8th December, 1669. To London, upon the second edition of my "Sylva," which I presented to the Royal Society.
6th February, 1669-70. Dr. John Breton, Master of Emmanuel College, in Cambridge (uncle to our vicar), preached on John i. 27; "whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose," etc., describing the various fashions of shoes, or sandals, worn by the Jews, and other nations: of the ornaments of the feet: how great persons had servants that took them off when they came to their houses, and bore them after them: by which pointing the dignity of our Savior, when such a person as St. John Baptist acknowledged his unworthiness even of that mean office. The lawfulness, decentness, and necessity, of subordinate degrees and ranks of men and servants, as well in the Church as State: against the late levelers, and others of that dangerous rabble, who would have all alike.
3d March, 1670. Finding my brother [Richard] in such exceeding torture, and that he now began to fall into convulsion-fits, I solemnly set the next day apart to beg of God to mitigate his sufferings, and prosper the only means which yet remained for his recovery, he being not only much wasted, but exceedingly and all along averse from being cut (for the stone); but, when he at last consented, and it came to the operation, and all things prepared, his spirit and resolution failed.
LONDON
6th March, 1670. Dr. Patrick preached in Covent Garden Church. I participated of the Blessed Sacrament, recommending to God the deplorable condition of my dear brother, who was almost in the last agonies of death. I watched late with him this night. It pleased God to deliver him out of this miserable life, toward five o'clock this Monday morning, to my unspeakable grief. He was a brother whom I most dearly loved, for his many virtues; but two years younger than myself, a sober, prudent, worthy gentleman. He had married a great fortune, and left one only daughter, and a noble seat at Woodcot, near Epsom. His body was opened, and a stone taken out of his bladder, not much bigger than a nutmeg. I returned home on the 8th, full of sadness, and to bemoan my loss.
20th March, 1670. A stranger preached at the Savoy French church; the Liturgy of the Church of England being now used altogether, as translated into French by Dr. Durell.
21st March, 1670. We all accompanied the corpse of my dear brother to Epsom Church, where he was decently interred in the chapel belonging to Woodcot House. A great number of friends and gentlemen of the country attended, about twenty coaches and six horses, and innumerable people.
22d March, 1670. I went to Westminster, where in the House of Lords I saw his Majesty sit on his throne, but without his robes, all the peers sitting with their hats on; the business of the day being the divorce of my Lord Ross. Such an occasion and sight had not been seen in England since the time of Henry VIII.[17]
5th May, 1670. To London, concerning the office of Latin Secretary to his Majesty, a place of more honor and dignity than profit, the reversion of which he had promised me.
21st May, 1670. Came to visit me Mr. Henry Saville, and Sir Charles Scarborough.