[18] Sir William Howard, created in November, 1640, Viscount Stafford. In 1678, he was accused of complicity with the Popish Plot, and upon trial by his Peers in Westminster Hall, was found guilty, by a majority of twenty-four. He was beheaded, December 29, 1680, on Tower Hill.
[19] Balthasar de Monconys, a Frenchman, celebrated for his travels in the East, which he published in three volumes. His object was to discover vestiges of the philosophy of Trismegistus and Zoroaster; in which, it is hardly necessary to add, he was not very successful.
[20] A word adopted by Evelyn for a subterranean passage, from the famous grot of Pausilippo, at Naples.
[21] Henrietta, the King's sister, married to Philip, Duke of Orleans, was then on a visit here. Madame Querouaille came over in her train, on purpose to entice Charles into an union with Louis XIV.; a design which unhappily succeeded but too well. She became the King's mistress, was made Duchess of Portsmouth, and was his favorite till his death.
[22] Better known by the name of Grinling Gibbon; celebrated for his exquisite carving. Some of his most astonishing work is at Chatsworth and at Petworth.
[23] Evelyn here refers to Dryden's "Conquest of Granada".
[24] The carving in the choir, etc., of St. Paul's Cathedral was executed by Gibbon.
[25] Nell Gwynne: there can be no doubt as to the name with which we are to fill up these blanks. This familiar interview of Nelly and the King has afforded a subject for painters.
[26] This entry of 10th May, 1671, so far as it relates to Blood, and the stealing of the crown, etc., is a mistake. Blood stole the crown on the 9th of May, 1671—the very day before; and the "not long before" of Evelyn, and the circumstance of his being "pardoned," which Evelyn also mentions, can hardly be said to relate to only the day before.
[27] Sir Matthew Hale, so famous as one of the justices of the bench in Cromwell's time. After the Restoration, he became Chief Baron of the Exchequer; then Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and died in 1676. The author of numerous works, not only on professional subjects, but on mathematics and philosophy.