17 December 1685 – 23 December 1685

I dined at the great entertainment his Majesty gave the Venetian Ambassadors, Signors Zenno and Justiniani, accompanied with ten more noble Venetians of their most illustrious families, Cornaro, Maccenigo, etc., who came to congratulate their Majesties coming to the Crown. The dinner was most magnificent and plentiful, at four tables, with music, kettledrums, and trumpets, which sounded upon a whistle at every health. The banquet was twelve vast chargers piled up so high that those who sat one against another could hardly see each other. Of these sweetmeats, which doubtless were some days piling up in that exquisite manner, the Ambassadors touched not, but leaving them to the spectators who came out of curiosity to see the dinner, were exceedingly pleased to see in what a moment of time all that curious work was demolished, the comfitures voided, and the tables cleared. Thus his Majesty entertained them three days, which (for the table only) cost him £600, as the Clerk of the Greencloth (Sir William Boreman) assured me. Dinner ended, I saw their procession, or cavalcade, to Whitehall, innumerable coaches attending. The two Ambassadors had four coaches of their own, and fifty footmen (as I remember), besides other equipage as splendid as the occasion would permit, the Court being still in mourning. Thence, I went to the audience which they had in the Queen's presence chamber, the Banqueting House being full of goods and furniture till the galleries on the garden-side, council chamber, and new chapel, now in the building, were finished. They went to their audience in those plain black gowns and caps which they constantly wear in the city of Venice. I was invited to have accompanied the two Ambassadors in their coach to supper that night, returning now to their own lodgings, as no longer at the King's expense; but, being weary, I excused myself.

My Lord Treasurer made me dine with him, where I became acquainted with Monsieur Barillon, the French Ambassador, a learned and crafty advocate.

Dr. Turner, brother to the Bishop of Ely, and sometime tutor to my son, preached at Whitehall on Mark viii. 38, concerning the submission of Christians to their persecutors, in which were some passages indiscreet enough, considering the time, and the rage of the inhuman French tyrant against the poor Protestants.

Our patent for executing the office of Privy Seal during the absence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, being this day sealed by the Lord Chancellor, we went afterward to St. James, where the Court then was on occasion of building at Whitehall; his Majesty delivered the seal to my Lord Tiviot and myself, the other Commissioners not being come, and then gave us his hand to kiss. There were the two Venetian Ambassadors and a world of company; among the rest the first Popish Nuncio that had been in England since the Reformation; so wonderfully were things changed, to the universal jealousy.