Diary, March 1666/67 | Page 5

King. This I am glad of,
not for his sake, but that it will give me a better ground, I believe, to
ask something for myself of this kind, which I was fearful to begin.
This do make Sir W. Pen the most kind to me that can be. I suppose it
is this, lest it should find any opposition from me, but I will not oppose,
but promote it. After dinner, with my wife, to the King's house to see
"The Mayden Queene," a new play of Dryden's, mightily commended
for the regularity of it, and the strain and wit; and, the truth is, there is a
comical part done by Nell,
["Her skill increasing with her years, other poets sought to obtain
recommendations of her wit and beauty to the success of their writings.
I have said that Dryden was one of the principal supporters of the
King's house, and ere long in one of his new plays a principal character
was set apart for the popular comedian. The drama was a tragi-comedy
called 'Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen,' and an additional interest
was attached to its production from the king having suggested the plot
to its author, and calling it `his play.'"--Cunningham's Story of Nell
Gwyn, ed: 1892, pp. 38,39.]
which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again,

by man or woman. The King and Duke of York were at the play. But so
great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world
before as Nell do this, both as a mad girle, then most and best of all
when she comes in like a young gallant; and hath the notions and
carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me,
I confess, admire her. Thence home and to the office, where busy a
while, and then home to read the lives of Henry 5th and 6th, very fine,
in Speede, and to bed. This day I did pay a bill of L50 from my father,
being so much out of my own purse gone to pay my uncle Robert's
legacy to my aunt Perkins's child.

3rd (Lord's day). Lay long, merrily talking with my wife, and then up
and to church, where a dull sermon of Mr. Mills touching Original Sin,
and then home, and there find little Michell and his wife, whom I love
mightily. Mightily contented I was in their company, for I love her
much; and so after dinner I left them and by water from the Old Swan
to White Hall, where, walking in the galleries, I in the first place met
Mr. Pierce, who tells me the story of Tom Woodall, the surgeon, killed
in a drunken quarrel, and how the Duke of York hath a mind to get him
[Pierce] one of his places in St. Thomas's Hospitall. Then comes Mr.
Hayward, the Duke of York's servant, and tells us that the Swede's
Embassador hath been here to-day with news that it is believed that the
Dutch will yield to have the treaty at London or Dover, neither of
which will get our King any credit, we having already consented to
have it at The Hague; which, it seems, De Witt opposed, as a thing
wherein the King of England must needs have some profound design,
which in my conscience he hath not. They do also tell me that newes is
this day come to the King, that the King of France is come with his
army to the frontiers of Flanders, demanding leave to pass through their
country towards Poland, but is denied, and thereupon that he is gone
into the country. How true this is I dare not believe till I hear more.
From them I walked into the Parke, it being a fine but very cold day;
and there took two or three turns the length of the Pell Mell: and there I
met Serjeant Bearcroft, who was sent for the Duke of Buckingham, to
have brought him prisoner to the Tower. He come to towne this day,
and brings word that, being overtaken and outrid by the Duchesse of
Buckingham within a few miles of the Duke's house of Westhorp, he

believes she got thither about a quarter of an hour before him, and so
had time to consider; so that, when he come, the doors were kept shut
against him. The next day, coming with officers of the neighbour
market-town to force open the doors, they were open for him, but the
Duke gone; so he took horse presently, and heard upon the road that the
Duke of Buckingham was gone before him for London: so that he
believes he is this day also come to towne