becoming a slave to this Lady Denham, and wholly minds her. That there really were amours between the Duchesse and Sidney; that there is reason to fear that, as soon as the Parliament have raised this money, the King will see that he hath got all that he can get, and then make up a peace; that Sir W. Coventry is of the caball with the Duke of York, and Brouncker, with this Lady Denham: which is a shame, and I am sorry for it, and that Sir W. Coventry do make her visits; but yet I hope it is not so. Pierce tells me, that as little agree

ment as there is between the Prince and Duke of Albemarle, yet they are likely to go to sea again; for the first will not be trusted alone, and nobody will go with him but this Duke of Albemarle. He tells me much how all the commanders of the fleet and officers that are sober men do cry out upon their bad discipline, and the ruine that must follow if it continued. But that which I wonder most at-it seems their secretaries have been the most exorbitant in their fees to all sorts of the people, that it is not to be believed that they durst do it, so as it is believed they have got £800 a-piece by the very vacancies in the fleet. He tells me that Lady Castlemaine is concluded to be with child again; and that all the people about the King do make no scruple of saying that the King do intrigue with Mrs. Stewart, who, he says, is a most excellent natured lady. This day the King begins to put on his vest, and I did see several persons of the House of Lords and Commons too, great courtiers, who are in it; being a long cassocke close to the body, of black cloth, and pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black riband like a

pigeon's leg and, upon the whole, I wish the King may keep it, for it is a very fine and handsome garment. I fear that Pen will be Comptroller, which I shall grudge a little. The Duke of Buckingham called Sir W. Coventry aside, and spoke a good while with him. I did presently fear it might be to discourse something of his design to blemish my Lord of Sandwich, in pursuance of the wild motion he made the other day in the House. Sir W. Coventry, when he come to me again, told me that he had wrought a miracle, which was the convincing the Duke of Buckingham that something, he did not name what, that he had intended to do was not fit to be done, and that the Duke is gone away of that opinion. By and by the House rose; and then I, with Sir G. Carteret, and walked in the Exchequer Court. I observing to him how friendly Sir W. Coventry carried himself to him in these late inquiries, when, if he had borne him a spleen, he could have had what occasion he pleased offered him, he did confess he found the same thing, and would thank him for it. Away with him to his lodgings at White Hall to dinner, where my Lady Carteret is, and mighty kind, both of them, to Their son and my Lady Jemimah will be here very speedily. She tells me the ladies are to go into a new fashion shortly, and that is, to wear short coats above their ancles; which she and I do not like; but conclude this long trayne to be mighty graceful. But she cries out of the vices of the Court, and how they are going to set up plays already; and how, the next day after the late great fast, the Duchesse of York did give the King and Queene a play. Nay, she told me that they have heretofore had plays at Court, the very

me.

nights before the fast for the death of the late King. She do much cry out upon these things, and that which she believes will undo the whole nation; and I fear so too. This day the great debate was in Parliament, the manner of raising the £1,800,000 they voted the King on Friday: and, at last, after many proposals, one moved that the chimney-money might be taken from the King, and an equal revenue of something else might be found for the King: and people be enjoyned to buy off this tax of Chimney-money for ever at eight years' purchase, which will raise present money, as they think, £1,600,000, and the State be eased of an ill burthen, and the King be supplied of something as good or better for his use. The House seems to like this, and put off the debate to to-morrow.

16th. To the office, where set to do little business, but hear clamours for money. Hearing my brother play a little upon the Lyra viall, which he do so as to show that he hath a love to musique, and a spirit for it.

17th. To dinner alone with my brother, with whom I had now the first private talk I have had, and find he hath preached but twice in his life. I did give him some advice to study pronunciation, but I do fear he will never make a good speaker, nor, I fear, any general good scholar; for I do not see that he minds optickes or mathematiques of any sort, nor anything else that I can find. I know not what he may be at divinity and ordinary school-learning. However, he seems sober, and that pleases me. To White Hall, and there heard the Duke discourse, which he did mighty scurrilously, of the French, and with reason, that they should give

Beaufort1 orders when he was to bring, and did bring his fleet hither, that his rendezvous for his fleet, and for all sluggs to come to, should be between Calais and Dover; which did prove the taking of La Roche, who, among other slugs behind, did, by their instructions, make for that place, to rendezvous with the Fleet; and Beaufort, seeing them as he was returning, took them for the English fleet, and wrote word to the King of France that he had passed by the English fleet, and the English fleet durst not meddle with him. The Court is all full of vests, only my Lord St. Albans not pinked, but plain black; and they say the King says the pinking upon whites makes them look too much like magpies, and, therefore, hath bespoke one of plain velvet.

18th. The waters so high in the roads, by the late rains, that our letters come not in till to-day. Towards Lovett's, in the way wondering at what a good pretty wench our Barker makes, being now put into good clothes, and fashionable, at my charge; but it becomes her so that I do not now think much of it, and is an example of the power of good clothes and dress. To Lovett's house, where I stood godfather. But it was pretty, that, being a Protestant, a man stood by and was my Proxy to answer for me. A priest christened it, and the boy's name is Samuel. The ceremonies many, and some foolish. The priest in a gentleman's dress, more than my own; but is a Capuchin, one of François de Vendôme, Duc de Beaufort, well known in the annals of France, was born in 1616, and in 1664 and 1665 commanded a naval expedition against the African corsairs. The following year he had the charge of a fleet intended to act, in concert with the Dutch, against England, but which was merely sent out as a political demonstration. He was killed at the siege of Candia, in 1669.

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the Queen-mother's priests. He did give my proxy and the woman proxy, my Lady Bills, absent, had a proxy also, good advice to bring up the child; and, at the end, that he ought never to marry the child nor the godmother, nor the godmother the child or the godfather: but, which is strange, they say the mother of the child and the godfather may marry. By and by the Lady Bills come in, a well-bred but crooked woman. The poor people of the house had good wine, and a good cake; and she a pretty woman in her lying-in dress. It cost me near 40s. the whole christening : to midwife 208., nurse 108., maid 2s. 6d., and the coach 58. The business of buying off the Chimney-money is passed in the House: and so the King to be satisfied some other way, and the King supplied with the money raised by this purchasing off of the chimnies.

19th. To Povy's, who continues as much confounded in all his business as ever he was; and would have had me paid money as like a fool as himself, which I troubled him in refusing, but I did persist in it. Sir Robert Viner told me a little of what, in going home, I had seen: also a little of the disorder and mutiny among the seamen at the Treasurer's office, which did trouble me, considering how many more seamen will come to town every day, and no money for them. A Parliament sitting, and the Exchange close by, and an enemy to hear of, and laugh at it. Viner, too, and Bakewell were sent for this afternoon; and was before the King and his cabinet about money. They de

1 Widow of Sir Thomas Pelham, who remarried John Bills, of Caen Wood, and retained the title derived from her first husband with the name of her second.