Diary, November 1667 | Page 6

but will do something to him, to prevent
his having it in his power hereafter to avenge himself and father-in-law
upon them. And this Sir H. Cholmly fears may be by divorcing the
Queen and getting another, or declaring the Duke of Monmouth
legitimate; which God forbid! He tells me he do verily believe that
there will come in an impeachment of High Treason against my Lord of
Ormond; among other things, for ordering the quartering of soldiers in
Ireland on free quarters; which, it seems, is High Treason in that
country, and was one of the things that lost the Lord Strafford his head,
and the law is not yet repealed; which, he says, was a mighty oversight
of him not to have it repealed, which he might with ease have done, or
have justified himself by an Act. From the Exchange I took a coach,
and went to Turlington, the great spectacle- maker, for advice, who
dissuades me from using old spectacles, but rather young ones, and do
tell me that nothing can wrong my eyes more than for me to use
reading-glasses, which do magnify much. Thence home, and there
dined, and then abroad and left my wife and Willett at her tailor's, and I
to White Hall, where the Commissioners of the Treasury do not sit, and
therefore I to Westminster to the Hall, and there meeting with Col.
Reames I did very cheaply by him get copies of the Prince's and Duke
of Albemarle's Narratives, which they did deliver the other day to the
House, of which I am mighty glad, both for my present information and
for my future satisfaction. So back by coach, and took up my wife, and
away home, and there in my chamber all the evening among my papers
and my accounts of Tangier to my great satisfaction, and so to supper
and to bed.

5th. Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon home to dinner, and
thence out with my wife and girle, and left them at her tailor's, and I to
the Treasury, and there did a little business for Tangier, and so took
them up again, and home, and when I had done at the office, being post
night, I to my chamber, and there did something more, and so to supper
and to bed.

6th. Up, and to Westminster, where to the Parliament door, and there
spoke with Sir G. Downing, to see what was done yesterday at the
Treasury for Tangier, and it proved as good as nothing, so that I do see
we shall be brought to great straits for money there. He tells me here
that he is passing a Bill to make the Excise and every other part of the
King's Revenue assignable on the Exchequer, which indeed will be a
very good thing. This he says with great glee as an act of his, and how
poor a thing this was in the beginning, and with what envy he carried it
on, and how my Lord Chancellor could never endure him for it since he
first begun it. He tells me that the thing the House is just now upon is
that of taking away the charter from the Company of Woodmongers,
whose frauds, it seems, have been mightily laid before them. He tells
me that they are like to fly very high against my Lord Chancellor.
Thence I to the House of Lords, and there first saw Dr. Fuller, as
Bishop of Lincoln, to sit among the Lords. Here I spoke with the Duke
of York and the Duke of Albemarle about Tangier; but methinks both
of them do look very coldly one upon another, and their discourse
mighty cold, and little to the purpose about our want of money. Thence
homeward, and called at Allestry's, the bookseller, who is bookseller to
the Royal Society, and there did buy three or four books, and find great
variety of French and foreign books. And so home and to dinner, and
after dinner with my wife to a play, and the girl--"Macbeth," which we
still like mightily, though mighty short of the content we used to have
when Betterton acted, who is still sick. So home, troubled with the way
and to get a coach, and so to supper and to bed. This day, in the
Paynted-chamber, I met and walked with Mr. George Montagu, who
thinks it may go hard with my Lord Sandwich, but he says the House is
offended with Sir W. Coventry much, and that he do endeavour to gain
them again in the most precarious manner in all things that is possible.

7th. Up, and at the office hard all the morning, and at noon resolved
with Sir W. Pen to go see "The Tempest,"