Chapter XV: Part 15

15th. To White Hall, to the Duke: where he first put on a periwigg to-day: but methought his hair cut short in order thereto did look very prettily of itself, before he put on his periwigg. Great news of the arrivall of two rich ships, the Greyhound and another, which they were mightily afraid of, and great insurance given. This afternoon Sir Thomas Chamberlin [Son of William Chamberlayne, an English Judge, and created a Baronet 1642.] come to the office to me, and showed me several letters from the East Indys, showing the height that the Dutch are come to there, showing scorn to all the English, even in our only Factory there at Surat, beating several men, and hanging the English standard St. George under the Dutch flag in scorn: saying, that whatever their masters do or say at home, they will do what they list, and be masters of all the world there; and have so proclaimed themselves Soveraine of all the South Seas; which certainly our King cannot endure, if the Parliament will give him money. But I doubt and yet do hope they will not yet, till we are more ready for it.

17th. Mr. Pierce tells me of the King's giving of my Lord FitzHarding two leases which belong indeed to the Queene, worth 20,000l. to him; and how people do talk of it.

19th. Mr. Cutler come, and walked and talked with me a great while; and then to the 'Change together; and it being early, did tell me several excellent examples of men raised upon the 'Change by their great diligence and saving; as also his own fortune, and how credit grew upon him; that when he was not really worth 1,100l., he had credit for 100,000l.; of Sir W. Rider how he rose; and others. By and by joyned with us Sir John Bankes; [An opulent merchant, residing in Lincoln's Inn Fields.] who told us several passages of the East India Company; and how in every case, when there was due to him and Alderman Mico 64,000l. from the Dutch for injury done to them in the East Indys, Oliver presently after the peace, they delaying to pay them the money, sent them word, that if they did not pay them by such a day, he would grant letters of mark to those merchants against them; by which they were so fearful of him, they did presently pay the money every farthing. Took my wife; and taking a coach, went to visit; my Ladys Jemimah and Paulina Montagu, and Mrs. Elizabeth Pickering, [Lord Sandwich's niece.] whom we found at their father's new house in Lincolne's Fields; but the house all in dirt. They received us well enough; but I did not endeavour to carry myself over familiarly with them: and so after a little stay, there coming in presently after us my Lady Aberguenny [Probably Mary, daughter of Thomas Clifford, Esq., of Dunton Walet, Essex, wife to George, ninth Lord Abergavenny.] and other ladies, we back again by coach.

22nd. This evening come Mr. Alsopp the King's brewer, with whom I spent an hour talking and bewailing the posture of things at present; the King led away by half-a-dozen men, that none of his serious servants and friends can come at him. These are Lauderdale, Buckingham, Hamilton, FitzHarding, (to whom he hath, it seems, given 12,000l. per annum in the best part of the King's estate); and that the old Duke of Buckingham could never get of the King. Projers is another, [Edward Progers, Esq., the King's Valet-de-Chambre, and the confidant of his amours. Ob. 1713, aged ninety-six.] and Sir H. Bennett. He loves not the Queene at all, but is rather sullen to her; and she, by all reports, incapable of children. He is so fond of the Duke of Monmouth, that every body admires it; and he says that the Duke hath said, that he would be the death of any man that says the King was not married to his mother: though Alsopp says, it is well known that she was a common strumpet before the King was acquainted with her. But it seems, he says, that the King is mighty kind to these his bastard children; and at this day will go at midnight to my Lady Castlemaine's nurses, and take the child and dance it in his arms: that he is not likely to have his tables up again in his house, for the crew that are about him will not have him come to common view again, but keep him obscurely among themselves. He hath this night, it seems, ordered that the Hall (which there is a ball to be in to-night before the King) be guarded, as the Queene-Mother's is, by his Horse Guards; whereas heretofore they were by the Lord Chamberlain or Steward, and their people. But it is feared they will reduce all to the soldiery, and all other places be taken away; and what is worst of all, will alter the present militia, and bring all to a flying army. That my Lord Lauderdale, being Middleton's enemy, [John Earl of Middleton, General of the Forces in Scotland.] and one that scorns the Chancellor even to open affronts before the King, hath got the whole power of Scotland into his hand; whereas the other day he was in a fair way to have had his whole estate, and honour, and life, voted away from him. That the King hath done himself all imaginable wrong in the business of my Lord Antrim, [Randall, second Earl, and first Marquis of Antrim. Ob. 1673.] in Ireland; who, though he was the head of rebels, yet he by his letter owns to have acted by his father's and mother's and his commissions: but it seems the truth is, he hath obliged himself upon the clearing of his estate, to settle it upon a daughter of the Queene-Mother's (by my Lord Germin, [Earl of St. Albans.] I suppose,) in marriage be it to whom the Queene pleases: which is a sad story. It seems a daughter of the Duke of Lenox's was, by force, going to be married the other day at Somerset House, to Harry Germin; but she got away and run to the King, and he says he will protect her. She is, it seems, very near akin to the King. Such mad doings there are every day among them! There was a French book in verse, the other day, translated and presented to the Duke of Monmouth in such a high stile, that the Duke of York, he tells me, was mightily offended at it. The Duke of Monmouth's mother's brother hath a place at Court; and being a Welchman, (I think he told me,) will talk very broad of the King's being married to his sister. The King did the other day, at the Council, commit my Lord Digby's [George, Lord Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, who had been Secretary of State in 1643; but by changing his religion while abroad, at the instigation of Don John of Austria, incapacitated himself from being restored to that office; and in consequence of the disappointment, which he imputed to the interference of the Lord Chancellor, conspired and effected his ruin. He was installed K.G. in 1661, and died 1676.] chaplin, and steward, and another servant, who went upon the process begun there against their lord, to swear that they saw him at church, and receive the Sacrament as a Protestant, (which, the Judges said, was sufficient to prove him such in the eye of the law); the King, I say, did commit them all to the Gate-house, notwithstanding their pleading their dependance upon him, and the faith they owed him as their lord, whose bread they eat. And that the King should say, that he would soon see whether he was King, or Digby. That the Queene-mother had outrun herself in her expences, and is now come to pay very ill, or run in debt the money being spent that she received for leases. He believes there is not any money laid up in bank, as I told him some did hope; but he says, from the best informers he can assure me there is no such thing, nor any body that should look after such a thing; and that there is not now above 80,000l. of the Dunkirke money left in stock. That Oliver the year when he spent 1,400,000l. in the Navy did spend in the whole expence of the kingdom 2,600,000l. That all the Court are mad for a Dutch war; but both he and I did concur, that it was a thing rather to be dreaded than hoped for; unless by the French King's falling upon Flanders, they and the Dutch should be divided. That our Embassador had, it is true, an audience; but in the most dishonourable way that could be; for the Princes of the Blood (though invited by our Embassador, which was the greatest absurdity that ever Embassador committed these 400 years) were not there; and so were not said to give place to our King's Embassador. And that our King did openly say, the other day in the Privy Chamber, that he would not be hectored out of his right and pre-eminences by the King of France, as great as he was. That the Pope is glad to yield to a peace with the French (as the news-book says,) upon the basest terms that ever was. That the talk which these people about our King, that I named before, have, is to tell him how neither priviledge of Parliament nor City is any thing; but that his will is all, and ought to be so: and their discourse, it seems, when they are alone, is so base and sordid, that it makes the eares of the very gentlemen of the back stairs (I think he called them) to tingle to hear it spoke in the King's hearing; and that must be very bad indeed. That my Lord Digby did send to Lisbon a couple of priests, to search out what they could against the Chancellor concerning the match, as to the point of his knowing before-hand that the Queene was not capable of bearing children; and that something was given her to make her so. But as private as they were, when they come thither they were clapped up prisoners. That my Lord Digby endeavours what he can to bring the business into the House of Commons, hoping there to master the Chancellor, there being many enemies of his there: but I hope the contrary. That whereas the late King did mortgage Clarendon [Clarendon Park near Salisbury.] to somebody for 20,000l., and this to have given it to the Duke of Albemarle, and he sold it to my Lord Chancellor, whose title of Earldome is fetched from thence; the King hath this day sent his order to the Privy Seale for the payment of this 20,000l. to my Lord Chancellor, to clear the mortgage. Ireland in a very distracted condition about the hard usage which the Protestants meet with, and the too good which the Catholiques. And from all together, God knows my heart, I expect nothing but ruin can follow, unless things are better ordered in a little time.

23rd. This day, by the blessing of God, I have lived thirty-one years in the world: and, by the grace of God, I find myself not only in good health in every thing, and particularly as to the stone, but only pain upon taking cold, and also in a fair way of coming to a better esteem and estate in the world, than ever I expected. But I pray God give me a heart to fear a fall, and to prepare for it.

24th (Ash Wednesday). To the Queene's chapel, where I staid and saw their masse, till a man come and bid me go out or kneel down: so I did go out. And thence to Somerset House; and there into the chapel, where Monsieur d'Espagne [Probably author of a small volume called "Shibboleth, ou, Reformation de quelques Passages de la Bible, per Jean d'Espagne; Ministre du St. Evangile," in the Pepysian Collection, printed 1653, and dedicated to Cromwell.] used to preach. But now it is made very fine, and was ten times more crouded than the Queene's chapel at St. James's: which I wonder at. Thence down to the garden of Somerset House, and up and down the new building, which in every respect will be mighty magnificent and costly.

27th. Sir Martin Noell told us the dispute between him, as farmer of the Additional Duty, and the East India Company, whether callico be linnen or no: which he says it is, having been ever esteemed so: they say it is made of cotton woole, and grows upon trees, not like flax or hemp. But it was carried against the Company, though they stand out against the verdict.

28th (Lord's day). Up and walked to Paul's; and by chance it was an extraordinary day for the Readers of the Inns of Court and all the Students to come to church, it being an old ceremony not used these twenty-five years, upon the first Sunday in Lent. Abundance there was of Students, more than there was room to seat but upon forms, and the Church mighty full. One Hawkins preached, an Oxford man. A good sermon upon these words: "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable." Both before and after sermon I was most impatiently troubled at the Quire, the worst that; ever I heard. But what was extraordinary, the Bishop of London, [Humphrey Henchman translated from Salisbury, September 1663. Ob. 1675.] who sat there in a pew, made a' purpose for him by the pulpitt, do give the last blessing to the congregation; which was, he being a comely old man, a very decent thing, methought. The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir J. Robinson, would needs have me by coach home with him, where the officers of his regiment dined with him. After dinner to chapel in the Tower with the Lieutenant, with the keyes carried before us, and the Warders and Gentleman-porter going before us. And I sat with the Lieutenant in his pew, in great state. None, it seems, of the prisoners in the Tower that are there now, though they may, will come to prayers there.

29th. To Sir Philip Warwick, who showed me many excellent collections of the state of the Revenue in former Kings' and the late times, and the present. He showed me how the very assessments between 1643 and 1659, which were taxes, (besides Excise, Customes, Sequestrations, Decimations, King and Queene's and Church Lands, or any thing else but just the Assessments,) come to above fifteen millions. He showed me a discourse of his concerning the Revenues of this and foreign States. How that of Spayne was great but divided with his kingdoms, and so come to little. How that of France did, and do much exceed ours before for quantity; and that it is at the will of the Prince to tax what he will upon his people; which is not here. That the Hollanders have the best manner of tax, which is only upon the expence of provisions, by an excise; and do conclude that no other tax is proper for England but a pound-rate, or excise upon the expence of provisions. He showed me every particular sort of payment away of money, since the King's coming in, to this day; and told me, from one to one, how little he hath received of profit from most of them: and I believe him truly. That the 1,200,000l. which the Parliament with so much ado did first vote to give the King, and since hath been re-examined by several committees of the present Parliament, is yet above 300,000l. short of making up really to the King the 1,200,000l. as by particulars he showed me. And in my Lord Treasurer's excellent letter to the King upon this subject, he tells the King how it was the spending more than the revenue that did give the first occasion of his fathers ruine, and did since to the rebels; who, he says, just like Henry the Eighth, had great and sudden increase of wealth, but yet by overspending both died poor: and further tells the King how much of this 1,200,000l. depends upon the life of the Prince, and so must be renewed by Parliament again to his successor; which is seldom done without parting with some of the prerogatives of the Crowne; or if denied and he persists to take it of the people, it gives occasion to a civill war, which did in the late business of tonnage and poundage prove fatal to the Crowne. He showed me how many ways the Lord Treasurer did take before he moved the King to farme the Customes in the manner he do, and the reasons that moved him to do it. He showed me a very excellent argument to prove, that our importing lesse than we export, do not impoverish the kingdom, according to the received opinion: which, though it be a paradox, and that I do not remember the argument, yet methought there was a great deal in what he said. And upon the whole I find him a most exact and methodicall man, and of great industry: and very glad that he thought fit to show me all this; though I cannot easily guess the reason why he should do it to me, unless from the plainness that he sees I use to him in telling him how much the King may suffer for our want of understanding the case of our Treasury.

MARCH 2, 1663-64. This morning Mr. Burgby, one of the writing clerks belonging to the Council, a knowing man, complains to me how most of the Lords of the Council do look after themselves and their own ends, and none the public, unless Sir Edward Nicholas. Sir G. Carteret is diligent, but for all his own ends and profit. My Lord Privy Seale, a destroyer of every body's business, and do no good at all to the public. The Archbishop of Canterbury [Gilbert Sheldon.] speaks very little, nor do much, being now come to the highest pitch that he can expect. He tells me, that he believes that things will go very high against the Chancellor by Digby, and that bad things will be proved. Talks much of his neglecting the King; and making the King to trot every day to him, when he is well enough to go to visit his cosen Chief- Justice Hide, but not to the Council or King. He commends my Lord of Ormond mightily in Ireland; but cries out cruelly of Sir G. Lane for his corruption; and that he hath done my Lord great dishonour by selling of places here, which are now all taken away, and the poor wretches ready to starve. But nobody almost understands or judges of business better than the King, if he would not be guilty of his father's fault to be doubtfull of himself and easily be removed from his own opinion. That my Lord Lauderdale is never from the King's care nor council, and that he is a most cunning fellow. Upon the whole, that he finds things go very bad every where; and even in the Council nobody minds the public.

4th. There were several people trying a new-fashion gun brought my Lord Peterborough this morning, to shoot off often, one after another, without trouble or danger. At Greenwich I observed the foundation laying of a very great house for the King, which will cost a great deal of money.

10th. At the Privy Seale I enquired, and found the Bill come for the Corporation of the Royall Fishery: whereof the Duke of York is made present Governor, and severall other very great persons, to the number of thirty-two, made his assistants for their lives: whereof, by my Lord Sandwich's favour, I am one: and take it not only as a matter of honour, but that, that may come to be of profit to me.

14th. To White Hall; and in the Duke's chamber, while he was dressing, two persons of quality that were there did tell his Regal Highness how the other night, in Holborne, about midnight, being at cards, a link-boy come by and run into the house, and told the people the house was a-falling. Upon this the whole family was frighted, concluding that the boy had said that; the house was a-fire: so they left their cards above, and one would have got out of the balcony, but it was not open; the other went up to fetch down his children, that were in bed: so all got clear out of the house. And no sooner so, but the house fell down indeed, from top to bottom. It seems my Lord Southampton's canaille did come too near their foundation, and so weakened the house, and down it come: which, in every respect, is a most extraordinary passage. The business between my Lords Chancellor and Bristoll, they say, is hushed up: and the latter gone or going, by the King's licence, to France.

15th. My poor brother Tom died.

16th. To the office, where we sat this afternoon, having changed this day our sittings from morning to afternoon, because of the Parliament which returned yesterday; but was adjourned till Monday next, upon pretence that many of the members were said to be upon the road; and also the King had other affairs, and so desired them to adjourn till then. But the truth is, the King is offended at my Lord of Bristoll, as they say, whom he hath found to have been all this while (pretending a desire of leave to go into France, and to have all the differences between him and the Chancellor made up,) endeavouring to make: factions in both Houses to the Chancellor. So the King did this to keep the Houses from meeting; and in the meanwhile sent a guard and a herald last night to have taken him at Wimbleton, where he was in the morning, but could not find him: at which the King was and is still mightily concerned, and runs up and down to and from the Chancellor's like a boy: and it seems would make Digby's articles against the Chancellor to be treasonable reflections against his Majesty. So that the King is very high, as they say; and God knows what will follow upon it!

18th. To church, and with the grave-maker chose a place for my brother to lie in, just under my mother's pew. But to see how a man's tombes [QUERY Bones?] are at the mercy of such a fellow, that for sixpence he would, (as his own words were,) "I will justle them together but I will make room for him;" speaking of the fulness of the middle isle, where he was to lie. I dressed myself, and so did my servant Besse; and so to my brother's again: whither, though invited, as the custom is, at one or two o'clock, they come not till four or five. But at last one after another they come, many more than I bid: and my reckoning that I bid was one hundred and twenty; but I believe there was nearer one hundred and fifty. Their service was six biscuits a-piece, and what they pleased of burnt claret. My cosen Joyce Norton kept the wine and cakes above; and did give out to them that served, who had white gloves given them. But above all, I am beholden to Mrs. Holding, who was most kind, and did take mighty pains not only in getting the house and every thing else ready, but this day in going up and down to see the house filled and served, in order to mine and their great content, I think; the men sitting by themselves in some rooms, and the women by themselves in others, very close, but yet room enough. Anon to church, walking out into the street to the Conduit, and so across the street; and had a very good company along with the corps and being come to the grave as above, Dr. Pierson, the minister of the parish, did read the service for buriall: and so I saw my poor brother laid into the grave.

21st. This day the Houses of Parliament met; and the King met them, with the Queene with him. And he made a speech to them: among other things, discoursing largely of the plots abroad against him and the peace of the kingdom; and that the dissatisfied party had great hopes upon the effect of the Act for a Triennial Parliament granted by his father, which he desired them to peruse, and, I think, repeal. So the Houses did retire to their own House, and did order the Act to be read to-morrow before them; and I suppose it will be repealed, though I believe much against the will of a good many that sit there.

23rd. To the Trinity House, and there dined very well: and good discourse among the old men. Among other things, they observed, that there are but two seamen in the Parliament, viz. Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen, and not above twenty or thirty merchants; which is a strange thing in an island.

25th. To White Hall, and there to chapel; where it was most infinite full to hear Dr. Critton. [Creighton.] The Doctor preached upon the thirty-first of Jeremy, and the twenty-first and twenty-second verses, about a woman compassing a man; meaning the Virgin conceiving and bearing our Saviour. It was the worst sermon I ever heard him make, I must confess; and yet it was good, and in two places very bitter, advising the King to do as the Emperor Severus did, to hang up a Presbyter John (a short coat and a long gowne interchangeably) in all the Courts of England. But the story of Severus was pretty, that he hanged up forty senators before the Senate-house, and then made a speech presently to the Senate in praise of his own lenity; and then decreed that never any senator after that time should suffer in the same manner without consent of the Senate: which he compared to the proceeding of the Long Parliament against my Lord Strafford. He said the greatest part of the lay magistrates in England were Puritans, and would not do justice; and the Bishops' powers were so taken away and lessened, that they could not exercise the power they ought. He told the King and the ladies, plainly speaking of death and of the skulls and bones of dead men and women, how there is no difference; that nobody could tell that of the great Marius or Alexander from a pyoneer; nor, for all the pains the ladies take with their faces, he that should look in a charnel-house could not distinguish which was Cleopatra's, or fair Rosamond's, or Jane Shore's.

26th. Sir W. Batten told me how Sir Richard Temple hath spoke very discontentful words in the house about the Triennial Bill; but it hath been read the second time to-day, and committed; and, he believes, will go on without more ado, though there are many in the house are displeased at it, though they dare not say much. But above all expectation, Mr. Prin is the man against it, comparing it to the idoll whose head was of gold, and his body and legs and feet of different metal. So this Bill had several degrees of calling of Parliaments, in case the King, and then the Council, and then the Lord Chancellor, and then the Sheriffes, should fail to do it. He tells me also, how, upon occasion of some 'prentices being put in the pillory to-day for beating of their masters or such like thing, in Cheapside, a company of 'prentices come and rescued them, and pulled down the pillory; and they being set up again, did the like again.

28th. The great matter to-day in the House hath been, that Mr. Vaughan, [John Vaughan, afterwards knighted, and made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.] the great speaker, is this day come to town, and hath declared himself in a speech of an hour and a half with great reason and eloquence, against the repealing of the Bill for Triennial Parliaments, but with no successe: but the House have carried it that there shall be such Parliaments, but without any coercive power upon the King, if he will bring this Act. But, Lord! to see how the best things are not done without some design; for I perceive all these gentlemen that I was with to-day, are against it (though there was reason enough on their side); yet purely I could perceive, because it was the King's mind to have it; and should he demand any thing else, I believe they would give it him.

APRIL 1, 1664. To White Hall; and in the Gallery met the Duke of York; (I also saw the Queene going to the Park, and her Maids of Honour: she herself looks ill, and methinks Mrs. Stewart is grown fatter, and not so fair as she was:) and he called me to him, and discoursed a good while with me; and after he was gone, twice or thrice staid and called me again to him, the whole length of the house: and at last talked of the Dutch; and I perceive do much wish that the Parliament will find reason to fall out with them.

3rd. Called up by W. Joyce, [William Joyce had married Mr. Pepys' first cousin, Kate Fenner.] he being summonsed to the House of Lords to-morrow, for endeavouring to arrest my Lady Peters for a debt. [Elizabeth, daughter of John Earl Rivers, and first wife to William fourth Lord Petre, who was, in 1678, impeached by the Commons of High Treason, and died under confinement in the Tower, January 5th, 1683, S.P.]

4th. Up, and walked to my Lord Sandwich's; and there spoke with him about W. Joyce, who tells me he would do what was fit; in so tender a point. I to the Lords' House before they sat; and stood within it, while the Duke of York come to me and spoke to me a good while about the new ship at Woolwich. Afterwards I spoke with my Lord Barkeley and my Lord Peterborough about it. And so staid without a good while, and saw my Lady Peters, an impudent jade, soliciting all the Lords on her behalf. And at last W. Joyce was called in; and by the consequences, and what my Lord Peterborough told me, I find that he did speak all he said to his disadvantage, and so was committed to the Black Rod: which is very hard, he doing what he did by the advice of my Lord Peter's own steward. But the Serjeant of the Black Rod did direct one of his messengers to take him in custody, and peaceably conducted him to the Swan with two Necks, in Tuttle-street, to a handsome dining-room; and there was most civilly used. It was a sad sight, methought, to-day to see my Lord Peters coming out of the House, fall out with his lady (from whom he is parted) about this business, saying that she disgraced him. But she hath been a handsome woman, and is, it seems, not only a lewd woman, but very high-spirited.

5th. Lord Peterborough presented a petition to the House from W. Joyce: and a great dispute, we hear, there was in the House for and against it. At last it was carried that he should be bayled till the House meets again after Easter, he giving bond for his appearance. Anon comes the King and passed the Bill for repealing the Triennial Act, and another about Writs of Errour. I crowded in and heard the King's Speech to them; but he speaks the worst that ever I heard man in my life: worse than if he read it all, and he had it in writing in his hand. I went to W. Joyce, where I found the order come, and bayle (his father and brother) given; and he paying his fees, which come to above 12l., besides 5l. he is to give one man, and his charges of eating and drinking here, and 10s. a-day as many days as he stands under bayle: which, I hope, will teach him hereafter to hold his tongue better than he used to do.

8th. Home to the only Lenten supper I have had of wiggs [Buns, still called wiggs in the West of England.] and ale.

15th. To the Duke's house, and there saw "The German Princesse" acted, by the woman herself; but never was any thing so well done in earnest, worse performed in jest upon the stage. [Mary Moders, alias Stedman, alias Carleton, a celebrated impostor, who had induced the son of a London citizen to marry her under the pretence that she was a German Princess. She next became an actress, after having been tried for bigamy and acquitted. The rest of her life was one continued course of robbery and fraud; and in 1678 she suffered at Tyburn, for stealing a piece of plate from a tavern in Chancery-lane.]

18th. Up and by coach to Westminster, and there solicited W. Joyce's business again; and did speak to the Duke of York about it, who did understand it very well. I afterwards did without the House fall in company with my Lady Peters, and endeavoured to mollify her: but she told me she would not, to redeem her from hell, do any thing to release him; but would be revenged while she lived, if she lived the age of Methusalem. I made many friends, and so did others. At last it was ordered by the Lords that it should be referred to the Committee of Priviledges to consider. So I away by coach to the 'Change; and there do hear that a Jew hath put in a policy of four per cent. to any man, to insure him against a Dutch warr for four months: I could find in my heart to take him at this offer. To Hide Park, where I have not been since last year: where I saw the King with his periwigg, but not altered at all; and my Lady Castlemaine in a coach by herself, in yellow satin and a pinner on; and many brave persons. And myself being in a hackney and full of people, was ashamed to be seen by the world, many of them knowing me.

19th. To the Physique Garden in St, James's Parke; where I first saw orange-trees, and other fine trees.

20th. Mr. Coventry told me how the Committee for Trade have received now all the complaints of the merchants against the Dutch, and were resolved to report very highly the wrongs they have done us, (when God knows! it is only our own negligence and laziness that hath done us the wrong): and this to be made to the House to-morrow.

21st. At the Lords' House heard that it is ordered, that, upon submission upon the knee both to the House and my Lady Peters, W. Joyce shall be released. I forthwith made him submit, and ask pardon upon his knees; which he did before several Lords. But my Lady would not hear it; but swore she would post the Lords, that the world might know what pitifull Lords the King hath: and that revenge was sweeter to her than milk; and that she would never be satisfied unless he stood in a pillory, and demand pardon there. But I perceive the Lords are ashamed of her. I find that the House this day have voted that the King be desired to demand right for the wrong done us by the Dutch, and that they will stand by him with their lives and fortunes: which is a very high vote, and more than I expected. What the issue will be, God knows!

23rd. I met with Mr. Coventry, who himself is now full of talk of a Dutch war: for it seems the Lords have concurred in the Commons' vote about it; and so the next week it will be presented to the King.

26th. Saw W. Joyce: and the late business hath cost the poor man above 40l., besides, he is likely to lose his debt. Lady Peters, Creed says, is a drunken jade, he himself having seen her drunk in the lobby of their House. My wife gone this afternoon to the buriall of my she-cosen Scott, a good woman: and it is a sad consideration how the Pepys's decay, and nobody almost that I know in a present way of encreasing them.

27th. This day the Houses attended the King, and delivered their votes to him upon the business of the Dutch; and he thanks them, and promises an answer in writing.

MAY 3, 1664. To Westminster Hall; and there, in the Lords' house, did in a great crowd, from ten o'clock till almost three, hear the cause of Mr. Roberts, [VIDE "Lords' Journals of the day."] my Lord Privy Seale's son, against Win, who by false ways did get the father of Mr. Roberts's wife (Mr. Bodvill) to give him the estate and disinherit, his daughter. The cause was managed for my Lord Privy Seale by Finch the solicitor; but I do really think that he is a man of as great eloquence as ever I heard, or ever hope to hear in all my life. Mr. Cutler told me how for certain Lawson hath proclaimed war again with Argier, though they had at his first coming given back the ships which they had taken, and all their men; though they refused afterwards to make him restitution for the goods which they had taken.

5th. My eyes beginning every day to grow less and less able to bear with long reading or writing, though it be by daylight; which I never observed till now.

13th. In the Painted Chamber I heard a fine conference between some of the two Houses upon the Bill for Conventicles. The Lords would be freed from having their houses searched by any but the Lord Lieutenant of the County: and upon being found guilty, to be tried only by their peers; and thirdly, would have it added, that whereas the Bill says, "That that, among other things, shall be a conventicle wherein any such meeting is found doing any thing contrary to the Liturgy of the Church of England," they would have it added, "or practice." The Commons to the Lords said, that they knew not what might hereafter be found out which might he called the practice of the Church of England: for there are many things may be said to be the practice of the Church, which were never established by any law either common, statute, or canon; as singing of psalms, binding up; prayers at the end of the Bible, and praying extempore before and after sermon: and though these are things indifferent, yet things for aught they at present know may be started, which may be said to be the practice of the Church which would not be fit to allow. For the Lords' priviledges, Mr. Waller told them how tender their predecessors had been of the priviledges of the Lords; but, however, where the peace of the kingdom stands in competition with them, they apprehend those priviledges must give place. He told them that he thought, if they should own all to be the priviledges of the Lords which might be demanded, they should be led like the man (who granted leave to his neighbour to pull off his horse's tail, meaning that he could not do it at once,) that hair by hair had his horse's tail pulled off indeed: so the Commons, by granting one thing after another, might be served by the Lords. Mr. Vaughan, whom I could not to my grief perfectly hear, did say, if that they should be obliged in this manner to exempt the Lords from every thing, it would in time come to pass that whatever (be it ever so great) should be voted by the Commons as a thing penall for a commoner, the contrary should be thought a priviledge to the Lords: that also in this business, the work of a conventicle being but the work of an hour, the cause of a search would be over before a Lord Lieutenant, who may be many miles off, can be sent for; and that all this dispute is but about 100l.: for it is said in the Act, that it shall be banishment or payment of 100l. I thereupon heard the Duke of Lennox say, that there might be Lords who could not always be ready to lose 100l., or some such thing. They broke up without coming to any end in it. There was also in the Commons' House a great quarrel about Mr. Prin, and it was believed that he should have been sent to the Tower, for adding something to a Bill (after it was ordered to be engrossed) of his own head--a Bill for measures for wine and other things of that sort, and a Bill of his own bringing in; but it appeared he could not mean any hurt in it. But, however, the King was fain to write in his behalf and all was passed over. But it is worth my remembrance, that I saw old Ryly the Herald, and his son; and spoke to his son, who told me in very bad words concerning Mr. Prin, that the King had given him an office of keeping the Records; but that he never comes thither, nor had been there these six months: so that I perceive they expect to get his employment from him.

19th, To a Committee of Tangier; where God forgive how our Report of my Lord Peterborough's accounts was read over and agreed to by the Lords, without one of them understanding it! And had it been what it would, it had gone: and, besides, not one thing touching the King's profit in it minded or hit upon.

20th. Mr. Edward Montagu is turned out of the Court, not to return again. His fault, I perceive, was his pride, and most of all his affecting to be great with the Queene: and it seems indeed he had more of her eare than every body else, and would be with her talking alone two or three hours together; insomuch that the Lords about the King, when he would be jesting with them about their wives, would tell the King that he must have a care of his wife too, for she hath now the gallant: and they say the King himself did once ask Montagu how his mistress (meaning the Queene) did. He grew so proud and despised every body, besides suffering nobody he or she to get or do any thing about the Queene, that they all laboured to do him a good turn. They all say that he did give some affront to the Duke of Monmouth, which the King himself did speak to him of. So he is gone,nobody pitying, but laughing at him: and he pretends only that he is gone to his father that is sick in the country.

23rd. The King is gone down with the Duke and a great crew this morning by break of day to Chatham.

29th. Mr. Coventry and I did a long discourse together of the business of the office, and the war with the Dutch; and he seemed to argue mightily with the little reason that there is for all this. For first, as to the wrong we pretend they have done us; that of the East Indys, for their not delivering of Poleron, it is not yet known whether they have failed or no; that of their hindering the Leopard cannot amount to above 3000l. if true; that of the Guinny Company, all they had done us did not amount to above 2 or 300l. he told me truly; and that now, from what Holmes, without any commission, hath done in taking an island and two forts, hath set us much in debt to them; and he believes that Holmes will have been so puffed up with this, that he by this time hath been enforced with more strength than he had then, hath, I say, done a great deal more wrong to them. He do, as to the effect of the war, tell me clearly that it is not any skill of the Dutch that can hinder our trade if we will, we having so many advantages over them, of winds, good ports, and men; but it is our pride, and the laziness of the merchant. The main thing he desired to speak with me about was, to understand my Lord Sandwich's intentions as to going to sea with this fleet; saying, that the Duke, if he desires it, is most willing to do it; but thinking that twelve ships is not a fleet fit for my Lord to be troubled to go out with, he is not willing to offer it to him till he hath some intimations of his mind to go, or not. To the King's closet; whither by and by the King come, my Lord Sandwich carrying the sword. A Bishop preached, but he speaking too low for me to hear. By and by my Lord Sandwich come forth, and called me to him: and we fell into discourse a great while about his business, wherein he seems to be very open with me, and to receive my opinion as he used to do: and I hope I shall become necessary to him again. He desired me to think of the fitness, or not, for him to offer himself to go to sea; and to give him my thoughts in a day or two. Thence after sermon among the ladies in the Queene's side; where I saw Mrs. Stewart, very fine and pretty, but far beneath my Lady Castlemaine. Thence with Mr. Povy home to dinner; where extraordinary cheer. [Evelyn mentions Mr. Povy's house in Lincoln's Inn.] And after dinner up and down to see his house, and in a word, methinks, for his perspective in the little closet; his room floored above with woods of several colours, like but above the best cabinet-work I ever saw; his grotto and vault, with his bottles of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of all sorts; his bath at the top of the house, good pictures, and his manner of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I did see of one man in all my life.

31st. I was told to-day, that upon Sunday night last, being the King's birth-day, the King was at my Lady Castlemaine's lodgings over the hither-gate at Lambert's lodgings, dancing with fiddlers all night almost; and all the world coming by taking notice of it.

JUNE 1, 1664. Southwell (Sir W. Pen's friend) tells me the very sad newes of my Lord Teviott's and nineteen more commission officers being killed at Tangier by the Moores, by an ambush of the enemy upon them, while they were surveying their lines: which is very sad and he says, afflicts the King much. To the Kings house and saw "The Silent Woman;" but methought not so well done or so good a play as I formerly thought it to be. Before the play was done, it fell such a storm of hayle, that we in the middle of the pit were fain to rise; and all the house in a disorder.

2nd. It seems my Lord Teviott's design was to go a mile and half out of the town to cut down a wood in which the enemy did use to lie in ambush. He had sent several spyes: but all brought word that the way was clear, and so might be for any body's discovery of an enemy before you are upon them. There they were all snapt, he and all his officers, and about two hundred men, as they say; there being left now in the garrison but four captains. This happened the 3rd of May last, being not before that day twelvemonth of his entering into his government there: but at his going out in the morning he said to some of his officers, "Gentlemen let us look to ourselves, for it was this day three years that so many brave Englishmen were knocked on the head by the Moores, when Fines made his sally out."

4th. Mr. Coventry discoursing this noon about Sir W. Batten, (what a sad fellow he is!) told me how the King told him the other day how Sir W. Batten, being in the ship with him and Prince Rupert when they expected to fight with Warwicke, did walk up and down sweating with a napkin under his throat to dry up his sweat: and that Prince Rupert being a most jealous man, and particularly of Batten, do walk up and down swearing bloodily to the King, that Batten had a mind to betray them to-day, and that the napkin was a signal; "but, by God," says he, "if things go ill, the first thing I will do is to shoot him." He discoursed largely and bravely to me concerning the different sorts of valours, the active and passive valour. For the latter, he brought as an instance General Blake, who, in the defending of Taunton and Lime for the Parliament, did through his sober sort of valour defend it the most opiniastrement that ever any man did any thing; and yet never was the man that ever made an attaque by land or sea, but rather avoyded it on all, even fair occasions. On the other side, Prince Rupert, the boldest attaquer in the world for personal courage; and yet in the defending of Bristol no man did any thing worse, he wanting the patience and seasoned head to consult and advise for defence, and to bear with the evils of a siege. The like he says of my Lord Teviott, who was the boldest adventurer of his person in the world, and from a mean man in few years was come to this greatness of command and repute only by the death of all his officers, he many times having the luck of being the only survivor of them all, by venturing upon services for the King of France that nobody else would; and yet no man upon a defence, he being all fury and no judgment in a fight. He tells me above all of the Duke of York, that he is more himself and more of judgment is at hand in him in the middle of a desperate service, than at other times, as appeared in the business of Dunkirke, wherein no man ever did braver things, or was in hotter service in the close of that day, being surrounded with enemies; and then, contrary to the advice of all about him, his counsel carried himself and the rest through them safe, by advising that he might make his passage with but a dozen with him; "For," says he, "the enemy cannot move after me so fast with a great body, and with a small one we shall be enough to deal with them:" and though he is a man naturally martiall to the hottest degree, yet a man that never in his life talks one word of himself or service of his own, but only that he saw such or such a thing, and lays it down for a maxime that a Hector can have no courage. He told me also, as a great instance of some men, that the Prince of Conde's excellence is, that there not being a more furious man in the world, danger in fight never disturbs him more than just to make him civill, and to command in words of great obligation to his officers and men; but without any the least disturbance in his judgment or spirit.

6th. By barge with Sir W. Batten to Trinity House. Here were my Lord Sandwich, Mr. Coventry, my Lord Craven, and others. A great dinner, and good company. Mr. Prin also, who would not drink any health, no, not the King's, but sat down with his hat on all the while; but nobody took notice of it to him at all.

11th. With my wife only to take the ayre, it being very warm and pleasant, to Bowe and Old Ford: and thence to Hackney. There light, and played at shuffle-board, eat cream and good cherries: and so with good refreshment home.

13th. Spent the whole morning reading of some old Navy books; wherein the order that was observed in the Navy then, above what it is now, is very observable.