On 6th February 1685 King Charles II. died after an apoplectic fit, and his brother James, Duke of York, ascended the throne. Evelyn comments fully on the virtues and vices of the late monarch. ‘He would doubtless have been an excellent Prince had he been less addicted to women, who made him uneasy, and allways in want to supply their immeasurable profusion, to ye detriment of many indigent persons who had signaly serv’d both him and his father..... He was ever kind to me, and very gracious upon all occasions, and therefore I cannot, without ingratitude, but deplore his loss, which for many respects, as well as duty, I do with all my soul.’
With the accession of James II., Evelyn was again to feel the sunny warmth of royal favour in the form of an official appointment. But previous to this he had to suffer a heavy loss by the death from small-pox of his eldest daughter Mary, in the 19th year of her age, who had been born at Wotton in the same room as her father had first seen the light.
In September 1685 Evelyn was informed that on Lord Clarendon, Lord Privy Seal, going to assume the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland the King had nominated him as one of the Commissioners to execute the office of Privy Seal during such appointment; and early in December he was ‘put into the new Commission of Sewers.’ It was nearly Christmas before he kissed hands on receiving the patent for executing this office and entered on its duties along with the two other Commissioners. They performed these till the 10th March 1687, when the King relieved them with compliments on their ‘faithfull and loyal service, with many gracious expressions to this effect’, and bestowed the seal on Lord Arundel of Wardour, a zealous Roman Catholic.
In the early days of James II’s reign the patronage which seemed to be coming in Evelyn’s direction appears to have, not unnaturally perhaps, somewhat coloured his opinion as to the new monarch’s capacity and disposition. After a journey undertaken with Pepys to Windsor, Winchester, and Portsmouth in September 1685, whither the King went to view the state of the fortifications, he recorded that ‘what I observ’d in this journey, is that infinite industry, sedulity, gravity, and greate understanding and experience of affairs, in his Majesty, that I cannot but predict much happiness to ye nation, as to its political government; and if he so persist, there could be nothing more desir’d to accomplish our prosperity, but that he was of the national church.’ Biassed and prejudiced in the royal favour as he then temporarily was, this account of King James proved so totally incorrect that it is a wonder Evelyn retained it in the compilation which he left as his _Diary_. The only explanation seems to be that he wished to record his prevision as regards Roman Catholicism proving the main rock upon which the King might come to grief, as he afterwards did.