In the early days of James II’s reign the patronage which seemed to be coming in Evelyn’s direction appears to have, not unnaturally perhaps, somewhat coloured his opinion as to the new monarch’s capacity and disposition. After a journey undertaken with Pepys to Windsor, Winchester, and Portsmouth in September 1685, whither the King went to view the state of the fortifications, he recorded that ‘what I observ’d in this journey, is that infinite industry, sedulity, gravity, and greate understanding and experience of affairs, in his Majesty, that I cannot but predict much happiness to ye nation, as to its political government; and if he so persist, there could be nothing more desir’d to accomplish our prosperity, but that he was of the national church.’ Biassed and prejudiced in the royal favour as he then temporarily was, this account of King James proved so totally incorrect that it is a wonder Evelyn retained it in the compilation which he left as his Diary. The only explanation seems to be that he wished to record his prevision as regards Roman Catholicism proving the main rock upon which the King might come to grief, as he afterwards did.
Titus Oates’ conspiracy and the Duke of Monmouth’s invasion and insurrection went by without affecting Evelyn much. He was in the latter case called upon to supply a mounted trooper, which he did rather grudgingly. ‘The two horsemen which my son and myselfe sent into the county troopes, were now come home, after a moneth’s being out to our greate charge.’ But what concerned him much more was that matters frequently came before the Commission of the Privy Seal to which he could not, on religious grounds principally, give his assent. On such occasions he would sometimes go to his house in the country, ‘refusing to be present at what was to passe at the Privy Seale the next day’, because any two out of the three Commissioners formed a quorum. At other times, however, he had to face his responsibility properly, by refusing to put his seal to the papers in question, while noting his objections to the course of action proposed. The Papistry which was spreading over the country under the King’s influence seemed to darken the land and to obscure the future. ‘Popish Justices of the Peace establish’d in all counties, of the meanest of the people; Judges ignorant of the law, and perverting it—so furiously do the Jesuits drive, and even compel Princes to violent courses, and destruction of an excellent government both in Church and State. God of his infinite mercy open our eyes and turn our hearts, and establish his truth with peace! The Lord Jesus defend his little flock, and preserve this threaten’d Church and Nation.’
A staunch Protestant, Evelyn no longer possessed the King’s favour, and henceforth he received no further appointment or token of royal approval although he still frequented the Court at Whitehall. In August 1688 he was secretly informed by the Rev. Dr. Tenison, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, of the impending invasion of the Prince of Orange, and, while regularly paying his duty as a courtier, he informed the lately imprisoned Archbishop and Bishops of the intrigues on which the Jesuits were hard at work. And subsequently ‘My Lord of Canterbury gave me great thanks for the advertisement I sent him in October, and assured me they took my counsell in that particular, and that it came very seasonably.’ On 18th December, he ‘saw the King take barge to Gravesend at 12 o’clock—a sad sight,’ on the very day that the Prince of Orange came to St. James and filled Whitehall with Dutch guards. All the world at once went to pay court to the Prince whose star was now in the ascendant: and, of course, Evelyn went too. A couple of months later he ‘saw the new Queene and King proclaim’d the very next day after her coming to Whitehall, Wednesday 13 Feb., with greate acclamations and generall good reception.... It was believ’d that both, especially the Princesse, would have shew’d some (seeming) reluctance at least, of assuming her father’s Crown, and some apology, testifying her regret that he should by his mismanagement necessitate the Nation to so extraordinary a proceeding, which would have shew’d very handsomely to the world, and according to the character given by her piety; consonant also to her husband’s first decleration, that there was no intention of deposing the King, but of succouring the Nation; but nothing of all this appear’d; she came into White-hall laughing and jolly, as to a wedding, so as to seem quite transported..... This carriage was censured by many.’
After the Restoration Evelyn’s life as a courtier was practically at an end, as he never quite approved the enforced abdication of King James. So henceforth he spent his time, without further attendance at Court or seeking after office or appointment, in study, literary work, and retirement. He did not like the new régime, with its ‘Court offices distributed amongst Parliament men.... Things far from settled as was expected, by reason of the slothfull, sickly temper of the new King, and the Parliament’s unmindfullness of Ireland, which is likely to prove a sad omission.’ He even seems to have regretted that his son was in March 1692 made ‘one of the Commissioners of the Revenue and Treasury of Ireland, to which employment he had a mind far from my wishes.’ This son contracted serious illness in Ireland, and died ‘after a tedious languishing sickness’ early in 1699, aged 44 years, leaving one son, then a student at Oxford.
Some time before this his elder brother, George, having lost his last son and heir, had settled the Wotton estate upon John Evelyn. In May 1694, yielding to the request to make Wotton his home, he went to Wotton, leaving Sayes Court in charge of his daughter Susanna and her husband William Draper, whose marriage had been celebrated about a year previously. In 1696 it was let for three years to Admiral Benbow, who sublet it in 1698 to Peter the Great, then visiting the Deptford Dockyards for three months as his Majesty’s guest. So great was the destruction done to the gardens, trees, and holly-hedges, that Wren was asked to report on the compensation suitable, and £162-7-0 were paid to Evelyn for damage to the house and garden.
Early in 1695 Evelyn accepted the offer of the Treasurership of Greenwich Hospital, then about to be rebuilt and endowed for the maintainence of decayed seamen, which was made to him by Lord Godolphin, who had been the husband of his former friend Miss Blagg. During the days of Charles II. some such transformation of the Palace had been under consideration, but it was the 30th June 1696 before Evelyn and Sir Christopher Wren ‘laid the first stone of the intended foundation, precisely at 5 o’clock in the evening, after we had din’d together.’ This appointment carried with it ‘the salary of £200 per ann. of which I have never yet receiv’d one penny of the tallies assign’d for it, now two years at Lady-day; my son-in-law Draper is my substitute.’ When the new Commission for Greenwich Hospital was sealed in August 1703 Evelyn resigned his office of Treasurer in favour of Draper.
His brother George dying in October 1699, Evelyn then became the owner of Wotton, and looked to his grandson, the Oxford Student, to ‘be the support of the Wotton family.’ The lad had a bad attack of small-pox in the autumn of 1700, a malady that had caused many gaps in the family circle; but, coming safely through this illness, he was in July 1701, by the patronage of Lord Godolphin, made one of the Commissioners of the Prizes, with a salary of £500 a year, while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford. And in January 1704 the same noble patron appointed him Treasurer of the Stamp Duties, with a salary of £300 a year. He afterwards married Ann, daughter of Hugh Boscawen (afterwards Lord Falmouth), Lord Godolphin’s niece, and was created a baronet in 1713. It was through him that the present family of Evelyn of Wotton directly descend, though the baronetcy lapsed on the death of his grandson Frederick in 1812.
As he had done twenty years before, so also on now attaining his 80th birthday on 31st. October 1700 Evelyn rendered thanks for mercies with his characteristic religious feeling. ‘I with my soul render thanks to God, who of his infinite mercy, not only brought me out of many troubles, but this yeare restor’d me to health, after an ague and other infirmities of so greate an age, my sight, hearing and other senses and faculties tolerable, which I implore him to continue, with the pardon of my sins past, and grace to acknowledge by my improvement of his goodnesse the ensuing yeare, if it be his pleasure to protract my life, that I may be the better prepar’d for my last day, through the infinite merits of my blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus, Amen.’
Five times more was he to be privileged to record his thanks and prayers on successive returns of this anniversary. One of the very last entries in his memoirs is that on 31st. October 1705 ‘I am this day arriv’d to the 85th year of my age. Lord teach me so to number my days to come that I may apply them to wisdom’. And numbered, indeed, they then were; for on the 27th of February 1706 he passed quietly and peacefully away, retaining his faculties to the last. And he was laid at rest in the Chancel of Wotton Church.
During the course of his long and distinguished life he had seen many stirring events, had taken part in many important affairs, had achieved much, and had suffered much. He had outlived four reigns, two of which were terminated by a natural death, one by public execution, and one by abdication. He had served many public and other distinguished offices with zeal, ability, integrity, and success. He had given to English literature some of the classic works that are among the treasures of our literature of the Restoration period. He had outlived all of his six sons, most of whom had died in childhood, as well as his eldest and favourite daughter. Of all his nine children, the sole survivors were his daughter Elizabeth, who was soon afterwards married to a son of Sir John Tippet, and Susanna, wife of William Draper, afterwards of Adscomb near Croydon. After nearly 60 years of pure domestic wedded life, in marked contrast to the prevailing dissoluteness of the time, Evelyn was survived for nearly three years by his widow, who died in 1709, aged 74 years, cherishing to the last her love and affection for him to whom her destiny had been committed whilst she was still a mere child. ‘His care of my education’, she wrote in her last Will and Testament, ‘was such as might become a father, a lover, a friend, and a husband; for instruction, tenderness, affection and fidelity to the last moment of his life; which obligation I mention with a gratitude to his memory ever dear to me; and I must not omit to own the sense I have of my parents’ care and goodness in placing me in such worthy hands.’ Surely no husband ever had a nobler epitaph.