HKB
Evelyn’s Career after the Restoration. (1660-1685).
Evelyn was about forty years of age when the Restoration changed the whole prospects of his still long life. He had been a devoted Royalist, though it can not be denied that his zeal in this respect was ever tempered with a vast amount of caution and prudence. In addition to what interest he had earned by his own actions, he had the far more powerful influence of his father-in-law who had, like Charles himself, been exiled for nineteen years. Mrs. Evelyn was promised the appointment of lady of the jewels to the future Queen, which she never received; and Evelyn might have had the honour of knighthood of the Bath, but declined it. He was present at the Coronation in Westminster Abbey on St. George’s Day, 1661, and had prepared and printed a Panegyric poem on the occasion, a screed of bombastic doggerel in fulsome praise of the King. He was a frequent visitor at the Court, and loved to sun himself in the royal presence. One of the finest examples of this feature of Evelyn’s character is his Fumifugium, published in 1661, which will be more particularly referred to later on, a work which marks the real commencement of his literary career.
In 1661, also, Evelyn wrote a pamphlet entitled Tyrannus or the Mode, an invective against ‘our so much affecting the French’ in dress, and he was pleased with the idea that afterwards, in 1666, a change in costume then adopted by the King and court was due to this cause. He, too, donned and went to office in ‘the vest and surcoat and tunic as ’twas call’d, after his Majesty had brought the whole Court to it. It was a comely and manly habit, too good to hold, it being impossible for us in good earnest to leave ye Monsieurs vanities long.’
At length employment, at first unpaid, in the public service fell to Evelyn in May, 1662, when along with ‘divers gentlemen of quality,’ he was appointed one of the Commissioners ‘for reforming the buildings, wayes, streetes, and incumbrances, and regulating the hackney coaches in the Citty of London.’ About this same time he was also on the Commission appointed ‘about Charitable uses, and particularly to enquire how the Citty had dispos’d of the revenues of Gressham College,’ and in the original grant of the Charter of the Royal Society he was nominated by the King to be on its Council. Among the other Commissions upon which he shortly sat were those on Sewers, and on the regulation of the Mint at the Tower; but it was not till 27 Oct. 1664 that he received a paid appointment as one of the four Commissioners for the care of the sick and wounded prisoners to be made in the war declared against Holland. For this the remuneration was ‘a Salary £1,200 a year amongst us, besides extraordinaries for our care and attention in time of station, each of us being appointed to a particular district, mine falling out to be Kent and Sussex.’
Before this, however, an event had occurred which must have given intense gratification to Evelyn, when on 30th April, 1663, ‘Came his Majesty to honour my poore villa with his presence, viewing the gardens and even every roome of the house, and was pleas’d to take a small refreshment. There were with him the Duke of Richmond, E. of St. Albans, Lord Lauderdale, and several persons of Quality.’