Diary, December 1666 | Page 7

to send to
the playhouses and bawdy houses, to bid all the Parliament-men that
were there to go to the Parliament presently. This is true, it seems; but
it was carried against the Court by thirty or forty voices. It is a Proviso
to the Poll Bill, that there shall be a Committee of nine persons that
shall have the inspection upon oath, and power of giving others, of all
the accounts of the money given and spent for this warr. This hath a
most sad face, and will breed very ill blood. He tells me, brought in by
Sir Robert Howard, who is one of the King's servants, at least hath a
great office, and hath got, they say, L20,000 since the King come in.
Mr. Pierce did also tell me as a great truth, as being told it by Mr.
Cowly, who was by, and heard it, that Tom Killigrew should
publiquely tell the King that his matters were coming into a very ill
state; but that yet there was a way to help all, which is, says he, "There
is a good, honest, able man, that I could name, that if your Majesty
would employ, and command to see all things well executed, all things
would soon be mended; and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends
his time in employing his lips . . . . about the Court, and hath no other
employment; but if you would give him this employment, he were the
fittest man in the world to perform it." This, he says, is most true; but
the King do not profit by any of this, but lays all aside, and remembers
nothing, but to his pleasures again; which is a sorrowful consideration.
Very good company we were at dinner, and merry, and after dinner, he
being gone about business, my wife and I and Mrs. Pierce and Betty
and Balty, who come to see us to-day very sick, and went home not
well, together out, and our coach broke the wheel off upon Ludgate Hill.
So we were fain to part ourselves and get room in other people's
coaches, and Mrs. Pierce and I in one, and I carried her home and set
her down, and myself to the King's playhouse, which troubles me since,
and hath cost me a forfeit of 10s., which I have paid, and there did see a
good part of "The English Monsieur," which is a mighty pretty play,

very witty and pleasant. And the women do very well; but, above all,
little Nelly; that I am mightily pleased with the play, and much with the
House, more than ever I expected, the women doing better than ever I
expected, and very fine women. Here I was in pain to be seen, and hid
myself; but, as God would have it, Sir John Chichly come, and sat just
by me. Thence to Mrs. Pierce's, and there took up my wife and away
home, and to the office and Sir W. Batten's, of whom I hear that this
Proviso in Parliament is mightily ill taken by all the Court party as a
mortal blow, and that, that strikes deep into the King's prerogative,
which troubles me mightily. Home, and set some papers right in my
chamber, and then to supper and to bed, we being in much fear of ill
news of our colliers. A fleete of two hundred sail, and fourteen Dutch
men-of-war between them and us and they coming home with small
convoy; and the City in great want, coals being at L3 3s. per chaldron,
as I am told. I saw smoke in the ruines this very day.

9th (Lord's day). Up, not to church, but to my chamber, and there
begun to enter into this book my journall of September, which in the
fire-time I could not enter here, but in loose papers. At noon dined, and
then to my chamber all the afternoon and night, looking over and
tearing and burning all the unnecessary letters, which I have had upon
my file for four or five years backward, which I intend to do quite
through all my papers, that I may have nothing by me but what is worth
keeping, and fit to be seen, if I should miscarry. At this work till
midnight, and then to supper and to bed.

10th. Up, and at my office all the morning, and several people with me,
Sir W. Warren, who I do every day more and more admire for a miracle
of cunning and forecast in his business, and then Captain Cocke, with
whom I walked in the garden, and he tells me how angry the Court is at
the late Proviso brought in by the House. How still my Lord Chancellor