Downing, vicar of Hackney) calls Downing a sider with all times and
changes: skilled in the common cant, and a preacher occasionally.
He was sent by Cromwell to Holland in 1657, as resident there. At
the Restoration, he espoused the King’s cause, and was knighted and
elected M.P. for Morpeth, in 1661. Afterwards, becoming
Secretary to the Treasury and Commissioner of the Customs, he was in
1663 created a Baronet of East Hatley, in Cambridgeshire, and was
again sent Ambassador to Holland. His grandson of the same name,
who died in 1749, was the founder of Downing College, Cambridge.
The title became extinct in 1764, upon the decease of Sir John
Gerrard Downing, the last heir-male of the family. Sir George
Downing’s character will be found in Lord Clarendon’s “Life,” vol.
iii. p. 4. Pepys’s opinion seems to be somewhat of a mixed kind.
He died in July, 1684.]
Jan. 1st (Lord’s day). This morning (we living lately in the garret,) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other, clothes but them. Went to Mr. Gunning’s
[Peter Gunning, afterwards Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge,
and successively Bishop of Chichester and Ely. He had continued to
read the Liturgy at the chapel at Exeter House when the Parliament
was most predominant, for which Cromwell often rebuked him. Evelyn
relates that on Christmas Day, 1657, the chapel was surrounded with
soldiers, and the congregation taken prisoners, he and his wife
being among them. There are several notices of Dr. Gunning in
Evelyn’s Diary. When he obtained the mastership of St. John’s
College upon the ejection of Dr. Tuckney, he allowed that
Nonconformist divine a handsome annuity during his life. He was a
great controversialist, and a man of great reading. Burnet says he
“was a very honest sincere man, but of no sound judgment, and of no
prudence in affairs” (“Hist. of his Own. Time”). He died July 6th,
1684, aged seventy-one.]
chapel at Exeter House, where he made a very good sermon upon these words:—“That in the fulness of time God sent his Son, made of a woman,” &c.; showing, that, by “made under the law,” is meant his circumcision, which is solemnized this day. Dined at home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains of a turkey, and in the doing of it she burned her hand. I staid at home all the afternoon, looking over my accounts; then went with my wife to my father’s, and in going observed the great posts which the City have set up at the Conduit in Fleet-street. Supt at my father’s, where in came Mrs. The. Turner—[Theophila Turner, daughter of Sergeant John and Jane Turner, who married Sir Arthur Harris, Bart. She died 1686.]—and Madam Morrice, and supt with us. After that my wife and I went home with them, and so to our own home.
2nd. In the morning before I went forth old East brought me a dozen of bottles of sack, and I gave him a shilling for his pains. Then I went to Mr. Sheply—[Shepley was a servant of Admiral Sir Edward Montagu]—who was drawing of sack in the wine cellar to send to other places as a gift from my Lord, and told me that my Lord had given him order to give me the dozen of bottles. Thence I went to the Temple to speak with Mr. Calthropp about the £60 due to my Lord,
[Sir Edward Montagu, born 1625, son of Sir Sidney Montagu, by
Paulina, daughter of John Pepys of Cottenham, married Jemima,
daughter of John Crew of Stene. He died in action against the Dutch
in Southwold Bay, May 28th, 1672. The title of “My Lord” here
applied to Montagu before he was created Earl of Sandwich is of the
same character as that given to General Lambert.]
but missed of him, he being abroad. Then I went to Mr. Crew’s
[John Crew, born 1598, eldest son of Sir Thomas Crew, Sergeant-at-
Law and Speaker of the House of Commons. He sat for Brackley in the
Long Parliament. Created Baron Crew of Stene, in the county of
Northampton, at the coronation of Charles II. He married Jemima,
daughter and co-heir of Edward Walgrave (or Waldegrave) of Lawford,
Essex. His house was in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He died December
12th, 1679.]
and borrowed £10 of Mr. Andrewes for my own use, and so went to my office, where there was nothing to do. Then I walked a great while in Westminster Hall, where I heard that Lambert was coming up to London; that my Lord Fairfax
[Thomas, Lord Fairfax, Generalissimo of the Parliament forces.
After the Restoration, he retired to his country seat, where he
lived in private till his death, 1671. In a volume (autograph) of
Lord Fairfax’s Poems, preserved in the British Museum, 11744, f. 42,
the following lines occur upon the 30th of January, on which day the
King was beheaded. It is believed that they have never been
printed.
“O let that day from time be bloted quitt,
And beleef of ‘t in next age be waved,
In depest silence that act concealed might,
That so the creadet of our nation might be saved;
But if the powre devine hath ordered this,
His will’s the law, and our must aquiess.”
These wretched verses have obviously no merit; but they are curious
as showing that Fairfax, who had refused to act as one of Charles
I’s judges; continued long afterwards to entertain a proper horror
for that unfortunate monarch’s fate. It has recently been pointed
out to me, that the lines were not originally composed by Fairfax,
being only a poor translation of the spirited lines of Statius
(Sylvarum lib. v. cap. ii. l. 88)
“Excidat illa dies aevo, ne postera credant
Secula, nos certe taceamus; et obruta multa
Nocte tegi propria patiamur crimina gentis.”
These verses were first applied by the President de Thou to the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572; and in our day, by Mr. Pitt, in
his memorable speech in the House of Commons, January, 1793, after
the murder of Louis XVI.—B.]
was in the head of the Irish brigade, but it was not certain what he would declare for. The House was to-day upon finishing the act for the Council of State, which they did; and for the indemnity to the soldiers; and were to sit again thereupon in the afternoon. Great talk that many places have declared for a free Parliament; and it is believed that they will be forced to fill up the House with the old members. From the Hall I called at home, and so went to Mr. Crew’s (my wife she was to go to her father’s), thinking to have dined, but I came too late, so Mr. Moore and I and another gentleman went out and drank a cup of ale together in the new market, and there I eat some bread and cheese for my dinner. After that Mr. Moore and I went as far as Fleet-street together and parted,