or turquoise, stone ring. It is not of fine blue rock, but greenish. Today I noticed that it has become nubilated, or cloudy, at north and south. It is a much more curious ring than I knew it to be when I bought it.

. . .

April

The aurora
⁷
of our soon to be gracious sovereign has arrived. In exile, the King in waiting has issued the Declaration of Breda, in which he makes certain promises with regard to reclaiming the crown of England:

– A full pardon to all who appeal to him within forty days, excepting only those who signed his father’s death warrant.

– Liberty to tender consciences in religious affairs, unless national peace is threatened.

– Settlement of army pay arrears; and all disputes arising from property deals since 1649 to be resolved by the new Parliament.

. . .

25 April

On this day the Convention, which General Monck summoned to solve the constitutional crisis, assembled for the first time. The first thing put to question was ‘Whether Charles Stuart should be sent for or no?’ No one voted against, and the cries of ‘Yea, yea’ resounded, so England will have a king again. This is the dawn of the coming of our soon to be gracious sovereign.

. . .

May

The Convention has proclaimed Charles II the rightful king since the execution of his father on 30 January 1649.

. . .

As the morning
⁸
grows lighter and lighter and more glorious until it is perfect day, so now does the joy of the people. Maypoles, which were banned in hypocritical times, have been set up again at crossroads. At the Strand, near Drury Lane, the tallest maypole ever seen was erected with help from seamen.

. . .

25 May

On this day
⁹
the King landed at Dover. He was met by General Monck and cheering crowds. To the thunder of a five-round salute from the ship’s guns, answered by the cannon of Dover Castle, Charles climbed down from his ship and into a barge. When he stepped ashore, around three o’clock, he knelt and thanked God. General Monck was the first to greet him, then they processed up the beach with a canopy of state held above their heads.

. . .

Last month, I wrote
¹⁰
to Mr Hobbes (who has been in Derbyshire this spring) and advised him to return to London in readiness for the King’s arrival in the city. He has heeded my advice. In 1647, Mr Hobbes taught His Majesty mathematics in Paris. This would be a fine time for the King to renew his grace and favour to his former tutor! I have an idea as to how a meeting might occur. If Mr Hobbes were to agree to have his portrait painted by Mr Samuel Cooper, the prince of limners, of whom the King has heard much abroad, they might meet most conveniently in the artist’s studio. Mr Cooper lives between Covent Garden and the Strand on Henrietta Street, which is very broad and pleasant.

. . .

Today is King Charles’s thirtieth birthday, and he has celebrated by making his entry into London.

This fine song (composed by William Yokeney back in 1646 or 1647) was sung to a lively brisk tune:

What if the King should come to the city,

Would he be then received I trow?

Would the Parliament treat him with rigor or pity?

Some doe think yea, but most doe think no, &c.

Most were wrong! The King has been received with rapture in the city.

. . .

At Rye
¹¹
, at Stansteds-bury, in the marsh ground, oak trees have been found standing upright underground.

. . .

Mr Hobbes tells me
¹²
the King noticed him at the gate of Little Salisbury House today. Passing in his carriage through the Strand, the King recognised Mr Hobbes, raised his hat very kindly to him and asked how he did.

. . .

The King and Mr Hobbes
¹³
met again today at Mr Samuel Cooper’s studio, as I hoped they might. The King is a great lover of painting. Mr Cooper will paint portraits of both the King and Mr Hobbes, and the King has ordered that Mr Hobbes be freely admitted to his presence from now on.

. . .

I have heard
¹⁴
that in Malmesbury, on the day of the return of the King and his birthday, there was such rejoicing, so many volleys of shot and cannon fired in celebration by the inhabitants of the hundred, that the noise thoroughly shook the abbey church. One of the pillars of the tower and two parts above it fell down that night.

. . .

July

My turquoise ring has changed
¹⁵
again. Now the cloudy spot in the north of the ring has entirely vanished and the one in the south has lessened.

. . .

29 August

On this day the Parliament passed An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity and Oblivion, asking the King to pardon everyone involved in the death of his father, except those who officiated at his execution. The Interregnum will be legally forgot. Blind Mr Milton will be released from prison. He was arrested recently and there have been burnings of his books.

. . .

October

My turquoise ring has become cloudy again in the north and a little speck has appeared in the middle.

. . .

December

I am one of the signatories
¹⁶
to proposals for a Royal Society for experimental philosophy, scientific experiment and discussion in London. The proposals will formalise an association of ingenious minds that has existed for a good number of years already.

My most honoured
¹⁷
and obliging friend Sir Robert Moray will try and obtain a Royal Charter for the new society. He has the King’s ear as much as anyone and is indefatigable in his undertakings.

. . .

Anno 1661

30 January

On this day, the twelfth anniversary of the execution of the late King, the exhumed bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were hanged on the gallows at Tyburn Hill. Henry Ireton was Cromwell’s son-in-law; he died of fever in 1651. John Bradshaw was president of the court that condemned Charles I to death and it was he who read the sentence against the King. He died in 1659.

My servant saw
¹⁸
the decomposed bodies taken down and buried under the gallows. Only Cromwell’s body was wrapped in serecloth. Ireton’s hands were rotted off but his body was not putrefied. Worms ran up and down the holes in Bradshaw’s body too.

. . .

The astrologer
¹⁹
Mr William Lilly has claimed that George Joyce was the masked executioner who condemned Charles I to death, so there is a warrant out for his arrest.

. . .

February

My mysterious turquoise ring has changed again. Now there is a cloudy spot on the west side that seems to be approaching the cloudy spot on the east side.

. . .

24 February

My honoured grandmother, Israel Lyte of Easton Pierse, has died. I am planning to place a memorial plaque to her in the church at Kington St Michael where my grandfather is buried.

. . .

I have been to visit
²⁰
Old Sarum, which went to rack after the building close by of Salisbury Cathedral in the thirteenth century. In the time of Edward VI, the great house of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton was built from the ruins of Old Sarum. I found the remains of some of the walls of the great gate on the south side, and on the north side there were some remains of the bottom of a tower, but the incrustation of freestone was almost all gone. I saw a fellow picking at what little was left.

. . .

The cloudy spot
²¹
in the north of my turquoise ring is now encircled with a halo. The ring is a rarity. I will show it to Mr Robert Boyle, who is interested in movement within stones and the hardening and softening of them by time. His book,
The History of Fluidity and Firmness
, will be printed this year.

. . .

Since the return
²²
of the King, my cousin Sir John Aubrey of Llantrithyd has been created baronet.

. . .

Mr Hobbes has had printed
Dialogus Physicus, sive de Natura Aeris
, in which he attacks the ideas of Mr Boyle and others in the Royal Society for experimental researches. Mr Hobbes complains that the new society is not beginning from the principles and method he set down in his book
De Corpore
.

. . .

April

Sir John Hoskyns
²³
writes to tell me of his visits to see the great collections of pictures and statues in Paris which, though he had read about them, greatly exceed his expectations. What would I not give to go to France to see those collections for myself? Sir John hopes to be in Venice for the ceremony of the Doge wedding the sea: the best sight in Venice all year.

. . .

I discussed the lace
²⁴
the King wore for his coronation, which took place on the 23rd of this month, with William Dobson’s sweet-faced widow Judith. His Majesty was crowned at the very conjunction of the sun and Mercury, Mercury being then
in corde solis
. As he was at dinner in Westminster Hall afterwards, it thundered and lightned extremely. The cannons and the thunder played together.

. . .

My friend, the prodigiously talented Mr Wenceslaus Hollar, has moved from Holburn to new lodgings without St Clements Inn. He tells me that when I call on him I should ask for ‘the Frenchman Limner’, for his neighbours know not his name perfectly. Mr Hollar was born in Prague, not France. He lived in England before our wars in the household of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. During our wars he moved to Antwerp, but came back to London about ten years ago.

Before the wars, Mr Hollar married Margaret Tracy, a servant of the Countess of Arundel. She died in 1653, leaving their two small children: a daughter who is one of the greatest beauties I have ever seen, and a son who is an ingenious youth that draws delicately, like his father.

Mr Hollar is very short-sighted
²⁵
. When he sketches his landscapes, he uses a glass to help his sight. His work is so closely drawn that the curiosity of it cannot be judged without using a magnifying glass.

. . .

May

Sir John Hoskyns writes
²⁶
to tell me he has spent two days in Venice, where he saw the ceremony of the Doge’s wedding of the sea and in the evening the Corso, which he says is like Hyde Park on water. He says the fine folk of Venice have fat faces and low noses, but are still handsome and well complexioned, either naturally or by art. But he is still convinced that Rome is the beauty of the world. He plans to visit Padua too. How much I wish I could go with him. I have asked him to try and find a book by Scarnolii for me while he is in Italy, but he claims it is exceeding scarce. He asks me in return to obtain copies of Mr Hobbes’s books for him before the hangman burns them. Mr Hobbes is suspected of atheism and heresy.

. . .

June

My cousin James Whitney
²⁷
, once a Fellow of Brasenose College, and afterwards vicar of the Wiltshire parish of Donhead St Andrews, tells me that during the Visitation of Oxford under Edward VI, mathematical books were burnt for conjuring books, and if the Greek professor had not happened to come along in time, the Greek Testament would have been thrown into the fire for a conjuring book too. Mr Whitney gave me his copy of Sebastian Münster’s
Rudimenta Mathematica
.

. . .

From north Wales, my friend and fellow antiquary Anthony Ettrick and I have crossed into Ireland, where we are travelling on horseback, observing this unhappy island. I find I am a quick draughtsman and can sketch the landscape in symbols as we pass through it.

This kingdom is in a very great distemper and has need of Mr Hobbes’s advice to settle it. The animosities between the English and the Irish are very great and before long, I am confident, will break into war.

The natives seem
²⁸
to scorn industry and luxury, contenting themselves only with necessities. On holidays we have seen whole parishes of the wild Irish running from hedge to hedge wren-hunting.

My friend William Petty conducted a survey of Ireland and in payment was granted great estates here by the Commonwealth government, but since the Restoration of the King he has had to return them to their former owners.

. . .

In Dublin we met
²⁹
Mr Stoughton, who has climbed Mount Pico in the Azores. He told us that they carried with them to the summit claret wine, strong waters and canary wine. The claret and strong waters turned, or curdled, at the top of the Pico like whey. But the canary wine did not. He said that the Pico can be seen from a distance of forty leagues at sea.

. . .

Today we saw a manuscript in Saxon characters in which the Magi are described as Druids.

. . .

On our way back from Ireland, through the waters of St George’s Channel, Anthony Ettrick and I seemed likely to be shipwrecked at Holy-head, but in the end we came to no harm. Deo Gratias!