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

26th. Up, and by coach with Sir W. Batten and [Sir] W. Penn to Whitehall, and there saw the Duke of Albemarle, who is not well, and do grow crazy. Thence I to St. James’s, to meet Sir G. Carteret, and did, and Lord Berkely, to get them (as we would have done the Duke of Albemarle) to the meeting of the Lords of Appeale in the business of one of our prizes. With them to the meeting of the Guinny Company, and there stayed, and went with Lord Berkely. While I was waiting for him in the Matted Gallery, a young man was most finely working in Indian inke the great picture of the King and Queen sitting3361 by Van Dyke; and did it very finely. Thence to Westminster Hall to hear our cause, but [it] did not come before them today, so went down and walked below in the Hall, and there met with Ned Pickering, who tells me the ill news of his nephew Gilbert, who is turned a very rogue, and then I took a turn with Mr. Evelyn, with whom I walked two hours, till almost one of the clock: talking of the badness of the Government, where nothing but wickedness, and wicked men and women command the King: that it is not in his nature to gainsay anything that relates to his pleasures; that much of it arises from the sickliness of our Ministers of State, who cannot be about him as the idle companions are, and therefore he gives way to the young rogues; and then, from the negligence of the Clergy, that a Bishop shall never be seen about him, as the King of France hath always: that the King would fain have some of the same gang to be Lord Treasurer, which would be yet worse, for now some delays are put to the getting gifts of the King, as that whore my Lady Byron,3362 who had been, as he called it, the King’s seventeenth whore abroad, did not leave him till she had got him to give her an order for £4,000 worth of plate to be made for her; but by delays, thanks be to God! she died before she had it. He tells me mighty stories of the King of France, how great a prince he is.3363 He hath made a code to shorten the law; he hath put out all the ancient commanders of castles that were become hereditary; he hath made all the fryers subject to the bishops, which before were only subject to Rome, and so were hardly the King’s subjects, and that none shall become religieux but at such an age, which he thinks will in a few, years ruin the Pope, and bring France into a patriarchate. He confirmed to me the business of the want of paper at the Council-table the other day, which I have observed; Wooly being to have found it, and did, being called, tell the King to his face the reason of it; and Mr. Evelyn tells me several of the menial servants of the Court lacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the King’s coming in. He tells me the King of France hath his mistresses, but laughs at the foolery of our King, that makes his bastards princes,3364 and loses his revenue upon them, and makes his mistresses his masters and the King of France did never grant Lavalliere3365 anything to bestow on others, and gives a little subsistence, but no more, to his bastards. He told me the whole story of Mrs. Stewart’s going away from Court, he knowing her well; and believes her, up to her leaving the Court, to be as virtuous as any woman in the world: and told me, from a Lord that she told it to but yesterday, with her own mouth, and a sober man, that when the Duke of Richmond did make love to her, she did ask the King, and he did the like also; and that the King did not deny it, and [she] told this Lord that she was come to that pass as to resolve to have married any gentleman of £1,500 a-year that would have had her in honour; for it was come to that pass, that she could not longer continue at Court without prostituting herself to the King,3366 whom she had so long kept off, though he had liberty more than any other had, or he ought to have, as to dalliance.3367 She told this Lord that she had reflected upon the occasion she had given the world to think her a bad woman, and that she had no way but to marry and leave the Court, rather in this way of discontent than otherwise, that the world might see that she sought not anything but her honour; and that she will never come to live at Court more than when she comes to town to come to kiss the Queen her Mistress’s hand: and hopes, though she hath little reason to hope, she can please her Lord so as to reclaim him, that they may yet live comfortably in the country on his estate. She told this Lord that all the jewells she ever had given her at Court, or any other presents, more than the King’s allowance of £700 per annum out of the Privypurse for her clothes, were, at her first coming the King did give her a necklace of pearl of about £1,100,3368 and afterwards, about seven months since, when the King had hopes to have obtained some courtesy of her, the King did give her some jewells, I have forgot what, and I think a pair of pendants. The Duke of York, being once her Valentine, did give her a jewell of