Diary, May 1667 | Page 5

it would be no
place of content, nor safety, nor honour for my Lord, the State being so
indigent as it is, and the [King] so irregular, and those about him, that
my Lord must be forced to part with anything to answer his warrants;
and that, therefore, I do believe the King had rather have a man that
may be one of his vicious caball, than a sober man that will mind the
publick, that so they may sit at cards and dispose of the revenue of the
kingdom. This my Lord was moved at, and said he did not indeed know
how to answer it, and bid me think of it; and so said he himself would
also do. He do mightily cry out of the bad management of our monies,
the King having had so much given him; and yet, when the Parliament
do find that the King should have L900,000 in his purse by the best
account of issues they have yet seen, yet we should report in the Navy a
debt due from the King of L900,000; which, I did confess, I doubted
was true in the first, and knew to be true in the last, and did believe that

there was some great miscarriages in it: which he owned to believe also,
saying, that at this rate it is not in the power of the kingdom to make a
war, nor answer the King's wants. Thence away to the King's playhouse,
by agreement met Sir W. Pen, and saw "Love in a Maze" but a sorry
play: only Lacy's clowne's part, which he did most admirably indeed;
and I am glad to find the rogue at liberty again. Here was but little, and
that ordinary, company. We sat at the upper bench next the boxes; and I
find it do pretty well, and have the advantage of seeing and hearing the
great people, which may be pleasant when there is good store. Now
was only Prince Rupert and my Lord Lauderdale, and my Lord, the
naming of whom puts me in mind of my seeing, at Sir Robert Viner's,
two or three great silver flagons, made with inscriptions as gifts of the
King to such and such persons of quality as did stay in town the late
great plague, for the keeping things in order in the town, which is a
handsome thing. But here was neither Hart, Nell, nor Knipp; therefore,
the play was not likely to please me. Thence Sir W. Pen and I in his
coach, Tiburne way, into the Park, where a horrid dust, and number of
coaches, without pleasure or order. That which we, and almost all went
for, was to see my Lady Newcastle; which we could not, she being
followed and crowded upon by coaches all the way she went, that
nobody could come near her; only I could see she was in a large black
coach, adorned with silver instead of gold, and so white curtains, and
every thing black and white, and herself in her cap, but other parts I
could not make [out]. But that which I did see, and wonder at with
reason, was to find Pegg Pen in a new coach, with only her husband's
pretty sister with her, both patched and very fine, and in much the
finest coach in the park, and I think that ever I did see one or other, for
neatness and richness in gold, and everything that is noble. My Lady
Castlemayne, the King, my Lord St. Albans, nor Mr. Jermyn, have so
neat a coach, that ever I saw. And, Lord! to have them have this, and
nothing else that is correspondent, is to me one of the most ridiculous
sights that ever I did see, though her present dress was well enough; but
to live in the condition they do at home, and be abroad in this coach,
astonishes me. When we had spent half an hour in the Park, we went
out again, weary of the dust, and despairing of seeing my Lady
Newcastle; and so back the same way, and to St. James's, thinking to
have met my Lady Newcastle before she got home, but we staying by

the way to drink, she got home a little before us: so we lost our labours,
and then home; where we find the two young ladies come home, and
their patches off, I suppose Sir W. Pen do not allow of them in his sight,
and going out of town to-night, though late, to Walthamstow. So to talk
a little at Sir W. Batten's, and then home to supper, where I find Mrs.
Hewer and her son, who have been abroad with my wife in the Park,
and so after supper to read and then to