The Diary by Samuel Pepys (children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

was enquiring for the guard chamber; I followed her, and there she went up, and turned into the turning towards the chapel, and I after her, and upon the stairs there met her coming up again, and there kissed her twice, and her business was to enquire for Sir Edward Bishop, one of the serjeants at armes. I believe she was a woman of pleasure, but was shy enough to me, and so I saw her go out afterwards, and I took a hackney coach, and away. I to Westminster Hall, and there walked, and thence towards Whitehall by coach, and spying Mrs. Burroughs in a shop did stop and ’light and speak to her; and so to Whitehall, where I ’light and went and met her coming towards Whitehall, but was upon business, and I could not get her to go any whither and so parted, and I home with my wife and girle (my wife not being very well, of a great looseness day and night for these two days). So home, my wife to read to me in Sir R. Cotton’s book of war, which is excellent reading, and particularly I was mightily pleased this night in what we read about the little profit or honour this kingdom ever gained by the greatest of its conquests abroad in France. This evening come Mr. Mills and sat with us a while, who is mighty kind and good company, and so, he gone, I to supper and to bed. My wife an unquiet night. This day Gilsthrop is buried, who hath made all the late discourse of the great discovery of £65,000, of which the King hath been wronged.

5th. At the office all the morning, do hear that Will Penn, Sir W. Penn’s son, is come from Ireland, but I have not seen him yet. At noon to the ’Change, where did little, but so home again and to dinner with my clerks with me, and very good discourse and company they give me, and so to the office all the afternoon till late, and so home to supper and to bed. This day, not for want, but for good husbandry, I sent my father, by his desire, six pair of my old shoes, which fit him, and are good; yet, methought, it was a thing against my mind to have him wear my old things.

6th. Up, and with Sir J. Minnes to the Duke of York, the first time that I have seen him, or we waited on him, since his sickness; and, blessed be God! he is not at all the worse for the smallpox, but is only a little weak yet. We did much business with him, and so parted. My Lord Anglesey told me how my Lord Northampton3771 brought in a Bill into the House of Lords yesterday, under the name of a Bill for the Honour and Privilege of the House, and Mercy to my Lord Clarendon: which, he told me, he opposed, saying that he was a man accused of treason by the House of Commons; and mercy was not proper for him, having not been tried yet, and so no mercy needful for him. However, the Duke of Buckingham and others did desire that the Bill might be read; and it was for banishing my Lord Clarendon from all his Majesty’s dominions, and that it should be treason to have him found in any of them: the thing is only a thing of vanity, and to insult over him, which is mighty poor I think, and so do everybody else, and ended in nothing, I think. By and by home with Sir J. Minnes, who tells me that my Lord Clarendon did go away in a Customhouse boat, and is now at Callis: and, I confess, nothing seems to hang more heavy than his leaving of this unfortunate paper behind him, that hath angered both Houses, and hath, I think, reconciled them in that which otherwise would have broke them in pieces; so that I do hence, and from Sir W. Coventry’s late example and doctrine to me, learn that on these sorts of occasions there is nothing like silence; it being seldom any wrong to a man to say nothing, but, for the most part, it is to say anything. This day, in coming home, Sir J. Minnes told me a pretty story of Sir Lewes Dives,3772 whom I saw this morning speaking with him, that having escaped once out of prison through a house of office, and another time in woman’s apparel, and leaping over a broad canal, a soldier swore, says he, this is a strange jade.⁠ ⁠… He told me also a story of my Lord Cottington, who, wanting a son, intended to make his nephew his heir, a country boy; but did alter his mind upon the boy’s being persuaded by another young heir, in roguery, to crow like a cock at my Lord’s table, much company being there, and the boy having a great trick at doing that perfectly. My Lord bade them take away that fool from the table, and so gave over the thoughts of making him his heir,3773 from this piece of folly. So home, and there to dinner, and after dinner abroad with my wife and girle, set them down at Unthanke’s, and I to Whitehall to the Council chamber, where I was summoned about the business of paying of the seamen, where I heard my Lord Anglesey put to it by Sir W. Coventry before the King for altering the course set by the Council; which he like a wise man did answer in few words, that he had already sent to alter it according to the Council’s method, and so stopped it, whereas many words would have set the Commissioners of the Treasury on fire, who, I perceive, were prepared for