4th August, 1686. I dined at Signor Verrio's, the famous Italian painter, now settled in his Majesty's garden at St. James's, which he had made a very delicious paradise.
8th August, 1686. Our vicar gone to dispose of his country living in Rutlandshire, having St. Dunstan in the east given him by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I went to visit the Marquis Ravigné, now my neighbor at Greenwich, retired from the persecution in France. He was the deputy of all the Protestants of that kingdom in the parliament of Paris, and several times Ambassador in this and other Courts; a person of great learning and experience.
8th September, 1686. Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, was on Monday suspended, on pretense of not silencing Dr. Sharp at St. Giles's, for something of a sermon in which he zealously reproved the doctrine of the Roman Catholics. The Bishop having consulted the civilians, they told him he could not by any law proceed against Dr. Sharp without producing witnesses, and impleaded according to form; but it was overruled by my Lord Chancellor, and the Bishop sentenced without so much as being heard to any purpose. This was thought a very extraordinary way of proceeding, and was universally resented, and so much the rather for that two Bishops, Durham and Rochester, sitting in the commission and giving their suffrages the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to sit among them. He was only suspended ab officio, and that was soon after taken off. He was brother to the Earl of Northampton, had once been a soldier, had traveled in Italy, but became a sober, grave, and excellent prelate.
12th September, 1686. Buda now taken from the Turks; a form of thanksgiving was ordered to be used in the (as yet remaining) Protestant chapels and church of Whitehall and Windsor.
The King of Denmark was besieging Hamburg, no doubt by the French contrivance, to embroil the Protestant Princes in a new war, that Holland,
etc., being engaged, matter for new quarrel might arise: the unheard-of persecution of the poor Protestants still raging more than ever.
22d September, 1686. The Danes retire from Hamburg, the Protestant Princes appearing for their succor, and the Emperor sending his minatories to the King of Denmark, and also requiring the restoration of the Duke of Saxe Gotha. Thus it pleased God to defeat the French designs, which were evidently to kindle a new war.
14th October, 1686. His Majesty's birthday; I was at his rising in his bedchamber, afterward in the park, where four companies of guards were drawn up. The officers, etc., wonderfully rich and gallant; they did not head their troops, but their next officers, the colonels being on horseback by the King while they marched. The ladies not less splendid at Court, where there was a ball at night; but small appearance of quality. All the shops both in the city and suburbs were shut up, and kept as solemnly as any holiday. Bonfires at night in Westminster, but forbidden in the city.
17th October, 1686. Dr. Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, preached at Covent Garden Church on Ephes. v. 18, 19, showing the custom of the primitive saints in serving God with hymns, and their frequent use of them upon all occasions: touching the profane way of mirth and intemperance of this ungodly age. Afterward I visited my Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, with whom I had long and private discourse concerning the miserable condition that kingdom was like to be in, if Tyrconnel's counsel should prevail at Court.