Gentlemen was, the Christmas being kept this year (1641) with great solemnity; but being desirous to passe it in the Country, I got leave to resign my staffe of office, and went with my brother Richard to Wotton.’ From January till March he was back in London ‘studying a little, but dancing and fooling more.’

III
Evelyn’s Early Manhood, Continental Travels and Studies, Voluntary Exile, and Return to England 1647.

It was hardly possible that anyone situated as Evelyn was could hold aloof from the party strife when civil war broke out during the course of this year. And, of course, he was on the Royalist side. But he did not serve long with the troops. Here is his own record of that military service,—‘Oct. 3rd. To Chichester, and hence the next day to see the siege of Portsmouth; for now was that bloody difference betweene the King and Parliament broken out, which ended in the fatal tragedy so many years after. It was on the day of its being render’d to Sir William Waller, which gave me an opportunity of taking my leave of Colonel Goring the Governor, now embarqueing for France. This day was fought that signal Battaile at Edgehill. Thence I went to Southampton and Winchester, where I visited the Castle, Schole, Church, and King Arthur’s Round Table, but especially the Church, and its Saxon Kings’ Monuments, which I esteemed a worthy antiquity. 12th. November, was the Battle of Braineford surprisingly fought, and to the greate consternation of the Citty had his Majesty (as twas believed he would) pursu’d his advantage. I came in with my horse and armes just at the retreate, but was not permitted   to stay longer than the 15th. by reason of the Army’s marching to Glocester, which would have left both me and my brother expos’d to ruine, without any advantage to his Majestie. Dec. 7th. I went from Wotton to London to see the so much celebrated line of com’unication, and on the 10th. returned to Wotton, nobody knowing of my having been in his Majestie’s Army.’

During the first half of 1643 Evelyn employed himself entirely in rural occupations, visiting the garden and vineyard of Hatfield and similar places. From time to time, however, he made many journeys to and from London. What he sometimes saw there gave him much food for ample reflection. ‘May 2nd. I went from Wotton to London, where I saw the furious and zelous people demolish that stately Crosse in Cheapside. On the 4th. I returned with no little regrett for the confusion that threatened us. Resolving to possess myself in some quiet if it might be, in a time of so great jealosy, I built by my Brother’s permission a study, made a fishpond, an island, and some other solitudes and retirements, at Wotton, which gave the first occasion of improving them to those water-works and gardens which afterwards succeeded them, and became at that tyme the most famous of England.’ But, willy nilly, he was bound to become dragged into action on the King’s behalf. ‘July 12th. I sent my black manege horse and furniture with a friend to his Majestie then at Oxford. 23rd. The Covenant being pressed, I absented myselfe; but finding it impossible to evade the doing very unhandsome things, and which had been a greate cause of my perpetual motions hitherto between Wotton and London, Oct. 2nd. I obtayned a lycence of his Majestie, dated at Oxford and sign’d by the King, to travell againe.’ Accordingly, on 7th. November, he took boat at the Tower wharf for Sittingbourne, ‘being only a payre of oares, expos’d to a hideous storm, thence posting to Dover accompanied by an Oxford friend, Mr. Thicknesse, and crossing the Channel to Calais.’

Proceeding by Boulogne, Monstreuil, Abbeville, Beauvais, Beaumont, and St. Denys to Paris, of which he gives a very interesting account, he threw himself into the social life of that gay capital. His first step was to make his duty to   Sir Richard Browne, afterwards his father-in-law, then in charge of British affairs pending the arrival of the Earl of Norwich, who came immediately after that as Ambassador Extraordinary. That Evelyn’s purse was fairly well lined the Parisian passages in his Diary distinctly show. He appears to have taken part in many gay excursions and junkettings, though he sometimes reckoned the cost. ‘At an inn in this village (St. Germains en Lay) is an host who treats all the greate persons in princely lodgings for furniture and plate, but they pay well for it, as I have don. Indeede the entertainment is very splendid, and not unreasonable, considering the excellent manner of dressing their meate, and of the service. Here are many debauches and excessive revellings, as being out of all noise and observance.’ Wherever he visited the royal gardens and villas, or those of the great nobles and other magnates, he writes rapturously of what he saw. Sometimes, though, his joyous optimism rather leads one to doubt the quality of his taste, as when, writing of Richelieu’s villa at Ruell, he says ‘This leads to the Citroniere, which is a noble conserve of all those rarities; and at the end of it is the Arch of Constantine, painted on a wall in oyle, as large as the real one at Rome, so well don that even a man skilled in painting may mistake it for stone and sculpture. The skie and hills which seem to be between the arches are so naturall that swallows and other birds, thinking to fly through, have dashed themselves against the wall. I was infinitely taken with this agreeable cheate.’ But he was certainly gradually acquiring the materials which were afterwards to be so well used by him in his great works on gardening. After a tour made in Normandy with Sir John Cotton, a Cambridgeshire knight, he quitted Paris in April, 1644. Marching across by Chartres and Estamps to Orleans, the party of which he formed one had an encounter with brigands, ‘for no sooner were we entred two or three leagues into ye Forest of Orleans (which extends itself many miles), but the company behind us were set on by rogues, who, shooting from ye hedges and frequent covert, slew fowre upon the spot... I had greate cause to give God thankes for this escape.’ Taking boat, he went down the Loire to St. Dieu, and thence rode to Blois and on to Tours,   where he stayed till the autumn. ‘Here I took a master of the language and studied the tongue very diligently, recreating myself sometimes at the maill, and sometymes about the towne.’ Here, too, he paid his duty to the Queen of England, ‘having newly arrived, and going for Paris.’ In the latter part of September, still accompanied by his friend Thicknesse, he left Tours and ‘travelled towards the more southerne part of France, minding now to shape my course so as I might winter in Italy.’ Journeying southward, partly by road and partly by river, he visited Lyons, Avignon, and Marseilles, whither he wended his way deliciously ‘thro’ a country sweetely declining to the South and Mediterranean coasts, full of vineyards and olive-yards, orange-trees, myrtils, pomegranads, and the like sweete plantations, to which belong pleasantly-situated villas ...... as if they were so many heapes of snow dropp’d out of the clouds amongst these perennial greenes.’ Taking mules to Cannes, he went by sea to Genoa ‘having procur’d a bill of health (without which there is no admission at any towne in Italy).’ On reaching ‘Mongus, now cal’d Monaco’ on the route, ‘we were hastened away, having no time permitted us by our avaricious master to go up and see this strong and considerable place.’

On Oct. 16th., after ‘much ado and greate perill’ he landed on Italian soil. He was fully prepared to have the most delicious pleasure in this classical land, having already, even during the stormy weather off the coast, ‘smelt the peculiar joys of Italy in the perfumes of orange, citron, and jassmine flowers for