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

my new rooms which are almost finished, and there walked with great content talking with my wife till church time, and then to church, and there being a lazy preacher I slept out the sermon, and so home, and after visiting the two Sir Williams, who are both of them mending apace, I to my office preparing things against tomorrow for the Duke, and so home and to bed, with some pain,⁠ ⁠… having taken cold this morning in sitting too long barelegged to pare my corns. My wife and I spent a good deal of this evening in reading Du Bartas’ Imposture and other parts which my wife of late has taken up to read, and is very fine as anything I meet with.

3rd. Up and with Sir J. Minnes in his coach to Whitehall, to the Duke’s; but found him gone out a-hunting. Thence to my Lord Sandwich, from whom I receive every day more and more signs of his confidence and esteem of me. Here I met with Pierce the chirurgeon, who tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is with child; but though it be the King’s, yet her Lord being still in town, and sometimes seeing of her, though never to eat or lie together, it will be laid to him. He tells me also how the Duke of York is smitten in love with my Lady Chesterfield1583 (a virtuous lady, daughter to my Lord of Ormond); and so much, that the duchess of York hath complained to the King and her father about it, and my Lady Chesterfield is gone into the country for it. At all which I am sorry; but it is the effect of idleness, and having nothing else to employ their great spirits upon. Thence with Mr. Creede and Mr. Moore (who is got upon his legs and come to see my Lord) to Wilkinson’s, and there I did give them and Mr. Howe their dinner of roast beef, cost me 5s., and after dinner carried Mr. Moore as far as Paul’s in a coach, giving him direction about my law business, and there set him down, and I home and among my workmen, who happened of all sorts to meet to their making an end of a great many jobbs, so that after tomorrow I shall have but a little plastering and all the painting almost to do, which was good content to me. At night to my office, and did business; and there came to me Mr. Wade and Evett, who have been again with their prime intelligencer, a woman, I perceive: and though we have missed twice, yet they bring such an account of the probability of the truth of the thing, though we are not certain of the place, that we shall set upon it once more; and I am willing and hopefull in it. So we resolved to set upon it again on Wednesday morning; and the woman herself will be there in a disguise, and confirm us in the place. So they took leave for the night, and I to my business, and then home to my wife and to supper and bed, my pain being going away. So by God’s great blessing my mind is in good condition of quiet.

4th. Lay long talking pleasantly with my wife in bed, it having rained, and do still, very much all night long. Up and to the office, where we sat till noon. This morning we had news by letters that Sir Richard Stayner1584 is dead at sea in the Mary, which is now come into Portsmouth from Lisbon; which we are sorry for, he being a very stout seaman. But there will be no great miss of him for all that. Dined at home with my wife, and all the afternoon among my workmen, and at night to my office to do business there, and then to see Sir W. Penn, who is still sick, but his pain less than it was. He took occasion to talk with me about Sir J. Minnes’s intention to divide the entry and the yard, and so to keep him out of the yard, and forcing him to go through the garden to his house. Which he is vexed at, and I am glad to see that Sir J. Minnes do use him just as he do me, and so I perceive it is not anything extraordinary his carriage to me in the matter of our houses, for this is worse than anything he has done to me, that he should give order for the stopping up of his way to his house without so much as advising with him or letting of him know it, and I confess that it is very highly and basely done of him. So to my office again, and after doing business there, then home to supper and to bed.

5th. Up and with my painters painting my dining room all day long till night, not stirring out at all. Only in the morning my Lady Batten did send to speak with me, and told me very civilly that she did not desire, nor hoped I did, that anything should pass between us but what was civil, though there was not the neighbourliness between her and my wife that was fit to be, and so complained of my maid’s mocking of her; when she called “Nan” to her maid within her own house, my maid Jane in the garden overheard her, and mocked her, and some other suchlike things she told me, and of my wife’s speaking unhandsomely of her; to all which I did give her a very respectfull answer, such as did please her, and am sorry indeed that this should be, though I do not desire there should be any acquaintance between my wife and her. But I promised to avoid such words and passages for the