set her down by her father's, being vexed in my mind and angry with her
for the ill-favoured place, among or near the whore houses, that she is
forced to come to him. So left her there, and I to Sir Th. Warwick's but
did not speak with him. Thence to take a turn in St. James's Park, and
meeting with Anth. Joyce walked with him a turn in the Pell Mell and so
parted, he St. James's ward and I out to Whitehall ward, and so to a
picture-sellers by the Half Moone in the street over against the Exchange,
and there looked over the maps of several cities and did buy two books of
cities stitched together cost me 9s. 6d., and when I came home thought of
my vowe, and paid 5s. into my poor box for it, hoping in God that I shall
forfeit no more in that kind. Thence, meeting Mr. Moore, and to the
Exchange and there found my wife at pretty Doll's, and thence by coach set
her at my uncle Wight's, to go with my aunt to market once more against
Lent, and I to the Coffee-house, and thence to the 'Change, my chief
business being to enquire about the manner of other countries keeping of
their masts wet or dry, and got good advice about it, and so home, and
alone ate a bad, cold dinner, my people being at their washing all day,
and so to the office and all the afternoon upon my letter to Mr. Coventry
about keeping of masts, and ended it very well at night and wrote it fair
over. This evening came Mr. Alsopp the King's brewer, with whom I spent
an houre 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,
Fitz-Harding (to whom he hath, it seems, given L2,000 per annum in the
best part of the King's estate); and that that the old Duke of Buckingham
could never get of the King. Progers is another, and Sir H. Bennett. He
loves not the Queen 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 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 whore before
the King lay 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,--[The
tables at which the king dined in public.-B.]--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 Queen-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 taken away; and
what is worst of all, that he will alter the present militia, and bring
all to a flying army. That my Lord Lauderdale, being Middleton's enemy,
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, 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, 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! The rape upon a woman at
Turnstile the other day, her husband being bound in his shirt, they both
being in bed together, it being night, by two Frenchmen, who did not only
lye with her but abused her with a linke, is hushed up for L300, being the
Queen Mother's servants. 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' chaplin, and steward, and another servant, who went upon the
process begun there against their lord, to swear that they saw him at
church, end 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 hath 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
L80,000 of the Dunkirke money left in stock. That Oliver in the year when
he spent L1,400,000 in the Navy, did spend in the whole expence of the
kingdom L2,600,000. 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 preeminencys 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
newes-book says), upon the basest terms that ever was. That the talke
which these people about our King, that I named before, have, is to tell
him how neither privilege of Parliament nor City is any thing; but 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 came 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' to somebody for L20,000, 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 L20,000 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 altogether, God knows my heart, I expect nothing
but ruine can follow, unless things are better ordered in a little time.
He being gone my wife came and told me how kind my uncle Wight had been to
her to-day, and that though she says that all his kindness comes from
respect to her she discovers nothing but great civility from him, yet but
what she says he otherwise will tell me, but to-day he told her plainly
that had she a child it should be his heir, and that should I or she want
he would be a good friend to us, and did give my wife instructions to
consent to all his wife says at any time, she being a pettish woman, which
argues a design I think he has of keeping us in with his wife in order to
our good sure, and he declaring her jealous of him that so he dares not
come to see my wife as otherwise he would do and will endeavour to do. It
looks strange putting all together, but yet I am in hopes he means well.
My aunt also is mighty open to my wife and tells her mighty plain how her
husband did intend to double her portion to her at his death as a
jointure. That he will give presently L100 to her niece Mary and a good
legacy at his death, and it seems did as much to the other sister, which
vexed [me] to think that he should bestow so much upon his wife's friends
daily as he do, but it cannot be helped for the time past, and I will
endeavour to remedy it for the time to come. After all this discourse
with my wife at my office alone, she home to see how the wash goes on and
I to make an end of my work, and so home to supper and to bed.
23rd. Up, it being Shrove Tuesday, and at the office sat all the morning,
at noon to the 'Change and there met with Sir W. Rider, and of a sudden
knowing what I had at home, brought him and Mr. Cutler and Mr. Cooke,
clerk to Mr. Secretary Morrice, a sober and pleasant man, and one that I
knew heretofore, when he was my Lord 's secretary at Dunkirke. I made
much of them and had a pretty dinner for a sudden. We talked very
pleasantly, and they many good discourses of their travels abroad. After
dinner they gone, I to my office, where doing many businesses very late,
but to my good content to see how I grow in estimation every day more and
more, and have things given more oftener than I used to have formerly, as
to have a case of very pretty knives with agate shafts by Mrs. Russell. So
home and to bed. 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). Up and by water, it being a very fine morning, to
White Hall, and there to speak with Sir Ph. Warwicke, but he was gone out
to chappell, so I spent much of the morning walking in the Park, and going
to the Queene's chappell, where I staid and saw their masse, till a man
came and bid me go out or kneel down: so I did go out. And thence to
Somerset House; and there into the chappell, where Monsieur d'Espagne used
to preach. But now it is made very fine, and was ten times more crouded
than the Queene's chappell 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. I staid a great
while talking with a man in the garden that was sawing of a piece of
marble, and did give him 6d. to drink. He told me much of the nature and
labour of the worke, how he could not saw above 4 inches of the stone in a
day, and of a greater not above one or two, and after it is sawed, then it
is rubbed with coarse and then with finer and finer sand till they come to
putty, and so polish it as smooth as glass. Their saws have no teeth, but
it is the sand only which the saw rubs up and down that do the thing.
Thence by water to the Coffee-house, and there sat with Alderman Barker
talking of hempe and the trade, and thence to the 'Change a little, and so
home and dined with my wife, and then to the office till the evening, and
then walked a while merrily with my wife in the garden, and so she gone, I
to work again till late, and so home to supper and to bed.
25th. Up and to the office, where we sat, and thence with Mr. Coventry by
coach to the glasshouse and there dined, and both before and after did my
Lord Peterborough's accounts. Thence home to the office, and there did
business till called by Creed, and with him by coach (setting my wife at
my brother's) to my Lord's, and saw the young ladies, and talked a little
with them, and thence to White Hall, a while talking but doing no
business, but resolved of going to meet my Lord tomorrow, having got a
horse of Mr. Coventry to-day. So home, taking up my wife, and after doing
something at my office home, God forgive me, disturbed in my mind out of
my jealousy of my wife tomorrow when I am out of town, which is a hell to
my mind, and yet without all reason. God forgive me for it, and mend
me. So home, and getting my things ready for me, weary to bed.
26th. Up, and after dressing myself handsomely for riding, I out, and by
water to Westminster, to Mr. Creed's chamber, and after drinking some
chocolate, and playing on the vyall, Mr. Mallard being there, upon Creed's
new vyall, which proves, methinks, much worse than mine, and, looking upon
his new contrivance of a desk and shelves for books, we set out from an
inne hard by, whither Mr. Coventry's horse was carried, and round about
the bush through bad ways to Highgate. Good discourse in the way had
between us, and it being all day a most admirable pleasant day, we, upon
consultation, had stopped at the Cocke, a mile on this side Barnett, being
unwilling to put ourselves to the charge or doubtful acceptance of any
provision against my Lord's coming by, and there got something and dined,
setting a boy to look towards Barnett Hill, against their coming; and
after two or three false alarms, they come, and we met the coach very
gracefully, and I had a kind receipt from both Lord and Lady as I could
wish, and some kind discourse, and then rode by the coach a good way, and
so fell to discoursing with several of the people, there being a dozen
attending the coach, and another for the mayds and parson. Among others
talking with W. Howe, he told me how my Lord in his hearing the other day
did largely tell my Lord Peterborough and Povy (who went with them down to
Hinchinbrooke) how and when he discarded Creed, and took me to him, and
that since the Duke of York has several times thanked him for me, which
did not a little please me, and anon I desiring Mr. Howe to tell me upon
[what] occasion this discourse happened, he desired me to say nothing of
it now, for he would not have my Lord to take notice of our being
together, but he would tell me another time, which put me into some
trouble to think what he meant by it. But when we came to my Lord's
house, I went in; and whether it was my Lord's neglect, or general
indifference, I know not, but he made me no kind of compliment there; and,
methinks, the young ladies look somewhat highly upon me. So I went away
without bidding adieu to anybody, being desirous not to be thought too
servile. But I do hope and believe that my Lord do yet value me as high
as ever, though he dare not admit me to the freedom he once did, and that
my Lady is still the same woman. So rode home and there found my uncle
Wight. 'Tis an odd thing as my wife tells me his caressing her and coming
on purpose to give her visits, but I do not trouble myself for him at all,
but hope the best and very good effects of it. He being gone I eat
something and my wife. I told all this day's passages, and she to give me
very good and rational advice how to behave myself to my Lord and his
family, by slighting every body but my Lord and Lady, and not to seem to
have the least society or fellowship with them, which I am resolved to do,
knowing that it is my high carriage that must do me good there, and to
appear in good clothes and garbe. To the office, and being weary, early
home to bed.
27th. Up, but weary, and to the office, where we sat all the morning.
Before I went to the office there came Bagwell's wife to me to speak for
her husband. I liked the woman very well and stroked her under the chin,
but could not find in my heart to offer anything uncivil to her, she
being, I believe, a very modest woman. At noon with Mr. Coventry to the
African house, and to my Lord Peterborough's business again, and then to
dinner, where, before dinner, we had the best oysters I have seen this
year, and I think as good in all respects as ever I eat in my life. I eat
a great many. Great, good company at dinner, among others Sir Martin
Noell, who told us the dispute between him, as farmer of the Additional
Duty, and the East India Company, whether callicos 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 hempe. But it was carried
against the Company, though they stand out against the verdict. Thence
home and to the office, where late, and so home to supper and to bed, and
had a very pleasing and condescending answer from my poor father to-day in
answer to my angry discontentful letter to him the other day, which
pleases me mightily.
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, 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, and sending word
home to my house I did go and dine with him, his ordinary table being very
good, and his lady a very high-carriaged but comely big woman; I was
mightily pleased with her. His officers of his regiment dined with him.
No discourse at table to any purpose, only after dinner my Lady would
needs see a boy which was represented to her to be an innocent country boy
brought up to towne a day or two ago, and left here to the wide world, and
he losing his way fell into the Tower, which my Lady believes, and takes
pity on him, and will keep him; but though a little boy and but young, yet
he tells his tale so readily and answers all questions so wittily, that
for certain he is an arch rogue, and bred in this towne; but my Lady will
not believe it, but ordered victuals to be given him, and I think will
keep him as a footboy for their eldest son. After dinner to chappell 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, but slept all the sermon. None, it
seems, of the prisoners in the Tower that are there now, though they may,
will come to prayers there. Church being done, I back to Sir John's house
and there left him and home, and by and by to Sir W. Pen, and staid a
while talking with him about Sir J. Minnes his folly in his office, of
which I am sicke and weary to speak of it, and how the King is abused in
it, though Pen, I know, offers the discourse only like a rogue to get it
out of me, but I am very free to tell my mind to him, in that case being
not unwilling he should tell him again if he will or any body else.
Thence home, and walked in the garden by brave moonshine with my wife
above two hours, till past 8 o'clock, then to supper, and after prayers to
bed.
29th. Up and by coach with Sir W. Pen to Charing Cross, and there I
'light, and to Sir Phillip Warwick to visit him and discourse with him
about navy business, which I did at large and he most largely with me, not
only about the navy but about the general Revenue of England, above two
hours, I think, many staying all the while without, but he seemed to take
pains to let me either understand the affairs of the Revenue or else to be
a witness of his pains and care in stating it. He showed me indeed 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 came 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 L1,200,000 which the
Parliament with so much ado did first vote to give the King, and since
hath been reexamined by several committees of the present Parliament, is
yet above L300,000 short of making up really to the King the L1,200,000,
as by particulars he showed me.
[A committee was appointed in September, 1660, to consider the
subject of the King's revenue, and they "reported to the Commons that
the average revenue of Charles I., from 1637 to 1641 inclusive, had
been L895,819, and the average expenditure about L1,110,000. At
that time prices were lower and the country less burthened with navy
and garrisons, among which latter Dunkirk alone now cost more than
L100,000 a year. It appeared, therefore, that the least sum to
which the King could be expected to 'conform his expense' was
L1,200,000." Burnet writes, "It was believed that if two millions
had been asked he could have carried it. But he (Clarendon) had no
mind to put the King out of the necessity of having recourse to his
Parliament."--Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. ii., pp. 22, 23.]
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 father's 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 L1,200,000 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 may, as it 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 the 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 deale 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. Thence to
White Hall (where my Lord Sandwich was, and gave me a good countenance, I
thought), and before the Duke did our usual business, and so I about
several businesses in the house, and then out to the Mewes with Sir W.
Pen. But in my way first did meet with W. Howe, who did of himself advise
me to appear more free with my Lord and to come to him, for my own
strangeness he tells me he thinks do make my Lord the worse. At the Mewes
Sir W. Pen and Mr. Baxter did shew me several good horses, but Pen, which
Sir W. Pen did give the Duke of York, was given away by the Duke the other
day to a Frenchman, which Baxter is cruelly vexed at, saying that he was
the best horse that he expects a great while to have to do with. Thence I
to the 'Change, and thence to a Coffee-house with Sir W. Warren, and did
talk much about his and Wood's business, and thence homewards, and in my
way did stay to look upon a fire in an Inneyard in Lumbard Streete. But,
Lord! how the mercers and merchants who had warehouses there did carry
away their cloths and silks. But at last it was quenched, and I home to
dinner, and after dinner carried my wife and set her and her two mayds in
Fleete Streete to buy things, and I to White Hall to little purpose, and
so to Westminster Hall, and there talked with Mrs. Lane and Howlett, but
the match with Hawly I perceive will not take, and so I am resolved wholly
to avoid occasion of further ill with her. Thence by water to Salsbury
Court, and found my wife, by agreement, at Mrs. Turner's, and after a
little stay and chat set her and young Armiger down in Cheapside, and so
my wife and I home. Got home before our mayds, who by and by came with a
great cry and fright that they had like to have been killed by a coach;
but, Lord! to see how Jane did tell the story like a foole and a
dissembling fanatique, like her grandmother, but so like a changeling,
would make a man laugh to death almost, and yet be vexed to hear her. By
and by to the office to make up my monthly accounts, which I make up
to-night, and to my great content find myself worth eight hundred and
ninety and odd pounds, the greatest sum I ever yet knew, and so with a
heart at great case to bed.
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